Podcast Academy

Here is a brief description of the new conversion and publication features included in the current version of Quicktime. Specifically there are two new exporting options directly available from the QT File menu: Share, and Export for Web.

The Share option offers three choices: Email, Homepage, and Podcast Producer. The Email option converts a copy of the source movie and embeds the low resolution output version into a blank email message prepared for sending. The Home Page option will post the converted movie to a .Mac account. The Podcast Producer option requires access to a Mac running OSX server. My guess is the distribution options available in OSX Server are extensive.

Here is where it gets interesting … the Export for Web feature offers three resolution/options: iPhone 900 kbps, iPhone 56 kbps [cellular] , and Desktop 1500 kbps - all using the h.264 codec. Prior to conversion you can set the current movie frame as the poster frame. Why is this important? Well the best feature of all is upon completion of the conversion session, Quicktime places a folder on your desktop that includes the converted movies, a reference movie, a poster frame jpeg, and a page that includes all the necessary HTML code snippets required for subsequent publication. The reference movie will automatically deliver the correct version to the viewer as soon at it is available on your server.

The processes is simple: You must copy the provided code and paste it into your movie delivery page that lives on your server. Next you will need to upload the entire output folder [or the individual files]. to your server. When the URL of the delivery page is accessed, the poster frame of the embedded movie will be visible and clickable for dynamic playback of the associated movie..

Nice job with this Apple …