Does videocasting take a lot of room on your hard drive?

In answer to the question: Does videocasting take a lot of room on your harddrive? I would say no, not unless you want it to. Videocasts were created to be viewed on portable pods, or viewing devices such as iPods and other MP3 players. While some of these have incredible amounts of storage, most support less than 30 or so GB. So, in order to have them be capable of videocasting, the files cast need to be small enough to fit on these devices. So, if you are using your home computer, or even a laptop or notebook, you will likely have plenty of room on your hard drive for storing your videocasting files.

One thing to keep in mind if you are worried about the amount of space you have on your hard drive is the fact that videocasting can be instant via streaming, or can be downloaded and saved for future times, or viewed over and over.

The video podcast files themselves, which contain the data of the audio or video that you want to listen to or view, are compressed, and are usually fed through an aggregator to make them compatible and the right size for your device.

When you want to view a videocast file, you will need a computer with the Internet, and you will want a fast connection. This is especially important if you are worried about space on your hard drive, because, if you have a faster connection, you can stream, not download, and your quality will be better. The best type of Internet connection for file transfers or streaming is either DSL or Cable or anything better such as a T1 or T3. It is best to avoid using a dial up connection for such ventures. While it can be used, it is slow, and if you are streaming, it tends to be very choppy.

You will want to have a good connection for more than just the speed of the download, but for the quality of the download as well. Usually when a file is compressed, some of the quality is already going to be lost, so you do not want to lose it further. Therefore, if you want to maintain the quality of the video you are watching, stop worrying about how much space it will take up, and worry about how good your connection is to get it. It is better to use a high-speed connection for streaming or just download the file and play it from your hard drive.

It is important to realize that if you are going to be playing your videocast from another device, it will take up more room on your hard drive because you will also bee dot have the software to make this possible. You can buy this software, or you can download it from several places online. But, every time you download something on to your computer you take up some of the space on your hard drive.

If you plan to store and view your video cast files time and again, then you will want to plan on reserving some space on your hard drive for doing so. Your computer should have ample memory for such files, but if you are concerned, there are several inexpensive options for increasing the amount of memory you have on your computer. Or, as mentioned before, just save the link and stream the file each time instead of downloading it.