Any free video hosting services meant for iTunes podcasts?

You don't need a video hosting service - indeed these are unlikely to be any use. Anything using an embedded player, such as YouTube, won't work.

You can host the files on an ordinary server, though as video files are fairly large you are likely to have difficulty finding a free one. The files must be .mov, .mp4 or .m4v - .swf (Flash) and .wmv won't work. The experience with free audio hosting services is that they aren't up to much - they have to make a profit somehow and they really want people to go to their own pages with embedded players and advertisements, and there are often serious restrictions on usage.

The feed must have have an 'enclosure' tag for each episode containing a direct URL to a video file in one of the three formats I listed; the server must be capable of handling these formats and also of handling 'byte range requests', the method used by iPhones and mandatory for podcasts in iTunes.

The best I found was after searching YouTube for, how to prepare a video podcast to submit to iTunes Directory.

Several instructional videos come up that are worth watching. The two I initially found are recommended are podbean.com and podomatic.com.

I tried podbean.com, which easily generated the RSS feed iTunes requires, which I was able to successfully copy into the iTunes store line on Submit a Podcast to the iTunes Directory. Podbean has many helpful instructions on how to use their site and submit your video to iTunes.

Since I wasted 3 weeks trying to understand https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5352956?answerId=23110806022#23110806022, other apple.com insructions, searching the internet, calling senior advisors in Apple Care (none of whom knew or could read this apple.com page either) I was really happy just to find one way to be able to do it. And easily too.

The only way you can possibly get an answer from Apple is to email podcasts@apple.com, the iTunes Store says, since there is no phone support. Then I was told to wait 10 working days for a reply.

Thank goodness I finally searched YouTube. (There were many other confusing and difficult instructions on the internet.)

After uploading small video files onto my new site at podbean.com, at least I got 3 short videos onto iTunes that show in my computer's iTunes podcast subscriptions and they downloaded successfully. I understand I must wait a few days to get an ID from iTunes directory, which will then list my videos to the pubic as available in ITunes.

Podbean.com does have up to 100 mb free web hosting. (No video can bemore than 30 mb.) But it does allow everything iTunes needs, including a cover photo and description. All future feeds will be automatiically seen by iTunes through the podbean url that was given you, that you pasted into iTunes when you first submitted your podcast. So you only have to do this once, I understand.

Podbean wants to entice you to purchase more space so they show various prices.

I'm still wondering if somehow I could link my existing youtube videos (or facebook, myspace, vimeo, Flickr duplicates) in a field somewhere and link to them. Maybe?

Now that I know to use a web host that generates all the xml and RSS feed behind the scenes (since I don't know how) I'll explore these options, and the other site, podomatic.com.

Let us know if there are other good, free ones for video.

(One YouTube video said mypodcast.com is good for mp3 audio podcasts, FYI.)

judyarizona wrote:

I'm still wondering if somehow I could link my existing youtube videos (or facebook, myspace, vimeo, Flickr duplicates) in a field somewhere and link to them.

You can't use YouTube or similar videos in iTunes. Without an 'enclosure' tag containing the URL of a mp3, m4a, .mov, .mp4 or .m4v file iTunes will not display the episode. LInks to other embedded players will have no effect.