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Podcasting from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
AttheCoalFace writes "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is piloting a podcast availability project. Quirks & Quarks, an hour-long weekly science review, is offered in the first, small list of programs." Q&Q is a great show, too.
Do they include sounds effects of all the information in the show going right over my head?
The Denial of Service Attack? As opposed to a Denial of Service Attack? What makes this one so special?
It's an interesting concept, much like a news-on-command type of system where you can basically get the media feed you want any time you want it. However, because of the limitations in compression and the limitations in bandwidth, each podcast media file is simply too large for the average dial-up internet user. Text files of a few kilobytes can be downloaded relatively quickly, but a media file of several hundred kilobytes will be prohibitively expensive in terms of bandwidth.
Naturally, once the file is downloaded, that cost disappears. So the key is to make the download cost negligble, but in terms of download time it is still pretty rough for all those 56K-ers out there.
Brave new waves as a podcast. I love that show but it is very hard for me to catch.
Fuck off Alberta.
Q & Q Archive hours of interesting stuff.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
While I am out, lumberjacking and hunting for caribou, out of reach of radio.
Note: I am Canadian. I'm allowed to make fun of my self.
And Quirks and Quarks is such a nice alliterative name.
As is the ABC. And the BBC is doing it too.
I have an iPod - first gen - but maybe I am an atypical user? I have absolutely no interest in podcasts. Who listens to those? People who have to ride the train every day (or have some other enforced period of inactivity)? I use my iPod when biking and at the gym but I don't walk around (or drive around) with it plugged into my head.
Podcasts are cool as an idea - but I would rather speedread the article or whatever - or listen to music.
Of course, with all the music, getting liscence to put it in a downloadable form is a lot harder than to brodcast it online, afaik. Of course, the artists on BNW actually WANT to be heard...
I have freaks! I did something right...
Wow, that must be a real funny joke, since I don't get it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4566059.stm
BBC podcast trial http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/downloadtrial/
BBC Collective guide to podcasting http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A3847737
>>Brave new waves as a podcast
I was thinking the same thing. Brave new waves, DNTO, and "madly off" would be cool. Quirks and Quarks is a good start though.
Hopefully they extend the pilot
http://request-header.info
Yet Another Waist of the Net
CNET is starting to do trial podcasts. i just can't seem to imagine willingly downloading something to my ipod, listening to it once, and then syncing my ipod just to remove it.
the way i see this - it's just another means for TPTB (The Powers That Be) to create something and convince the public they need it so they can eventually try to charge money for it.
no thanks. i'll just keep using my ipod for its intended purpose - music.
nature loves variety::society hates it get your variety at http://www.monkeypantz.net
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been trialling podcasting for a few weeks now. DIG, an Internet only station has podcasting (http://www.abc.net.au/dig/podcast/), Triple J, a youth orientated station (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/listen/podcast.htm) and Radio National, content orientated to older audiences (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/listen/podcast.htm) are all running trials for podcasting. Good to see the Candian public broadcasters are joining the Aussies ;)
I always wondered where this setting was...
Quirks and Quarks is excellent as is Northern Lights and Dispatches and Ideas and tons of other shows that are directed at an above average IQ listener. They are federally funded and unencumbered by the requirement to "have the numbers" and don't have to stoop to the lowest common denominator.
BBC is often hailed as the pinnacle of independent jounralism but I find their broadcasts have a very condescending patronizing bias when they report from "lesser" places such as Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa. Somehow, CBC manages to bring lots of news from all over the world while avoiding that annoying condescending tone that permeates the Beeb.
You can listen to CBC live. The links are on their website.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
but I couldn't find out what kind of software I need for this xml and podcasting to work, can anyone enlighten me?
Ok, so I've been listening to that podcast for about a month... why is this suddenly news on SlashDot?
Since we're on the subject of podcasting...
/. masses?
What is the preferred podcast client of the
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
The first link on google for "podcast" or "podcasting" is to iPodder.
Not only that, but the page itself (linked to from the story) has a link to iPodder and instructions.
What the heck did you search for, "magic software device that will allow my computer to recieve podcasts through the vast super information highway"?
How much more mac does there need to be in the world? Back in the good ol' days we used to call this sort of thing archiving (! The wiki page doesn't even contain the word, so I must really be extinct by now). Pretty soon we'll just get pod-ears (tm) and then we will never have to listen to another moment of unscheduled audio... EVER!
Streamripper is a great way to archive your own content if your broadcaster of choice can't afford to serve what you want on demand.
UBU
Still, nice to see a fellow aussie /.'er reminding the world that they are catching up to our national broadcaster :-)
You know, if you had been logged in, you would have become my friend.
One of the radio stations I work for (see http://ksl.com/) is still the only real radio station I know of that makes large portions of its own daily programming available in podcast format.
Quirks and Quarks has been on the air as long as I can remember, first with another host that does CBC work still, but Bob McDonald has done the radio show for about the last decade. Before that you could find him hosting Wonderstruck, a science program for kids shown on CBC Saturday morning TV, and was definitely on par with Bill Nuye the Science Guy shows. Bob also does science segments on The National, Canada's nightly nationally broadcast news on CBC's primary station available to nearly anyone with a TV set.
Q&Q has been available online in Real Audio format since about 1997, and you can find a great deal of very interesting and informative stuff in the CBC archives. If you've not been listening to Q&Q for the last 15 years, you've got a lot of 1 hour, comercial free shows to catch up on.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Montreal? Hahahahahahahahahaha
Note: I am American. I'm allowed to make fun of you.
Best spelling flame ever.
Now for the DBC through the ZBC to follow suit.
