One of the best WordPress plugins I use is PodPress.
This useful tool lets you deliver podcasts from your site without having to worry about any of the technical aspects of how to offer your podcast. When you write your post, you just click a few links to include the location of your MP3 file, a bit of a description, etc, and the plugin takes care of everything else including figuring out the file size and the time length of your podcast, as well as your RSS feed and iTunes.
It then provides a link in the post where you can listen directly to the podcast from the page itself. Or you can download the file. You can choose a popup window if you want. Lots of choices that make both the blogger and the visitor happy.
PodPress also alerts you when there’s an updated version, as I noticed today. And this latest version 6.7 is definitely worth upgrading to as it includes some needed improvements in the Podpress admin pages, especially stats reporting. So I’ve upgraded.
It got me thinking a bit, too. It’s not just audio podcasts that you can do with PodPress but also video. That thinking took me along the road of video cameraphones like the Nokia N93 I wrote about last week.
And then, that got me thinking about my Nokia N70 and a recent comment by David Brain about how he does the videos on his sixtysecondview.com blog – he uses his N70.
So I thought, why not? I’ve not yet used my N70 for video (why not? I ask), so at lunchtime I made a short video which you can view below (MP4 format so you’ll need the Quicktime plugin in your browser). So easy! Why on earth have I not done this before!
My next question, then, is – do I need an N93 at all?
10 responses to “PodPress, Nokia N70 and easy video”
Neville:
Very cool! Video played and could be heard quite nicely. You really have to love the PodPress plugin.
I’m a fan of this plugin as well. This is a good alternative for WordPress users who want to manage their RSS and still have an iTunes compatible podcasts.
Have you looked at the Ulitmate Tag Warrior plugin? It’s excellent for creating a tag cloud while also generating the appropriate Technorati tags.
I do love that PodPress plugin, Bryan, and I’m also very impressed indeed with the quality of the video and sound that the Nokia N70 produced. Especially the sound.
I’m definitely going to do more of this!
Rob, I have looked at Ultimate Tag Warrior. But I write nearly every post offline with ecto and there’s no easy integration of UTW tags in that editor. I emphasize ‘easy.’
Neville, I don’t think you need to change your phone. As you know I also have a N70, I bought recently a SanDisk 1Gb MMC flash memory card, I can now record 1 hour video, which is huge…! I’ve been making many tests with the N70, outside and indoors, let me tell you the sound quality and the image are perfect. Of course not to cover sportive shows or night club performance (what you’re probably not intersted in by the way…lol) but for business videopodcast, it’s terrific !
[…] Podcaster and business blogger extraordinaire and Neville Hobson has put two and two together today and published a video to one of his posts that can be clicked and streamed as easily as an audio file, using the PodPress plugin for WordPress. […]
Neville, pretty darn good audio and video quality from a phone!
Thanks for sharing.
I think you’re right, Guillaume. The N70 is more than adequate for the type of video I want to do. Not nightclubs!
It would be good to try an N93, though. Hello, Nokia? Oh, I already said that… :)
It is good, Donna. Amazing, actually. Such a small device and it can do stuff like this. The camera is good one, 2 megapixel. Certainly good enough.
Quite a gaggle of N70 fans we all are . . . I still find it odd though that given the core competency of phone manufacturers (transmitting voice/sound) that it’s easier to get a phone with great video and still picture quality than with reasonable sound quality. I tried out a host before settling on the N70 for sixtysecondview
[…] But I did manage to catch some views of the terrific scenes broadcast live by AT5, Amsterdam’s news channel. In fact, I shot a quick 2-minute video clip of the TV broadcast with my Nokia N70 to give you a sense of the atmosphere and the things going on downtown this afternoon. (I’m getting good prtactcie shooting video with this cameraphone.) […]