July 26th, 2010 by Andrew
This is just to say that the DiggerCast will eventually be getting a new episode, and when I mean eventually, I mean sometime in August! Additionally, there’s a special project planned for August too, but I won’t be revealing anything just yet. Lastly, although I initially wanted to separate the DiggerCast from the SHR website, I have decided to keep things tidy by folding the blog into the new Stormhaven Radio multiblog setup. The DC will remain a separate entity in its own right, but all current and future podcasts will be a part of SHR in order to make things easier in the long run. This also means that the 3rd episode of the DC will be uploaded to the new site and also the SHR site will have both a new setup and also will use Wordpress 3.x. There will also be placeholders for other podcasts, but I’ll explain more about them later. Watch out for the 2nd episode within the next couple of weeks!
The 3rd episode should follow by the end of the monthl especially now I have my headset and my desktop sorted. There will also be an announcement made on this episode so be sure to have a listen.
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June 25th, 2010 by Andrew
The episodes are gonna be on a “when they’re done” basis. There’s a few hiccups with organising stuff, not helped by the fact the laptop I’m on isn’t god for recording. Anyway, there will eventually be an episode up, but I dunno when. Additionally, in order to make things easier in the future, the DiggerCast is moving back to the Stormhaven Radio site, albeit in a more organised fashion, so watch this space for more details!
Oh and lastly, the episodes will eventually become regular, but with regards to the test episodes, the scheduling is erratic.
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May 12th, 2010 by Andrew
We never got to do what we planned the weekend as there was a backlog of things we needed to do. Rest assured that we’re planning it for next weekend. As for the 2nd pilot in the new series, I’ll be uploading it over the next few days hopefully, technical limitations permitting of course. I hope that eventually down the line I can record using my desktop but for now that’s difficult.
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April 29th, 2010 by Andrew
Yup, that’s right. Of course, I have a few technical problems, mainly that my headset is missing and my desktop cannot access the internet at present! The second one will be rectified eventually, but as for the first… that could take a bit longer. Anyway, the next weekend, Ollie and I are planning a special where we’re in the same room at the same time, meaning we’ll be trying out local recording! Yes, I’m totally aware the result might be a bit crap, but hey it’s just a test! Of course, it’s not one of the 10 official test pilots (or maybe it will be), so it’s another experiment. Grtanted, the ultimate intention of this to make a fully fledge podcast out of this, but I’m using this testing period to both iron out kinks and set out guidelines for future podcasts so they are a little more solid, as after all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. If you want to skip my ramblings, I made a summary of the more important stuff at the bottom of this post.
I expect to make screwups in the course of the remaining 8 episodes, which is why I need feedback in the first place; even comments on seemingly minor things in this podcast may be an important consideration in future ones. Admittedly though, this podcast isn’t meant to be taken too seriously, given it’s classed as a comedy podcast, although it could be rather serious in places, depending on the subject being discussed. The Weekly Farkage section may have some more serious articles and we will act accordingly and will read them before commenting further, as I personally have learnt that things aren’t always what they seem with articles. I’d rather not make a mistake like that again.
Anyway, with that aside, I hope to have the 2nd episode edited and uploaded by Saturday or Sunday. This special will most likely seem a little less professional in places due to the setup in place; it’s literally going to be an omnidirectional mic hooked up to Audacity for recording so we expect every sound to be picked up and will most likely have to edit the special too to make sure that some sounds aren’t picked up especially as the room next to the one we’re recording in will have 24 hours of traffic! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Site News
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February 20th, 2010 by Andrew
Another thing I’ve learnt is that I can only have 1 MP3 per post, damn!
Anyway, this is the 32KHz MP3. If there’s any problems, then please do let me know. The MP3s work for me at least, though I’m not sure if they work for anyone else atm, so comment below in the relevent post.
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| Download (Duration: 0:29 — 672.9KB)
Tags: Site News, Testing
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February 20th, 2010 by Andrew
These recordings are essentially tests for quality, and also to see how they’re handled by the plugin. If I sound like a chipmunk for either of them, it’s likely I’ll have to stick to 44.1Khz in the future, which is better than 48Khz, marginally. Additionally, I’m aware that I said 16Hz and 32Hz when they both should have been Khz… whoops! The numbers are more important anyway.
