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In & Around Podcasting
Is Video the End of Audio? Demystifying Apple's HLS, Podcast Accessibility, and Creative Freedom
00:41:31
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- [00:01]
A
The big news that Happened on Monday, April 20, 2026 Tim Cook announced he is stepping down as CEO of Apple effective September 1, 2026. And he will be succeeded by John Ternus, who is currently Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware engineering. Cook is not leaving the company entirely. He will transition into the newly created role as as Executive Chairman. Additionally, John Shrugie is being elevated to Chief Hardware Officer, taking over a newly consolidated hardware division. So why is this such a big deal? Rob, what do you think about this?
- [00:47]
B
This is good news for Apple. There's a clear transition plan. It was well thought out. It's been under consideration, I guess, for a while from rumors. I want to first give a good shout out to Marco and the team over at accidental tech podcast ATP. They had an episode December 12, 2025 which basically talked about John Ternus and it talked about Johnny Sh being elevated into the CTO role, basically the Chief Hardware Officer role. And the only way for that to happen was for John Ternus to be elevated to CEO. And that would be the best outcome for Apple. So these guys back in December were calling for exactly what happened this week. The funny thing about Apple is you don't usually hear much about Apple people, but there were a few. You know, there's Cred, Fredericki and there's Q and Jaws and others, but those are a little bit older. And John Ternus is 50 and this gives him a chance to be CEO for 15 years, just like Tim Cook was CEO for 15 years. I think this is a good thing for Apple. I think overall Wall Street's kind of agreed, stocks kind of stayed steady this week. I'll let others talk. I don't want to hog it because I'm an Apple fanboy. So on my own podcast back in today in iOS, I did mention John a couple times. I had to go back to me, look through my notes and it was a couple times he was on stage presenting, but really never talked about him other than saying his shirt was tucked or untucked. That was about it.
- [02:18]
C
I like Apple products. I use Apple products. I'm not like a fanboy like Rob. But what's been interesting, the conversation I've seen online, certainly on Reddit, some of the tech subreddits, is that they're putting an engineer or person back in charge, you know. So as you mentioned in the introduction there, I'll say it says a lot, I think, for where they're going to go from a hardware point of view and maybe the direction of Apple from the Tim Cook era, so to speak.
- [02:39]
A
Yeah, Tim was the services guy, you know, he's the one that got that whole like the supply chain thing going for them. It was very focused on being able to get all of the services part of the business moving up. And then John seems to have like really spearheaded some of like the key hardware things that were going on with Apple at that time, which are like the Apple watch and the AirPods which are some of the things that have really moved up. So it seems that there's going to be a little bit of a leadership style shift here. Tim Cook has been known for constancies building and Turnus is described as more of a highly decisive and a bit more in the mold of Steve Jobs. But alas though internally he has a reputation of being a really super nice guy and he inspires fierce loyalty and he's really willing to break to make bold firm calls, it seems like. So I'm curious what that looks like inside of what's going on already within the organization now. Something that is really interesting to me is how much thinking went into the succession planning of this whole thing for a larger company like that. They really thought through who was going to be coming in, what would happen if John wasn't accepted or what would happen if something wrong happened in there. Because it wasn't really the case for Tim because Steve Jobs, it happened so fast that Tim didn't really have the space to be able to allow the planning stages. And from what I have heard the conversations out there, this is really wonderful for Tim to be able to really set John to really succeed. And the other, other part is the relationships that Tim has had with the world globally, having to have really in depth conversations with world leaders, he's still gonna do that. Because those types of relationships, you can't just bring somebody in there and then just pick up. So there's a lot of nuance that Tim is going to slowly, I believe, maybe possibly share with John over time and slowly start to bring him maybe into some of those meetings, maybe some conversations, building connections with world leaders. Because Apple has a huge stake in, I would say politics to some degree, even though maybe that's not what he would want. But it's the truth and you have to have those built relationships that he's brought for a long time.
- [05:06]
B
Tim Cook was once called Tim Apple by a certain politician. Maybe John will get to the point where people will call him John Apple.
