|
What are Podcasts? The simple explanation of Podcasts is that they're similar to Radio programs, only they are available on the Internet. What makes Podcasts different from Radio is that the shows come to you; you don't have to find them every time your favorite Radio personality has a new program. Similar to a magazine subscription, you register to receive Podcasts periodically, and every so often one is delivered to your mailbox (in Podcasting this is called an aggregator). The magazine sits in your mailbox until someone trudges through the snow, wind or rain to pick it up and bring it inside the house. However with Podcasting, someone else does the heavy lifting for you. The aggregator recognizes you have a new Podcast, retrieves it for you and brings it inside your house and prepares it for your listening pleasure via iTunes or your favorite music player. You can then decide when you want to read the magazine, or you can throw it away… but you can also cancel your subscription to a Podcast at any time, without the hassle that comes with canceling a magazine subscription - but c'mon why would anyone ever get sick of hearing the wisdom of Michael and Brenton? That's the simple overview of how Quarry Community Church is able to bring you our messages on a weekly basis, free of charge, delivered right to your home computer for your listening enjoyment. But don't use this as an excuse to get out of going to church, we'd love to have you become part of our community and dive into a life changing experience with us. Important Point: From time to time, certain material from Sunday's service will not be present in the podcast version. The copyright conditions affecting downloadable MP3 audio files limit the kinds of material we are able to offer online. The kinds of material most likely to be removed are complete pieces of music, movie showings and lengthy readings from published books. What are the benefits of Podcasting? First and foremost, no junk mail, you only get the Podcasts you subscribe to. Secondly, Podcasts are completely, 100% free. Why wouldn't I just download the file from the messages page every time there's a new message? The number one reason is bandwidth. Every time someone downloads a message it eats up our available bandwidth and forces us to think about upgrading our internet service… which can become costly for the church. Secondly, Podcasting saves you time by doing all the work for you, you simply open iTunes and voila, There's a new message for your listening pleasure! Thirdly, MP3 files are large. Many internet service providers (ISPs) set download limits in their customer agreements. If you're not sure if you have a download limit, you may like to contact your ISP. Fourth, download time can be crippling. For listeners accessing the web via a modem, the download time is significant. A 30MB file (about the size of our messages) downloading through a 56 Kb modem in average conditions, will take about 70 minutes. And finally, space. Because MP3s download to your hard drive; they can quickly take up a large amount of space. Make sure you have enough space, or move the files regularly to another drive or device. How does Quarry make the sound files? Thanks to Chris Good, sound technician extraordinaire, for his explanation on how we make the sound files available for Podcasting. A more detailed explanation about creating the RSS Feed and publishing it to aggregators can be found at Chris' Blog (he also has a number of good links for more Podcasting info.) We use a Dell Inspiron 2200 Laptop (about $950) and added an EBTECH Hum Eliminator ($30)and a M-Audio USB Sound Card ($179) to get rid of an annoying buzzing we were noticing on our recordings. For software we use EZTracker (Free) for recording and Nero (about 70 bucks) for burning the CD's (not all CD burner programs are the same). We have a CD duplicator as well, the computer makes the master copy and then the rest are duplicated. After the service we have a wave recording with multiple files, broken up into tracks. So we have to convert the tracks back to MP3 format for the web in one large file. For that we use a piece of Freeware, called MediaJoin and select the format that we want it done in. If you have a CD Recorder that would work too. If it's multiple tracks, you just rip the tracks then merge them back together using MediaJoin. Convinced? Get set up for Podcasting. 1. Download podcasting software. Apple's iTunes for Mac and Windows, iPodder, and similar other podcasting software allow you to schedule regular updates to your selected downloads with an iPod or other MP3 player. The range includes programs which allow you to listen to podcasts on mobile phones and Pocket PCs, as well as computers running Mac or Linux OS. iTunes Note: iTunes software is marketed by Apple as the preferred music player for users using the iPod music player. It enables people to play and organize downloaded mp3 files and has gained a reputation of ease of use and good organization. Subscription to Quarry's podcast is also available via direct link from our home page, making this our preferred software. 2. Install. Some browsers will automatically install and run the downloaded software. If your browser doesn't do that, look for the icon belonging to the downloaded Podcast software (probably saved to your desktop), and double click on it to install. 3. Check Preferences. Once you've installed the Podcasting software, check the Preferences within the software. The main things to check are that you've nominated a folder on your computer where the Podcast software will store the MP3 files. The address should look something like C:\My Documents\podcasts. It's also important to check whether you've told the Podcast software what MP3 player you want to use when playing the Podcast. Nominating a player is often done in Preferences, often under a heading called Player. 4. Subscribe. Once you have set up and acquainted yourself with the Podcasting software. You can begin subscribing to Podcasts. If you're using iTunes you can click here to subscribe directly to the Quarry Podcast. iPodder. If you're using iPodder, launch iPodder, click the Subscriptions menu, then click the green and white plus icon ('Add a new feed') and paste in the feed url. http://www.quarrychurch.org/Apple/applerss.xml If you're using iTunes, launch itunes, click on the "Advanced" menu and select "Subscribe to Podcast". Paste the feed in the blank window (right click in the blank window and select paste) http://www.quarrychurch.org/Apple/applerss.xml. iTunes will automatically download the latest feed. To access an existing Podcast in iTunes click on "Podcasts" in the Store navigation panel. By default it should download the latest Podcast, unless specified differently in preferences. 5. Schedule. If you want to receive these programs regularly, make sure the scheduling function on your Podcasting software is set to search for new podcasts automatically. Please note, scheduling is a wonderfully convenient way to timeshift your listening. However, if you're new to Podcasting, there can be pitfalls. Read the tips below. Tips and Things to Watch For:
- iPodder offers a choice of three player preferences: iTunes, Windows Media and No Player. If you don't want to use iTunes or Windows Media to play the MP3 files, leave the Player option set to 'No Player' and ipodder will use whatever you've set as your default player. You might, for example, be using other audio players such as Real Media or WinAmp. - Scheduling: If you're new to Podcasting, it can be a good idea to check the Podcast feeds manually until you're acquainted with the software. - If you use scheduling, think carefully about setting it to look for new downloads on start-up. In certain circumstances, this can really slow your computer down or even crash it. - In some Podcast software (for example Ipodder prior to Version 2), the default setting is to have scheduling turned on. Check if this is the case for whatever software you choose. If so, you might want to turn off the scheduling function or set it to check for Podcast updates at different times of day rather than at start-up. - Check the size of a file before you download it. Most Podcast software displays the size of each file in megabytes prior to download. Have no fear, you can still get Quarry Messages… simply use the following link, any modern MP3 management program should be able to work with our rss feed. http://www.quarrychurch.org/Apple/applerss.xml Still not sold on Podcasting? Check out RSS Capable Browsers If you don’t want Podcasts automatically updating onto your computer, but would like to download audio without the bother of visiting the originating website, you can use an internet browser such as Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.5 and 8 or Safari which all support RSS feeds. More Help If you have urgent questions or concerns about Quarry Podcasting, feel free to email us. Terms of Use Quarry Community Church grants you a license to download these audio files only for your personal, non-commercial use. You may not use these audio files for any other purpose including downloading, editing, or using these files for the purpose of promoting, advertising, endorsing or implying a connection with you (or any third party) and Quarry Community Church, its staff or employees. Quarry Community Church will not be liable for any loss or damage which you may suffer as a result of or connected with the download or use of these files. |
 
|
