[Stuart Wright]

I'm trying to assess the worth of creating an M4b version of the 'cast. It allows us to create chapter stops with images and links. We've been producing this from the start and use it as the main podcast file for iTunes.
However, if you just download the MP3 then you don't get this extra functionality.
You need to play the cast in iTunes or on a video iPod to see the images.
So which do you download?

[rooster-x]

I think your poll is confusing. I voted for no, but seeing as I let iTunes download the podcast would that in fact mean I should have voted yes?

[David Mackenzie]

What's an M4B? Is it like an MP3 with chapter stops and metadata?

I'm guessing it's Apple Computer centric so I've not heard of it yet?

[Davy]

Originally Posted by rooster-x

I think your poll is confusing. I voted for no, but seeing as I let iTunes download the podcast would that in fact mean I should have voted yes?

Have to agree here. I also voted no but do the same as Rooster-x. I do at times use the facility to skip to a bit that interest me more than perhaps what I am currently listening too. (Is that confusing as well?)

[Stuart Wright]

Originally Posted by rooster-x

I think your poll is confusing. I voted for no, but seeing as I let iTunes download the podcast would that in fact mean I should have voted yes?

Whichever way you experience the podcast, if you skip chapters (using an ipod) or watch the pictures and/or use the embedded web links (using a video iPod or iTunes) then you *do* use the features in the M4B version.
Skipping back and forth is something you can do with the MP3 version and any player. It's creating the chapter information which requires the use of an additional computer, an hour to create, and extra time to upload and space to host a second version of the 'cast.
If you don't know they exist, chances are you aren't using the chapter information in the M4B version and the Mp3 version will do.
If I can dump the M4B version, it saves a lot of time, basically.

[rooster-x]

Can I vote again?

[StooMonster]

Originally Posted by Lyris

What's an M4B? Is it like an MP3 with chapter stops and metadata?

I'm guessing it's Apple Computer centric so I've not heard of it yet?

Yes, darn those Apple people and their use of modern standards.

M4B: MPEG-4 Audio Layer Bookmarkable File

And that AAC (some people call MP4) or 'Advanced Audio Coding' from Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony and Nokia ratified as MPEG-2 Part 7 and MPEG-4 Part 3. Another modern standard, when perfectly good old fashioned, inefficient ones exist!

Perhaps Apple should be more like Microsoft and invent their own proprietary standards for audio and video -- rather than use international standards -- and try to force everyone to use them?

I for one vote for M4B versions, it means you can skip the bits you don't want ... or jump straight to the bits that interest you the most.

StooMonster

[David Mackenzie]

No, I think it's great that Apple aren't using a proprietary standard, I think the fact that there's no tone attached to text means that what I posted didn't come across exactly as I meant it to.

As the owner of a Sony DAP I know all about having proprietary standards "offered" to me!