With the release of Apple TV Take 2, Apple is putting podcasts and video podcasts front and center in people’s living rooms. This means that your podcast now needs to look great in HD.

Here are 5 ways to update your podcast for Apple TV Take 2:

• Increase the resolution of your video podcast. Apple strongly encourages you to increase the resolution of your video to 640√ó480 or 640√ó360 (depending on the aspect ratio of your source files). Video podcasts at this resolution look good on Apple TV and still play on iPhone and video-compatible iPods. They recommend that you encode using QuickTime‚Äôs ‚ÄúMovie to iPod‚Äù preset or Compressor‚Äôs ‚ÄúApple > Apple Devices > H.264 for iPod video and iPhone 640√ó480‚Ä≥ preset.
• Enable video fast starting. When you perform the final encode on your video, enable fast starting. Most recent versions of QuickTime enable this setting automatically. But it‚Äôs easy to undo the setting by making changes to the file after the encode. If you do make a change after the encode, be sure to ‚ÄúSave As‚Äù again.
• Increase your podcast art resolution. Apple TV displays a large version of your podcast art. Use a 600√ó600 square JPG or PNG file.
• Make sure your host is up to snuff. iTunes and Apple TV use byte-range requests in some circumstances. For example, Apple TV 2.0 employs this functionality when the user accesses the podcast directly over the Internet. We recommend hosting episode files on HTTP/1.1 servers that correctly support the HTTP byte-range request specification.
• Make sure your server is configured correctly. Make sure that your HTTP servers return the correct MIME types in the Content-Type header. Failing to do so can create errors. A list of MIME types can be found in the iTunes podcast technical spec.

You may want to review Apple’s full recommendations for podcasts to make sure that your podcast is optimized for the company’s devices.

Back in June of last year, we suggested that in the fight between Blu-Ray and HD DVD, Internet TV would be the winner:

Internet TV is plagued by the same problems as Blu-Ray and HD DVD, though: limited content, complex setup and high cost for hardware. Nevertheless, Internet TV is already good enough to make users realize that high definition video discs are a tangent to the real future of video delivery – Internet TV.

When Steve Jobs made his MacWorld announcements earlier this year, we said that his one more thing was that Apple was killing of the DVD:

Don’t expect Apple to kill off the DVD overnight. It took Apple a few years to get rid of the floppy drive, and there are still some PCs that come with floppy drives.

Nevertheless, Apple is looking ahead, not back, and the future Steve Jobs envisions doesn’t included DVDs.

Now mainstream coverage is picking up this idea.

Blu-Ray Death Watch

With the death of HD DVD, the Apple TV update and various new Internet TV services, the idea of a Blu-Ray death watch doesn’t sound so far-fetched anymore.

Here’s CNet’s take:

With the fall of HD DVD, Blu-ray has assumed the throne as the next format of choice, but its reign will be short-lived.

The studios backing Blu-ray already know this. At an HDTV confab last fall, Warner Bros.’ vice president of high-definition media development likened HD packaged media to a set of training wheels for digital downloads.

“We can use HD discs to train consumers to move into digital, but it’s a transition,” said Warner Bros.’ Dan Silverberg. “Downloaded content will come, but the consumer will get quicker tutorial into video-on-demand, etc., by owning a Blu-ray player or HD DVD.”

It’ll happen sooner than they think. With a growing number of alternatives to packaged media, combined with the relatively high prices of Blu-ray players and discs vs. inexpensive, so-called upconverting DVD players, Blu-ray will likely be the last major disc format you’ll ever buy.

What do you think? Are you going to invest in Blu-Ray?

Via a comment on our coverage of the iPod touch app upgrade, Jackson let us know about two ways that people are protesting Apple’s $20 charge for the update that adds several apps left off the initial release.

Jackson’s reaction to the $20 update reflects a lot of early buyers’ attitudes:

I am outraged that Apple is charging early buyers of the iPod Touch $20 for a system update that ought to be free.

While I understand Apple’s decision to charge money for the new applications the new $20 “application pack” also includes a SYSTEM UPDATE in the form of the home page editing, web clips, and lyrics features. All of these are updates to the currently existing iPod Touch software and NOT new applications, which means that they ought to be free to all users of the iPod Touch.

Adding insult to injury these applications are all hidden in the 1.1.3 system update, a whopping 104.4mb file that all users must download if they want to fix bugs in the system. These applications can only be used when you pay Apple $20 to “unlock” them, but even if you decide not to buy them they stay on your iPod taking up precious space that could be used for songs, videos, or photos.

