Apple closing the lecture-to-podcast gap

News from last week’s Apple WWDC in San Francisco revealed pieces of Leopard OS and Server that could gel into a solution from Apple for automating lecture capture and delivery to iTunes U.

First, Leopard iChat (see sneak peek movie) will allow users to do screen sharing for collaborative work on a single computer. Imagine building a webpage together, doing tech support, etc.  Then there is display sharing, known as “iChat Theater”, for Keynote slide shows with accompanying audio and/or presenter video insert.

In his blog Cole Camplese immediately groks the screencast possibilities, and imagining the potential to capture these sessions:

“…it did leave me wondering though in the age of podcasting if GarageBand or iMovie would be able to capture all that and compress it down to an iTunes (U) capable version — wishful thinking, but if I had any say all these new features would be recordable so we could deliver amazing opportunities.”

To which Joel Shields comments that he’s already built this archival tool at the University of South Carolina for the USC.Cast pilot. Hot on the heels of UCSC’s Web Archiving system, here is another homegrown tool using on-board Apple products (iCal, iChat, Remote Desktop) to automate capture and delivery.

Next up from Apple is Podcast Producer. Working in concert with Leopard Server, this simple start/stop utility records audio/video from any supporting device including firewire camera, USB mic, or iSight. It then automatically publishes the file. Note how the intro text imagines a scenario involving “university lectures”.

Cole again recognizes the import of this:

“Not a whole lot of detail, but if it is the setup I listened to an engineer discuss months ago then this is a real killer edu app. Take a peek for yourself and think about the possibilities. When we get our hands on that, all bets are off for easy classroom capture.”

So the logical conclusions here are:

• Capture iChat Theater screen/display sharing
• Publish to server for archiving and/or podcasting, or direct to iTunes U
• And what the heck, throw in some ProfCast functionality to capture an indexed Keynote or PowerPoint presentation and publish as an enhanced podcast

The pieces are finally falling together. What’s still missing is a lecture room encoder for more robust video capture (again, see UCSC’s use of Mac Minis).

Apple seems to be realizing the huge demand for a capture/delivery system that has grown out of institutions diving into iTunes U. The free service may indeed do more than drive the sale of iPods (not that it ever was supposed to), but also OS upgrades, X-Serve purchases and/or upgrades, and possibly additional hardware in the chain. And there’s always the possibility that Apple will allow institutions to host iTunes U in the campus’ data center thereby leading to more server sales, iTunes U software, and support.