Podcasting - whats the best way

[admin8]

hay guys

i wanted to wrack your brains a bit - dean would like to start podcasting things like dj mixes and then hopefully a radio show - and hopefully have these podcasts featured on itunes etc -

have any of you had any experience with this and if so can you give us some advice?

what podcasting software do you use - do you hand code it - any tricks for itunes featuring?

thanks

[scottb]

I haven't made a podcast before but it looks pretty straight forward.

You will need an area to store your material on a server. Then create an RSS file the describes each file and a link to it. The RSS file will be in XML.

Here's what apple says about it.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html

I will try and knock up a tutorial since I have a server and may one day need to do the same thing.

[admin8]

hay scottb

thanks for the answer - i have done that and it is on deans server - but itunes just dont seem to want to accept it. never mind feature it.

an old example: http://www.dramirez.co.uk/podcasts/dramirezpodcast0609.xml

there are companies out there that can do it for you - but they want to charge really hefty monthly rates.

so i thought i would try and give it a go myself.

[scottb]

yeah it's difficult to find a free code generator as well.

The only thing i could see in your xml that may be dodgy is:

<itunes:category text="Music"></itunes:category>
<itunes:category text="Music"/>

seems wierd to have two versions of the same tag.

I'll use your structure as a base and try and make a podcast for one of my tracks.

[admin8]

ah cool - thanks for that :)

[scottb]

I ran a validation on the script at: http://www.feedvalidator.org/

The main issue was the pubDate is in the wrong format (not sure if this is a show stopper or not). The format i have used is: Fri, 14 May 2010 19:10:25 GMT.

The other issue is more a recommendation that you use the explicit tag:

Quote from the validator
In order to submit your feed to iTunes, there are a number of elements which should be present, including <language>, <itunes:category>, and <itunes:explicit>.

I have managed to make a simple feed without iTunes tags and download it into iTunes. I will add the iTunes tags and try a full submission. If that works I'll let you know.

[admin8]

you are the man - thanks scottb - i really appreciate the help!

[scottb]

no probs m8.

another possible gotcha

When using the iTunes tags, you must add a namespace declaration as the second line in your feed xml, like this:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">

yours is the 3rd line. I'm not sure you need the 2nd line.

I'm testing my final version now.

[scottb]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>D. Ramirez Monthly DJ Mix</title>
<link>http://www.dramirez.co.uk</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>&#x2117; &amp; &#xA9; 2009 D. Ramirez</copyright>
<itunes:author>D. Ramirez</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>Each month D. Ramirez delivers Full-length D. Ramirez DJ Mixes for your listening pleasure</itunes:summary>
<description>Each month D. Ramirez delivers Full-length D. Ramirez DJ Mixes format for your listening pleasure</description>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>D. Ramirez</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>info@dramirez.co.uk</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:image href="http://www.dramirez.co.uk/podcasts/dean.jpg" />
<itunes:category text="Music"/>
<item>
<title>D. Ramirez April 2009 DJ Mix</title>
<itunes:author>D. Ramirez</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>D. Ramirez Presents The Monthly DJ Mix Podcast Featuring his Exclusive Hot Mix</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>This month: Classic Tracks from D. Ramirez, Robert Babicz And More</itunes:summary>
<enclosure url="http://www.dramirez.co.uk/mData/djmix/DRamirezDJMixJuly2009.mp3" length="69410" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 14 May 2010 19:10:25 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:duration>01:00:00</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>D. Ramirez, Slave Recordings, Robert Babicz</itunes:keywords>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

This is the format I used and my version seems to have submitted ok. I removed line 2, the new-feed-url, the dodgy category tag, the guid tag and reformatted the pubDate.

I've emailed you a link to my complete xml file.

Any probs let us know

[admin8]

OMG you are such a star - thanks scottb -

i will give this a go on monday and let you know how i get on.

hope you have a great weekend

[scottb]

little bit of info about improving podcast popularity.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_vote_favorite_podcast_apple_itunes.html