Any good primers on podcasting presentations?

Hey,

I just noticed you hadn't received any comments - Kinda sucks!..... Anyway, the following article appeared in Macworld recently and should help you out a little, even if you're PC based - Basically, how to set up a blog with podcasts etc.

HTH, cheers,
Ian

http://www.macworld.com/article/142483/2009/09/challenge_blogger.html

 

wow... there are a ton of options...

but first a few questions.... when you say you want to podcast lectures and presentations...

do you want to film the lecturer and capture the slides live? Do you want to edit it all together later? Will you have access to the presentations electronically later? Do you need video of the presenter or just audio and slides?

Here is a basic set up I used to webcast and archive material later for "podcasts" (downloadable video)....

You run the production like a live TV show. A camera shooting the presenter. Mic him/her with a lav wireless. Run video out from whatever computer they are using for their presentation and from the camera into a switcher and the resulting output to a tape deck or computer for capture (preferably both so if anything happens to either tape or hard drive you have a backup). If your editing software allows for live switching you can use it as your switcher but you will need multiple video inputs. This usually requires some sort of video card specifically designed for video production and the sometimes come with a "breakout box" type of connection box.

I always preferred to capture the presentation live because once its over.... its over. The production is DONE. The only thing left to do is encode it for distribution. No post-production editing. Depending on your budget or expertise for live production this might not be possible. Thats fine, it just means editing work on the back end.

Shoot the presentation with how many ever independent cameras you like. Forget trying to shoot the projector screen to capture the slides shown to the audience, it almost never works out. Get the presentation files and export the slides as graphics and incorporate them using your editing software. Dont do any fancy transitions, cuts only. Wipes and such have a tendency to freak out streaming media encoders. Edit away.



notes on live streaming....

Doing it live you can stream the presentation live out to the net via RealMedia or Windows Media servers. Note, this can get bandwidth and hardware intensive QUICKLY. We used to stream out to over 100 locations and it took several very robust dedicated servers and LARGE pipes out to make it all work. Even at that we didnt allow individuals to log into the streams as it would have easily overwhelmed our end and the receiving ends networks. We treated the streams almost like satelite downlinks. If you wanted to see the presentation you had to go to location that we receiving it and watch in a conference room type setting.



i know I didnt get into options for software and such.... I kinda need to know what type of venue you are working in... live, or "staged".

for "staged" presentations... there used to be a pretty cool little software program that allowed you to point a camera at yourself and switch between you and your presentation slides as you gave the presentation and it recorded the result to a quicktime file. I cant remember the name of it right now... but it takes some doing on the part of the "talent" or the presenter to do it all.

 

Here is a pretty good live streaming solution...

Newtek Tri-Caster
http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/