- [05:12]
A
Oh my God, he's not going to get the name right. You know, that's not going to be
- [05:17]
B
but here's the thing. Steve Jobs was the marketing guy. He was a marketing focus when Apple needed the marketing focus. Tim Cook was operations guy when the only way to ship the amount of product that was shipped and to get those iPhone launches, really to hit and be successful when the demand was hottest was to have complete control of the supply chain. Tim did a phenomenal job on that. No one could have done a better job than what he did. And now Apple's at a point where they need to go back to being more creative and rolling out better hardware. And having an engineer in place at Apple, I think, is the right person, the right thing at this point in time, especially as AI comes on. And that was the other thing with Tim, making John the CEO, that allowed Apple not to lose Shoji, who has more of an AI focus and software. And so overall, I think for Apple, this is a good thing. I think it's the right thing. Again, I'm an Apple fanboy, so, you know, I'm always wearing the rose colored glasses, but I like Tim Cook. I. I thought Tim did a phenomenal job. And he'll be remembered as, you know, one of the great CEOs out there. And let's see if John, you know, John's got two big shoes to step into.
- [06:33]
A
Yep. All right, well, let's zoom out a little bit and get to it. Hey, welcome to In N Around Podcasting, the podcast industry show that brings you a range of powerful podcasting perspectives. I'm Elsie Escobar from Captivate, joined by Rob Waltz and the OD co hosts Mark Asquith and Danny Brown as we break down Apple Podcast Video. Oh, my God. Welcome, Danny and Mark. How's it going?
- [07:12]
D
Hello, hello, hello. It's in the words of Tony Stark, it's good to be back.
- [07:18]
A
Oh, good. How long has it been?
- [07:22]
D
Too long. But at the same time, not long enough. Really. You guys are significantly better, more talented and charming than we are.
- [07:29]
A
Oh, come on now.
- [07:30]
D
Oh, no, Danny. Come on, come on.
- [07:32]
C
Certainly got better hair. Well, maybe not, Rob. Sorry.
- [07:37]
B
Hair with hair.
- [07:38]
A
Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited to have you guys here, obviously to where you guys have been and to chime into the conversation, because this is a conversation that most people are going to hear in so many different variety of ways here. But folks are so interested in the video podcasting Apple podcast offering that Captivate is supporting, and we are so excited to be able to do that. But before we actually get started with what we're going to be talking about here, we're going to really just break down really quickly what we're going to be talking about in terms of the video offering that Apple Podcast is offering. And it really is more around the support of hls. And, and as we get started here, I'm just going to say that HLS stands for HTTPs Live Streaming. It's a video delivery method originally developed by Apple and today it's widely used to stream video online. It's not a new thing and it's actually been around since 2009, but it's now being rolled out to support video on Apple Podcasts, which is why everyone is talking about it right now. But I'm gonna start our conversation off by a thread that I saw one of my. I can't say he's my friend, but I love him to death and I just adore him. And we've gotten to know each other online a lot. His name is Rob Dunwood and he works over at the Daily Tech News Network and he does such wonderful work. He's been podcasting for as long as all of us have as well. And he put something out there because he does. And then I think that it really encapsulates what a lot of the conversation is around there. He said, can someone explain to me how Apple adding HLS video support to Apple Podcast is killing audio podcasting? And how does support of a video streaming standard adversely affect shows that have no video? So who would like to take that?
- [09:41]
B
I'll take the first part. It's not killing audio podcasting. You can continue to do an audio podcast. You don't have to do video. And there are articles. There was a nice article in the Wall Street Journal last week that even talked about podcast audio listeners saying, hey, don't forget about us. So there are even more opportunities to be audio only and appeal to that audio only crowd. But there's not killing it in any way.
