Podcast Tutorial - Combine XML, RSS, & mp3
RSS - XML - iTunes Tutorial - from http://www.podcast411.com/howto_1.html Used with permission by Robert Walch.
For now lets assume you have a great MP3 and you are ready to share it with the world as a podCast. What do you do next???
If you are like me and you felt you were one of only 20 people in the US that did not have a political blog of some sort in 2004, this whole RSS and XML thing can seem very daunting.
But rest assured it is not so bad.
To start with we did a lot of searching on RSS and podcasts. We found a few good articles out of many!!! One of the best was by Danny Sullivan @ searchenginewatch.com However it was written prior to "podCasting" and did not cover the issue of "Enclosures". With some reverse engineering and multiple reads of http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
We were able to figure out what needs to be in your .xml file for a podcast.
Essentially it comes down to four main items:
Title, Description, Link & Enclosure
With a few more items thrown in for good measure. The following is the source code for our .xml file. Those items in Red are Optional iTunes Friendly tags.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>podCast411</title>
<description>The 411 on podCasts, podCasters and podcasting</description>
<link>http://www.podcast411.com</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2007</copyright>
<lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
<webMaster>rob@podcast411.com</webMaster>
<itunes:author>rob @ podcast411</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>podCast411 is a show about interviewing other Podcasters, similar to Inside the Actors Studio except for Podcasting </itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>podCast411 is a show about interviewing other Podcasters, similar to Inside the Actors Studio except for Podcasting. Each show we interview a different Podcaster to find out what Podcasts they are listening to, what their show is about, what they are using to create their Podcast and what advice they have for other Podcasters or those looking to become a Podcaster. Plus we have news, notes and tech tips for Podcasting. </itunes:summary>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Rob W</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>rob@podcast411.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:image href="http://www.podcast411.com/img/411_itunes.jpg"/>
<itunes:category text="Technology">
<itunes:category text="Podcasting"/>
</itunes:category>
<item>
<title>411 Item 138 ZedCast with Bruce Murray - Voicemail line 206-666-4357 </title>
<link>http://podcast411.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=451</link>
<guid>http://media.libsyn.com/media/podcast411/411_060325.mp3</guid>
<description> Welcome to the show it is March 25th and this is our 138th
show. Today will be an interview with Bruce Murray from the Zedcast
podcast. Please visit this podcast at http://www.zedcast.com/ </description>
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/media/podcast411/411_060325.mp3" length="11779397" type="audio/mpeg"/>
<category>Podcasts</category>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
<itunes:author>Rob @ podCast411</itunes:author>
<itunes:explicit>No</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:subtitle>Welcome to the show it is March 25th and this is our 138th
show. Today will be an interview with Bruce Murray from the Zedcast
podcast. Please visit this podcast at http://www.zedcast.com/ </itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary> Welcome to the show it is March 25th and this is our
138th show. Today will be an interview with Bruce Murray from the
Zedcast podcast. Please visit this podcast at http://www.zedcast.com/ </itunes:summary>
<itunes:duration>00:24:30</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>podCast411, podcast, podcasting, podcaster, Interviews, Bruce Murray, Zedcast</itunes:keywords>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
You can find this file at: http://www.podcast411.com/new_demo_feed.xml
To start lets look at this from the 10,000 Foot (Meter) level.
First you have the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
We would suggest you copy this into your file exactly as is.
Then you have a "Channel" and an "Item". With the Item being inside the Channel. Both the Channel and the Item require a Title, Description and a Link. With the Item requiring the Enclosure. For All items in red please see the iTunes Tutorial here
Now lets look at the Channel information from Ground level.
<channel>
First you have <channel>. Near the end of the file (after your last Item) you will have </channel>. This needs to go in as shown.
<title>podCast411</title>
As you would expect this is the title information. The <title> & </title> Mark the begining and end of your title information respectively. In the middle you put the title for your podCasts, typically this is also the Title for your website.
<description>The 411 on podCasts, podCasters and podcasting</description>
Between <description> & </description> you put in a more detailed description for all your podcasts. Later in the item you will get to put in a detailed description for a specific podcast. You will notice that the "</" indicates the end of that category.
