Apr 09 2008
Enhanced podcasts with Garageband: part 1
Enhanced Podcasts with Garageband are a powerful way for you or your students to create some projects that are rich with content. Here is a quote from the Apple web-site:
Enhancing Your Podcast Episode with Artwork and Chapters
Podcasts are about more than just audio. You can also include artwork and links to websites to enrich the meaning of your content. And you can create chapters so your audience can move between the sections of your episode.
Below is an example of an Enhanced Podcast I created. Watch it one time straight through (it’s less than 30 seconds);
then watch it again and pause along the way to access links or move between chapters and see how an Enhanced Podcast described above looks and feels.
Since Garageband podcasts are optimized for viewing in iTunes, Enhanced Podcasts with links to websites and chapters will look different when uploaded as m4v files (see my post on how to do this). Here are some screen shots comparing an Enhanced Podcast in iTunes and the one above embedded into Edublogs.
First, a screen shot from iTunes.
And here is what the links look like when uploaded and embedded as an m4v file:
Either way, when you click on the link in iTunes or an m4V file, if you are connected to the internet, your browser will open and take you to the web-site you have designated.
Here’s how chapters look in an Enhanced Podcast in iTunes:
Chapters in m4v files look different:
Chapters allow you to go to a specific sections in your podcast. Very handy for a long podcast that needs some indexing.
A final note about appearance: with Garageband, any artwork you have loaded into your podcast track will look “normal” when played back or “shared” out to iTunes. For some reason, when you upload a podcast as an m4v file here in Edublogs, the pictures are a bit “distorted” or may look slightly pixelated.
I have been able to upload Garageband podcasts to Ourmedia.org without this problem. See my Enhanced Podcast here without distortion:
Enhanced Garageband Podcast
More about video sharing sites and podcasts in Part 2…
Related Posts:
Getting your Garageband podcasts to work with Edublogs and other video hosting sites
Garageband Tip01 of several: Burn to CD without using share to iTunes
“Not that loop again, and again…”: Using Garageband responsibly to create music for your digital projects.
