2008 Podcasts

Podcasts Help

What is a "podcast"?

A podcast is now really a catch all term for what is essentially a large mp3 file. An mp3 file is simply a smaller and more compressed version of normal music or sound files (commonly in WAV format). It was begun as a concept by apple as downloads for their mp3 player "Ipod" - hence podcast. It has rather passed into general parlance in the same way that we call a vacuum cleaner a "Hoover"! However, these files can be played on any computer with a media player (such as Windows Media Player, Itunes etc.) a pair of headphones or speakers and a sound card installed (most computers have one of these when you buy it). They can also be played on any mp3 player - you do not have to own an Ipod. You would simply download the files onto your player in the normal way.

What about quality?

Because we do not want the files to be too large, these podcasts are compressed to 112kbps. This means that there is a decent sound quality to them but they are not huge files. Much depends on the quality of your player of course but you should have no problems with the quality - certainly of the speech content. The music volume is quite low so as to avoid distortion.

How do I download/listen to them?

You can listen to them on your computer or put them onto your mp3 player. Before you do anything you need to save them to you computer. To do this:

• Right click the podcast link (use the button on the right of your mouse)
• Select "Save target as". You then need to select where you want to save it. You can save it to you desktop or create a new folder.
• The file will begin to download. How long this takes depends on the speed of your internet connection and your computer.
• When it has downloaded you can import it into your itunes library or simply go to the file, double click it and the file will open in your default music/media player.