Video-casting

In my post yesterday, I jokingly predicted that video-casting may be coming soon. This was shared by Robin Goods (OK, his was published on 18th Feb, that's 19th Australian time - so he made the prediction before me).

We like to activate all our senses, audio, video and others. This driving force of video-casting is part of our human nature.

As Robin pointed out, the production side of video-casting is becoming ubiquitous - mobile phones increasing come with built-in video camera. He quoted his collection of images and videos released to the public free soon after the tsunami on Boxing day last year. (BTW, the first photo on the page WAS not a tsunami photo, as correctly labelled, it is the backward flow of Qian Tang Jiang River in China.)

At the receiving end, there are, again, a range of devices. There is even a blog focussed on portable video player news. There are flash-memory based players, with 2.2 inches screen; or cheap ones (it said it would cost under USD100 and available in the 2003 Holiday Shopping season. I think it may be a vaporware!) There are hard-disk based video player with screen up to 8 inches.

Video-casting has advantages and limitations over podcasting. With images and video, some content/context can be explained/reviewed better. I don't think I will use a video-casting a lot myself because my motion sickness problem which will limit my use of video-casting during travelling which would be the best use of the technology.

Podcasting and video-casting is a big step forward in delivering content, but again is a step backward in pedagogy sense. This is a broadcasting mode (hence casting, I suppose!). But again, every device and technique will have its value when properly utilized.