After lots of Googling, how do I actually set up a standalone podcast?

I have a blog

WELL I HAVE A FIST

sorry. couldn't not say that.

very good.

http://www.itsyourdisco.co.uk/nomis/podcasting.htm

I found someones simple guide to podcasting.

Dunno if it's helpful, but I'm trying.

See I could use Feedburner but what I don't get is, it just seems to make the feed of my entire blog my podcast. And not every post is a radio show, sometimes there's just a post with an mp3 or something.

So in that scenario, not sure what I should do.

Can you just stick your MP3 on sendspace or something and then email yr subscribers? Kinda lo-tech.

nah I mean, I do that anyway sort of.

WELL I HAVE A FIST

Make sure you put a condom around it.

I have tons of webspace, I have a blog. I have a domain.

And can you have a lot of visitors? You need a lot of bandwidth as well, no?

I R Moron (when it comes to podcasts).

Yeah I have plenty bandwidth. Really loads of it. I have a radio show waiting to be podcasted. It should be easy, why isn't it?

Fuck if I know. Ask Jon. ;-)

do you have a mac or a pc, Ronan?

pc

ok

article here about RSS feeds (of which podcasts are a specialised type):

http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Understanding_RSS_Feeds.html

here about getting your podcast into the iTunes music store:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/beginners-guide-to-podcast-creation

otherwise people can just point their RSS-enabled browser or dedicated RSS reader to the feed address.

here's a mac program that will create an RSS feed, and i'm sure there are similar ones for the PC:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21443

"it just seems to make the feed of my entire blog my podcast"

won't actually be a problem for most ppl, as only the posts with accompanying files will be realactual podcasts that teh RSS reader goes "oh there's a file - go get it". but it's annoying for users - a little. you need some way to mark posts as "this is a podcast". there are ways depending on what blog system you use.

for eg, with wordpress's podpress plugin you can nominate specific categories of posting to be podcasts. (which we do on FT frinstance)

hmm I use wordpress, that sounds useful. does that work in tandem with feedburner then? the problem, as I say, is that I don't want mp3s I post being podcasted.

alternatively was thinking of just using this

seems like it would work okay?

then i def recommend podpress.

you set up pordpress->general settings, but then under Manage -> Categories when you edit a category, there is a "podPress CategoryCasting" - tick 'enable' and category specific options pop up.

so I can make every post in a certain category a podcast?

does podpress also make a specific feed for this podcast that I can link to elsewhere and on itunes etc?

I should have known to look for a Wordpress plugin, Wordpress always looks after every want!

"every post in a certain category a podcast " exactly

the feed is then http://yourdomain.com/category/feed (if you are using pretty URLs). basically everything in wordpress you can add /feed on the end of the URL to get RSS2

btw, yes ppl use it with feedburner - tho i'm not sure what the advantage is.

podpress does its own stats, wp-cache prevents server overload, the bandwidth of the XML is tiny - so unless feedburner hosts the damn mp3, i'm not sure what the point is. explain plz someone.

blatant plug and example

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/poptimism-podcast/ is where the category can be read within the site

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/poptimism-podcast/feed/ is the podcast RSS feed

excellent thanks Alan.

one final question...my files tend to be very big for the radio show, it's an hour and a half and I like the quality to be 192kbps at least.

is there a size limit on podcasts? might have to split it into two parts.

no size limit beyond what your listeners will tolerate downloading. i did a one off that was 4x longer than the others (and 4x larger obv) and there was no noticeable drop in the stats (it went up cos it was a special praps).

but for 90 mins that's going to be huge. >90MB at that bitrate? so yes, cut it up into 30 min sections and publish them pt1 pt2 pt3 would be my first preference. there is something called TorrentCasting that i've never looked into (cos we've only done small files).

i considered mixing down to mono (in the mp3 encoding) but the effect is bleh.

yeah it's all music so it needs to be pretty big. to be honest I'd prefer to keep it as one file, if it's actually possible to do so. I know a lot of people download the show every week when I put the file up in blog posts so I don't see why they'd balk at it as a podcast.

i considered mixing down to mono (in the mp3 encoding) but the effect is bleh.

shouldn't make much difference in what you hear should it?

no it shouldn't - you just lose the stereo-ness, the 'depth' i guess. for spoken word radio/shows it's worth the filesize reduction

Okay completely lost again....

I have Podpress installed and activated but I just don't know what to do now. The installation guide isn't so helpful.

