How to Submit a Video Podcast Into iTunes 4.9

After you've created your video podcast, and you are ready to display it to the world, you have to think about placement. You probably want to create a website and RSS feed, but in addition to that, iTunes 4.9 would be a helpful place to check it into, because it supports local and streaming video and would provide access to a lot of potential viewers.

Things You'll Need

• web server
• website for hosting XML file
• Quicktime Pro 7 (or something that will encode video)
• a completed video podcast

Instructions

1. 

   The first step is to compress your video. Open up Quicktime Pro 7, export your file and save it as an MPEG 4 file in H.264 format. Click the Streaming tab and enable the Enable Streaming option.

2. Put the file onto your server.

3. Create an XML file. To create an XML file, take this text and personalize it with your own video file.

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/DTDs/Podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
   <channel>
   <title>Vodcast's Title Here</title>
   <itunes:author>Your Name Here</itunes:author>
   <link>http://www.sitename.com</link>
   <description>A description of your vodcast's channel</description>
   <itunes:subtitle>A subtitle for your vodcast's channel</itunes:subtitle>
   <itunes:summary>A summary of your vodcast channel</itunes:summary>
   <language>EN</language>
   <copyright>(c) 2005 Your Name</copyright>
   <itunes:owner>
   <itunes:name>Your Name</itunes:name>
   <itunes:email>[e-mail]</itunes:email>
   </itunes:owner>
   <category>Technology</category>
   <itunes:category text="Technology"></itunes:category>
   <item>
   <title>Your Movie Title</title>
   <itunes:author>Your Name</itunes:author>
   <description>A description of this movie</description>
   <itunes:subtitle>A subtitle about this movie</itunes:subtitle>
   <itunes:summary>A summary of your movie</itunes:summary>
   <enclosure url="http://www.yoursitename.com/moviename.mp4" length="1024" type="video/mov" />
   <guid>http://www.yoursitename.com/moviename.mp4</guid>
   <pubDate>Tues, 25 July 2005 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
   <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
   <itunes:duration>00:01:35</itunes:duration>
   <itunes:keywords>keyword1, keyword2, keyword3</itunes:keywords>
   </item>
   </channel>
   </rss>

4. Replace YourMovieTitle with the title of your video file.

5. Replace itunes:duration with the length of your file, in hour:minutes:second format.

6. Add keywords to make it more easily searchable on the web.

7. Save the file with the .xml extension (yourpodcastname.xml) and put it on your server in the same directory as your video file.

8. Test it in your browser to make sure it works.
   http://www.yourwebsite.com/yourpodcastname.xml

9. 

   Check it into iTunes 4.9, by going to the Advance Menu and clicking on Subscribe to Podcast. Enter in the URL (http://www.yourwebsite.com/yourpodcastname.xml) and click OK.
   If it works, it's ready to share.

Tips & Warnings

• To save space while you're exporting the video, you can alter your audio settings. Click on the Audio Tab, make sure that AAC-LC (Music) is selected and choose 48 kbps for your data rate. To save more space, choose Mono from the Channels pop-up menu and an output sample rate of 32.000 kHz.

• If you don't have a web server but you have a Mac, you can use your iDisk.

• Video podcasts take up a lot of bandwidth. Plan it out so you are prepared and can fund the project before you start.