Apple is normally wonderful when it comes to providing system support and updates, but having them shaft early adopters and loyal fans like this is offensive and shows that Apple has absolutely no regard for the iPod Touch community.

Think the iPod touch upgrade should be free? Here are ways you can share your thoughts with Apple on this:

You can leave Apple direct feedback here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipodtouch.html

You can also sign this petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/freeappi/petition.html

Currently the petition has over 16,000 signatures.

Apple has released a new movie on getting podcasts with iTunes:

CBS Interactive has announced that it will begin offering classic shows from its archive as on-demand Internet television.

The initial lineup includes full-length episodes of Star Trek, The Twighlight Zone, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0 and Melrose Place. All content is ad-supported, free to the consumer, and available immediately.

While we can’t say that CBS is boldly going where no network has gone before, at least they are getting this content online and available in a lot of ways.

The more than 300 Web sites currently partner with CBS to deliver this content, including AOL, Microsoft, CNET Networks, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh and social application partners including Automattic, Brightcove, Clearspring, DAVE Networks, Goowy Media, meebo, MeeVee, Musestorm, Ning, RockYou!, Slide, VideoEgg, Voxant and vSocial as well as Web sites from CBS’s owned television, radio, and affiliated stations.

What do you do with a dead iPod?

Rhett and Link have some ideas for you.

via iJustine

PBS’s MediaShift has published an interesting article by Benjamin Melan√ßon that looks at how Internet media equates to power for non-profit organizations:

Nonprofits are not setting their sights high enough.

Justice-seeking not-for-profit organizations, and all people who are working for change, need to change the environment in which we do our work if we are to be truly effective with our most important projects.

Nonprofits need to form their own media.

These organizations, their supporters, and their constituencies form a critical mass of people and passions.  We are not yet bonded together by much more than working for below-market financial reward (as workers and volunteers), receiving a lot of the same begging mail (as donors), or getting  regular benefit from the kindness of strangers (as constituents, which includes all of us who appreciate common goods like the environment).  We, the actively involved of all these overlapping groups, need to communicate with one another and collaborate on communicating to and with the whole population.

Nonprofits can be key stakeholders in developing and supporting a journalism infused with the direct connecting potential of today’s technology, a journalism that transforms society local community by local community.

Cheap webspace, free software like WordPress and inexpensive digital gear has pushed the cost of creating Internet media down to where it’s within reach of any organization.

One example of the power this gives you access to is the reaction the Humane Society got from its downed cow video. The Internet video resulted in the recall of 143 millions pounds of meat – the largest recall in history.

Much of the attention in podcasting and new media has moved to “monetizing” content. Don’t lose site of the fact that new media also can equal an amazing amount of power.

NBC Digital Entertainment and NBC Universal announced today plans to expand their on-demand streaming offerings, mining the wealth of decades of old television programming. Full episode streaming of “classic” series including “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Kojak,” “Miami Vice,” the original “Battlestar Galactica,” “A-Team” and “Emergency” (Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth? Squeeeeeee!) will be offered on NBC.com, SCIFI.com, ChillerTV.com and SleuthChannel.com beginning this month.

“We are very excited to re-introduce these classic shows to a new web audience,” said Vivi Zigler, Executive Vice President, NBC Digital Entertainment.

A (recently resolved) three month long writers’ strike has sharply curttailed the number of fresh episodes of US television content this season, and more people are abandoning network television and seeking out video content online. This move to take mothballed vintage content and make it available on demand gives NBC and its subsidiaries another small grasp at keeping existing viewers and adding new ones.
A full list of streaming vintage series follows:

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.

Actor Stephen Fry, beloved at our house for his early 1990’s stint as P.G. Wodehouse‘s butler/hero Jeeves, has turned his creative attention to podcasting. Calling his subscribeable, downloadable audio a “podgram,” the first episode details the story of breaking arm on a movie-making trip to the Amazon.

The enhanced podcast is available via his site, StephenFry.com, which he calls a “place in which to browse peacefully and without being harangued, harassed, heckled or hectored.” The first episode is interesting and relaxed, just Fry telling stories of what he’s been up to (writing, acting in movies and television, traveling the fifty US states, making documentaries about vanishing species, getting pins in his broken arm). Maybe I’m a big dork (yeah, you already knew that), but I could listen to Stephen Fry talk about nearly anything. He can make everyday fare into a great story. The feed is available through iTunes or here.