Apple Launches Video Podcasting For iTunes 159
phaedo00 writes "Apple has launched support for video podcasting in the Podcast section of the iTMS. Ars Technica has a decent write up of the news along with speculation on what this means in the way of a video iPod and Apple's recent application for a patent on the phrase 'iPodcast.'" From the article: "The quiet, fanfare-less launch (in fact, it's not even clear when it was launched) is a bit surprising for the company, but there may be a reason: there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild. Furthermore, video podcasts are currently only playable on your computer, although it seems clear enough that a video iPod is on the way. If you didn't believe it before, you should definitely believe it now. For now, it looks like video podcasting support is limited."
Article text (Score:0, Informative)
The site is slowing already, here's the full text. AC to not karma whore.
Apple supports video podcasting
9/15/2005 10:49:43 AM, by Ken "Caesar" Fisher
Apple surprised a few people in June when they rolled podcasting support into iTunes, giving users the ability to download recorded audio programs automatically through the iTunes Music Store. At some point in the recent past, the company took another step and added support for video podcasts (or vodcasts, and some people call them). That's right. No longer do you only get to hear news and opinions read by people in their underwear, now you can watch them, too!
The quiet, fanfare-less launch (in fact, it's not even clear when it was launched) is a bit surprising for the company, but there may be a reason: there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild. Furthermore, video podcasts are currently only playable on your computer, although it seems clear enough that a video iPod is on the way. If you didn't believe it before, you should definitely believe it now.
For now, it looks like video podcasting support is limited. For instance, Crookz, a video podcast (iTMS link) spoof of Cops, appears to be one of the few video offerings out there that's actually working. However, you can bet that webcams and DV cameras around the world will be dusted off in the wake of this news. Everyone wants to be a radio-star killing video producer, don't they?
When podcasts first hit the scene, I was underwhelmed to say the least. I can read much faster than someone can read to me, and if I'm somewhere like the gym where reading isn't really possible, then I'd much rather listen to music. Still, podcasts have become all the rage, and plenty of sites are now offering podcasts. If enough people wanted them, we might do a weekly podcast for our readers, as well. Let us know.
The thing that occurred to me when podcasting caught on, however, was how we're basically headed towards the democratization of video content. A brief outline of the revolution (if we can call it that) is as follows: from text, to audio, to video, to Michael Sims' high definition homemade anal fisting videos. Blogging caught on once it became dead easy for non-techie types to publish online. Podcasting has followed in its wake: why read or write when you can listen or speak? And now, coming full circle in many ways, the video podcast is poised to take on other forms of video entertainment head-on. What's needed is that proverbial "killer app" that could make video production as easy and recording a podcast. And just who do you think is going to pull that off?
Would you be surprised to learn that Apple has applied for trademarks relating to the word iPodcast? According to AppleInsider:
If I look into my crystal ball, I see a video iPod launch accompanied by an iPodcaster application aimed precisely at producing and optimizing video podcasts.
Stupid article (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously... (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously, as the Ars Technica article correctly reads, they applied for a trademark on "iPodcast".
Some video podcasts are cool (Score:5, Informative)
as is Systm:
http://revision3.com/systm [revision3.com]
Interesting Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
nothing new here (Score:5, Informative)
The Dawn and Drew show even had a little video as part of their iTunes rss feed.
Apple already has a specialized "ipod videocasting" application - it's called iMovie.
The "news" will be an iPod designed to support video playback right out of the box.
I think the writeup my be a bit misleading... (Score:5, Informative)
I noticed that iTunes could handle "video podcasts" in the last version (4.7?) and there's a little writeup of the capability paired with del.ici.us [del.ico.us] over at lifehacker [lifehacker.com]:
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/entertainment/
Does it mean that a video iPod is "on the way"? Not neccesarily. iTunes has had the ability to play video for a while, and podcasting video is not much different from podcasting audio. Parse
the rss, download the associated media, add to a special playlist. I think the feature was added as an afterthought or experiment: "hey, we can add a couple lines and support this!".
The video iPod remains the white whale of Apple enthusiasts. Often speculated about, never seen.
Cringely on Apple's plans - July 14, 2005 (Score:5, Informative)
The overall discussion [pbs.org] was about Intel/Apple, but it seems he called this one (at least the first part) right.
Re:I think the writeup my be a bit misleading... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some video podcasts are cool (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.filefarmer.com/techshows/ [filefarmer.com]
Smart people already here... (Score:5, Informative)
I've been noticing all the podcasting cognoscenti in Silicon Valley are simultaneously doing their podcast and shooting video of it. What do they know or suspect that we don't?
- Former TechTV ScreenSavers host Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. "I get no spam" Dvorak and others are doing TWIT [www.twit.tv] and just announced video is next.
- Former ScreenSavers hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose at Diggnation [typepad.com] are shooting video while they podcast and Kevin Rose is doing SYSTM [revision3.com]
- Robert X. Cringley's NerdTV debuts [pbs.org]. Now you may be wondering, "So what?". It's IPTV [wikipedia.org]...that's what. There aren't a lot of great examples out there yet, but most of the smart podcasters -- who are mini-celebrities or have something people would like to see -- are simultaneously podcasting and shooting video (many in high definition just in case). Read an article about a new report here [bbc.co.uk].
- Silicon Valley podcaster John Furrier from Podtech [podtech.net] is embarking on video to augment his podcasting.
Wired magazine has a great article [wired.com] discussing blogging + video = vlogging. While everyone's attention is on podcasting [wikipedia.org], vlogging [wikipedia.org] is the next hot trend that has almost taken off. This Apple announcement oughta help.It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. If it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch, I wouldn't believe in anything.
Steve Martin, Comedian
Re:If Apple was Smart (Score:2, Informative)
Tiki TV (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tech Review Graph (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Little Zonky (Score:3, Informative)
This is exactly the sort of thing that makes one want to join GNAA or the jihad.
No more Mr. Nice Guy.
It's what you put on it (Score:3, Informative)
alternative videocast apps & bandwidth prob (Score:3, Informative)
The best one so far is DTV [participatoryculture.org] (mac-only beta right now). The biggest feature this has that iTunes doesn't have is the ability to receive the video podcasts in
Unless iTunes provides some kind of automatic caching for the video files, having just a moderate amount of popularity could kill aspiring video podcasters.
Another app is FireANT [antisnottv.net], which without the bittorrent feature makes me hate it.
DTV also has a built-in directory to find video podcasts, which is pretty cool. They do a good job of making the process easy to use, although their beta is still a little wonky at times.
video and pdfs supported for a long time now... (Score:3, Informative)