Richard Farrar’s Blog

MP3 files can have a range of ID3 tags buried within them providing additional data about the track, such as artist name for example. If you produce your own podcasts, you could embed an array of these descriptive ID3 tags in your podcast files, but which tags should you really be using?  

Whenever you play a podcast on your portable MP3 player or PC, you will invariably see a host of information about the track on the player’s screen. This information typically includes the cover art for the track, the album, artist and track name, its genre and track number.

Such information is stored in the MP3 file itself using ID3 tags. However, in addition to the tag information in the example above, the ID3 tag standard can support over 80  different tags. So, out of this vast array of tags what are the key tags that you should consider using in your podcasts?

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The Internet Monthly is a monthly podcast featuring 20 or so short Internet related articles, tips and tricks and a regular search engine of the month feature.

This month’s podcast celebrates the 100th edition of Zen Internet’s free monthly newsletter, first published in March, 2001, when the top story was "the latest news about ADSL – affordable high-speed Internet connectivity that’s up to forty times faster than the fastest dial-up modem".

This month, a selection of stories from the Zen Monthly archive have been picked from the newsletter’s eight year history.

This podcast is derived from a monthly newsletter published by Zen Internet and recorded and produced by Silicon Bay. The podcast is reproduced by kind permission of Zen Internet.

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Every time you use an MP3 player or an iPod, you’re using compressed audio files, whether you realise it or not. Whilst MP3 is probably the most common compressed audio format, it’s certainly not the only one available.

Manufacturers like to develop and retain technologies that gives them a commercial and technological advantage over their competitors. To this end we as consumers have ended up with a collection of competing, but unfortunately technically incompatible, solutions to the same problem; that of storing large amounts of audio on portable audio players.

Thankfully the majority of manufacturers (but by no means all) of these portable audio players have eased our potential incompatibility problems by making sure that their players can play the majority of compressed audio formats that are in common usage today.

So what are these common compressed audio formats, why do we need them and what are the associated problems with having so many different formats?

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The Internet Monthly is a monthly podcast featuring 20 or so short Internet related articles, tips and tricks and a regular search engine of the month feature.

In this month’s podcast, you can find out about offers that include free international phone calls and an easy government draw that could win you a new car. There’s news of street protesters who blocked Google’s camera car on its way to photograph their houses and the tourist photographers threatened with jail for snapping London policemen.

You can find out how to check your PC for infection by the mysterious Conficker worm, a one-stop introduction to Twittering for business and an early warning system to spot the Internet’s next big business opportunity.

This podcast is derived from a monthly newsletter published by Zen Internet and recorded and produced by Silicon Bay. The podcast is reproduced by kind permission of Zen Internet.

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Podcasts are now common place, with almost anybody being able to produce one themselves if they wish. However, with a little thought and a little extra effort, it’s possible to take this new medium to a whole new level and produce your own radio play.

Thanks to the advent of digital audio and the power of modern PCs, it’s now well within the capabilities of virtually anyone to produce and publish their own radio play using the same technologies as used in podcasting.

As a small kid I remember producing plays with my toys, an upturned stool for a theatre, a few torches and the tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter as a script. Since then my interests graduated to music production; I played in numerous bands and have always been keen on recording bands as a hobby.

However, my recent visit to an audio post production film editing suite at Pinewood Studios, re-sparked my interest in plays (I’ve always been a fan of the BBC’s radio series: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and got me to thinking about using the same equipment that I use for podcasting, but pushing it’s use a bit further.

All I needed was some creative inspiration, but in it’s absence, I did the next best thing and borrowed it from someone else…

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