I mean, say I want to put last week's radio show up as a podcast, today. I set a location in Podpress's settings and then what?

There are so many fields in the settings that I have no idea whatsoever about how to complete.

under general options:

Media File Locations - set these if you want a dedicated folder to store yr mp3s. you don't need to, cos you can put in an absolute address when you post up a podcast, but if you DO then the files in there are listed in the drop down when you add a media file to podcast

Post Content - this sets up how your post is formatted.

other things - leave em, until you care about them, they're extras

then go into a category (Manage -> Categories, edit a chosen category) and tick 'enable Category Casting". all the options you put in there are previewed in the page and reflect things like title, images, © message etc.

then you should be able to write a post. make the post in the relevant category. there should be a "Podcasting" panel underneath the main post-writing area. Click "add media file". then you get to choose the file (from the above specified special folder on your server, or from an absolute URL). set title, size and duration, dbl-check it's included in the feed. PUBLISH

it seems to keep coming up without and option for podcast...and the options to stream or play live just don't work

not sure why.

I can add the media file but it doesn't seem to recognise it. for example if I click "show id3 tags it just comes up with nothing and for the album art the awful podpress logo comes up".

oops lost my inverted commas there

you say it comes without an option for podcast but then say you can add the media file. that's all there is to it. that and publishing it in a category set for podcasting.

it also sounds like your mp3 is not quite right somehow. do at least the size and duration 'auto detect' buttons work? if so, that's enough. what did you use to add the data and the logo? I use iTunes and all the ID3 tag stuff pops up ok. (not that i use it tho - it's just data for you to copy).

"what did you use to add the data and the logo" to the mp3.

Could it be that the file has to be hosted within my blog somewhere? In "Media File Locations" when I put in the location of the file, into "URI of media files directory" it keeps saying

"Directory Not Valid or Not Accessible
Suggested: /home/ronanfit/public_html/houseisafeeling/http://www.ronanfitzgerald.net/podcast/ (Auto Detection Failed.)"

I've set up the file in a special folder at my server which is just /podcast but isn't within the umbrella of my blog stuff etc.

It is a valid directory though, it loads up fine. And the file is fine also, as far as I know.

"I added the logo and date in podpress"

data...jesus sorry! if you're busy feel free to ignore my desperate flounderings btw

general settings, i think you'll want:

URI of media files directory: http://yrdomain.co.uk/podcast
Local path to media files directory: /home/ronanfit/public_html/houseisafeeling/podcast

if you've set the logo in podpress, then that's enough. You can also set it in the ID3 tags within the mp3, which is all that "show ID3 tags" option does - it's slightly misleading as it doesn's "show ID3 tags" in the post - just on that 'write post' page so you can see the data while writing the post.

(next to those general settings options are linky '?' marks - click em to show some useful help text)

still seems not to work...I have no idea why. I've activated the category for podcasting and all.

it keeps giving that message in the "media file location" part, just to clarify, should I have just the one file in that folder at a time?

x-post yeah been trying the ? marks....it just seems to be some problem with detecting the file in the folder.

i was talking about in the podpress general settings. what have you got in the general settings for

URI of media files directory
Local path to media files directory

?

Think I also meant the General Settings.

URI of...:http://ronanfitzgerald.net/podcast/

Local path to: /home/ronanfit/public_html/houseisafeeling/podcast

Now it will stream or download the file, despite not detecting the ID3 tags, but it doesn't show up as a podcast or offer any option to subscribe.

i think you've got everything right. try putting the category's feed (for egg: http://ronanfitzgerald.net/houseisafeeling/category/minimal-house-podcast/feed) into whatever you use to pick up podcasts

unless of course it's http://ronanfitzgerald.net/houseisafeeling/category/noes-i-have-changed-my-mind-justice-roolz-podcast/feed

:-D

hmm no joy. itunes says no uploaded episodes but does recognise the name and some of the info.

it's really weird. why isn't a podcast button appearing with the posts as it shows in the screenshots. for whatever reason that seems to be the problem.

x-post, haha!

Right it's working now.

