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Publish a Video Podcast with WordPress

Date: Jan 5, 2007

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Maria Langer's helicopter jaunts are too spectacular to be described with mere words; adding video podcasts to her web site would give visitors a taste of the thrill they'd be buying when they signed up for a trip. In this article, Maria takes us on a tour of the software that made it all possible.

When I’m not writing, I’m operating a helicopter tour and charter company based near Phoenix, Arizona. My company is very small, and I’m always looking for ways to set it apart from similar operations. To this end, I’ve developed a six-day excursion that takes two passengers on a helicopter journey to some of Arizona’s most popular destinations. Now I’m in the process of getting the word out without breaking my advertising budget.

One of the things I decided to try was video podcasting. Let’s face it—not only are the destinations I visit (Sedona, Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Monument Valley) truly beautiful from the ground, but the sights in between (Little Colorado River Gorge, goosenecks on the San Juan, Meteor Crater) are downright amazing from the air. Why not put together a few video podcasts to show off these sights? Not only would they help show off these places to potential customers, but they’d make interesting content for iTunes users and video iPod owners.

Thus, Come Fly with Me was born.

Unfortunately, thinking up this idea was a lot easier than bringing it to fruition. It’s not that it’s difficult to do. It’s just that I couldn’t find a how-to guide online or in books to explain how to do it the way I wanted it done. You see, I wasn’t interested in using iWeb. I wanted to publish my video podcast from my existing blog-based Flying M Air web site, which was created with WordPress 2.

It took me a few hours to figure it all out, but it was worth it. I’m very happy with the results. This article explains how I did it, so you don’t have to go through a research and trial-and-error process like I did.

Step 1: Create the Podcast File

The goal here is to create an iPod-compatible video file. If you have iMovie HD 6, it’s easy. Just create your movie and use the Share menu’s options to save it for iPod (see Figure 1).

If you don’t know how to use iMovie, don’t ask me for help. Although I could have played around with it for a few days to figure it out, I didn’t want to waste time. So I bought a book: Jeff Carlson’s excellent iMovie HD 6 and iDVD 6 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide. It tells you everything you need to know (and more) to create a movie from still images (like I did) or video clips or a combination of both.

Figure 1

Figure 1 My first video podcast episode, as it looks in iMovie HD 6.

Once the movie has been created and is ready for distribution, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Share > iPod.
  2. Click Share in the dialog box that appears.
  3. Wait. iMovie compresses your movie and exports it as a video file with the extension .m4v in your iTunes Music folder. This could take a while, depending on the length of the movie. When the process is finished, iMovie opens iTunes and displays the Movies library window with your podcast in the list (see Figure 2).
Figure 2

Figure 2 My movie, exported as an iPod-compatible file, as it appears in iTunes.

If you don’t have iMovie, or you’re a Windows user, I suggest using QuickTime Pro, which is available for both Mac and Windows users. You’ll need the Pro version—not the standard QuickTime Player—to save or export files. Create your movie (or open a movie created with some other software) and choose File > Export. In the Save Exported File dialog box, choose Movie to iPod from the Export pop-up menu, name the file, and click Save.

Coincidentally, QuickTime can play the .m4v movies that iMovie and QuickTime Pro create for video podcasting. So your video podcast’s viewers don’t have to use iTunes to see the movies.

One more thing. To keep file sizes small so you don’t tick off your podcast subscribers, try to keep the movie length down to five minutes or less. My first episode was 2:23, which created a 12.9MB file. Remember, not everyone is accessing the Internet with a super-fast broadband connection.

Step 2: Set Episode Options (Optional)

I’ll start this section by saying that you don’t have to perform this step. But if your file is already in iTunes, it just takes a moment. And it does provide additional information that your subscribers might find useful.

  1. In iTunes, click Movies (refer to Figure 2 in the preceding section) to display the Movies library.
  2. Select the thumbnail for the movie.
  3. Choose File > Get Info.
  4. Click the Info tab in the resulting window.
  5. Fill in the empty fields as desired. I recommend providing information for Name, Artist (you), Album (podcast name), year, and track number. You can also enter Podcast in the Genre field. The window might look like Figure 3 when you’re done.
  6. Click OK. The information is saved with the file.
    Figure 3

    Figure 3 Here’s the info for my video podcast file. Richard Noll took the photos in this episode.

