Spires and Steeples: Podcasting & Godcasting
I manage Princeton’s New Media Center where my staff and I help the entire university community with their multimedia needs. We try to stay one step ahead of their needs by keeping up with the latest software technologies. One of my responsibilities is working with our streaming video team. We videotape and capture our live events as MPEG2 files. We extract the audio track from the file to make our MP3 podcast files.
Podcasting is relatively new. What has your experience with it been?
It’s funny that podcasting has become such a buzzword. At my old church, Nassau Christian Center in Princeton (www.nassauchristian.org) we had been providing sermons as downloads for years. What makes podcasting so appealing today is its ability to keep up with new sermons using an RSS file. That file contains up to date information about each mp3 file. It can also look at your hard drive and help compare the files you have downloaded to the ones that are available.
When podcasting came along, I was given the responsibility to make it happen at Princeton. Now, we have podcasts of politics-related lectures on the University Channel (http://uc.princeton.edu) and I’m working with several companies on converting our thousands of hours of Real Network or Windows Media files into MP3 podcasts.
What has surprised you about podcasting?
We weren’t expecting to have bandwidth issues. In streaming files, you have control of how many streams you can deliver. But if someone subscribes
AOL understands this problem and they have hired Akami to help them with file distribution. Akami has a network of “farm” servers across the country that synch with each other to store audio and video files. When you click on a 30-second sample at the iTunes store and you live in NJ, you are getting that file from an East Coast server and not from Cupertino, CA.
We plan to start small and offer a few sermons as podcasts. One issue for us is media sales. We sell tapes and CDs, so if we give the content away for free on our web site – well, you can see the problem. Today, selling subscriptions to sermons completely weds you to iTunes. Some people don’t like that option.
Will podcasts replaced anything the church was doing in the past – or will this be an enhancement to the “programming” currently offered?
Podcasts have encouraged churches to “go digital” for quality recordings. It is faster and more efficient for a MP3 file to be uploaded to a server immediately after a sermon for instant download than to duplicate tapes or CDs. Music stores and theaters are planning on offering kiosks where movies and music will be available for immediate purchase or download. This service could be offered at churches.
Podcasts allow churches to expand their base of listeners faster than tape and CDs. My favorite church podcast comes from a church I visited in Hawaii called New Hope Christian Fellowship. (http://enewhope.org) I was so impressed with the church’s multimedia ministry that I came home and told several people about the web site. Now I listen to the podcasts of their sermons in my car every week.
Digital recording forces churches to improve the quality of producing their recordings. A good microphone like the ones Shure makes can mean all the difference in delivery of a sermon or lecture. Studies have shown that people will sit through a badly produced video if the audio sounds good. It never works in reverse.
What technical obstacles have you encountered?
Storage of the files. Now that we will be adding another file format, where do we put them? How long do we keep them available for download? How much bandwidth is enough? Can we afford the monthly increase of bandwidth and storage? On the internet, you never know when your file/podcast service will become too popular. At Princeton, we
Where do you go for help?
Another tech podcast I subscribe to is: This Week in Tech http://www.thisweekintech.com/ They are true podcast pioneers. Their podcasts became so popular – they have over a million listeners - that they had to offer multiple formats of their files and put them on multiple servers. They eventually went with AOL/Akamai for delivery.
What’s next, do you think?
VODcasting. And here’s another application where MPEG4 audio and video files can be 10 to 50 times larger than an audio only MP3. Then you really have storage issues.
Any advice for podcasters out there?Start small. Check the bandwidth for your church’s web site before publicizing your plans for podcast. You will get a hefty bill from your hosting company if you clog up their bandwidth. “This Week in Tech’s” first few bills were $2,000 per month. Ouch! If you plan to make a major commitment to podcasting then look at server companies who specialize in podcasting. Here’s a link your readers may find useful: www.724hosting.com/podcasting/
Our readers may want to check out Marlton’s podcast at some point in the future. Can they?
We are hoping to have the podcast section available in next two months at www.marltonag.org
We are grateful to Dave for finding the time in his insanely busy schedule to share his experiences and offer some advice on this emerging medium. If you want to check out Marlton Assembly’s podcasts in the very near future, please visit their site.
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