One last question, how did you get them nice "Subscribe to podcast" buttons and icons?

dude Ronan if this angle doesn't work,

1. upload your mp3 to your webspace
2. download a freeware app to create an RSS feed with an mp3 enclosure (podcast), during which process you specify where the mp3 is
3. upload that feed to your webspace
4. link to the feed

xpost yay!

http://web.forret.com/tools/podicons.asp

thanks tracer...

almost there.

now need to make it look nice!

erm....and make it actually appear on itunes when people search for it.

or does it need to have a certain amount of popularity already for that to happen?

the natty buttons come with podpress if you dig around

wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/itunes.png
wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/rss-podcast.png

iTunes directory is real slooow to register changes. lookee here

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html#_Toc526931662

am i right in thinking that when Ronan is ready for episode 2 to go up, he can download the rss feed, copy and paste the "item" code, edit the copy-pasted file location/description to match where the new mp3 is and what it's about, and re-upload the feed? and then all who have subscribed will automagically receive the new mp3 without having to do anything else whatsoever?

altho maybe this blogpress megasystem makes it easier than that

yes and yes.

am i right in thinking that when Ronan is ready for episode 2 to go up, he can download the rss feed, copy and paste the "item" code, edit the copy-pasted file location/description to match where the new mp3 is and what it's about, and re-upload the feed? and then all who have subscribed will automagically receive the new mp3 without having to do anything else whatsoever?

I don't follow this so much.

Couldn't I just do a new post and add in the new location? Wouldn't that just automatically make subscribers get the file anyway?

What you say sounds better, if I understood how to do it!

the feed that people "subscribe" to is just a text file that sits on your website. it looks like this (except with angled brackets instead of parenthenses):

(?xml version="1.0"?)
(rss version="2.0")
(channel)
(title)Podcasting Blog(/title)
(link)http://www.podcastingnews.com/(/link)
(description)Interesting things from Podcasting News(/description)
(language)en-us(/language)
(copyright)Copyright 2004 Podcasting News(/copyright)

(item)
(title)Pioneering Audioblogger(/title)
(link)http://www.podcastingnews.com/podblog/PioneeringAudioblogger.html(/link)
(description)Podcasting is an extension of audioblogging.(/description)
(enclosure url="http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/media/Chuck_D_No_Meaning_No_128.mp3"; length="640561 " type="audio/mpeg"/)
(/item)

(/channel)
(/rss)

see the opening and closing "item" tags? you can select and copy that whole chunk, including the item tags, and paste directly below (before the closing "channel tag"). change the enclosure url to point to your new mp3, change the description probably (you can put tracklist in here or whatever), and change length (which is the size in bytes). save it, and re-upload it over your old feed. voila. when people's itunes or podcast clients automatically check your feed they'll notice that it's been updated and will go get the new file.

but this is academic cause it sounds like what you're doing works!

oh yeah, and if you'd like you can change the "link" tag to point to a any webpage (maybe one specifically about that particular episode, or something)

i ran the FT podcast writing the XML manually for the first 5 or 6 weeks, then discovered podpress. it's way more of a drag to write an XML file than to use podpress - plus it adds on all the extra XML for iTunes directory conformance and other whistles and bells too.

it took me a while to get podpress working like i wanted, but that was back when it lacked proper 'category casting'. as it stands now, it doesn't take much getting used to.

yeah seems very easy really.

one thing which is mildly annoying is that my podcast is called "house is a feeling" on itunes and if I change the name in podpress's settings then that changes the name of my entire blog.

I mean surely a different name for each is not an unusual request.

http://www.podomatic.com/

in the category specific settings (manage -> category, edit specific category)

"Blog/Podcast title" has 3 options: "global" (name of your blog) append category name ("name of blog - category name") or "use category name".

Have you had any experience of stats screwing up the links at the bottom of your posts Alan? My problem earlier in the week was caused by having the Podpress statistics turned on. I turned them on again last night and once again it screwed up.

And also, my feed won't validate properly, is this needed for itunes? It's working as a podcast but when I test it in the validator it says

It gives an error message like this "line 54, column 2: channel contains more than one image (2 occurrences)

In addition, this feed has an issue that may cause problems for some users. We recommend fixing this issue.

*

line 21, column 55: Image not in required format

A friend reckons it won't appear properly on itunes till it's validated.

any ideas, anyone? shouldn't the podcast feed show up as just text and be nice and neat when you click on it?

when I do it's a jungle of formatting and weird shit

so, on top of my lefty political talk show, my friend and i have just started a new podcast called "The Definite Article" about """the creative process.""" heavily influenced by Merlin Mann/Dan Benjamin's Back to Work.

i hope people like it

#1 is called "the elements of style, by drunken whites"

http://www.hoosteen.net/defart/1