Book: Podcast solutions, the complete guide to audio and video podcasting

I’ve actually had this book on my bookshelf for a while now and recently had to dip into it again for information. I’ve found it to be a useful resource so I thought I’d post a review.

The book contains the following chapters:

1. Podcasting 101
2. Watching and listening to podcasts
3. Podcasting how-to
4. Planning your podcast
5. Audio podcasting tools
6. Recording an audio podcast
7. Assembling sound
8. Video podcast production
9. Preparing your file
10. Serving it up
11. Getting heard
12. Making money with podcasting

“Podcasting 101″ provides a very good short overview of what podcasting is, where it came from and touches on how it works. It’s a useful overview for anyone who’s interested in just knowing what a podcast is regardless of whether they want to start creating their own. Likewise, “Watching and Listening to Podcasts” is useful to those who only want to be podcast “consumers”. These two chapters, although useful, are extremely small and the rest of the book is devoted to providing information to people who want to get out there and start making their own podcasts.

From the table of contents, it’s easy to see that the book covers the entire podcast production process from planning, through recording and editing, to distribution and marketing. As well as providing a wealth of technical information about which hardware and software to buy (do you know the difference between a dynamic and a condenser microphone?), there’s good advice and information on what might be seen to be the more neglected areas such as planning and structuring the podcast and copyright. Although the book is not aimed specifically at the education sector the advice on planning and structuring a compelling podcast is still very relevant. The section on publicity and marketing and making money out of podcasting is probably the least relevant to those in education. These sections are a relatively small part of the book though.

The sections on recording and production provide a lot of useful how-to advice, for instance the video podcasting section includes lots of tips on how to make things look professional like using different “shots” and leaving enough headroom at the top of the frame. Obviously this is not going to make the amateur podcaster into an Oscar winning film director, in some situations it may be best to hire someone who really knows what they’re doing in this area. However, for those of us who are just trying to create some useful material without hiring a film crew, the advice given should help avoid some of the more obvious amateur errors and make for a slightly more professional product.

Although the book is firmly aimed at the “non-geek”, there are areas of the book that can get quite technical e.g. the “Preparing your file” chapter discusses things like file formats and encoding. I have a computing background but know little about the nitty-gritties of multimedia so I actually really liked this chapter. So, technical details are definately present in the book but they are well explained.

The style of the book is also quite jokey and informal and I found it enjoyable to read as well as useful to have on my desk when I needed to decide what microphone to buy.

Photo credit

jschneid (John Schneider) on flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/85941395@N00/1199679274/

One Response to “Book: Podcast solutions, the complete guide to audio and video podcasting”

1. Mike says:

   16 July 2009 at 8:01pm

   This is a great intro to podcasting!

   Being new to the whole scene it is important for me to gain some foundation research. I have also done some research regarding podcast directories and where you can submit a podcast for free. I came across this helpful blog – “Submit a Podcast – Top 30 Podcast Directories on the Web.”
   (http://info.dailysplice.com/blog/)

   These are very good quality sites and the blog provides links and information regarding the ease of use for every website. Very convenient for new poddies!