- [10:06]
D
I agree with that. And this is where it feels different to like YouTube and everyone else, where everything has been either an extra channel. So YouTube, let's, you know, for simplicity, let's just say, right, that's an extra channel alongside audio. Despite all the bits that they've done with audio and, you know, YouTube music and whatever. But just for simplicity, let's say it's a brand new channel that's sort of the same with Spotify video in that it's kind of sort of an all or nothing thing. You know, you're in or you're not to a degree, or it feels that way from a perception perspective. I Feel that the way that Apple has implemented it shows like our, like, we've got golf show network. And I can't be bothered with YouTube for it. This is a billion and one YouTubers that are way better than me, a thousand other things that are all golf related. But I love talking about it and it's very specific to a particular type of person. The way that Apple is implemented, it means I can do a video episode now and again if I want to, or I can add a different type of episode to the mix. It's not on or off, it's not all in or not. And I feel like, Elsie, you said at the beginning, you know, well, how will quote unquote video podcasting affect podcasting or, you know, audio overall? For me, this is not video podcasting. It's just a video option for your podcast, which I think is quite a subtle but important distinction.
- [11:18]
A
Yeah, I think that there's a feeling to me when I'm looking at the conversation online where folks get so caught up with the binary of this versus that and it removes the nuance that you were just talking about, Mark, which is that there's has always been a level of enhancement. And what I see within podcasting is the freedom to try to do all the things or to be able to do all the things that you want to get content out and the layers of being able to go, having a video like we're having right now, to be able to, if somebody wants to watch versus listening, that's an enhancement of it. To be able to provide a PDF to somebody that wants to read it, that's an enhancement of it. To be able to look at transcripts for people's content, that's an enhancement of it. So it's just to me, about reaching audiences where they are and it's not this or that. And that's the part that gets me, like, upset because it makes me feel that somebody's feeling less than at all the time. And that's not what we're doing here with this offering. It's more expansive. It's being more open to get everybody together.
- [12:31]
D
That's huge in podcasting as well. If you think about the whole point of podcasting, why we all fell in love with it, was because it was super easy to feel included in it. And then really, even really recently. But over the last few years, there's been so many divisive elements to it that have been very binary. I think that's a really great point, is everything's been binary. Like, is this a Podcast or not, Is this a video podcast or is it truly a podcast if it's delivered via X mechanism, who cares? And I think it's just now at the point where if I don't have the production budget or the budget to buy a specific mic or to buy 97 books course or whatever, I shouldn't be made to feel bad about it. And it's, you know, that's what we all strive for. That's why we work so well together and get along so well. It's because we want to help the people. Regardless, everyone deserves the same opportunity. And this feels like it does democratize video podcasting. And I'm really using that term loosely, like quote unquote, video podcasting. It feels like it democratizes it a little bit because you can just say, well, I'm a podcaster, I did film something last week and I'll just use that once, or whatever, you know, I just feel you're right. Accessibility is so important.
- [13:37]
B
And Apple looked at this not from the podcaster's perspective, they looked at this from the consumer's perspective and they said, okay, we've had video in Apple Podcasts for 20 years. And people who wanted to have audio and video in Apple podcasts for the past 20 years needed to have two feeds, one for audio, one for video. And if you listened a certain way when you could listen and you got to a certain point and stopped and then you wanted to watch because you could have a chance to watch, the two didn't sync. And then Apple said, oh, how could we make it where people don't have to subscribe to two feeds or, or one, or pick one or the other. Just pick one feed and not split your audience and make it easy for the listeners to come in and consume how they want to consume. When they want to listen, they can listen. When they want to watch, they can watch. And Apple created this solution to do that, which is different than anywhere else.
- [14:28]
A
And so, Danny, should an audio only podcaster feel pressured to start video now just because of this release?
- [14:37]
C
I would agree with everyone here. I'd say no. I'm an audio first podcast. I do rarely do video. And it's mainly just like walkthroughs where I'm basically a little, a little icon at the bottom of the screen that I'm sharing. So I don't even do proper video if you want. But no, I mean, audio is still the content that so many people are listening to and want from podcasting because generally, we all know with video you have to Give your focus to a screen to really understand it and know who's talking, etc. Whereas audio has always been just ears only. You know, I always call it a hug for your ears. Audio podcasting, because it's intimate, right? It's one on one. Even though you're speaking to many listeners, it's still one to one. So no, you know, it's, it's. I like how you've described it there also where it's an enhancement if you only do video now and again and experiment and as Rob says, but just don't go out your way to add more cameras, more mics, more, you know, studio decoration, use your phone, use your normal mic, et cetera, and see if you like it and then continue to do that if you want. So I don't think audio is going to suffer. I do like the way Apple's doing it. Compared to, you know, YouTube, it's still openrss to a degree, even though it's HLS, you know, calls. So yeah, as an audio first podcaster, I don't feel the pressure to do video. I've not got the face for video, which is why I don't do it. Anyway, I don't think this is like a, a major hit to audio podcasters.
