Sidepodcast

A very, very long time ago, eons ago in fact, we introduced the idea of ‘free F1 content for your website’. Essentially this was an embeddable audio player containing news in the form of F1 Minute. That generic player has done remarkably well for us, and we have seen it appear in the most unexpected of places and there have been many more downloads of the daily minute as result. Now we’re taking the concept to the next level.

Much as we did with Sidepodcast’s Partner TV Player, we’re offering a branded version, tailored with a custom image and audio introduction, to anyone who’s interested in including it on their site. For the past month or so we’ve been trialling the idea in two places – Pitlane Fanatic and Racing Bulls. If you haven’t already seen them in action we recommend you go check them out now, but here’s a heads-up for the uninitiated.

Pitlane Fanatic

Jackie and Jolly from Pitlane Fanatic were on the show a couple of days ago, and you might’ve got the impression Jolly is something of a fan of Christine’s daily minute. We’re just as big fans of them too though, and we love the look and feel of the site. The F1 Minute player fits snugly into the silver design.

Check out pitlanefanatic.com for more information.

Continue reading…

Way back in August of last year, we announced plans to make every Sidepodcast show available for download via peer-to-peer networks. At first we started slowly to ensure it was a viable and effective means of distribution and then as we’ve grown more confident with the tools, we’ve integrated them better into our work flow.

Each time we upload a new show nowadays, we’ll release a corresponding torrent file at the same time. Additionally, after much effort on Christine’s part, we’ve also managed to make the entire back catalogue distributable via P2P too.

Synchronicity I

One of the suggestions we received from Alex after originally announcing plans to support file sharing, was to provide a subscription feed for shows available in Torrent format.

This gave us headaches for a while, but we’ve now found a way to sync the Torrent feed with the traditional podcast feed, meaning subscribers will now be able to receive the latest show via P2P at the same time as iTunes users download directly.

Torrents are becoming a key part of our distribution solution, and if you’ve never tried subscribing in this way before, we highly recommend giving Miro a try.

Continue reading…

• Length: 1:00 
• Size: 1.1 MB 
• File: 2008awardsminute.mp3 
• Transcript: 2008awardsminute.pdf 
• Torrent: 2008awardsminute.torrent 

Don’t panic! This is still Sidepodcast. F1 Minute hasn’t taken over the world. Yet.

This is a one off special, because there are some serious circumstances that need urgent attention. We have been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards in two categories, and I’m here to ask for your votes.

Yes, this may be a shameless plug of a show – 60 seconds devoted entirely to pleading for you to take time out of your day to vote for us – but what is it they say? A vote for us is a vote for you.

That’s true, in fact, as one of the categories we are a finalist in is Best Online Community. That’s every single one of you that makes up the Sidepodcast Audience, particularly anyone who has commented on the site. You guys make Sidepodcast what it is.

Our other nomination is in Best Podcast. They are both very tough categories so every click counts. You can vote once every 24 hours, and all the information you need is on Sidepodcast.com.

That’s all. Thanks for listening, and I’ll go back to the actual F1 Minute now.

Continue reading…

• Length: 05:53 
• Size: 70.0 MB 
• File: track18.m4v 
• Transcript: track18.pdf 
• Torrent: track18.torrent 
• Share: 

And so it is, the final race of the 2008 season. This championship has simply flown by and now it all comes down to this final weekend in Brazil.

Autódromo José Carlos Pace is the destination as Sidepodcast takes a flying lap around the track that will host the deciding race on Sunday. Both trophies are still up for grabs, so join Christine as she looks at the current state of play and looks back upon the dramatic events that took place here in ‘07.

Toyota have little to gain and little to lose this weekend, so it’ll come as no surprise that their attention is already wandering into preparations for next year. The Formula 1 circus never rests, so please enjoy the very last Sidepodcast preview for this year.

