MacMost Now 121: Video Podcasting Secrets

Gary Rosenzweig shares some of his best tips for creating a video podcast. Advice about green screens, HD, editing, community and motivation.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now, today I want to share with you some of my secrets of video podcasting. 
So, I've got fourteen tips to share with you if you're a video podcaster. Some of these may seem obvious but hopefully they'll be a little something to help everybody out. Okay so, tip number one is use a real camera. Now, a lot of people that do video podcasting tend to use webcams or the built in eye sight, but there really is no substitute for a real camcorder. It doesn't have to be super expensive, but a real camcorder has better lenses and better capability to transfer the video to digital. Then you can feed that into your computer, or just record it on to tape and feed it into your computer later. So nowadays everybody wants high definition and it's cheap to get a HD camera and it works with all editing software, but it can take a lot longer to edit and render video in high definition. So I recommend recording in HD but also doing your editing in standard definition especially if it's a video podcasting that's going to end up in standard definition anyway. If you're going to make an investment in anything it should be in a good mic. Audio is actually the most important part of video. After all, without good audio you can't understand what the host is saying so the video doesn't do you any good at all. So get a good quality microphone. A lot of video podcasters are seduced by the coolness of using a green screen, but green screen also can take up a lot of processer power when compiling your video and it's difficult to get a good effect. I say skip it. Build yourself a set that has something to do with what you are talking about and skip the green screen. Now, lighting is very important for video podcast. Make sure you're well lit. You should have two lights in front of you and also a light behind you to light up the back of your head. Cheap lights are better than nothing. So go ahead and get yourself a cheap pair of lights. You can get some halogen lights for ten bucks a pop if you can't afford to have expensive studio lights. With a video podcast I believe it is very important to get feedback from your viewers. So, be sure to communicate with them. Just like I do, post an email address, and also allow people to comment on your website, and check up on the comment if you also post your video podcast to youtube. You should also try to get your viewers involved. You've noticed from time to time I do a series of questions as a video podcast. This allows for me to post peoples questions and answer them directly on the podcast. It's a two way street in video podcasting, it's not like old media and television where we are just broadcasting out to everybody. You should have an open communication channel and use that as part of your show. Now, sometimes people ask me 'Where should I distribute my video podcast? Should I put it on places like fliptv? Distribute through itunes? Should I also go with other sites like veoh, viddler, revver? And how about youtube?' I say do it all. If you're going to produce a piece of video, go ahead and distribute it everywhere. Sometimes your audiences can be found in different places and they like different websites to go to, to watch their video. So put it everywhere. Another important aspect is to have consistent content. This means, if your show is about certain topic, stick to that topic and don't go changing to something completely different from one week to the next. You'll lose subscribers that way. Also be consistent with your schedule. If you disappear for a few weeks only to come back with a few episodes and disappear again you're just going to lose subscribers. Video podcasting I like to also create what's called evergreen content. This means that I do a show, say a how to episode, that will be just as interesting a year later as it is on that given day. If you do a show that's only good for that given day, say about current events, then your episodes won't have that great a shelf life. You can bet that after a few weeks nobody's going to watch that video ever again. I find its best to mix it up on a show like MacMost. One mistake I see in a lot of video and audio podcast is there is a lot of dead space. There is a lot of silence. There is a lot of repetitive content. If you try to keep your show tight, then you can get the most information in the least amount of space and you'll gain and retain subscribers. I see a lot of video podcasts never even get off the ground because the creator wants to make the perfect episode to start with. My advice is just get going. Get your first episode out there and then improve later on. You'll have plenty of time to get user feedback and figure out new techniques to make your show better and better. So just start. I think the most important tip I give people is to be genuine. Do a show about something you love and be yourself. I love Macs. I like Apple products. And I love talking about them. So doing a show for me is natural. So if you're going to do a show do it about something you love and be genuine.  So there are my fourteen tips for better video podcasting and just like I said I practice what I preach. So if you got a question for me you can email me at questions@MacMost.com. You can also follow me on twitter. Every once in a while I throw out tips like one of these in my twitter account. Till next time this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now.

Comments: 3 Responses to “MacMost Now 121: Video Podcasting Secrets”

Daniel

16 years ago

Another basic but good tips on Podcasting!
Love two things you pointed out:
1) Get a Good MiCROPHONE! Even the coolest shows can be hard to hear sometimes.

2) Post everywhere! There are times iTunes will not download an episode right or I want to share one of your shows with a non-iTunes user. In both cases I turn to MacMost in YouTube. Easy to share or to view on any Mac or PC.

Thanks for the tips Gary!

Marco Conti

15 years ago

Good tips. But I do have a question for you:
I am very familiar on how to "tag" MP3 for audio podcasts, but when it comes to video the more I read the more confused I am.
What I want to avoid is to end up in the wrong spot in Itunes, like many podcasts I have been downloading recently.
Most work well, but others download in the wrong section (either music or Video, instead of "Podcast").

What's the best way to tag a video so Itunes, Youtube and co. categorize them properly?

Gary Rosenzweig

If you are building your own RSS feed, then go right to the source for technical specs:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/podcasts/specs.html#rss

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 121: Video Podcasting Secrets

Comments: 3 Responses to “MacMost Now 121: Video Podcasting Secrets”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information