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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?
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.
It's not really a podcast or anything, and it's in RealAudio format, but BNW occasionally has some interesting things on their online media page.
As is the ABC. And the BBC is doing it too.
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
Not if they use AAC/16kbit mono.
;-)
#1, that codec and that bit rate sound absolutely fantastic considering the available bandwidth.
#2, an hour long program is only about 8mb in size, so it will only take about 10 mins. to download on a dialup.
Of course, it would limit the audience to only those players that already supported the MP4-Audio/AAC OPEN format.
To get an equivalent sounding MP3 you'll need to encode at 32kbps which will more than double the file size.
But, since I already own an iPod, I guess it's not a problem for me.
That's why you use a Podcasting client to download it late at night or during some other downtime. Granted, it means dialing up, but... well... if you're on 56k, you've got to know you're going to either have crappy media or have to jump through hoops for better-quality media.
Be happy it's not streaming.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
*cough*BitTorrent*cough*
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
10min to download 8mb??? When was the last time you used dialup? My average when I use it at my parents house is about 20min to download 4-5mb.
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
Yet Another Waist of the Net
Personally I thought OSDN was the waist, and Slashdot was the anus. Google is, of course, the nipples.
I'm not trying to "make you a believer" or anything, this is just my reason for being a podcast fan.
I listened to them at work... granted, I felt like the only one pushing for more on-computer frendliness to Podcasts and less iPod/Tunes centrism... but anyhow, I had a job that consisted of color-correcting, removing blemishes, and tweaking an entire image archive in Photoshop. The brain was flatlining, but the eyes were completely in use, so I couldn't do all the mindless web-surfing to keep a healthy, sane mind. Podcasting came as a real relief, because I could find content about the boring crap I found interesting (IT, scripting, web, RPGs... general geek fare) while still staying productive.
Really, I think the best audience is people who have something monotonous or primarily physical to do, such as exersize or work, but want something with more meat than music.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
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.
Now for the DBC through the ZBC to follow suit.
How much more mac does there need to be in the world?
Podcasting requires neither Mac, iTunes nor iPod.
Any MP3 player will do, and it's in the RSS that the magic lies.
There are key differences between podcasting and archival:
(1) A podcast is not necessarily kept available long term.
(2) A podcast is meant to "magically" appear on your portable MP3 player as part of your routine syncing/charging activity.
I don't like the name either -- it wrongly implies reliance on an iPod, and gives Apple free marketing -- but I think we're pretty much stuck with it now.
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.
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."