PODCASTING

The January, 2006, DVUG meeting had three presenters talking about various aspects of creating and distributing video podcasts. Merrill Hessel, Sony Tohan and Phil Shapiro all chipped in different facts and points of view.

Among the topics covered was the pro's and con's of H.264 and MP4 video. We looked at various video files on a 5th generation iPod -- and viewed the same files projected onto a large screen. Phil mentioned that Jamestown Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia, is now videocasting via the iTunes Music Store. Sonny said video compressed directly from a DVD usually looks great on a 5th generation iPod. Merrill explained how he can recompress video from the web to view on his iPod.

A user group member mentioned that the Ourmedia web site (http://ourmedia.org) provides a very easy way to upload video to the web -- and provides free web hosting for video. We also talked a bit about the Internet Archive. (http://www.archive.org)

Resources described in this meeting include -

FreeVlog. http://freevlog.org

Videora Converter (for Windows) http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/

Handbrake (for Macs) http://handbrake.m0k.org/

QuickTime Pro ($30 -- for Mac and Windows) http://www.apple.com/quicktime

iSquint (Mac) http://www.isquint.org/

FireAnt (Mac and Windows) http://fireant.tv/

Not-A-Video-iPod Email list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/notavideoipod

Slapcast http://slapcast.com/

Someone asked whether there are any advantages to creating a video podcast on a Mac rather than Windows.  The consensus was that Windows computers are just as good as Macs for creating video podcasts.

Phil talked a bit about the future of portable video, including roll-out screens with much larger pixel resolution than the current 320 by 240 pixels. Holographic storage will also allow you to carry hundreds of hours of video with you. This meeting was a lively one with lots of questions and answers. During the meeting, many times user group members answered each others' questions.