Zencast/Podcast

rogerg (Roger) · #1 07-05-2007, 01:20 PM

Anyone use Podcast's much ?

I don't have an IPod but do have a Creative Zen. Just yesterday I discovered the world of Zencast (their version of Podcast which seems to largely pipe Podcast's through to be listed on their site).

I'm very new to it, still working it all out, but looks really neat. There's plenty of science/space/astronomy stuff on there. There's a HST podcast which is video (full on tv production twice a month it seems), New Scientist (audio), Dr Karl (audio), Space.com (audio) and various other ones.

I listened to a New Scientist one on the way to work today instead of the useless morning radio shows. Quite good. 40min long too, just the right length for the drive.

Anyone got some science ones to recommend?

Has any astronomy club got in on this? It'd be kind of neat having a podcast done of the happenings at an astronomy club.. promote the club some more and keep members up to date with what happened at the last events.

Roger.

iceman (Mike) · #2 07-05-2007, 01:23 PM

I think the ASNSW record their guest speakers and make them available as mp3's for your portable audio player (or the computer).

It's definitely a good idea. The term podcast is a funny one though.. I can play mp3's on my cheapo ebay mp3 player, that's all it is. Just need to download the mp3 and then transfer it to the player.

I might start doing it more though, give me something to listen to in the car while driving to/from work.

rogerg (Roger) · #3 07-05-2007, 02:04 PM

Yeah, I'd got the impression they were just mp3's & mp4's (for video).. but wasn't certain about that, was still at the point of thinking "surely for all the hype there must be more infrastructure to it than sending mp3's & mp4's around"...

It's nice having the "Zencast Organiser" which I guess might be similar to iTunes for IPods in that it lets you subscribe to "casts" so you get notified of new editions available and they get loaded on to the Zen player easily. Converts formats as required. Makes it convenient.

Roger.

iceman (Mike) · #4 07-05-2007, 02:15 PM

ah that's pretty cool. Takes the manual work out of it.

xelasnave · #5 07-05-2007, 02:33 PM

Maybe Iceinspace will be at the front I suspect. It can be hard holding the lap top and reading whilst driving ...who wants to be outta touch for all the time spent in traffic?
alex

sheeny (Al) · #6 07-05-2007, 04:29 PM

I regularly listen to StarStuff (from the ABC), the Nature PODcast and the Naked Scientists. There are a couple of others that I tried, but they weren't as interesting/relevant for me.

Al.