iStage Provides Mac Vloggers with a Powerful New Video Publication Tool

May 26, 2006 - On Monday, LittleHJ, the Korea-based software developer, announced the release of their iStage 1.0 Video Podcasting software. This application automates the publication of video podcasts, enabling users to create pages with podcast-ready compressed video. iStage runs on PowerPC or Intel-based Macs, and is integrated with iLife ’06 and .Mac. A single user license sells for $24 (5-user family pack $69).

iStage's automated site creation function

Video Blogging (aka vlogging) and video podcasting have exploded in popularity, offering the average video maker a new way to push content out into the world. While numerous websites like freevlog.com provide information about how to publish video online, tools tailored to automating the creation of video websites haven’t existed until now.

iStage integrates the steps required to publish a video podcast, including web site design (via included templates), iTunes XML generation, RSS 2.0 code and Haloscan server comments, and QuickTime video compression. Additional features include QuickTime encoding annotation, a custom web site editor, CSS support, and storyboard, cast & poster page templates.

A quick test drive of iStage proved it to be very user-friendly, eliminating the need to use several applications to publish web pages with embedded video. Creating a site in iStage is easy, but requires a .Mac account, QuickTime 7.0.3 or higher, and iTunes 6.0.4 or later to enable podcasting. Once the .Mac account information has been added, a video clip can be dragged and dropped into the application window, compression options set, and the work saved. iStage immediately begins compressing the video file; when that is complete, one click publishes the site. 

iStage's storyboard feature

The biggest drawback to working with iStage is that, for the time being, one must have a .Mac account, and QuickTime, iLife, and OS X 10.4.4 or higher installed. Those that meet the requirements and want to streamline their video publication process may find iStage to be a compelling option.

More information and downloads of iStage can be found at littlehj.com.