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Tags: Site News, Testing
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February 20th, 2010 by Andrew
Well, this is it, the first episode of the new phase of the DiggerCast! This one took us a while to get completely right, although we welcome feedback on the episode. Please note that there have been changes made to decrease the file size further and thse will be implmented from the 3rd ep onwards. Additionally, due to the fact that the sites used weren’t the best and haven’t really been updated, I won’t be adding specific links as you’llfind everything easily enough. However, the articles we talked about in more detail on Fark will be listed and will always be listed under a separate title. Keep in mind as well, that we’ll also start referring to the dates that we cover in each episode from the 3rd ep as well. But, without further ado, the links and the episode:
- Funny Fail Pictures
- WoW FailBlog
Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Episode, Phase 3 Episode
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February 20th, 2010 by Andrew
I apoligise for not releasing these sooner. I’m still actually editing the two episodes that have been recorded and I’m also optimising them as well as locating all the links we looked at too. Additionally, I’m looking at optimising filesizes too since I learnt that I have been recording at too high a sampling rate, which increases the filesize further! Initially, I was recording at 48KHz, but since learning that the human voice tends to peak at 5KHz, it seemed rather pointless exceeding 16KHz, so this is what all episodes will be recorded at in the future. The initial recordings will be staying at 192Kbps, although I’ll be lowering them to 64Kbps, which halves the file’s footprint. What does this mean overall? Well, it means that the MP3 of each episode will be much smaller to download, with very little discernable difference in audio quality. This means it’ll make the episodes faster to upload and download.
One thing I plan to do is to record short clips of myself and Ollie saying similar stuff in 4 different clips (one each at 16KHz, 32KHz, 44.1KHz and 48KHz), then bringing them down from 192Kbps to 128Kbps (CD quality), 96Kbps and 64Kbps respectively. This will allow you to hear the differences yourselves and also compare the filesizes between them. There will always be a 128Kbps version of each podcast available, though the 64Kbps version will be the standard version. The 128K version will have to be requested and if there’s enough demand, I may also start developing an edited 192K version as well. The only 192K version available at the moment is what I term the “raw” file, which means that it has all the bits I edited out. As for why I edited them out, it’s usually because the bits were too boring, or there was a little too much dead air, or there’s certain parts I deemed inappropriate. The inappropriate parts are essentially me getting the wrong idea about something and continuing on about it, or parts I deemed unsuitable to discuss on the air.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Site News
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February 5th, 2010 by Andrew
I’m aware that there’s not been much in the way of updates recently, and I apoligise for this. However, I would like to inform you that I recorded a pilot episode with Ollie, although I’m not releasing it to the public at the present time, as it was a dry run. The sites what were drawn were also a bit crap. However, either this weekend, or the next, I’ll be recording another pilot with hopefully better sites. As for who will be in the pilot, I can’t say as I honestly don’t know. However, I assure you that we’ve started to nail down the show format pretty well by this point. As I have said in the past, the show will last no longer than 45 minutes (another reason why the pilot can’t be considered official; it overran by 30 minutes!) and we’ll discuss a site, if not two, then dedicate the final 15 minutes to a section I lovingly call “The Weekly Farkage”. This means that we’ll be discussing a few of the best stories of the week from Fark.com. Of course, given that we have time constraints and all that, we’ll only be picking out the best from the Sunday of recording up till the Friday of that same week. However, the Saturday (ie the day before we record) will go live.
As for why we don’t do Sunday… well, that’s pretty simple actually. Because the time of day is usually the afternoon in Europe, the day hasn’t began for most of America, where Fark.com is based, so in order to make sure we have the most complete lists, we’re only doing complete days. Doing an incomplete day just means more time is spent on the podcast and when you’re trying to keep it within 45 minutes, it’s hassle. Of course, if people think it should be longer, you can comment here. Keep in mind though that this will be a weekly podcast, although not every week as there will be breaks. We still need to get some things nailed down with it, but rest assured, this one won’t be going the way of the other two; it has a reasonable amount of planning attached to it, enough that the spontanious nature of the show can be kept.
I guess now is a good time to mention that transcription will not be available for the pilot episodes, although there will be transcription available for the episodes proper, ablbeit a few days after the podcast has gone out. I need to sort out a system for transcription and believe me, it’s not easy! It took me about 15 odd hours to transcribe the 2007 pilot! That said, if anyone would like to offer their services for transcription, please do let me know, as I’d appriciate it!
As usual though, watch this space.
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January 14th, 2010 by Andrew
To get the ball rolling and so I can remove all references to the DiggerCast to the Stormhaven Radio website, I’m uploading the 2007 pilot episode once more. For those of you who haven’t heard it yet, have a listen and laugh at our silliness.
Do keep in mind though that the format for the new episodes is somewhat different to the pilot although hopefully it will be as funny. Additional pilots for Phase 3 will follow, with other team members. The hosts are still being gathered up, so check the “The Team” page to see who will be appearing.
Read Episode Transcript
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| Download (Duration: 23:55 — 16.4MB)
Tags: Episode, Phase 1 Episode, Pilot Episode
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