Podcastapalooza
7.13.2009
I've fallen way, way behind in editing podcasts. As in, I had to publish two episodes of the JPAG Show last week, and am on track for publishing two more this week.
It's a weekly show, mind you. Not zesty.
I also am fighting with encoding tricks to get the first episode of the podcast I'm hosting/producing for work up and running. What's tricky about it, you ask? Well, the show is destined to be published in the context of our online course management platform, and specifically in the context of a built-in podcasting application that instructors can access. It's partly to show what can be done, and partly to set a solid example, and partly because it will be edifying, and lastly because it's fun. Trouble is, the built-in app has to have .spx files, and if you upload an .mp3 or a .wav file, it converts them to the former format. And quite apart from the sound degradation that inevitably ensues upon conversion, the .spx format is a pain to work with -- very few programs have any kind of support for it, and none of which I'm aware have any kind of intuitive or full-featured options. It's a tricky process of trial and error.
What makes it even dumber is that the podcasting app in the CMS has a filesize limit on uploads of 10MB. You can imagine what a 30-minute podcast with multiple voices and music sounds like after crunching it to that size.
Since the D&D campaign starts tomorrow (well, tomorrow's really a test run through a combat encounter to make sure we don't shoot each other), I have to figure out a recording solution for that, as well. I think we'll be using Skype, so I think the usual JPAG Show recording method will serve.
But I'm seriously considering switching hosting solutions. Podomatic, where the show currently lives in all of its 44-episode glory, is not a cost-effective host, once your backlog of episodes gets high enough; more terrifying is how quickly bandwidth usage spikes when new people subscribe (because they go back for the earlier episodes too). We need a host that doesn't meter bandwidth, and the more I look the better Podbean looks. We'll have to see, but right now it looks like I could essentially halve the cost of running the JPAG Show, have better support, and more intuitive control of publishing options. Probably try to make a move in the next month or so.
It's a weekly show, mind you. Not zesty.
I also am fighting with encoding tricks to get the first episode of the podcast I'm hosting/producing for work up and running. What's tricky about it, you ask? Well, the show is destined to be published in the context of our online course management platform, and specifically in the context of a built-in podcasting application that instructors can access. It's partly to show what can be done, and partly to set a solid example, and partly because it will be edifying, and lastly because it's fun. Trouble is, the built-in app has to have .spx files, and if you upload an .mp3 or a .wav file, it converts them to the former format. And quite apart from the sound degradation that inevitably ensues upon conversion, the .spx format is a pain to work with -- very few programs have any kind of support for it, and none of which I'm aware have any kind of intuitive or full-featured options. It's a tricky process of trial and error.
What makes it even dumber is that the podcasting app in the CMS has a filesize limit on uploads of 10MB. You can imagine what a 30-minute podcast with multiple voices and music sounds like after crunching it to that size.
Since the D&D campaign starts tomorrow (well, tomorrow's really a test run through a combat encounter to make sure we don't shoot each other), I have to figure out a recording solution for that, as well. I think we'll be using Skype, so I think the usual JPAG Show recording method will serve.
But I'm seriously considering switching hosting solutions. Podomatic, where the show currently lives in all of its 44-episode glory, is not a cost-effective host, once your backlog of episodes gets high enough; more terrifying is how quickly bandwidth usage spikes when new people subscribe (because they go back for the earlier episodes too). We need a host that doesn't meter bandwidth, and the more I look the better Podbean looks. We'll have to see, but right now it looks like I could essentially halve the cost of running the JPAG Show, have better support, and more intuitive control of publishing options. Probably try to make a move in the next month or so.
