PodcastHer
by Britt Bravo

Things are pretty quiet today in my section of the nonnprofit/NGO Blogher blogroll, so I thought I would share my first Big Vision podcast with arts activist Alli Chagi-Starr. Alli is the Cultural Arts Director for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights' Reclaim the Future Program. Alli is also the co-founder of Art and Revolution, and founder of Art in Action, Dancers without Borders and the Radical Performance Fest.

For bloghers interested in becoming podcastHers, here is how I did it. Because of my husband's work, I had access to professional sound equipment:

A Marantz PMD 660 Solid State Digital Recorder
(another professional option is an M-audio recorder)

a dynamic microphone, Electro-Voice 635A

a cable to connect the microphone to the computer.

One of the podcasters at NetSquared uses the Olympus DM-20 digital recorder
 which isn't cheap, but is more affordable than the options above and I think it comes with a microphone.

After I did the interview, I was able to connect the recorder to the computer via USB and download the interview (which I recorded as an MP3 at 44.1K) into my iTunes. I edited the interview in GarageBand and exported it back into my iTunes when I was done (I don't have the newest version that will upload it straight to the iTunes Music Store). I converted the file to an mp3 again in iTunes (Garageband exports it as an AIFF file into iTunes) and then uploaded it to Gcast. I chose Gcast because you can easily embed your podcast into your blog or webpage and I know that some of my readers would have trouble with an RSS feed or don't have an mp3 player.

My final step that I need to do is to register it with podcast directories like the iTunes Music store, Yahoo, Podcast Alley and Podcast.net.

Something is wrong with my XML feed, so I have to get that worked out with Gcast before I can submit to directories.

I hope that helps aspiring podcastHers. If I can do it, you can too!

Submitted by Britt Bravo (view blog) on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 10:20am

Comments

 

One observation - that's an

One observation - that's an awful lot of audio transcoding going on (at the very least, MP3 to uncompressed for editing, back to MP3) which will introduce a loss of quality. Since you're using the PMD 660, why not record uncompressed (as WAV, for example) and edit that? Then there's less transcoding going on.

Remember, MP3 is lossy compression - when you uncompress (for editing) you lose stuff.

Hope this helps.

Blog: Multidimensional.Me

Submitted by Koan on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 11:49
 

That definitely helps!

Hi Koan,

That is a very wise suggestion. I am a super accidental techie so I often miss important steps like those.

Britt

Britt Bravo
Blogher Contributing Editor: Nonprofits & NGOs
NetSquared Community Builder
Big Vision Career & Project

Submitted by Britt Bravo on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 13:31
 

That's really useful, Britt and Koan

I've been thinking about trying out podcasting but didn't know anything about it. Thanks for giving me a good idea of what might be involved in doing it.

I have one question that maybe one of you (or someone else with expertise in this area) can answer: the Wikipedia article on podcasting says "the subscription feed of automatically delivered new content is what distinguishes a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming." This implies that single download interviews/shows are not really podcasts. But the two times I've listened to alleged podcasts, they were just single downloads, not subscription feeds.

When you think of podcasts, do you think of them as single downloads or as subscription feeds that provide regular access to new stuff? Maybe I'm wondering about something unimportant, but I feel a little confused over it.

Anne Zelenka
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Technology & Web

Submitted by Anne Zelenka on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 13:57
 

Subscription defines podcasts

Hi Anne,

I think that wikipedia is right and that one of the distinguishing features of a podcast is its subscription feed.

I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasts, UNICEF's podcast, and they have just launched a vodcast. In their podcast announcement about it, they specifically described it as, "video by subscription."

One of the things I like about Gcast is that people can subscribe via RSS or email.

Britt Bravo
Blogher Contributing Editor: Nonprofits & NGOs
NetSquared Community Builder
Big Vision Career & Project

Submitted by Britt Bravo on Sun, 02/19/2006 - 22:48