Available Resources and Assistance

Students

Students who would like to create and publish their own podcasts can contact Peggy Steinbronn, x4510, for additional assistance once they have received their account information.

To request an account, go to http://www.drake.edu/dtc/duit/duitstu.html, complete the form and submit. You will be contacted within 3 business days, via e-mail, with your account information and other instructions.

Faculty

If you would like more information on the pedagogical and instructional uses of podcasting in your course, please contact Peggy Steinbronn, x4510.

If you would like assistance in creating and publishing your own podcasts for your courses, contact James McNab, x2842.

To request an account, go to http://www.drake.edu/dtc/duit/duitfacstaff.html, complete the form and submit. You will be contacted within 3 business days, via e-mail, with your account information and other instructions.

Equipment and Available Software

Students and faculty can utilize the equipment and computer stations in the Multimedia Development Studio located in the lower level of Carnegie. For more information about the Multimedia Development Studio and what resources are available, click here.

Other Tools

NOTE: The following list is not a comprehensive list of tools and software that could be used to create and publish a series of podcast episodes. It is meant as a suggested list only--a place to start. We do not endorse or support all of these tools, but know that they work well for creating and publishing podcasts. Some are free and some require the user to purchase a license. Use at your own discretion. The links will direct you to the publisher and it is recommended that you search the publisher's web site for technical support and specific product instructions.

PC & MAC Tools

Audio and Video Recording

Creating Audio Podcasts on Windows with QuickTime Pro

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/podcasting_win.html

Creating Audio Podcasts on a Mac with QuickTime Pro

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/podcasting.html

Creating a Video Podcast on Windows with QuickTime Pro

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/videopodcasts_win.html

Creating a Video Podcast on a Mac with QuickTime Pro

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/videopodcasts.html

Audio Recording

Audacity:  Audacity is an open source cross-platform audio recording and editing software. It supports importing and exporting WAV, AIFF, MP3 (via the LAME encoder, downloaded separately) and Ogg Vorbis. Also has a number of built-in filters.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity Tutorial for Podcasting

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/17-audacity-tutorial.htm

Screencasts

Screen Toaster: Screen Toaster is a web based screencasting tool that can be used at no charge

http://www.screentoaster.com/

Jing (Pro version): The Pro version of Camtasia's Jing offers a very straightforward screencasting tool and way to record what is happening on screen and allow live narration over it. The free version of Jing allows for recording videos that are less than five minutes long and that can be published on the web (Blackboard for example). The paid Pro version can be used for iTUNES U podcasts.

http://jingproject.com/pro

Podcaster: Podcaster publishes podcasts and enhanced podcasts quickly and easily.

http://www.kudlian.net/products/podcaster/

Camtasia Studio: Camtasia Studio is a screen video capture program published by TechSmith. This software can record almost anything in Windows only and provides opportunities to narrate as one records or in post-production. Camtasia exports in many formats and has lots of features, which can make it a challenge to use at times and pricey.

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp

Mac Only Tools

Audio and Video

Apple Garage Band: Full Podcast production tool. Comes with every new mac and with copies of iLife and requires video be imported via it's companion iMovie (which can also be used for podcasting directly).

http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband

Here is a video of how to create a podcast with GarageBand.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#garageband-podcast

ScreenCasting

Apple Keynote: Keynote files and PowerPoint files can be "recorded" to include narration and then exported as a "Web movie" which can be added to iTunesU.

http://www.apple.com/keynote/

Screenium: A low cost screen capturing tool that includes a picture-in-picture of the speaker's web cam.

http://www.synium.de/products/screenium/index.html

ScreenFlow: For "high end" screen recordings. Captures the screen, a camera and your voice at high quality and allows for editing inside the program.

http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/overview.htm

Profcast: ProfCast is a versatile, powerful, yet very simple to use tool for recording presentations including PowerPoint and/or Keynote slides for creating enhanced podcasts. Retails for around $60.

http://www.profcast.com

Presentation2Podcast: A small program to facilitate the recording of sound coming into the mic or line-in) and the slides you use (images you show on a screen) and combine them in a file ready for podcasting.
Shareware: $5.00

http://hackingthesoul.com/software/Presentation2Podcast/

Hardware

The jury is out as far as the best items to buy, but price is often a good guide. In general web cams are good enough for most video situations, but built in microphones are not. With respect to microphones, headsets tend to work best for audio capture.

Recommended Content Formats and Settings

• Exporting content is fundamentally about achieving the ideal compromise between high quality and low file size.
• iTunes U only accepts files for upload that are smaller than 500 megabytes (MB). Larger files will need to be reduced or partitioned.
• Audio files must be either AAC or MP3 with appropriate file extensions (.m4a, .mp3).
• To use specific cover artwork with an audio track, use the AAC file type format (.m4a).
• Video files must be MPEG4 optionally with H.264 compression with appropriate file extensions (.mp4, .m4v, .mov).
• The majority of content captured for podcasts DO NOT benefit from being in stereo.
• Documents should be in Portable Document Format (PDF)

When you create and edit video or audio content, export your videos by targeting iPod, iPhone or Apple TV from the Export pop-up menu in QuickTime Pro (or related iLife, etc tools).

(Most small variations are, generally, not an issue.)

Terms

AAC

Advanced Audio Coding/Codec (AAC) is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit rates. AAC has been standardized by the ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG2 & MPEG4 specifications.

AAC's best known use is as the default audio format of Apple's iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the format used for all iTunes Store audio. It has similarly been adopted by companies like Sony and Nintendo.

More on Advanced Audio Coding can be found at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

MP3

MPEG Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard encoding for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.

More information can be found at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

MPEG4

MPEG4 (MPEG-4) is a collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual (AV) digital data.

MPEG4 absorbs many of the features of MPEG1 and MPEG2 and other related standards, including externally-specified Digital Rights Management and various types of interactivity. AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) was standardized as an adjunct to MPEG2 (as Part 7) before MPEG4 was issued.

MPEG4 is still a developing standard and is divided into a number of parts. Companies promoting MPEG4 compatibility do not always clearly state which "part" level compatibility they are referring to. The key parts to be aware of are MPEG4 part 2 (including Advanced Simple Profile, used by codecs such as DivX, Xvid, Nero Digital and 3ivx and by Quicktime 6) and MPEG-4 part 10 (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 or Advanced Video Coding, used by the x264 codec, by Nero Digital AVC, by Quicktime 7, and by next-gen DVD formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc).

Most of the features included in MPEG4 are left to individual developers to decide whether to implement them. This means that there are probably no complete implementations of the entire MPEG4 set of standards. To deal with this, the standard includes the concept of "profiles" and "levels", allowing a specific set of capabilities to be defined in a manner appropriate for a subset of applications.

More information can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4

H.264

H.264 is a standard for video compression, and is equivalent to MPEG4 Part 10, or MPEG4 AVC (for Advanced Video Coding).

WAV

WAV (or WAVE), short for Waveform audio format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an uncompressed format that is almost universally supported.

Other

How to Get Podcasts with iTunes

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/ipoditunes/2007/tutorials/apple_itunes_getpodcasts_r640-10cie.mov

Making a Podcast

http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/podcasts/specs.html