Podcasting

From MovableType

Contents

Purpose

MT has made great stride with its support for asset types. There's now a system for storing information about different media assets within the system for use in various pages. However, it's unclear how this works for someone actually trying to produce a podcast. So, I'm going to move the ball forward by listing a persona and use case along with a solution that might work. Others should feel free to list their own personas, use cases, and solutions. Plug-in developers can then have at it, producing OS and other solutions.

Persona Scenarios and Solutions

Bud

Bud produces 3 to 7 seven video podcasts per week and has been doing so for the last six months. Prior to that, he spent a year experimenting with video podcasting, producing on the order of 1 to 2 podcasts per week. At this point, he has personally produced well over 250 hundred podcasts. In Bud's view, there are three major components to video podcasting:

  • Video production
  • Writing
  • Publishing

He uses different systems for video production and writing. Publishing is where it all comes together in one web destination.

Video Production

Right now for video production, Bud produces a quicktime file and uploads it to blip tv, a service that then transcodes the video to flash and other formats. Bud is really satisfied with this solution and has paid for the pro version of the service.

Bud has determined that an mp4 container with an H.264 codec and flash provide him the broadest possible coverage for people who might watch his videos. Blip.tv makes these formats and others available at specific URLs.

Writing

Writing is totally separate from video production. Bud or one of his collaborators watches the video taking quick notes and then writes a two to four paragraph summary. The summary also includes a title, a one or two sentence abstract, and keywords or tags (Bud is one of those who sees no difference between tags and categories. He is currently using hierarchically organized categories to implement this feature).

Publishing

Currently, this is where things fall apart for Bud. He has the following desiderata:

  • An embeddable player that can just be clicked for play back.
  • Links to alternative video formats available.
  • Atom and RSS feeds that include enclosures for all of these formats.

Bud has developed a hackneyed solution for achieving these desiderata using the MT 3.35 platform. The solution involves a graft of several components integrated into various Wordpress approaches:

  • For embedded video, he uses a flash player that is free for non-commercial use. Having boned up on web standards, Bud uses the html object tag to embed this flash player (linked to the media file from blip) with satisfactory results that work across all major browsers.
  • He hand enters the links to alternative video formats.
  • He has a free plugin that places the syndication information in an RSS 2.0 feed.

To bring all of this together, Bud has written a Textmate macro where he enters the URLs to the various resources, and it embeds them in the actual write-up Bud is producing (thereby tying writing and publishing, two fundamentally separable activities).

The MT4.x Solution Bud would like to see

Bud has reviewed the remarkable new asset management capabilities for MT4.x. He has also looked at Byrne Reese's asset manager plugin. However, there is not a solution in either for Bud. Byrne's plug-in relies on programatically interacting with remote resources and seems to require new coding for each resource. Bud is currently on Blip.tv but has used numerous services other than Blip. All of those services provide URLs. Why not just provide a way to hand enter URLs and other metadata for the assets managed by MT. Also, there seems to be no way to relate an asset to the entry in which it appears other than inserting it via the asset manager.

However, Bud's research has led him to conclude that there may be a solution lurking in the current MT technology plethora. He thinks it could be resolved by a plugin or set of plugins that enabled the following:

  • A way on MT's entry editing screen to enter asset metadata by hand, with the minimal set consisting of just the asset's URL and mime type. Multiple assets could be entered using this facility (using things like ajax posting, etc.). There would be no need to upload a file using the asset manager or link to a service using the media manager.
  • A way to relate assets to entries using the already existing tag mt:EntryAssets. That tag would be a container that would expose all of the information exposed by mt:Assets but for the assets related to that entry. (note: documentation for one such approach seems to exist here and is probably sufficient)
  • A template set that would embed the code in the entry templates that Bud is currently writing by hand in each entry. That template set would use the asset tags Bud described above. (note: One version of this functionality seems to have been already provided by Byrne Reese's podcasting plugin)

Bud would prefer an OSS solution. Bud is currently applying for funding to underwrite this development. All that may be needed is a plugin that integrates with the current MT asset management system including Byrne Reese's podcasting plug-in and allows the user to enter metadata by hand in the entry editing screen.

MT Podcast Solution Reviews

Here are user reviews of solutions presented by various MT developers. It's clear that the developers have put in a lot of work creating their solutions. These reviews are meant to provide ideas for further development.

Podcasting Plugin for Movable Type

Author: Byrne Reese

License: GPL

URL: http://www.majordojo.com/projects/podcasting.php

Reviewer: --Bud 18:18, 28 December 2007 (PST)

Hi Byrne, I've kicked the tires on this a bit using the 12/24 nightly of MTOS. The plugin seems to have successfully installed. Here's what I understand it is supposed to do:

  1. Scan the entry for URLs pointing to identified media files. Currently only mp3 is supported.
  2. Insert assets corresponding to those media files into MT and associate those assets with the entry.
  3. Insert a player into the published entry (!?) for the mp3 file.

My test case is here:

http://budgibson.com/home/archives/2007/12/a-test-podcast.shtml

Currently, testing for 3 on my MTOS nightly, no player is inserted for the mp3 case. I have not yet tested for 2.

Considering my own use case documented above, I have simple changes that would make the plug-in usable for me if still a bit far from ideal. Here they are:

  1. Make the file types scanned configurable. I would imagine that those file types include mp4, jpg, flv, swf, etc. In the configuration, I would like to make labels for each type of asset such as mp4version, thumbnail, flv version.
  2. Don't bother with trying to insert a player. Just make the files available as assets associated with the entry.

From my perspective, a much better strategy would be to stop scanning for media files in the entry source altogether and instead provide an ajax form on the entry for associating files with the entry. I realize this may be easier said than done since there is no entry to associate files with until the entry is actually published. I would leave all insertion of assets into entries, etc. to template authors.

The ideal plugin for me would simply allow me to associate *any* media URL with an entry and then use template tags to construct html pages and feeds as I deem fit. Either fix I propose would get me closer to this goal.

BTW, I am posting this note to the podcast wiki page also. It is not intended as a demand on you, but rather as feedback from a user to move the ball forward for whoever might choose to develop it. I appreciate the work you did on this and your generosity in donating it to MTOS.

Podcasting Plugin for Movable Type Try 2

This note supplements my analysis above. Apparently, I had missed some important elements of Byrne's plugin that I discovered by looking at the code.

I looked at the source of the plugin and determined that it created a form somewhere in the entry interface. I kept on going back to the entry screen trying to figure out where that menu could be. Finally, I found it under the create menu.

At this stage, I may be able to make slightly more informed comments regarding the plugin. Here they are:

  1. LWP is nice but not necessary here. It provides an automated way to get certain metadata. I suspect one could make it optional.
  2. If you wanted to create a custom entry screen say for video podcasting with different video types and flip poster pictures covering the video, it seems you could modify the plug-in's template to collect that information.
  3. You would have to also modify some internals to create the new assets.
  4. It is not entirely clear that you want to insert the asset information to create the podcast directly in the entry.

A Plugin Spec

Here's what I would like using Byrne's plug-in as a start:

  • Remove LWP
  • Keep the entry form but add fields for
    • MP4 video asset URL (gets type video)
    • flash video asset URL (gets type video)
    • thumbnail picture asset URL (gets type image)
  • For each of these assets, add fields for
    • asset length/size
  • Keep the other metadata (tags, description) Byrne collects for each asset
Retrieved from "http://wiki.movabletype.org/Podcasting"