- [15:54]
A
I was actually just thinking about, there's also been a really big conversation out there about is listening to an audiobook really reading like that has been like a question that keeps coming up and I see a lot of people really sort of looking down at folks that, and I'm using air quotes here, read with their ears, they're listening to audiobooks. And there's a lot of purists who are like that's not reading because you need to read with your eyes. And that is the literally the only way to do it. And then the other aspect is if you're just gonna do that, what's gonna happen to books? Nobody's gonna have any physical books ever. And there's this real dark kind of view of the death of the physical book. You don't need that because you have Kindles because people can read em that way. And I have not seen that. I've seen now the expansion of reading to people who have a hard time reading with their eyes. There's a lot of folks who just have truly. Like my kid, the words jump off of the page. My husband told me what the thing that she's doing, like she, I can't remember the exact name for this thing and it's really hard for her to read, especially Small text, you know, larger text is a little easier for her. And being able to read with ears and eyes is a lot easier. I read with my ears and my eyes, but right now my eyes are so tired from looking at the screen that sometimes I need a break and the ears do it. But that doesn't in no way stop me from buying books. So I feel that there's a parallel in that, where we just get an opportunity to be more expansive and inclusive. A lot more people stepping into a medium that introduces them to maybe a possible other way of consuming content. And isn't our message the most important thing that we want people to, like, get? I don't care how they get it, whether they watch me do an Instagram reel or whether they have listened to my voice for many years, as long as they get the message, I'm. I'm cool. I'm good with that.
- [18:02]
C
But it's like the transcripts that you mentioned, right? Obviously it's for accessibility, but you can also use it if you're on a really noisy subway train and you can't listen, you know, to the podcast at the time, but you can still follow along. It's not that you're not consuming the podcast anymore. Cause you're reading the text, you're still consuming that same content. So, yeah, completely, 100% agree with you there, Elsa.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah. Okay. But let's move forward a little bit to talk about the workflow, because after Rob and I did the live event, which we'll have a link in the show notes where we. We had a lot of community members show up. And the majority of the folks that showed up to that live stream were mainly the video folks. There were a lot of video folks that showed up. It was like 75% of the people that showed up to that event were video people. And I want those that are consuming this content right now in their ears that are like, I want, you know, they're subscribed to, in and around podcasting, they're following the show, that we get an opportunity to kind of talk with you about it a little bit. Those of you who I assume are a little bit more audio centric, just so that you learn a little bit more. But even with the video folks, some of the key questions that kept coming up is they didn't quite understand the workflow of what happens to the video. So to the podcast or as they produce their content, they record their show. Most people would understand what they do once they get into the Captivate dashboard, because they're just uploading a file. Right. But I want to talk through all the little layers with the nuances so that people kind of understand what that is. So let's look at how that travels. And Danny, I want you to take this portion here to talk through a little bit of how to start the process.
- [19:42]
C
Yeah, so it's really simple. It's not that much different from uploading your audio file. You record your video file, you upload that to captivate as an MP4 video file. We will then break that down into different bit rates, because that's a beautiful hls. It's all based on your connection to the content you're listening to. So if you're on a poor connection, we can drop the video down to 240p, you know, display resolution. If you're on a good connection, you can jump up to 720, for example. So you upload your video file that will be sent off to Apple Podcasts as an HLS video file portion and audio from that file. We will then create the MP3 and send that out to Pocketcast, Spotify, et cetera. Places that don't have, you know, obviously Spotify's got video, but we don't currently send video files to Spotify. But all the other normal podcast apps that you want the audio file, we'll send that version out to these apps, and the video version that you've just uploaded will solely go to Apple. Apple then uses the audio from the video to play back on Apple Podcasts. So if you don't want to watch a video on Apple Podcasts, you still just want to listen to the audio. You can do that, but it will be the audio from the video. So it may be a little bit different, you know, from the audio that's gone out to other podcast apps, depending on the workflow you've used and what you're uploading, et cetera. But, you know, we're going to talk about.
