I'm working on a magazine concept that is going to feature interviews, short films, animations, music videos, psa's, political ads etc and other such short format media and stream it in a podcast type delivery format. I'd like to form some standards for these segments so bandwidth is minimal....either by streaming or downloading a whole issue.

What size and compression is optimal for podcasts (utilizing Final Cut Pro)?

Are there any websites (like myspace) that are geared toward podcast streaming content?

What is the average attention span when watching podcast video content?

I have other questions that are floating around in my head that I will post on this thread. THANKS IN ADVANCE!

By "podcasts" do you mean video streamed from the a website or served from iTunes, or both?

By "podcasts" do you mean video streamed from the a website or served from iTunes, or both?

I want to target all forms of mobile devices. I'd like to make a webpage specially designed for mobile devices and streaming vidcasts/podcasts by either method of downloading or streaming.

What size and compression is optimal for podcasts (utilizing Final Cut Pro)?

Are there any websites (like myspace) that are geared toward podcast streaming content?

What is the average attention span when watching podcast video content?

These questions very much depend on your audience. I would use Quicktime H.264 or Flash 7 for compression.

The attention span depends on the content, audience, and size of your video. If you are broadcasting a video tutorial, you have a willing audience and can talk for at least minutes without losing anyone. If you are making a sales pitch then you'd better keep it short...

You can make your own podcast by getting a blog, say on wordpress.com, and uploading video. There might be specialized sites but I don't know any, nor would I use them if I did. For me podcasts are a way to draw people to my web site.

By "podcasts" do you mean video streamed from the a website or served from iTunes, or both?
A podcast is an RSS feed with video.

youtube is the way to go.
host your video there and build some page reffering to your video.
hosting is free as well as bandwith.
flash format will play on most computer platform.
for special mobile format you still can provide a smaller 3g version, but since the iphone, Apple asked youtube to provide compatible format (H264) so, soon everybody will stick to that.
http://www.youtube.com/mobile