Today, the Podcast Standards Project hosted a session on “Video podcasting with HLS” to a packed room at Podcast Movement.

Since many attendees hadn’t yet arrived at the conference, I expected about 5-10 people to attend the session. Instead, 40-45 people filled our small meeting room, spilling out the door.

Many in attendance believe that RSS-based podcasting needs to innovate to better support video podcasts. Others who attended were creators who wanted to do a video podcast and wanted to see what was possible.

Demo: what video podcasting with HLS looks like for listeners

We started with a scenario: imagine you’re walking home from work, listening to your favorite podcast. At one point, you get curious about who’s speaking and what the guests look like. You pull out your phone and click “switch to video version” in your podcast player.

This is how it would look for a podcast listener:

The beauty of this system is that it’s:

• Audio-first: Audio listening remains the default.
• Utilizes an existing UI paradigm: The ability to switch between audio and video versions of an episode is already employed by YouTube Music and Spotify.

What video podcasting with HLS looks like for creators

On the creator side, the ideal workflow would look like this:

• You would upload your video episode to your favorite podcast hosting provider
• Your podcast host takes the file, creates an audio version, and generates an HLS video version.
• Both the audio version and the HLS video version get added to your podcast’s RSS feed when you click publish.
• Optionally, your video could also be submitted to the closed platforms (YouTube and Spotify).
• Open podcasting apps, such as True Fans, Fountain, and Pocket Casts, will detect if your podcast has a video version. They make that available to listeners in those apps.

The big advantages for creators: you only need to upload your media file to one place, and you’ll view your analytics for video and audio consumption in your host’s dashboard.

What’s the next step?

For HLS video to become mainstream in open podcasting, we need podcast apps to adopt the standard.

In particular, having Apple Podcasts adopt HLS video would legitimize the standard and likely trigger widespread adoption across the entire podcast ecosystem.

Are you a creator? Make your voice heard. Reach out to Apple Podcasts and let them know that:

1. You want to see video become a first-class citizen in Apple Podcasts again
2. You want to see Apple adopt HLS video via the alternateEnclosure tag in RSS.

You can contact Apple Podcasts’ customer support here.

Thank you, Podcast Movement attendees

To make progress in open podcasting, creators, hosting platforms, and listening apps need to work together, advocate together, and collaborate.

It was so heartening to see so many people show up today who care deeply about the future of open podcasting.

Let’s keep the momentum going!