- [20:54]
A
Yeah, for sure. And so, Rob, the other question that kept coming up too was who sees what? Right. Because there's a lot of nuances to. We have the video file that has been uploaded, it has gone out on there. So once it's uploaded and published, who sees what? What is the. The listener or watcher see from this.
- [21:15]
B
Now, if you're on iOS 26.4 or more recent, you will be able to watch or switch back in here. So Apple Podcasts listeners, iOS. Now, here's the thing. If you're on iOS 26.3 or older, you will only be able to hear it the video version won't be available as an option for you. If you have a good stable connection, you'll get to see the video experience fully up to 720p. An unstable connection, you might get a lower res video or it's a really unstable connection, a really low bandwidth connection. Then like if your phone says LTE or something like that, it's switching between LTE and sos. You may only get the audio version connection. That's what happens on the Apple Podcast side. Again, older versions of Apple podcast iOS 26.3 and older only get the audio file. That's the MP3 file that comes from the RSS feed. So not the HLS audio, the MP3. Now that's important because we do allow Captivate for you to upload a secondary audio file that's different than the primary audio file that's pulled from the video. So the default is you just upload video and we make the audio for you. Or maybe you want to have your intro on the audio version for everybody else be a little bit different than what's in the video. You maybe you did a baked in ad in the video that you didn't do on the audio. The audio version can be different and that would be the MP3 version that you would get in iOS 26.3 or older. And then same with Spotify. If you're consuming there right now, it's going to be the MP3 file that's in the RSS feed. It's going to be the same with Overcast and Castbox and all the other apps are going to get that YouTube. If you currently have your RSS feed going to YouTube where it's pulling your file to YouTube, that's going to be the MP3 in the RSS feed, not the video file. So it's not going to switch to video and pull the video at this time. So that's how that's working right now. So again the basic is HLS video to Apple iOS 26.4 or more recent versions. Everything else other apps it's going to be what's in the RSS feed for your mp3 file which is either pulled from the video or if you choose a secondary audio file that's uploaded, I
- [23:44]
C
will quickly say as well shout out to Android Team Android, that's me. If you've got the Apple Podcast app on your Android phone, you can watch each other's videos regardless of the version of the wish you've got. Maybe not the super super super older ones, but certainly I can Watch HLS video right now on my 6A, which is an old phone.
- [23:59]
A
All right, so now we're going to move a little bit into some of the key differences between HLS, Apple, HLS versus the open standards, which are the podcasting 2.0, all of that stuff. Mark, do you have any insight into what those are for us to kind of talk through? Those two differences between that?
