Index of video podcasting

TiVo today introduced version 2.6 of TiVo Desktop for Windows, adding deeper support for Web videos and podcasts.

Features include:

• You can now transfer all your downloaded Web Video from your PC to your TiVo DVR so you can watch them on your TV.
• Automatic conversions of your TiVoToGo transfers to support portable devices that support MPEG-4 or H.264 video—Transfer video to your iPod, PSP, Treo, Nokia and other portables devices.
• Set automatic transfers of your favorite shows and videos from your PC to your TiVo DVR.
• Improved video quality and aspect ratio in the Series3 and TiVo HD DVRs when downloading high-quality video.
• Automatically transfer shows from your TiVo DVR to a Windows PC or laptop.
• Browse and listen to your computer’s MP3 library from your TiVo DVR.
• Watch full-screen slide shows of your computer’s digital photo collection on your TV.

In a nutshell, the updated Tivo Desktop for Windows allows you to sync content automatically between your TiVo and Windows computers and peripheral devices.

Unfortunately, TiVo’s support for podcasts is fairly convoluted. Details below.

Natural/organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market, is launching Whole Earth Generation, a video podcast series dedicated to raising environmental awareness among young people.

The podcast project is beginning with a search for six “fresh-faced personalities” aged 8 to 17, to be auditioned as hosts of this green-themed series. Children from all over the United States and Canada are invited to try out for the online series, premiering today and running through April 29.

“We are excited to celebrate Earth Month with this series … about eco-friendly actions and how they can make a difference,” said Heather Kennedy, Senior Coordinator of National Marketing for Whole Foods Market. “So many shoppers tell us they have learned how to be more environmentally conscious by listening to their kids. We hope this program takes that trend to an even broader audience via the Internet.”

Topics on the podcast series will address topics generated by “Generation Y and Z,” (which we guess means kids and young adults). Highlights of the series will include interviews with celebrities and peers, ideas for a sustainable future, cool green products, and how to convince skeptical families and friends that green is the way to go.

The Whole Earth Generation youth host casting call kicked off a couple days ago on YouTube. Additionally, in-person casting calls will be held throughout the month of March in some of the chain’s stores.

Submissions can be uploaded to this spot on YouTube, or youngsters ages 8-17 can show up at one of the Whole Foods Market stores on the designated audition date in New York, Chicago and Austin, for auditions.

Six winners — three from the YouTube entries and three from the in-store auditions — will be selected.

“The six young hosts will be the on-air personalities with the charge of engaging their peers and showing that tweens and teens can really influence how we protect our planet,” said Kennedy.

If you ever doubted that there was a future in podcasting, then doubt no more.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Douglas Sarine (L) and Kent Nichols (R), the creators of the hit video podcast Ask a Ninja, are making the jump to the big screen. The two are writing an adaptation of the 1978 cult monster movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, which Nichols is set to direct:

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! is the masterwork of a generation,” Nichols said. “We can only aspire to recapture that magic.”

No changes to the original plot have been revealed, but it still is expected to revolve around killer tomatoes.

Nichols and Sarine’s satirical “Ninja” shorts have garnered more than 80 million Web views and won best series at the 2006 YouTube Video Awards. Their “Ninja” commentator has appeared on National Public Radio and VH1’s “Best Week Ever.”

The original “Tomatoes” spawned the Fox Kids Network’s “ATV” cartoon series and the feature sequel “Return of the Killer Tomatoes,” which helped launch George Clooney’s career.

Nichols and Sarine are repped by UTA and John Elliott of Mosaic Media Group.

You can find out more about Sarine and Nichols in our interview with them.

CBS Interactive, a division of old-media television network CBS, announded yesterday the debut of MOBLOGIC, a new daily web video show.

MOBLOGIC, which begins airing episodes today, paints itself as offering “news and politics with attitude.” The show will be hosted by Lindsay Campbell, the former host of video podcast Wallstrip (which started out as an independently-produced show, but is now also owned by CBS). The Moblogic website says the show will “put the news cycle in perspective by talking to ordinary people on the street.”

Rather than trying to reach out to new media consumers by repackaging mainstream content on the web, CBS Interactive is making clever use of the experience and expertise of podcasters in the creation and production of the show, engaging the writing and production talents of Adam Elend and Jeff Marks, who also currently work on Wallstrip.

The introductory video clip made us feel as though they’re either trying to be very cutesy-clever, or they don’t really know what it is they want to be or do. We’ll check back next week to see how that goes.

A launch party is being held tomorrow in Austin, Texas at the South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival.

Robert Scoble left PodTech in mid-January to work for business magazine FastCompany. His new videoblogging gig, FastCompany TV, launched today. In his welcome video, Scoble lolls around on the beach in a seaside frolic (not kidding), and explains the company’s initial two video channels.

FastCompany Live, the more immediately interactive of the channels, will feature video shot with a little Nokia N95 cell phone/camera and Qik.com. Viewers can watch the broadcast live and post comments, which show up on the screen. As one might expect, the quality of these live videos is, as Scoble puts it, “intimate, but brutal to watch,” jerky and blurry. Viewers are invited to submit their own videos and video responses.

