Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Podcasting from the Windows side

I learned this evening about Jodix.com‘s free utility to convert virtually any Windows video file into an iPod compatible QuickTime file. The website to download the utility is www.ipod-video-converter.org. This looks like a good tool to use to convert Windows-created PhotoStory3 files into iPod compatible versions. (It is allegedly malware free, and I’ve heard reports of some school districts using it successfully.)

Does anyone have experiences (positive or negative) using this tool or something else to convert PhotoStory and MovieMaker WMV files into podcastable QuickTime files? If so I’d love to hear about them and learn about other programs that perform this functionality. On the Mac/Linux side ffmpegX is available for free, but I don’t know of a Windows equivalent program with similar power for video file conversion. QuickTime Pro is available for $30 on both the Windows and Mac sides, but it doesn’t handle conversion of WMV files (from the Mac side) unless you have another commercial tool, like one of Flip4Mac’s products. I don’t know of anything that can make QuickTime Pro convert WMV files like the Jodix application can.

When it comes to creating the RSS feed for your podcast, Apple seems to have the easiest turnkey solution with iWeb and Mac OS X Server. The best alternative I’ve seen (but one which does not permit local hosting, which may be a school district policy requirement for content) is Liberated Syndication. Podchains had been another of my recommendations for people wanting to create an RSS feed for a podcast, but it looks like the site is offline for some reason. Hopefully they’ll be back, I think they have a great solution for podcast feed creation.

Does anyone have other suggestions for creating podcast feeds, other than the following options?

  • Create a free Blogger or WordPress blog, and use that RSS feed for your podcast feed. (You can use the RSS feed for a particular category in your WordPress blog if desired, that is what I do.)
  • Use Podchains to create the feed.
  • Use LibSyn to host your files and create your feed.

Are there other options that are fairly straightforward? This part of my podcasting workshops is probably the least clear and most confusing. The question is, “Now that I’ve created my podcast, now what?” The answer is: “Post your file somewhere on the web, and link the absolute URL to the podcast within an RSS feed.” Unfortunately, there are not many ways to make that a simple process. (Yet.)

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3 responses to “Podcasting from the Windows side”

  1. John Pearce Avatar

    Hi Wes,

    Not an app utitility converter but have you had a look at the online Zamzar conversion site at http://www.zamzar.com/. It does lots of conversions including wmv files online including to flv and other formats. I have used it to convert Photo Story 3 products to MP4 and flv formats quite successfully.

  2. Antonio Avatar
    Antonio

    The best thing for converting to WMV is Flip4Mac. I’ve gone round in circles with other possible ways to do it, but F4M is the best. Well worth the few beans it costs.

  3. Steve Dembo Avatar

    For audio podcasts, I’m a big fan of Gcast. Free audio hosting and they’ll handle the feed, supply you with a flash player, submit it into iTunes and so on. Even gives you mobcasting support. Great site.