- [24:18]
D
Yeah, the nerdisms behind it, really, they're actually quite straightforward. The HLS is just a technical standard that anyone can use that. You know, Daniel alluded to it, it's just a technical standard. But Apple have chosen to use this technical standard to deliver video. And as Rob mentioned earlier, due to whether it's bad data service issues or whatever, the previous issues around, like even back in the day, video codecs and having the right codecs and blah, blah, blah, blah to transcode things were largely circumvented by, for example, YouTube. So you take a video, you pop it on YouTube. YouTube just deals with everything. So that was like the step up from having to just code and encode a thousand different versions of your video. What HLS does is it's a technology that's used behind the scenes with many of those major streaming platforms anyway. All of the streaming services that we see out there in the wild have HLS mechanisms. And the reason for that is that what HLS does is it will take an origin file so the video of in and around podcasting right now, and it will, in some way or another, it will transpose and transcode that video into a range of different versions which we can get to to later. Those versions are largely predicated on resolution, and thus you will end up with. If we record in 4k now. So captivate will take that video and what it will do is it will create and transcode different versions based on different resolutions. So there'll be a 480 version, a 720 version, and so on and so forth. And then captivate the platform, thanks to our engineers, code. We'll create what's called a HLS manifest file, which will basically break each video down into segmented chunks of just a few seconds of time. And what this allows is If I'm streaming 720 video and it looks cool on my phone, it looks great. And then I just go over the hills, because I live in a really rural area. Go over the hills, the service drops a little bit. The device says, well, wait a second, actually, I can't quite get that. I'm going to have to buffer. And due to HLS and the manifest and the way that it's all managed, it will naturally just drop to 480 or whatever the resolution beneath that is in order to keep you streaming that video and keep retaining the content. So it's a way you'll see all the time when you watch YouTube or Netflix, you know, if the quality drops because the Internet drops, that's essentially what's going on. The difference with alternate enclosure is that with alternate enclosure, give the RSS feeder URL to a finalized finished video file that lives somewhere, usually on a CDN somewhere that then gets delivered out to wherever asks for it, whether it's an app that supports alternate enclosure or if you're delivering to somewhere else as a one off pass through by the alternate enclosure location. And that's pretty standard when it comes to the RSS feeds for podcasts. Anyway. It's essentially how the enclosure tag works. And you know, that's what we used to see when it comes to, okay, here's the MP3 file that you should play when I press play on my Apple podcast player, whether that's on my iOS device, on my iPad or my Mac, in my Tesla, whatever that might be. And the difference there is that that is the one and done file. Whereas this implementation is, whilst it's more complex, it's more complete from a streaming standpoint. You know, we don't necessarily always like the word streaming. It may not be sort of strictly correct, but this is very much about we will give you all of these different transcoded versions of the video that you upload and captivate, will transcode them into the different resolutions, the different sizes, and then we will tell Apple podcasts, okay, look, here are all the files. Here is what we call the manifest, which is how the files link to each other. So part one of the file links to part two, to part three, to part four and so on. The beauty of that is that you can serve the relevant sized, relevantly resolutioned version of the video based on the consumer's device connectivity levels. So if your connectivity drops, if your connectivity gets better again, you may go from, for example, watching a really nice HD version at 720 and momentarily, you know, you go through a bit of a phase with your Internet connection and it drops to maybe 480 or whatever, but then comes back a minute or two later. It's the experience that we're used to with, with anything that streams. We've all had the pixelation happen now and again with, with our Internet connections. And that's the real reason for that. So the one and done is alternating closure is a way of saying here is one file that exists in this case a video file. Go and get it when you need it. To the apps and to whoever else. This implementation is much more dynamic and it's much more tailored to differing conditions for the consumer. So I hope that makes sense. It does get a bit nerdy, but we are nerds, so no apologies.
- [29:03]
A
No apologies. Yes, for sure. And by the way, everybody, if you have any more questions about this so that we can cover it, you can email communityaptivate FM so that at any time you want greater clarity around any of this, please send a question over and we'll make sure that we address it some way in any of our channels. So Dani, one of the questions that we had when we did our live stream was around when you add a separate audio file inside of the Captivate UI and people had some questions around what happens? Like what happens when people upload that? Where does it go? Like, why is that there? And expectations for the, for the end user, like where, where that file goes.
- [29:53]
C
Yeah, so it's, it's mainly. Well, not mainly, it's exactly to deliver to other podcast apps that aren't using Apple HLS video, because that's only for Apple podcasts. We still have a lot of audio first or audio only podcasters that don't want to do video or want to do video in a very small manner. So the option to upload a separate audio file ensures that while Apple pulls the audio from the video that you've sent over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcast, goodpost, Overcast, all the other podcast apps that don't use Apple's HLS will receive that separate audio file that you've now uploaded. And it really comes down to giving a polished audio version to your listeners. So with video editing, we know it can be choppy and that's kind of accepted on YouTube. You accept the jump cuts, et cetera. But for audio, it sounds similar to if you use an AI tool that removes filler words or empty spaces, et cetera, and you use that very aggressively, you hear the audio jumping and you know it's very stuttery almost if you don't clean it up. So uploading a separate audio file allows you to really look after the audio version of the episode and send that out. So while, you know, Apple HLS might get a one hour uncut video version, it would normally go to YouTube, Pocket Cast or Overcast. Listeners will get a 48 minute version because you've cut out all the references to screens and what you can visually see behind you, et cetera. So it's a nice way to tighten up the audio and send it out to the other podcast apps that aren't Apple Podcasts and HLS video.