<link>http://www.podcast411.com</link>
Here you put in the URL link to your main site.
Up to now the first three categories were mandatory, the next few are optional but highly recommended as they give some additional information to the aggregators out there.
<language>en-us</language>
If you are in the US and podCasting in English, this is the option for you.
You can click HERE for additional options.
<copyright>Copyright 2007</copyright>
Obviously you would want to change this to 2008 when it is 2008.
<lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</lastBuildDate>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
This is one area we expect some feedback on. But we would suggest you just put in the date and time of the last change to your podcasts. The "-0500" is the time referenced to GMT time. We are on East Cost time (PA) so for us it is now a 5 hour difference, That will change in the spring when we "spring forward" one hour. Below is some information for the proper format for Day and Month.
day = "Mon" / "Tue" / "Wed" / "Thu" / "Fri" / "Sat" / "Sun"
month = "Jan" / "Feb" / "Mar" / "Apr"
/ "May" / "Jun" / "Jul" / "Aug"
/ "Sep" / "Oct" / "Nov" / "Dec"
For more information on proper formating of Date and Time specs visit - http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html see Section 5.
<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
"A URL that points to the documentation for the format used in the RSS file. It's for people who might stumble across an RSS file on a Web server 25 years from now and wonder what it is." This is not really needed but it is nice to add. Hey it is just one copy and paste.
<webMaster>rob@podcast411.com</webMaster>
Finally the e-mail address for the person responsible for any technical questions relating to this Channel.
Outside of the information relating to dates the rest of the information in the "Channel" section probably will never change.
<item>
There can be many different "Items" inside a "Channel". Each item will Start with <item> and end with </item>.
<title>411 Item 138 ZedCast with Bruce Murray - Voicemail line 206-666-4357 </title>
The first catergory inside an "Item" is the title. This is similar to the title in a Channel. The difference is this is the individual title for a specific podcast. With iTunes this title will replace the title in your ID3 tags. And will scroll across the screen when being played on an iPod. For more on this see our ID3 Tag Tutorial - Here
<link>http://podcast411.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=451</link>
This time for link you are going to put in the location for the individual episode on your site or blog. If you have a special page for show notes this a good place to put that link. Make sure you include the "http://".
<guid>http://media.libsyn.com/media/podcast411/411_060325.mp3</guid>
This is an optional tag for the item. However without it you will get a warning from feedvalidator.org. What you want to put in here is the URL for the MP3 for this episode. Simply copy this from the enclosure tag below.
<description> Welcome to the show it is March 25th and this is our 138th show. Today will be an interview with Bruce Murray from the Zedcast podcast. Please visit this podcast at http://www.zedcast.com/</description>
This is where you put in a detailed description for the specific podcast show. Some people will put in all their show notes and specific links referenced during the show. We would suggest you take a look at the source code for a few of your favorite podcasts.
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/media/podcast411/411_060325.mp3" length="11779397" type="audio/mpeg"/>
The enclosure catagory is unique in that there is not a pair of "<enclosure>" and "</enclosure>" marking a begining and end. You will need to put in three pieces of infomation.
1. "url=" File location, this is the same as that for <link> directly above except with " " surrounding the location.
2. "length=" in bytes. To get this information on a Mac Ctrl-Click the MP3 file and choose "Get Info". You want to enter the number of bytes with out the commas. In this case it is 10469449. See Below.
3. type="audio/mpeg" - Just enter this as is.
The " " marks are very important. The first two parts you will be changing for each item. The third item will not change.
For Video Podcasts You can use the following templates depending on the format of the video.
.MOV
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/podcast411/411_060325.mov" length="15421821" type="video/quicktime" />
.WMV
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/podcast411/411_060325.wmv" length="4116013" type="video/wmv" />
.MP4
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/podcast411/411_060325.mp4" length="5096928" type="video/mp4" />
For a PDF file in your Podcast feed the Enclosure would look like this:
<enclosure url="http://media.libsyn.com/media/podcast411/How_to_Create_RSS.pdf" length="449914" type="application/pdf" />
<category>Podcasts</category>
This is the category of the item. For Podcasts enter "Podcasts" here.