The second channel is ScobleizerTV, more polished interviews and profiles of technology and business innovators. These will be shot with HD cameras, decent microphones and lighting. One of the more interesting things (for me) about this channel is Senior Producer Rocky Barbanica, who is described as a guy who “Used to be a software developer at NASA before going to film school,” who is putting together the production and media team at FastCompany.TV.

The jury here is still out on what we think about FastCompanyTV. The FastCompany Live content (like a test-drive of the experimental $98,000 Tesla electric sportscar) is compelling, but the quality of the sound and image are awful. The Scobleizer channel has some interesting upcoming interviews. We are cautiously optimistic that, as Scoble (and, in two weeks, “Naked Conversations” coauthor Shel Israel) make the foray into Fast Company’s more mainstream business publishing, they’ll keep talking to, and listening to, innovators both in and outside the corporate fishbowl.

An Apple patent reveals that the company is working on a podcast aggregator that would dynamically collect the news that you are interested in and deliver a personalized news podcast, according to a report at AppleInsider.

In other words - Apple wants to be your news and information station.

The system would allow you to:

• Subscribe to and personalize a podcast with software like iTunes;
• Select news segments selected from a variety of categories; and
• Automatically download the personalized podcast to your Apple TV, iPod or iPhone.

The custom news show could consist of a 5 minute segment from CNN on the day’s national news, a 5 minute segment from a local news station, and a 10 minute segment on sports highlights from ESPN.

In addition to offering mainstream content, the iNews service may let you integrate other podcast content:

“Upon selection of the custom button, a user can be assisted with another dialog screen to create a category of content, namely, media content, that is to be included within the custom podcast.

For example, the user may request to receive sports highlights from the weekend during the NFL season regarding specific teams or teams in the Eastern division. As another example, the user may desire to receive statistics regarding games played during the past week in the NFL.”

Once you select the playlist of content that you’re interested in, Apple’s servers would request the latest podcast content from content creators, stitch the segments together and then deliver the personalized podcast to iTunes or other podcast software. As part of this process, Apple could insert targeted advertising dynamically.

There’s no official announcement from Apple on this yet, but we learned via Twitter that the delayed update to Apple TV, Apple TV Take 2, is now available.

The update greatly expands the capabilities of the device, and repositions Apple TV from being just an iTunes peripheral to being an Internet peripheral for your TV.

New features include:

• HD/Standard Def movie rentals
• Purchase and download videos from the iTunes Store directly from your TV
• Flickr/.Mac photo browsing
• Browse and subscribe to podcasts from your TV

This update is free to all Apple TV owners.

Update: Here’s our Updated Apple TV Review.

Microsoft’s downloadable media portal, the Zune Marketplace, announced the publication of Zune’s first video podcast, a behind-the-scenes profile of metalcore band The Black Dahlia Murder.

Zune sent a video crew out to shadow The Black Dahlia Murder on the New York City stop of their current US headlining tour, capturing a day in the life of “one of metal’s most entertaining bands.” [We wonder if this follows in the footsteps of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night,” or more along the lines of the Spice Girls’ “Spice World.” -ed]

Highlights include a roof top interview at tour sponsor Metal Maniacs’ offices, a horror movie discussion at Fangoria Magazine and concert footage from the New York show.

The six-part weekly podcast series is available only through Zune Marketplace and Zune.net.

Utterz, a service that lets you post multimedia to blogs and social networks from your mobile phone, has expanded its service to 17 new countries.

The company has also introduced new online video and audio capture, and “conversational threading” capabilities to help users engage and connect with friends, followers and social groups, both online and offline.

Podcasting & Blogging Support

Utterz’ new online Webcam and PC microphone recording lets users create a podcast or videocast in minutes. Utterz audio files are distributed using RSS 2.0 and include basic ID3 information tags, transforming even the most basic of mobile phones into a podcasting platform.

Utterz Connection lets you selectively post multimedia Utters to pages on any of the major blogging platforms or to social network pages with Utterz widgets.

“With Utterz I can update my WordPress and five Blogger blogs as well as my Twitter and Flickr accounts in just seconds,” said Drew Bennett, author of The BenSpark and The WiredKayaker blogs. “And since I can update each one or all at the same time, from anywhere, I post more frequently than I normally would and with more interesting content.”

InformationWeek reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency is watching YouTube - and they’re not just trying to figure out the lyrics to Chocolate Rain on their lunch break.

Spies under the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are looking on YouTube for intelligence; according to the report, spies have become major consumers of social media.

“We’re looking at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence,” said Doug Naquin, director of the DNI Open Source Center (OSC).

The CIA’s intelligence gathering isn’t limited to YouTube, though.

“We’re looking at chat rooms and things that didn’t exist five years ago, and trying to stay ahead. We have groups looking at what they call ‘Citizens Media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the Internet.”