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Pop!Cast Help What are video podcasts? Video podcasts are videos that are designed to be downloaded automatically for viewing on your computer or portable media player. There are video podcasts on all sorts of topics, including news, entertainment, music and more. Best of all, most video podcasts are available for free! What’s so special about podcasts? Unlike TV, you can watch or listen at your convenience, not just when a program is broadcast. You can subscribe and then use them whenever you want. What do I need to watch them?
• Web access
• Broadband preferred, but not mandatory
• An aggregator (a client software that regularly checks for updates on specified websites and delivers new content to your computer.) Apple Computer’s cross platform, free software “iTunes” is the leading aggregator for both audio and video podcasts. Others include FeedBurner, Odeo, Podcast Pickle. How do I subscribe to Pop!Tech Pop!Casts? iTunes: Open the iTunes program and do a search in the Store for Pop!Tech. Select either the Video or Audio Pop!Casts and hit the button “Subscribe”. The latest podcast will begin automatically downloading to your computer. All future episodes will also be downloaded automatically. To download previously posted Pop!Casts, go to the Library (in the left-most column of the iTunes Store) and select Podcasts. You’ll see “Pop!Tech Pop!Cast Videos” listed. Click on the arrow to pop-down the complete list, and then select your Pop!Cast(s) for downloading by clicking on the “Get” button next to each episode. Other Aggregator: Open your third party aggregator and follow their instructions. When you are prompted to enter the RSS feed follow these steps: Copy the URL of your choice (video or audio): http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/rss/popcasts_video_rss.xml
http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/rss/popcasts_audio_rss.xml Enter this URL into your aggregator. You’re now subscribed to the Pop!Tech Pop!Casts.
(See how to subscribe to an RSS feed, below, if you have any difficulty with subscribing to Pop!Tech Pop!Casts through other aggregators.
How do I share these podcasts?
On the Pop!Tech Pop!Casts websites, there are two options for sharing the content. Identify which podcast you would like to share and select “Watch Now”. A new window will open and below the video player is a button that says “Linking Options”. Select the button and choose between the two options. “Link to this page” gives you the URL to that specific Pop!Cast which you can email to friends and colleagues. “Embed Video” gives you the HTML code for the video and the Yahoo! video player to add directly to your website or blog.
Will Pop!Casts work on my video iPod?
Yes, all video Pop!Casts are formatted as mp4 files and are compatible with video iPods. Similarly, all audio Pop!Casts (mp3 files) will work on most portable media players. If you have issues getting them to play on your iPod, Apple offers a "convert for iPod" function. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304680 Is there a fee to subscribe to Pop!Tech Pop!Casts?
No. All Pop!Casts are available completely free of charge. Do I need an iPod or MP3 player to subscribe/listen to Pop!Casts?
No, you don’t need an MP3 player to listen to the Pop!Casts. You can listen to them right on your computer! Why are there only a small number of presentations available for download?
We are currently only releasing selected presentations, but are continually adding more to the podcast archive. What is an RSS feed?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a web format used to publish frequently updated sites like blogs, news websites and/or podcasts. To use an RSS feed from a Web site, you use your aggregator. Feeds can also be added to some Web pages like My Yahoo!, Newsgator, Bloglines, etc. You can subscribe to RSS feeds in a number of ways: • Drag the orange RSS button into your News Reader
• Drag the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
• Cut and paste the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
• Click on the appropriate News Reader button to the right of the RSS feed.
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