Vodcast Your Own French Maid TV Show. Free.

Podcasting was an early phenomenon of iPod audo. Record an audio conversation, upload it, let the world listen.

Now you can do the same thing with a video podcast. That brings up more than a few interesting opportunities.

Especially for guys. Guys, are you listening? It’s time for French Maid TV for the rest of us.

One of my favorite videos is French Maid TV. What guy can resist a few bountiful, scantily clad young ladies cleaning up the place?

That got me to thinking. How hard difficult could it be to produce a video podcast at home?

Audio podcasts are easy. Set up a microphone, fire up Garageband, click record, talk endlessly about nothing important.

Hey, that’s what most podcasts are these days. But, those French Maid TV podcasts? Ooh la la!

Podcasting tools are a dime a dozen these days. That’s about the same price as the ideas for many podcasts.

Enter the word podcast into MacUpdate and you’ll have enough tools to keep you busy past your bedtime.

I asked Mac360’s Queen of Cheap, the Value Vixen, Alexis Kayhill, for her opinion on tools for video podcasting.

Like her choices or not, the woman knows value, and promptly settled on recommended VODcaster.

Why? I’m guessing because it’s free. VODcaster also does the tricky stuff that gets your podcast added to the iTunes Store.

When you get down to it, recording audio or video on a Mac is truly a piece of cake, a walk in the park; so easy your mother could do it.

All you need is a camera with a microphone and a topic for conversation. Hey, based on some of the podcasts I’ve listened to, you don’t even need an interesting topic.

Regardless, the whole idea of a Mac is to make the complicated become easy, simple, routine. That’s what VODcaster does.

Yes, you can use Garageband to record audio and video. You can use iMovie to record audio and video.

VODcaster does that and the cool things that are not so easy to do in Apple’s iLife apps.

The latest version of VODcaster lets you record video and audio directly into VODcaster, which then encodes them in perfect iPod format using H.264 and AAC audio.

Of course, if you have other video clips, they can be dropped into VODcaster and shared during the video podcast; the so-called vodcaster.

Once you’ve created your videographic masterpiece, getting all the XML set up for iTunes requires a little knowledge.

What I like about Mac applications is that some of them ONLY require a little knowledge. Like point and click. VODcaster does that.

The simple interface lets you enter what you need to get your video podcast ready for listing in iTunes, and ready for upload to a file server.

If it’s easier to create your own French Maid TV video podcast, I don’t know how it’s done. Except for getting those French maids.

In VODcaster, create a channel-- the name of your video podcast. Then drag a movie or record your own. Click publish. Fill in the information.

See? Seriously, the most difficult part will be getting your fine feathered loved one into the French maid outfit. Everything else is easy.

Guess what? VODcaster is ready for the new Intel Macs, being a Universal Binary and all, and their built-in iSight cameras.

It also works with older iSight cameras, in fact, with any Firewire camera you can plug in to your Mac. Click the red record button and go.

There are many ways to skin the video podcasting cat, so to speak.

The technical part is the easiest but also has many choices.

What camera should you use? Which Mac application is best? Can’t I just do the whole thing in iLife?

Honestly. The tough part will be that French maid uniform. OK, work on a plot, a theme, perhaps something other than the French maid uniform.

You may actually need a topic. Hmmm. That brings up a good point.

French Maid TV managed to create a series of informative, educational, entertaining, and professionally instructional podcasts with nothing more than a video camera, a microphone, and a Mac.

Well, almost nothing more. The topics are of dubious memorability. In fact, I can’t remember even one. Let’s see… hmmm… oh, I remember now. There’s the video on CPR.

Yeah, that was quality cinematography.

It just doesn’t take much to become a video podcaster these days. It’s become so easy that your mother could do it.

Just don’t let her find out what you’ve produced.

Check MacUpdate for VODcaster, and French Maid TV for inspiration.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

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