OStatic

From Videocasts to Podcasts: 15 Free Tools for Building Broadcasts

The web is exploding with new media, and more and more people are interested in open source tools for delivering and consuming webcasts, videocasts, webinars, streaming audio, podcasts and more. The good news is that the open source community has responded with all the tools you need to create and consume video- and audio-based rich media at no cost to you. In the world of commercial software applications, the proprietary equivalents can cost you thousands of dollars. Here are 15 free, open source tools that can make you a broadcaster.

Audacity is the unquestioned king of the hill among free, open source applications for doing podcasts and delivering audio online in various formats. Windows, Mac and Linux users will find its interface to be top-notch and if you listen to many podcasts, Audacity probably delivers many of them.

Miro is widely known as a free, open source video player through which you can watch web videocasts, BitTorrent files, and play almost any type of video file. You can deliver video and audio to Miro's player as a publisher as well. Linux and Mac users should look into VLC Media Player.

What if you want open source applications for creating, encoding and delivering video shows and segments online? My previous post on open source tools for working with video will give you many of the tools you need, including animation tools from the open source community (Blender) and good encoding tools (Theora Encoder).

Especially check into Xvid there, which can give you 100-to-1 compression of video files for delivery online. MediaCoder is a very powerful open source tool for delivering your video content in almost any format, including emerging formats such as 3GP for the iPhone.

For the actual creation and editing of a video for online delivery, while it isn't open source, Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker is good, and comes with lots of pre-built effects. Pitivi is a good choice for Linux users, and Avidemux is an excellent choice for Mac users or Windows users who want high-end features. VirtualDub is good for many targeted video editing tasks, and Kino is a higher end application to use if you want to get serious about using filters and the like.

YoLinux has a set of good tutorials on how to set up an open source MP3 audio streaming server. It's based on Icecast open source server streaming software. YoLinux's tutorial focuses on setting up a Linux server, but Icecast can also be used to set up a Windows-based streaming server.

GNUMP3d is streaming server software for streaming MP3 files, OGG vorbis files, movies and more.

If you're interested in delivering webcasts, especially ones focused on e-learning, Moodle is a hugely respected open source platform for doing so. U.C. Berkeley and many other universities use Moodle to deliver free webcasts and podcasts.

If you are looking to host rich media on the web for streaming or downloading, also check into Limelight Networks, which has low introductory rates. What open source new media applications do you recommend?

• miro
• Moodle
• Audacity
• Kino
• VirtualDub
• Icecast
• MediaCoder
• GNUMP3d
• Pitivi
• Avidemux

Share Your Comments