93: Voices of PodCamp Toronto, another PAB2008 sponsor and Zero to Podcasted
We’re back from PodCamp Toronto, recharged and ready to podcast and connect with the community. Watch out… here comes PAB2008!
- Audio comment from Linda Mills
- Skype recording tutorial from Podcast Academy
- PodCamp Toronto and Zero to Podcasting recap (session videos available)
- Email from Marko Kulik (pets.ca and photography.ca)
- Whitney Hoffman loaned us a Telos One
- Email from Sean McGaughey
- Email from Kyra Aylsworth of Thornley Fallis Communications – new Century Club members are Hull on Estate and Succession Planning, Hull on Estates and Inside PR
- Email on Apple TV from DJ Max (click on read more, below, to see the entire text of the email)
- Jeff Parks of IA Consultants has sponsored PAB2008
- Last chance to submit speaking proposals for PAB2008 – March 1 is the deadline
- Registration opens up March 15
TALK OF THE WEEK
- Audio comment from Sean McGaughey
- Recap of Zero to Podcasting
- Audio created during the Zero to Podcasting workshop by the participants
EXTRO AND CONTACT INFO
- website: www.CanadianPodcastBuffet.ca
- email: canadianpodcastbuffet@gmail.com
- facebook group: Canadian Podcast Buffet
- feedback: +1-267-220-3701
- forums: CPB and PAB
- wiki: canadianpodcastbuffet.ca/wiki
Email from DJ Max…
Hi, guys. I thought I’d send in my opinions of Apple TV since you were talking about it and wondered how good it is. First of all, I’ve always thought Apple was trying to put an end to Podcasting by taking it over with iTunes. It’s the worst Podcatcher ever, but no one else seems to be interested in creating a better one.
I’ve had an Apple TV since they first came out. They’re like most Apple products. A good idea with the miinimum amount of features that seem to keep the Cupertino Cult Members happy, but drive the rest of us nuts. The lack of a reset button was a minor annoyance with version 1 & 1.1, but it’s a lot worse with Take 2. The earlier version would freeze up and if you’re lucky, it would reset itself. If not, I’d have to unplug the power and plug it back in. That’s a great way to wear it or burn it out, so Apple is doing something right. As we fry our Apple TVs and feel like we can’t live without it, we go buy another one and Apple makes a lot of cash. With Take 2, the Apple TV acts more like a Mac. It doesn’t like staying connected wirelessly, so iTunes often tells me it’s not responding and the only way to get it to respond is to disconnect the power. Since this happens maybe 4-5 times a day, they’ll get fried a lot faster. I can’t network it with an ethernet cable, so I’m stuck with doing it this way. It would have been good if they had included a reboot feature. The only thing they have is to reset some of the features or set it to factory default, which apparently brings it back to version 1. It did that with version 1.1, but I’m not sure about Take 2. I hope it doesn’t go back to version 1 from Take 2.
When the Apple TV came out, they were pretty much useless for Canadians. We couldn’t buy movies or TV shows, so it was just a way to play Podcasts and music on TV, which could just be done with most computers. The first time it became useful for Canadians is when they added YouTube, but the cursor was impossible to control when adding your login info or for searching videos. It couldn’t move down a line, so I’d have to move the cursor up and make a run for the line I wanted and hope it stopped there. This little bug is the only reason I was looking forward to Take 2 and to my delight, that was fixed. There are also some other YouTube features added that makes that feature more useful.
I also like the Flickr feature. The Catfish Show Flickr account was the first I added, since that was the only Flickr account I knew about. I added mine, but most of my pictures were set to private, so all I could see from my account was a tribute graphic to our old cat, DandyLion. Sometimes it’s nice to have a slide show going on our big screen with Frank Zappa, Kim Mitchell or Max Webster playing in the background.
As for Podcasts, I am one of those people who listens to audio Podcasts on my TV. We’re mostly a laptop household and laptop speakers are too pathetic, so I might as well play them on the TV. This is another feature they cheaped out on. I’d love to choose a Podcast and have it play all episodes in order. It would come in handy for short Podcasts, such as Comedy4Cast or Podictionary, but no. I have to select the episode I want to hear, play it and then choose the next one and keep going on until I get tired of selecting each one or I’m finished listening. Adding a Party Shuffle or On The Go type playlist would be great.
Now that Canadians can purchase a limited number of TV shows with the Apple TV, it’s fairly useful for us, if you like the shows they offer, but there’s something else that makes it even more useful for Canadians, but it has nothing to do with Apple. I mostly use Apple TV to watch TV shows I’ve recorded with Beyond TV now that BTV has added support for transcoding to H.264 and presets for Apple TV and iPods. I don’t quite use it the way Snapstream intended because I edit out the commercials before transcoding it. It’s also designed to be a Podcast server (give iTunes an RSS feed and it’ll get all the shows that BTV has transcoded and send them to the Apple TV or iPod), but since I’m subscribed to over 200 Podcasts, I don’t want my TV shows lost in there, so I do it the hard way and they end up in the TV Shows section. I really wish I could get a video camera and do a segment on PVRs for my Podcast.
Overall, I do recommend the Apple TV, especially if you’re used to the way Apple does things and don’t mind all the common sense features left out of all their products or if you want a way to watch TV shows you’ve recorded wiith a home-made PVR or TiVo through an HDMI or Component cable.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (27.5MB)