- [31:21]
A
Yeah, that seems like it's very empowering for the, at least for the podcaster to have a choice to be able to do something like that. Now, another question that kept coming up, Rob, was around the video resolution. And because in that live stream we had primarily a lot of video first people who were there, and rightly so, as they were the most curious about just getting going with it, they had less questions around what video even is because they're already producing video. And we did have a little bit of questioning as to the quality of the audio. If, you know, if they're uploading like 4k video, they wanted to have like sort of 4k video being put out right into Apple Podcast. And what were your thoughts around that and why we are dealing with video and, you know, shifting the encoding a little bit as we publish it out to Apple Podcasts.
- [32:15]
B
The whole idea behind H L S is that it's an adaptive streaming, again, not truly streaming, but byte range. It's adaptive byte range delivery. And the audience, as far as they're concerned, is streaming. But we're talking to podcast here, so I just want to get that more technically correct. But it's not a static download of the whole video file. It's not the full video file. It's byte ranges, it's chunks. A few seconds, six seconds, five seconds, few seconds of it, and the resolution in each of those byte ranges. Each of those chunks can be at a different resolution based on the connection speed that the person has. Now, even if you upload 1080p to Captivate, we're going to cap the output by default at 720p. And then that means the viewer, depending on their connection, could have a 720p version, a 540p, 360p or lower version that they get again depending on their connection. This, by the way, ensures bandwidth costs remain sustainable. But more importantly, it's not so you. It's so you don't get a choppy video experience where it's buffering and buffering and buffering on the device. Because they got LTE pops up on their phone and they're trying to download a 1080p. Doesn't work, not from a true streaming perspective. So now I'm going to say all of this. I know there's some people that are still like, but I want higher than 720p as a possibility for when people are on a good Internet connection. If that is you and you do want it, do know you'll pay more because there's a bandwidth charge and you'll need to email me rob.walshlobal.com and let's talk about that. But by default we're doing 720p. We feel that's the best for the listener perspective, viewer perspective, I gotta call it, say viewers if they're watching. And it's also best for the podcaster perspective from a monetization or a cost perspective. So we're trying to walk that line. And most people on their Internet connection, on the mobile device, it may drop down below the 720p anyway, depending on what their connection is. Outside of WI Fi, it's a long way to go to say there's a lot of reasons for this. I know some of the video folks were like, oh, I want 4k, you want 4k recommendation? Upload the 4k to YouTube. Put the embedded YouTube player on your website. You want 4k?
- [34:42]
A
Yeah. I think that there's so much that we're still, I think, figuring out to be able to serve the creators and the folks that are on the other end too, just so that they can receive the best way to consume that media overall. But y', all, as you are listening to this, the HLS support, the Apple Podcast video support is rolling out this week on Captivate and it's all the support for Apple Video Podcasts. So you can now publish video and audio from a single RSS feedback. Also, anything related to pricing is going to be available on the page that's going to be linked in the show notes here. And honestly, it's a huge high five to the for the team at Captivate. This has been a real team effort across the board to get this out. Now, like we've been saying, this isn't about doing more just because you can. As in, you don't need to be adding anything, you don't need to change anything. It really is up to you. You could take it slow. It's really about figuring out what actually makes sense for your show. So if you want to explore it, we have a full breakdown, we have help articles and resources, all of them linked in the show notes. And we're going to go deeper inside a lot of the workflows and things within Growth Labs next week with our series the Audio to Video Roadmap, which is going to be amazing again. Find everything that you need in our Show Notes. There's going to be ways to sign up for that series in the show Notes. There's going to be a lovely landing page, all kinds of help articles and of course our team is there for any questions that you have all about that. Does anybody else have anything else to say about the HLS and questions overall here that we want to make sure that folks know about?