Step 3: Upload the Podcast File to Your Server

No one can access your podcast episode until you put it on a server, so that’s the next step.

Find the file on your hard drive. If you followed my instructions so far and exported to iPod, it’ll be in your Home folder down this path (see Figure 4):

~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Movies/

An episode number may appear at the beginning of the filename. If so, edit the filename to remove the episode number. You should also make the filename Internet-friendly by removing spaces, punctuation, and special characters. Keep the .m4v at the end of the filename, though. It’s very important.

Figure 4

Figure 4 The movie is saved in the Movies folder.

Now use your favorite FTP client software (I use Fetch on a Mac) to upload the file to your server. It doesn’t matter where you put it on the server, as long as you know the complete URL where it can be found. Do yourself a favor and write down that URL when you upload the file. Pay close attention to uppercase and lowercase characters; some servers use case-sensitive URLs (mine does).

If you’re waiting for me to explain exactly how to use your FTP client software, stop waiting. I won’t do it. Miraz Jordan and I wrote about it in our WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide; if you have that book, you can look up instructions in the appendixes for a few popular FTP client packages. Otherwise, read the documentation that came with the software. You’ll figure it out.

Remember, if you plan to publish a video podcast, you’re going to need a server with plenty of spare disk space and bandwidth. This is another reason why you should keep file size as small as possible by releasing short episodes. If you’re looking for an affordable server, check out GoDaddy.com. Although lots of people don’t like GoDaddy, I’ve been using them for years and haven’t had any serious problems. And the price is pretty darn good.

Step 4: Configure Your WordPress Blog for the Podcast Category

I decided that I wanted to publish my podcast in a specific category of my blog. This way, the podcast feed would only include podcast files, and those files would be accessible from a specific category on the site.

To follow this plan, you’ll need to create a new category for your podcast episodes. You only need to do this once; you’ll reuse the same category each time you post a new episode.

  1. Log into your WordPress blog and display the Dashboard.
  2. Click Manage > Categories > add new.
  3. Enter a name and description for the new category. You might want to call it something like Podcasts or Video Podcasts. I got fancy and called mine Video & Slide Shows; note that & displays the ampersand (&) character.
  4. Click Add Category. The category appears in the category list as shown in Figure 5.
    Figure 5

    Figure 5 My Flying M Air web site has only a few categories.

Step 5: Create an Entry for your Podcast Episode

Each episode in your podcast will have its own blog entry. The title of the entry will become the title of the podcast; the entry contents will become its description.

  1. Log into your WordPress blog and display the Dashboard.
  2. Click Write to display the Write Post window.
  3. In the Title box, enter the name of the podcast episode.
  4. In the Post box, enter the description for the podcast episode. You can format it any way you like.
  5. In the Post box, include a link to the podcast file’s URL. This can be a text link or an image link. If it’s a text link, that link will appear in the podcast description, so you might want to repeat the title or use some other text that makes sense. I got fancy with my podcast and used screenshot software to create an image of the movie. I uploaded the image to my server, and then turned the image into a link. Figure 6 shows the code; Figure 7 shows the resulting entry.
  6. Choose your podcast category from the Categories list.
  7. Click Save.
Figure 6

Figure 6 Here’s what my podcast entry code looks like. (I use the HTML editor.)

Figure 7

Figure 7 The entry looks like this when viewing its category. Fancy, huh?

Step 6: Create the Podcast Feed

Although WordPress creates its own RSS feeds for an entire blog and its individual categories, FeedBurner does a better job. It also enables you to incorporate features that are specific to podcasting. It takes a few minutes to set up, but once it’s done, it’s done. You only have to perform this step once.

  1. Visit http://www.feedburner.com.
  2. If you don’t already have an account, create one. It’s free.
  3. Log into your FeedBurner account.
  4. Click the My Feeds link. (There are quicker ways to get where we’re going, but I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page here.)
  5. Under your list of feeds (if you have any) is a box labeled "Burn a feed right this instant" (see Figure 8). Enter the URL for your podcast category’s WordPress feed in this box. For example, here’s my site’s URL: 
    http://www.flyingmair.com/?feed=rss2&cat=11

If your blog is in a folder (for example, wordpress) inside your site’s root directory, don’t forget to include that folder name in the URL.

Figure 8

Figure 8 Enter the URL for your podcast category’s RSS feed.

