How to do a podcast

Written by Philip Roy | 09 January 2006

It's been suggested to me that the best way to get people to prepare a podcast for NZMac.com would be to explain just how you go about creating a podcast. Well I'm not gonna!

Mainly because after a few minutes of trawling the web, I found that a lot of people have written great guides already, including Apple.

So let's get started. First I really need to emphasise that...

In order to do a podcast for NZMac.com, you do not need to know
how to publish a podcast..just how to record an audio commentary

I'll do all the rest for you. But for those interested in the complete process, here are some helpful guides...

http://www.apple.com/education/solutions/podcasting/server.html
...is a page on the Apple site about a particular product in their server range, but there is a superb PDF (Podcast Creation Guide) that is well worth a read. In particular, to record a podcast for NZMac.com, read pages numbered 11-20 (or 12-21 out of the 31 pages in the file).

The fact is that you do not need QuickTime Pro to record a podcast. I recommend using the free open source Audacity application (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) to record your file and then just save it as a WAV file to email to me.

A very detailed explanation of how you can use programs like Audacity can be found here....
http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Producing_Podcast_Gear_Yo.html

Macworld has two helpful pages that mention audacity and how it can be used...

A number of things have happened since this article was posted so I thought I would add this information. Apple has now made some movies that are of use:

The technical specs have been revised and expanded. Check here for all questions or problems related to your podcast, or if you're interested in enhancing the appearance of your listing with iTunes-specific tags. There is also an Apple Discussions Forum exclusively for podcast producers, located here:

One current feature on the discussion boards is a set of answers to our top 5 most asked questions. Check the "Top 5 Questions" posting in the Discussions Forum for answers to these questions:

iTunes has the wrong feed for my podcast. How do I replace it?
How do I get my podcast featured in iTunes?
I'm updating my podcast, but iTunes isn't showing any of the recent episodes.
Can I tell iTunes to refresh my feed?
I want to create a podcast. How do I get started?

Forum announcements have their own RSS feed. Subscribe to this feed in your favourite reader to receive occasional announcements about podcast production.

So what do I then do to make your audio file a podcast?

Well, that's easy...I take your audio file, slap my opening and ending music on to it using Audacity (note these files are now available to download if you want to add them in at the start and end yourself...with no other overlapping sounds)...then I use iTunes to turn it into an MP3 and then I use the superb Cast Life (www.meddiecatsoft.com) to publish the podcast.

So that's it folks. Feel free to have a play and please, please...get in touch if you would be willing to make a podcast for the site, the schedule of which is listed here.