Sunday 16 September 2007

New Vidcasts

It look like there will some new vidcasts, hitting the blogosphere in the next few months.

Cameron McNeish was bought himself a digital video camera and looks to be embarking on making vidcasts for his blog and also over on the TGO website.

It be interesting to see what direction these vidcasts will take; will it be an extension to the podcasts, with Cameron walking the hills of Scotland or interviews with other hillwalkers out on the hills.

Unlike podcasts which are normally mp3 format and can be loaded onto any mp3 player. Video can come in a lot of different formats which will player O.K. on a computer but may need converting to play on a portable device.

My mini media player will only play back file that are in the .asf format, so I have to convert most video’s if I want to take them with me and this can be a time consuming process.

I`m looking forward to this new venture in vidcasts.

Sunday 2 September 2007

Are Podcasts in decline?

Please note that this was a post I start back in July but never finished. I've keep most of the original and just updated the rest.

As far as I know there are only a handfull of hiking/backpacking podcasts; but are we starting to see the demise of outdoor podcasts.

Already we have lost the trailcast podcasts which haven't been seen in over a year, Practical backpacking having started of like a steam train with roughly 25+ quality podcasts in less than a year, have had nearly 3 months between the last two.

The Wildebeat which has recently passed 100 episodes, is starting to struggle as its lastest podcast seems to imply. Although this particular podcast gives a good insight into the amount of work needed to put one together.

Backpacking Light Magazine although fairly new to the podcast scene (but the magazine has been around for some time.) look to have plenty of editors and contributors to keep this podcasts running.

One thing all the above have are that they are U.S. based and in the main deal with U.S issues and U.S. personnel.

Although they are all good podcasts and the content is pretty good; they are great for a listen to while commuting or when stuck in a tent but if they were to stop tomorrow I would miss them but as with a lot of podcasts I`ve subscribed to that have stopped, I've got used to it.

One podcaster in the last couple of years; that has made a big mark on the U.K. market is Podcast Bob. Bob has used the last two TGO challenges to product a 10-part series for 2006 and a 14-part one for 2007. In the past year Bob has had a partner in Andy Howell and between them they have produced some excellent shows with interviews from Paddy Dillion, Ronald Turnbull to informative shows about ultralight hiking and Bob & Andy's big days out.

It seems as though Bob is also coming to a point where the podcasts are starting to take up a lot of Bob's time (link) .

Like I say further along in that thread, personally I would be happy to pay some sort of subscription if need be, I know that the American one's are looking for subscriptions but as most of the imformation is not irrelevant to the U.K. I can't see me pay for them.

Some of the people/magazines that started out on Bob's channel have gone off to product their own podcasts namely Cameron McNeish and TGO; although again the ouput from them is not that high.

Hopefully the outdoor/hiking podcasts will continue and maybe a few more will join the fray.

Update

It does seem as though Bob is looking to embark on a new podcast and do a weekly magazine style edition.

I`ve only picked it up through the forums on OUTDOORSmagic so don't know much more about it.