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A video podcast on the Crab Nebula by NASA

Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures. The term is used to distinguish between podcasts which most commonly contain audio files and those referring to the distribution of video where the RSS feed is used as a non-linear TV channel to which consumers can subscribe using a PC, TV, set-top box, media center or mobile multimedia device. Web television series are often distributed as video podcasts.

However, the term podcast has from its inception described the distribution of digital media files, including video and audio via RSS enclosures and hence the terms video podcast, vodcast, and less commonly vidcast, are redundant.

[edit] Technology and history

From a web server, a video podcast can be distributed as a file or as a stream. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Downloading complete video podcasts in advance gives the user the ability to play the video podcasts offline on, for example, a portable media player. A downloaded version can be watched many times with only one download, reducing bandwidth costs in this case. Streaming allows seeking (skipping portions of the file) without downloading the full video podcast, better statistics and lower bandwidth costs for the servers; however, users may have to face pauses in playback caused by slow transfer speeds.

A podcast client may work with a separate, or integrated player. One such example of the latter is iTunes, which is an unusual case of a web feed aggregator being added to a media player rather than vice versa.

[edit] Timeline

• On 31 October 2003^[1] Canadian film collective Rocket Ace Moving Pictures launches the serialized web-based video zombie comedy project Dead End Days at DeadEndDays.com while referred to by its creators as a "web-serial" throughout 2003 and 2004, it is adopted by the podcast community as a progenitor.^[2] The creators retroactively add RSS features to the site.

• On 1 January 2004 Steve Garfield launches his video blog and declares that 2004 would be the year of the video blog.^[3][4]

• On October 1 2005 Terra: The Nature of Our World launched making it the first Natural History video podcast. It is produced in conjunction with the MFA program in Science & Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State University, Filmmakers for Conservation, and PBS.^[5]

• On October 14 2005 Steve Jobs introduced the new "iPod with video" at the Keynote speech of Macworld 2005. The Video podcasts Tiki Bar TV and Rocketboom are mentioned, and Jobs shows a brief clip of Tiki Bar TV to the audience. The image of Kevin Gamble, one of the co-creators of Tiki Bar TV, is featured on Apple's homepage for a month next to U2's Bono.

• On June 8 2006, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, launched her video podcast via the Chancellor's website, making her the first head of government to issue a regular video podcast.^[6]

• On December 16, 2006, Time magazine named its Person of the Year as "You", referring to independent content creators on the web and video podcasters in particular. Crash Test Kitchen, a video podcast begun in April 2005 by home cooks Waz and Lenny, was featured in the magazine as an example of this phenomenon. The magazine itself was a distinctive issue that featured a flexible mirror on the cover.

• On April 13, 2007, the British panel game Have I Got News for You started to broadcast a vodcast called Have I Got News for You: The Inevitable Internet Spin-off. The first HIGNFY vodcast was presented by Jeremy Clarkson.

• May 10, 2007, Feed Me Bubbe featured in The Wall Street Journal by Jessica E. Vascellaro who wrote an article, discussing "Feed Me Bubbe" that was distributed by The AP Datastream ("Using Youtube for posterity," May 10, 2007)

• Another British panel game, QI, also announced that it would create a vodcast, starting in Series E. However, this was changed into a set of "Quickies", not downloadable and only viewable from the BBC website.^[7]

• On November 25, 2007, Neil Fairbrother was featured in the Sunday Observer's Courvoisier Future 500 for creating pod3.tv, a web TV channel that creates and distributes TV shows as video podcasts.

[edit] See also

• Podcast
• Screencast
• Web television

[edit] Video podcast software

• Miro (software)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• videopodcasts.tv (directory of video podcast directories)