You’re thinking of doing your own podcast, I can tell. You were getting all excited about the new generation of digital microphones.
Microphones on laptops really are good quality – a fact which you could be forgiven for not noticing. You probably remember trying to make a voice note on an early notebook PC, and on playback, got something rather like an early 1910 bakelite recording of the sea, with a noise in the background that might (or might not) have been your voice.
Actually, the trick of getting a microphone – even if it’s a MEMS array – on a single chip is good, but what’s better, is the new array microphone technology.
It’s an extension of the idea of the two microphones of stereo, taking it up to eight. If you feed the sound from two points into a recorder, the two ears will be able to use the phase differences to concentrate on one sound stream. For example, you can make notes from what the Chairman said, even though your two neighbours were muttering about a donut right next to you.
Digital array microphones, however, are as good as the data stream they’re poured into. Imagine my delight to find that the default setting for OneNote audio recording is eight kilobits per second, mono. I found this out AFTER recording an Important Person at a press conference. I have no idea what he said; all I have is a recording of people coughing and creaking their chairs. I’m sure fellow-recorders have found the same.
Tomorrow, I’ll do you a NoteCast. It will be created using a digital array microphone on a Motion Computing Tablet LE1600 model. I’ll set the audio to CD quality stereo. Not only will it be clear as a bell, but it will be indexed, and you’ll be able to play back each section of the NoteCast simply by touching the indexed bit with your mouse pointer.
Excited? You are? Oh. Darn. I suppose I’d better do the Notecast, then…
Meanwhile you could amuse yourself by preparing by downloading an eval version of OneNote. It works just fine on any ordinary PC – you don’t have to have a Tablet.
A few years ago, you’d be greeted with a blank face or a call to the local psychiatry service if you started going on about ‘listening to your downloaded podcasts’, but figures released from the BBC show how the format is continuing to grow in popularity.
The chart also revealed that nearly two million downloads took place during the BBC podcasting trials over December.
Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive was enthusiastic: “It’s fantastic to see how the demand for radio downloads has grown since we first offered them in 2004. These figures underline the enduring relevance of radio in the digital world.”
UK TV broadcaster Channel 4 is joining the podcast steam train by launching their first podcast presented by the very excellent, Jon Snow, the front-man for the highly-regarded Channel 4 News.
Big Chief, Channel 4’s Chief Executive, Andy Duncan, speaking at the Oxford Media Convention today (19th January), said: “We’re delighted Jon has agreed to present Channel 4’s first podcast. It’s great to be creating a genuine public service offering for new users on different platforms. And, as part of a possible bid for the new DAB national multiplex, it’s important that we start to explore the considerable potential to create cross-over content from the best of Channel 4’s output.” 
Blinkx have unveiled blinx.tv To Go, a new service that helps users track down online video content and then lets them upload it to their iPod or personal video player.
Visitors searching the company’s database of video blogs and podcasts are able to either save the video to their player with a single click, or save the search to a channel which automatically feeds updated video content to their player, where it can be viewed as a single media stream.
“Our vision of IPTV combines the interactive, customisable experience of the Internet, with the simple, seamless way we watch TV, and now we’ve made it portable,” Chandratillake added.
Keen to get their size nines stamped all over the fast-growing podcasting revolution, Yahoo have launched a spanking new podcast service designed to make it easy for punters to rummage through the zillions of audio files available and find the stuff that interest them.
Surfers will also be able to listen to or subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for individual shows, episodes or entire series.
The service will offer a unique feature that lets users find content quicker by speeding up playback without the the broadcaster’s voice sounding like Mickey Mouse on helium.
Unlike rival Podcast search sites, Yahoo! isn’t bundling in tools for creating podcasts at the moment, although that’s likely to happen in the future, with Joe Hayashi, Yahoo!’s director of product management saying, “This is all about discovery for now. Step One is all about growing the ecosystem.
After an encouraging response from listeners, Virgin Radio has announced that it will be making its Sunday afternoon programme ‘The Tim Lovejoy Show’ available as a podcast.
Lovejoy’s sports and entertainment show is broadcast weekly from 4pm to 7pm, and Virgin have said that they’ll make the “best bits” available for consumers to download to their MP3 players from 28th August.
Developed by Nick Bradbury, the smart fella responsible for creating the fabulous Homesite (still our fave HTML editor) and the superb Top Style CSS Editor, FeedDemon 1.5 is a powerful RSS aggregation tool. 
We found this approach intuitive and fast, although users with small monitors may have to indulge in an orgy of scrolling to view all the content in its default layout. 
FeedDemon’s new podcasting tools let news-hungry junkies download audio files and automatically copy them to their iPod (and, notably, other media players) with the bundled FeedStation utility allowing the scheduling of downloads – letting users charge up their iPod with new content while they’re snoozing. 
AOL launches video search service 
Podcast subscriptions have rocketed over the one million mark, with figures from Pew Internet and American Life suggesting that over 6 million Americans – nearly a third of the estimated 22 million owners of MP3 players – have listened to podcasts. 
Life on the Web going to get considerably faster for some denizens of London, thanks to an ultrafast 24Mb broadband connection offered by Be* Unlimited. 
Apple and the Sundance Channel have signed a deal that will make content from the cable network exclusively available as podcast downloads from the Apple iTunes Web site next month, according to AdAge. 
One of the first iTunes podcast features scheduled for download from the Sundance Channel will be The Al Franken Show who is, apparently, an Air America talk show host. 
The feature in AdAge also reports that Sundance will receive Apple’s post-production editing equipment and expertise as part of the barter deal, with the two companies likely to collaborate on the Apple retail level in the future.