<pubDate>Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
The last non-iTunes category in an "Item" is the publication date. Again the time calculation will be the same as in the "Channel" section above.
</item>
The </item> indicates the end of this item.
</channel>
The </channel> indicates the end of the channel.
</rss>
The </rss> indicates the end of XML file.
At this point you have enough information to create your own .XML file.
If you are not sure how to create / edit a .xml file, you can ctrl-click / right-click the link below
http://www.podcast411.com/new_demo_feed.xml
and "save linked file as" to your desktop and then you can edit it with a text editor. Make sure you keep the .xml tag on the file.
This New Demo Feed also includes the necessary iTunes tags.
You are now ready to put your .xml file on your website. (If you are not sure about this step - see the Comments/Questions below) After you have done this you need to check it to make sure it is valid and can be read by the aggregators out there. This is when you go to the RSS validator at:
rss.scripting.com
http://feedvalidator.org/
From there type in your RSS feed to be validated. In our case it is http://www.podcast411.com/feed.xml
Make sure you leave in the "http://", but also make sure you don't double it up as there is already a "http://" inserted when you arrive at the validator.
If and when it comes back with
"Congratulations -- the RSS feed validates!"
You are ready to add your podcast to the different directories out there. Obviously make sure you let us know about your podcast by clicking the "Add a podcast" button on our main page.
Adder - iTunes Tags
Click Here - Updated - Jul 18 - To get Apples Instructions to make your Feed iTunes Friendly
These would be added into your RSS feed in addition to the RSS information above to make your feed iTunes friendly - If you are not interested in having your feed in iTunes - Then this is not necessary.
Finally one last suggestion to podcasters.
If you go to our main site - You will see a little Peapod in the upper left side. This is a link to our "Current" podcast. What we do is have two copies of our current podcast. One with a unique name for the RSS / XML feed (http://www.podcast411.com/podcasts/411_31dec04.mp3). This is to work with the aggregators that will download our podcasts. The other copy is always at:
www.podcast411.com/current.mp3
This is to give a fixed link for directories to access our current feed. Where you will see the benefit is with people scanning the different directories looking for new podcasts. This gives the podcast directories a way to put your most current feed in a static link rather than just giving your website or RSS feed.
MP3 Tutorial
To record and edit our audio we choose GarageBand, we realize there are many other good programs out there, but if you are on a Mac - at $49 it is a great value and has many powerful features. We would also highly recommend "Garageband - The Missing Manual" by David Pogue. It really will help you understand and better utilize the software.
The intro music and applause are both free loops that come with the program. We did all of the audio recording and editing on a "New Basic Track". We had a total of four tracks - 3 for the introduction and one track for the actual podcast.
When we had finally taken out all the "ums", "uhs" and deep breaths - We
were ready to export the recording to iTunes. Which is done under the:
File --> "Export to iTunes" option
Now even if you are on the Windows side of the world you can still use iTunes from this point forward. Once in iTunes, Choose
iTunes --> Prefences, Then chose the Importing box, From the "Import Using" pop up menu choose "MP3 Encoder" and then click "OK" - See Below.
Next under the "Advanced" menu choose "Convert Selection to MP3"
At this point your recording is now an MP3 file and ready to be uploaded. You should note you will have two files in iTunes at this point with the same name. One will be the original and the other the new MP3 file. We would suggest that in iTunes under: Edit --> View Options , you select "Kind" and then move that view bar next to song name. It will make it easier to pull off the correct file. Once you have converted the file to MP3 format it is ready to be dragged out of iTunes and then uploaded to your website.
Side Note: We should also point out to anyone that is using their iPod with a voice recorder to create a "podCast", that you will need to convert that voice memo recording into an MP3 this same way before bringing that recording into Garageband for editing. If you try to take it directly from your iPod into Garageband it will not play correctly.
If at this point you are not sure about how to create a MP3 recoding - No worry - Visit our "How to" page. We have links to some great sites that can help both Mac and Windows users put together a MP3. With most using free software. Of course we will continue to add more links as we find other sites we considers of value.
If you would like to recomend a site send an e-mail to rob@podcast411.com