Podcasting - large files solution?

Problem

i don't know the technical terms for things but i'm sure there are a few computer experts who will understand. i've emailed madge about the size of her shows being on the large size, which isnt a problem at work to download, but at home on my modem it takes ages. sometimes i cant even download the show becuase i get automaticaly disconected after several hours. agrovating! she is in dilemas at the moment.

now madge has enough on her plate producing a top rate show. making it shorter means less madge - if she could do a 2 hour show i would be even happier, as would most fans i guess. she also talks of not being happy about going into mono because this compramises the quality and means listens cant hear the music properly (dosnt matter to me becuse i am partially deaf in one ear!). she has said that to 'compress' for alternative feeds would mean twice as much hard work. poor madge, and poor podcasters also. certainly poor modem owners. less people downloading means the audience will drop.

solution???

i use a web site called 'feedburner' that does clever things with the xml feeds (dont ask me what as i didnt set it up). i then give out the feedburner feeds to people and feedburner glues together mp3s and tells me stats (17 listeners and dropping!!!).

how about if feedburner (or another service) had the option to specify the quality you want the mp3 file in? i have notice that some web sites have question marks in their addresses indicating a setting or preference, how about...

http://feeds.feedburner.com/yeastradio?quality=low?setting=mono?format=mp3

subscribing to this feed would give me a low quality mp3 file and in mono (meaning a quick download!). madge would set it up she could post up the best quality mp3 files and the feedburner automatically downloads a copy then creates mutliple versions for high, medium and low in stero and mono to serve out. maybe the mp3 could be converted to an acc format (not sure what that is but i have herd it mentioned, you get the idea).

we then get the version we choose. this takes the burdon off madges server having to serve out high quality files (presuamably less money for madge to pay?). however feedburner then does all the hosting and has bandwidth problems.

why would feedburner want to do this as this would cost them the hosting? well, i noticed that when i uploaded my mp3 file to my free rizzn.net service they append a mini-advert to the end of my mp3 automartically. perhaps feedburner could add an advert to the beginning and end of the served files? this would pay for the service esaily. madge has thousands of listeners but no time to sell advertising, if an advertiser were to pay feedburner 1 pence per file downloaded to appear at the beginging of a madge weinstein show then thats free hosting for madge and feedburner has an incentive to host mp3s. everyones a winner. especicially when poeple start downloading podcasts using mobile phones and mp3 players use mobile phone networks. in the united kingdom it is £1 per megabyte, so madges show would cost me £50 to listen to - it would be cheaper to fly over to america for a week than to listen to yeast radio for a week using the new mobile phone data service. if i used this service her show might cost only £2/3 to download, the price of a couple of the ringtones.


rounding up and beneifits

-podcasters like madge do less work to upload to the server and compress (one file)
-podcasters pay a lot less to host - the mp3 show only gets downloaded oncce from their server accross to the feedburner server to be compressed.
-podcasters get advertising without worrying about hiring a salesman
-podcasters may even get half of what feedburner makes?? adams 50000 subscribers could make him £250 at £0.01 per subscriber. motivation for podcasters or what?
-smaller shows could perhaps get free advertisment slots on larger shows.
-feedburner has more users
-feedburner has advertisers
-feedburner has popular podcasters with big shows making them advertising revenue
-advtertisers know their target audience better becuase feedburner has very accurate stats + they know the content of the target show.
-listeners have the show they want in the format they want it
-listeners have their show to suit their mp3 player (pc,modem,broadband,mobile phone etc)
-listeners can maybe download more shows and fit more on a small mp3 player should they choose to.
-listeners wouldbnt need to translate mp3 into acc format by buying the ipodx program as this does it for you.
-listeners can always skip the adverts if they can be bothered


what do people think?

i dont know how tecnically this would work, its just my idea that i've seen all these clever things being done, but noone has glued them together in this way to benifit everyone.

what do people think? who would be able to do something like this? is this something peple would use? is it possible? the comment link is about 5cm below this paragraph, please feel free to click in and type things telling me if this is a good / bad idea.

in the mean time im going to continue thinking up ideas like this that i think help people in the vaige hope that someone might like my ideas and ask to hear more whilst i sit chained to a desk waisting my mind in a dead end job doing something that a trained monkey could probably do better and do a lot less cock ups as i have no interest in doing the things that i do and i just want to create things and share with people and because 1/3rd of the british workforse is made up of mangagers and the other 1/3rd of the british workforse is made up of managers who manage the managers getting paid tremendus money to do wasteful things that waist time in burocricy for someone elses power trip and politics and the poeple who work hard and try to get along and not be gready just live to have there wages kept to the bear minimum struggling to stay aflloat whilst the utility companies who have a direct debit my bank account creep prices up and up and bleed me drier and drier until i cant take any more and break down on the corner and cry like i did an hour ago and think about jumping and get angry because there is no end for pepople who are not gready but just want to stay afloat and debt just circles out of control and everyone is out for themselves and i feel like i am wasted doing what i do and the little contirbutions that i make are used by people at work who claim that it is their own and i just curl up into a ball in the corner and cant tell my own mother that her son is trying so hard to help her but cant because the only potential he has is to fetch tea for others and be used as a scapegoat at work hanging by a thread never knowing if this week will be his last trapped in this ugly body judged by people who only think with their eyes and not with their minds and i will never get a real job doing the things i enjoy but instead the tears turn to anger and he just wants to hit walls and kick things but its not in his nature and bottles it up like he has done for years and will crack soon with no friends to talk to if he cant find a way to wake up one morning and smile and look forward to work and know that what he is doing makes him and other poeple happy and that his is contributing to better things and has not been given work just to use up a budget just as i watch thousands of pounds wasted each day delibratly because if they are not spent they wont get the same amount next year right infront of their staff who are ready to break from stress and cant sleep and are frightended to turn on the heating because it costs more money than they make every month and i just want it all to stop just to be five again when we were a family and everything was happy and i was fed honey.