A glossary of podcasting terms

Publish

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:02:03 GMT

To quickly share news about a new audio, enhanced or video podcast, information is included within an RSS feed and published to the internet. People are then able to subscribe to the RSS feed. If they have used settings in their RSS reader or podcatcher, this can be set to automatically check the RSS feed for updates and download the latest podcast.

M4B

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:21:25 GMT

This is a MPEG-4 format, usually used for compressing audio books but sometimes used to create enhanced podcasts - podcasts with audio and digital images. Currently, there are relatively few podcasts published in this particular format.

Vodcast

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:46:29 GMT

This is the shortened version of the term "video podcast" and refers to a podcast in a compressed movie format , often containing a combination of animation sequences, moving images and sound.

M4A

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:22:23 GMT

This is a MPEG-4 format and used for compressing audio podcasts as well as enhanced podcasts - podcasts with audio and digital images. Unless specific reference to the nature of the podcast is included in the RSS feed description (or sometimes an image in podcast directories) then you will not know whether the podcast is just in audio format or enhanced format until it is downloaded.

Enclosure

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is a means of including details about a podcast within a RSS feed. For example, an enclosure would include information about the URL of the podcast, it's MIME type and the length of the file.

MIME

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

Stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - an Internet Standard. MIME is a key component of communication protocols such as HTTP, which requires that data be transmitted in the context of e-mail-like messages, even though the data may not actually be e-mail.

The MIME type is allocated by a webserver to indicate the format of a stored file. Occasionally, the MIME types may not have been updated on the webserver to produce the correct MIME type.

RSS

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

Stands for Really Simple Syndication and is based on XML protocols for the easy exchange of data and information according to pre-defined potocols.

Podcasters use RSS feeds as a simple method for posting information on the internet about podcasts. These RSS feeds are based on the RSS 2.0 specification, which included an enclosure to provide the neccesary information about the podcast.

XML

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

Stands for Extensible Markup Language. This is a general-purpose markup language recommended by the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) and is used to describe many different kinds of data. RSS is based on XML and often the terms are common and can be taken as interchangeable.

Enhanced podcast

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is a podcast that can contain audio, chapters, images and web links. The two commonly used formats for enhanced podcasts are M4A and M4B.

Audio format

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This refers to the format of the compressed audio used in a podcast. The main audio format is MP3 but others include M4A - sometimes referred to as AAC (Advanced Audio Coding).

Video format

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This refers to the format of the compressed video used in a podcast. There are many different video formats used in podcasts and the most widely used include MOV, MP4 and M4V.

Validation

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This term is often associated with the validation of RSS feeds. In essence, this is a means of checking whether the content is well formed and meets the relevant specification, in this case against the RSS 2.0 specification.

Enclosure tag

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

The enclosure tag contains information about the URL of the podcast, the length of the file (in bytes) and it's MIME type in the form of attributes.

Note that the enclosure tag does not provide any other information and is, therefore, usually written in the form shown above. Including the "/" character towards the end of the tag is short hand notation to save writing an end tag.

Tag pairs

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

These are used in RSS or XML feeds to describe data or information, as in these two examples:

<title>This is the title of our podcast</title>
<description>Artwork for the podcast channel</description>

MP3

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This acronym is shorthand for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. This has become the most popular and ubiquitous digital audio encoding and compression format used by podcasters because it has been designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to exchange audio.

Different compression rates and methodologies can be applied to the original audio file to achieve a smaller file size. An MP3 audio file compressed in mono is half the size of a stereo file and is ideal for podcasts featuring, for example, discussion and commentary.

Enhanced format

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

There are two commonly used formats for creating enhanced podcasts - M4A and M4B. The M4A format was originally devised for use with audio books, the M4B for podcasts. In practice, these have now become interchangeable.

Video podcast

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This term is a combination of audio with moving images. Images may be based on pre-recoreded and edited video or animation sequences. In some cases, a video podcast may be referred to as a "vidcast" or "vodcast".

Audio podcast

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is usually based on vocals with some sound effects and music. The main audio formats used in podacsting are MP3 and M4A (sometimes referred to as AAC).

UTF-8

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This stands for 8-bit Unicode Transformation Format. This is commonly used as the format for saving a RSS or XML feed becuase it can represent any universal character found in the Unicode standard.

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is a process term associated with a RSS feed to automatically receive information about new podcasts posted on the internet. Depending on the settings used in RSS readers or podcatchers, the latest podcast may also be automatically downloaded to your computer.

RSS reader

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is a piece of software that will "read" and display the contents of RSS or XML feeds. There are different versions of RSS readers for different operating systems and some are free to download and install on your computer. Sometimes this software is referred to as a "podcatcher".

Podcatcher

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is an alternative term to describe a piece of software that will "read" and display the contents of RSS or XML feeds. There are different versions of "podcatchers" for different operating systems and some are free to download and install on your computer.

MOV

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This acronym is one of the formats used for video podcasts, based on a codec used by the QuickTime. QuickTime is multimedia software that is used to display synchronized graphics, sound, video, text and music. Produced by Apple Computer Inc. the software is available in versions for Mac OS and Windows.

MP4

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is one of the formats used for video podcasts, based on a codec used by the QuickTime. This codec is part of the MPEG-4, a global multimedia standard.

QuickTime is multimedia software that is used to display synchronized graphics, sound, video, text and music. Produced by Apple Computer Inc. the software is available in versions for Mac OS and Windows.

M4V

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This is one of the formats used for video podcasts, based on a codec used by the QuickTime. This codec is part of the MPEG-4, a global multimedia standard introduced to provide optimised video podcasts for the video iPod ®.

QuickTime is multimedia software that is used to display synchronized graphics, sound, video, text and music. This was introduced Produced by Apple Computer Inc. the software is available in versions for Mac OS and Windows.

Podcast channel

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:32:36 GMT

This term is similar to the notion of a radio, satellite or TC channel - except that the podcast channel is identified by the title included in the RSS feed published on the internet.

A glossary of podcasting terms

Publish

M4B

Vodcast

M4A

Enclosure

MIME

RSS

XML

Tags

Enhanced podcast

Audio format

Video format

Validation

Enclosure tag

Tag pairs

MP3

Enhanced format

Video podcast

Audio podcast

UTF-8

Subscribe

RSS reader

Podcatcher

MOV

MP4

M4V

Podcast channel