- [36:36]
D
For me, it's just understanding that this is so early stage and it's just a developmental piece. You know, the amount of networks at all scales that I've had conversations with and creators at all scales who maybe for the first time in a long time are really all in the same boat with this. You know, regardless, everyone's in the same boat. We're feeling this out. The Toolkit is very developmental. It's very, very early stage. And when I say the toolkit, I don't just mean captivate, I mean the toolkit in the industry. Apple, podcasts, every other hosting platform, everything is so nascent when it comes to this type of video and the delivery mechanisms. So whilst it is exciting, that's the one thing that I would always say and it's very often why as Captivate, we aren't first to things. We're usually third and fourth, but right and well put together and well rounded. In this instance, we're a launch partner because we wanted to get ahead of such a big movement. But realistically, there is no need to jump on this. You don't ever need to feel bad about not doing something that is trendy. And I think that's such an important piece that, you know, if you surf around the Facebook groups, sometimes you do get made to feel a little bad if you don't follow the trends or whatever. And it's usually again by the gurus that are a little bit over tanned selling the 47 bucks courses. So, you know, we can ignore all that, do what's good for you, do what's good for your listeners and just, you know, feel comfortable with it. I think that's so important.
- [37:59]
A
Absolutely. And as we're starting wrapping up the show, as always, we have the lovely segment for in and around podcasting called the Flattering Room. In this flattering ram, I am going to be chatting a little bit about the amazing Anna desean, a dear friend of mine. She's an Ambie Award winner for the best independent podcaster and female founder of the Cube app. And she has a goal of building the largest database of black and Brown podcasters. Right now, she has set a goal of 500 podcasts by June 30, and at the time of this recording, she is at 67. I believe it actually went up a little bit. I think it went up almost close to 80. In fact, I. I think I checked this warning too. I didn't update the notes here. So if. Go over to the Cube app, the Cube Dot app, you can sign up there on the website. It's all free. And I'm going to spell that for y' all because it's confusing. It's T, H, E Q U V E dot, A, P, P. But there's also a link in the show notes. So if it is you, if you're a Brack or Brown podcaster and you want to add yourself to this database, please go ahead and do so. She is doing some fantastic work and it looks amazing. So let's help her get to her goal.
- [39:33]
D
I think that's absolutely stunning. We know how hard it is to build community and to put the effort into that, and it's such a unseen amount of effort. So that is absolutely stunning. I think that's just to be commended and we should really appreciate and respect that. The. The shout out. I want to give two shout outs, actually. One to Kieran, the Captivate co founder and our resident comedian, just for his work on this video podcast. And I know, I know Rob, you mentioned it in a previous episode as well, but he's really, he really has pulled out all the stops on this and not just from a building perspective. You know, one of Kieran's unseen talents that you don't necessarily hear much about is just the way he thinks through things. And he's. He's just inevitably excelled in that on this project as well. And then also, just big shout out, an internal celebration to our. Our guy, our new lead developer, Pierre Fenimore, who got a promotion last week. And the amount of customers and podcasters that know Pierre because he dives into the. The support with earnest and grace is remarkable. So just well done to Pierre. He's an amazing guy and if anyone gets a chance to meet him at an event, you will just be charmed by him. He's a great person. So congrats to Pierre.
- [40:38]
A
Yay. All right. Okay. Well, folks, I think that we got it done. Thank you for all four of us to be here together. This has been really lovely and we hope we'll. We'll be doing this again and again. If you have any feedb, please, please, please reach out via communityaptivate fm. Send us emails. We'll check those out and answer your questions, have you be part of the show, send your audio feedback, all those lovely things. We're here for you and we're here to support you as we move forward together. Thank you so much for consuming this and thank you all for showing up.
- [41:16]
B
Thanks, Elsie, for moderating.
- [41:18]
D
Thank you.
- [41:20]
C
Bye. Bye.
- [41:21]
A
Bye.