I thought I was bad about sticking computer/unix/programming stuff into "normal" conversation, but even I've never confused sed for said.
While I'm sure these are terrific shows, it seems a shame that the for the pilot they chose "geek" shows. It's like the profiled the "kind of people who might manage this tricky technology", narrowly profiled their interests, and gave them something targeted to that stereotype.
I love the way the BBC's trial is wide-ranging in the scope of its programming: there's sport, film review, current affairs, history, documentary, as well as science and technology.
By podcasting "In Our Time" (sample topic: Imperialism and Archaeology), the BBC potentially brings tech geeks to history, and history geeks to technology, broadening everyone's horizons.
Come on.... MP3 players have been out for quite a while. Ppl were downloading music b4 the iPOD. All of a sudden Apple markets an MP3 player and all MP3 players start to be compared to the iPOD and iTunes...
I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but this is kind of old news. The BBC podcast has been going on since the beginning of '05. And the CBC podcast trials are at least three months old as well.
The CBC radio content is great (and no commercials) so getting this content in podcasts would be fantastic.
A few months ago I was looking for an episode of the program 'ideas' that I had missed. I e-mailed the CBC asking whether they might make this stuff available as a podcast. Here is there response, but please don't hold the CBC to anything in this e-mail. Don't make them regret being so detailed and honest in their response...
"Thank you for taking the time to write to us.
There are a series of legal, financial and resource issues which have forced CBC Radio to change its policy about offering audio files on-line, after a program has aired. These issues have to do with copyright, contractual agreements, bandwidth and staff resources. For example, the musicians association would like to be compensated if we play their music on our website - understandable, but expensive. And so at this time CBC Radio has decided that resources need to go into programming rather than into websites.
We are also frustrated by this decision. We'd like to have as many people as possible listen to our programs.
We have begun to post programs which are clear of music rights/copyright issues. However, there are few IDEAS programs that fall into this category. We use short pieces of music in most of our documentaries, most of which is mixed under narration. We have been told by our business affairs department that any piece of music, of any length, that is posted on-line, needs to have a music license agreement with the music publisher. To acquire music licenses to post these programs would fall well outside of what our show budget can afford. Other programs like Quarks & Quarks can post their programs because any recorded music is cut out of the show. This is easily done for talk/interview format programs.
One of the reasons other broadcasters like the BBC and NPR post their audio on-line is that public that they have different agreements with the different stake holders (ie, Unions).
Our legal and business affairs staff are doing what they can to resolve these issues, and we hope that we will be able to continue the on-line service in the future.
We do offer audio copies and transcripts for sale, but I hasten to add that this is a service, not a profitable business. The fee covers the costs of employing the small staff that makes the copies and fills the orders. Any extra money goes directly back into radio programming. I have been told that some of our programs will be available for download, for a fee, by puretracks.com in the future.
So, again our apologies. We hope to be able to offer more of our programs for on-line listening in the near future."
Télévision Radio-Canada, the french equivalent of CBC TV, has been putting a TV show called Enjeux, a social issues TV show, online for the last 4 years. It's a really good show. Too bad the recent budget cuts by our government in state-financed television is going to cut the number of episodes from 22 to 8 next year. For the non french impaired, click here. It has most of the episodes online.
As a DVD purchaser, my quality of life is in ruin. DVD movies just keep getting worse and worse. I find that I cannot locate even half of the amount of DVDs that are worth purchasing as I did last year. I have been able to survive for years by buying classics, but alas it looks like it is at an end. Everyday I ask myself, "WHY!!!!"
So in the end, perhaps the problem is a little less about the "copyright infringement" than it is that the large media companies have been putting out great big steaming piles of crap. I think the infringing is wrong, but unfortunately it will always be there. That is why we have a "fee" on all CD and DVD blank media we buy.
I feel real problem is that because of the stranglehold that corporations have exerted over copyright law, there is no way to innovate on our culture's ideas. Everything that could be done has been done and now sits locked up in someone's copyrighted work.
by bizzaro Canada (Australia) doing it first, aren't they behind?
Swedish state controlled radio are also jumping on the podcasting train:
http://sr.se/podradio
CBC's Audience Relations department is critical in gauging a project like this as successful or not. Why don't we all contact and thank them for doing this. Contact them here: http://www.cbc.ca/contact/index.jsp I also encouraged them to experiment by broadening beyond science/technology shows to their flagship shows. Every response they get will be read by the read people responsbile for this project.
Sorry this is impacting you badly, however change happens and it seems these days change is happening faster. I work with business owners who face similar changes and I have some advice:
1. recheck who your customers are and what they want - ask your customers what they buy and where
2. recheck "reality" (it changes too) - with P2P a huge amount of indy material will become available for free - not pirated - free - you could be in an impossible situation
3. review the strengths that you have - good ethical employees - established business - name recognition - place in the community - and consider how you might re-focus these strengths to serve you customers and the community better
4. ask your employees - tell them what is happening and what you wish you could do - they are in direct contact at levels different than you and may provide really valuable insight
You did say this to yourself already, "Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know." It is time you found out.
Good luck.
ps Being a response to a parent modded "Offtopic" might get this modded down, which is "ok" as I am just trying to help this guy - having seen this situation dozens of times before.
pps Idea for a new series, Desparate Shopowners.
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
This Week in Science is another good science podcast to check out. The hosts are pretty entertaining and pick cool science topics that they procede to rant about like deranged weasels.
I've been listening to the podcast for the last few months and it looks like they also have a couple years of older shows archived for download too. http://www.twis.org/
> Sorry this is impacting you badly,
It's a troll, the same bullshit, same wording, pops up every time something remotely concerning IP is brought up.