PoducateMe: Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education
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6.
As shown in Figure 76, a progress window will appear as the episode is
converted from AIFF to MP3. This encoding process will take several minutes, so
you might want to go grab a sandwich or something.
Figure 76: Max reports file conversion progress
Now that we have our recording encoded in the MP3 format, we can tag the file with important
identifying information, as described in the next section.
Tagging a Podcast Episode
ID3 tags include data that identifies who created the podcast episode, as well as other
information relevant to the recording. These tags travel with the MP3 file, and when the
file is played in a media player such as an iPod, the ID3 tag information is made available
to the listener. Tag details are used not only for information purposes, but for the
grouping and sorting of episodes, as well.
It should be noted that if you use iTunes as your podcatcher, the program will replace
some ID3 tag information with data from the podcast RSS feed (which you’ll create later).
Apparently, Apple does this because some podcasters don’t bother to (or don’t know how
to) fill in ID3 information to make things easier on the end-user. Still, podcasters who do
not “tag” their files or do so improperly do a disservice to their listeners, as well as
themselves
Some of your files may be passed from user to user or directly downloaded from your
Web site. These users are bypassing the show information included in the RSS feed, so
it’s important to fill in the ID3 tags to let listeners identify where the file came from, as well
as who created it. Message boards are full of people complaining about podcasters who
don’t complete ID3 tag information for their episodes. Always take the time to at least fill
in Artist, Album, Composer and Genre fields, as demonstrated below.
To create your ID3 tags, perform the following actions:
1.
Launch iTunes and add your file to the library by selecting File > Add to Library
from the iTunes menu bar.