  1. Turn on the "I am a podcaster!" check box. This is very important.
  2. Click Next.
  3. If you entered the correct URL for your feed, you should see a Welcome screen. In the Feed Title box, enter a title for your feed. In the Feed Address box, complete the URL for your feed address. Figure 9 shows what mine looks like. Be sure to write down the complete Feed Address. That’s the address people will use to subscribe to your feed.
    Figure 9

    Figure 9 Enter basic information about your feed.

  4. Click Activate Feed.
  5. On the Claim Your Feed tab, click Next.
  6. On the Set Up Podcast tab, choose a category for your podcast. You may be able to select a subcategory, depending on the category you choose. Then fill out the rest of the form as desired. You don’t have to provide all of the information. If you provide a podcast image location, it should point to a 300×300 pixel image saved on your server. Click Next.
  7. On the Analyze Traffic tab, click Next.

That’s the important stuff. I’ll let you play on your own with the FeedBurner features for analyzing, optimizing, and publicizing your site.

Step 7: Subscribe to Your Feed

The moment of truth: Did all this work pay off? The best way to test it is to subscribe to the podcast and see what happens.

  1. In iTunes, choose Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast.
  2. Enter the FeedBurner feed address for your podcast (see Figure 10).
  3. Click OK.
Figure 10

Figure 10 Enter the URL for your podcast. This is mine.

If all goes well, your podcast should appear in the iTunes list of podcasts, and your first episode should download immediately (see Figure 11).

Figure 11

Figure 11 If you did everything right, your podcast should appear in the list and the first episode should download.

Step 8: Troubleshoot

If step 7 didn’t work, it’s time to troubleshoot the problem. I hope you don’t have to do this step. This is the step that took me the longest.

Start your troubleshooting process in FeedBurner.

  1. Log into your FeedBurner account.
  2. Click the My Feeds link.
  3. Click the name of your podcast.
  4. Click the Troubleshootize tab.
  5. Click the PodMedic button.

The PodMedic report should shed some light on the problem. I won’t go through all the possible error messages; that would take too long. Besides, I didn’t see all of them—although it sure seemed that way.

Here’s a list of what typically goes wrong:

If you’ve made any changes to your settings based on the list of what could go wrong above, resynchronize your podcast.

  1. Log into your FeedBurner account.
  2. Click the My Feeds link.
  3. Click the name of your podcast.
  4. Click the Troubleshootize tab.
  5. Scroll down until you see the Resync Now link and click it.

When FeedBurner tells you that you’ve resynchronized your feed successfully, go back to iTunes and click the Refresh button in the bottom of the window where podcasts are displayed. If you fixed the problem, your podcast should appear and download.

Step 9: List Your Podcast on iTunes

Don’t try this step until your podcast is working properly. I recommend that you don’t do it until you have at least two episodes available, so you’re sure that it’s working correctly.

  1. Visit the Podcasting and iTunes: Technical Specification page on the Apple web site.
  2. Scroll down to find the Submit a Podcast link and click it.
  3. Allow your computer to open iTunes. It displays the Submit Podcasts form (see Figure 12).
Figure 12

Figure 12 Use this form to begin the podcast submission process.

  1. Enter your podcast’s URL in the Podcast Feed URL box and click Continue.
  2. When prompted, sign into your Apple or AOL account. (If you don’t have either, you’ll have to create an Apple account. Follow the onscreen instructions.)
  3. In the Review Podcast window, review the information that appears (see Figure 13). If it’s wrong, click Cancel and go back to FeedBurner to make changes—after all, that’s where the info came from. If it’s right, click Submit.
Figure 13

Figure 13 The information for your podcast appears in the Review Podcast window.

  1. A message appears, telling you that your podcast won’t appear immediately. (It took about two weeks the last time I did this.) Click Done and start playing the waiting game.

Step 10: Tweak

If you’re like me, you’ll spend another hour or two tweaking your WordPress theme files to provide instructions for viewing and subscribing to the podcast. I got fancy and used conditional statements within WordPress to display the extra podcast information on just the pages on which the podcasts appear.

But that’s a whole other article.

Maria Langer is an Arizona-based freelance writer and helicopter pilot who is hooked on WordPress for blogging and content management. She coauthored WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide with Miraz Jordan, and is the author of bestselling books on Mac OS, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. Visit her on the Web at http://www.marialanger.com.

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