What is a Podcast
Podcasts
What is a Podcast?
Podcasts are audio broadcasts that are stored digitally on the internet. With tradition radio broadcast, listeners are “stuck” because you must be with a radio at a specific date and time to listen to a program. In addition, depending on where you are, the listening quality is often substandard. On the other hand, a podcast is a digital recording (mp3) and downloaded to your computer. So, you can listen to it whenever you want on your computer, burn a CD, or transfer the files to your MP3 player.
How much will this cost me?
Nothing. Our sermons are always free and updated frequently. You are permitted to copy the files as much as you like and distribute to your friends as MP3 or CDs. We only ask that you do not alter the original files.
What software do I need?
If you have an iPod, we recommend using iTunes.
What kind of hardware do I need?
Any modern PC or Apple Macintosh will work. To burn CDs you’ll need a CD burner.
Do I need an iPod?
To carry audio with you, you’ll need a portable MP3 player. An iPod works best. But if you use another kind of player, you can still use iTunes to download the MP3 files. After the files are downloaded you can import the MP3 files into your specific media player (such as Windows Media Player). If you prefer not to use iTunes you can also use Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net).
How do I subscribe to a podcast?
Subscriptions are similar to magazine subscriptions. You subscribe once, and the audio regularly is downloaded to your computer. The following is an example of using iTunes.
Install iTunes.
Click on one of the following links:
iTunes will start up. You’ll be asked to confirm the subscription. Press the “Subscribe” button. The most recent sermon will begin to download. You must allow it to download completely before playing.
To play audio files, double click on the item you want to play. To burn a CD, see the instructions in iTunes help. Adjust podcast subscription settings by pressing the [Settings...] button. You can have iTunes automatically sync with your iPod or manually drag-n-drop files from iTunes to your iPod. As long as iTunes it running, it will regularly check for new audio files and download them for you. You can manually check for updates by presssing the “Update” button.
Previous Sermons
To see the whole podcast library, click on the small triangle, next the podcast name “New Hope International”. This will expand and show all available messages. Items that are in black text have already downloaded to your computer. The gray items are not yet downloaded.
Next to each message title, there is a “Get” button. If you want to download specific sermons press the “GET” button.
You can click “GET” on several items. But only one or two will download at a time.
I’m an advanced user, where are the RSS files?
You can use software other than iTunes to subsribe to the podcast. When using programs such as Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net) you’ll need to know where the feed files are located. The following are the locations of our RSS feeds.
English audio feed: www.newhic.org/Media/Audio/rss.xml
English video feed: www.newhic.org/Media/Video/rss.xml
Thai languate feed: www.newhic.org/Media/Thai/rss.xml
Why does it take so long to download the sermon?
Messages are approximately 50 megabytes in size. This is a fairly large and high quality file. When played back, it sounds as good as a CD. Video files are even larger at approximately 150 megabytes in size. Download times will depend on the web traffic on our server as well as download speed at your location. It’s best to let iTunes download files while you’re doing something else (like sleeping or away doing other tasks). When you return, the sermon files will be ready for you to play.
Still lost and need help ?
Contact webmaster@newhopeinternationalchurch.org and we’ll do our best to help you.
