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PROVcasts Help

What are PROVcasts?
PROVcasts are podcasts from Public Record Office Victoria (PROV). Podcasts were initially developed as a method for distributing multimedia files (both audio and video) over the Internet, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. PROV intends to use this podcasting service to make available audio and video recordings of PROV seminars and other events that are likely to be of interest to the Victorian community, and to anyone who has an interest in archives, history and cultural heritage. PROVcasts will be made available for download as MPEG-4 (for video) and MP3 (for audio) formats.

Are you having trouble downloading a PROVcast file?
Many PROVcast files are very large, particularly video files. If you have a dial-up connection, you will most likely experience very long delays downloading a PROVcast file. Even if you have some form of broadband connection, downloading a PROVcast file may still take a long time, depending on the type of broadband connection that you have. Generally MP3 audio files will download much faster than video files, so if you have a slow Internet connection, or you want quick access, this is the best option for you.

How do I subscribe to PROVcasts?
You can download PROVcasts at any time by accessing this PROVcasts page. However, if you want to subscribe to this service, so that your mobile device or desktop computer automatically downloads the latest PROVcast as it becomes available, you will need to use subscription software such as Apple's iTunes or the open source podcast receiver Juice. Once you have downloaded and installed this software, follow these steps to subscribe to PROVcasts:

1. Right click with your mouse on the following graphic and copy the URL:

As an alternative you can simply copy the following URL: http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/provcasts/subscribe.rss

2. Switch to the podcatching software that you use to subscribe to podcasts, request a new podcast subscription and paste the URL of the PROVcasts RSS feed when prompted.

3. Let your podcatching software download all the latest PROVcast audio and video recordings - then play them either on your computer or on a mobile device.

Playing MPEG-4 video help

The video files available for download on this page are in MPEG-4 (mp4) format. In order to view mp4 videos you will need the appropriate Windows Media Player codecs from here.

If you are trying to access these video codecs from an intranet or have a firewall on your home computer, your existing media player may be unable to download the appropriate decoder to play our mp4 files - please contact your system administrator for assistance or read read the help file in your firewall program.

Alternatively, you may download and use Zoom Player or VLC media player, both of which have in-built support for mp4. Both of these players are free to download and quick to install. VLC is an open source product.

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