Continue reading…

• Length: 05:09 
• Size: 62.7 MB 
• File: track17.m4v 
• Transcript: track17.pdf 
• Torrent: track17.torrent 
• Share: 

The penultimate round of the 2008 Formula 1 season beckons, and it could hardly be closer at the front. With three drivers still in contention for the WDC crown, Sidepodcast takes a look at the current state of play as another dramatic championship draws to a close.

As ever, we take a look around every corner of the Shanghai International Circuit, get Nico’s thoughts on the chances of overtaking and look back at the thrilling race we witnessed last year.

Continue reading…

Following up on an earlier post relating to torrent support at Sidepodcast, I figured it might make sense, having covered the reasons for using peer-to-peer technology, to also look at how it works from a user perspective.

Within the past couple of weeks, links to torrent files have been appearing all over this site. You’ll find them beside episode names within the archive pages, in the small panel to the right of audio shows and beneath the transport controls in videos.

In order to use these .torrent files, you’ll need some client software and recently we’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of Vuze. The software runs on Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems and it’s free to download from the homepage.

Continue reading…

We talked briefly on last weeks show about some minor issues we’ve had recently in regards to our bandwidth costs. If you managed to get to the end of that episode we mentioned a spike in traffic led our hosting company, Media Temple, to warn us we could be looking at a bill for $350+ at the end of the month, and then the traffic spiked yet further.

The Price of Fish

As you can imagine, there’s no way we could afford those kind of costs once, let alone on an ongoing basis. The hosting company includes in their grid-service, one terabyte of bandwidth per month and until now that’s suited us just fine. Anything over that though gets billed at more than two dollars per gigabyte and in July we shifted almost double our allocation.

Media Temple do a sterling job of providing us with solid web hosting, the kind that lets us handle 1,600 comments per thread without blinking, but they never claimed to offer infinite bandwidth.

We’ve obviously been testing out a bunch of alternate solutions and amongst them is Amazon S3, which in truth has been a little unreliable of late, but does offer unlimited bandwidth (although it is expensive). More importantly though, S3 acts as a tracker for torrent files as well as a permanent seeder and this is where things get interesting.

Continue reading…

• Length: 04:22 
• Size: 45.9 MB 
• File: rewind2.m4v 
• Transcript: rewind2.pdf 
• Torrent: rewind2.torrent 
• Share: 

It feels like all we’ve done for the past two weeks is talk about races and racing, so for this episode of F1 Rewind we take a look at what’s been happening away from the circuit.

News

Nico Rosberg talks about his helmet design featured on that plane. Kazuki Nakajima talks about not having his helmet design featured on any plane. And Christine looks into a possible source of Jarno Trulli’s recent mood swings.

Continue reading…

• Length: 04:07 
• Size: 48.9 MB 
• File: rewind1.m4v 
• Transcript: rewind1.pdf 
• Torrent: rewind1.torrent 
• Share: 

Back by popular demand and thanks to the amazing amount of feedback we received from the pilot show, Sidepodcast proudly presents the first official episode of F1 Rewind.

News

This week Christine takes a look back at the recent run of testing, weighing up who’s looking good and who needs to work that little bit harder.

Continue reading…

• Length: 19:06 
• Size: 18.3 MB 
• File: episode47.mp3 
• Enhanced: episode47.m4a 
• Transcript: episode47.pdf 
• Torrent: episode47.torrent 

An outside broadcast from Autosport International, Episode 47 takes you behind the scenes at the UK’s biggest motorsport show from the comforts of the restaurant at the NEC.

Intro

Where we are, what we’re eating and why we’re absolutely exhausted.

Good Week / Bad Week

This week has been good for drivers and personnel getting jobs and signing contracts, whilst others are being left behind as time advances towards the start of the season.

News and Views

Alex Wurz joins Honda? Who’d have thought that would happen. We discuss why he’s settling for a test role again, and what is in store for the team now. We also share our first impressions from the McLaren and Toyota launch – is Honest Ron not living up to his name, and why do Toyota seem to lack passion in every single department?

Continue reading…