DiggerCast

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.

Other than that though, you should see 1 episode uploaded with another one following the next month (I’m moving so my uploading will be rather awful); the first being the initial pilot, titled oddly enough “Pilot 1″ and the second will be titled “P2 – The BoingBoing Episode”. Yes, we’re going to be naming each one from now on seeing as we’re sticking to a single site. This one, like the last was recorded a bit longer than usual although it’ll be cut down to remove the uniteresting bits. In the future, I’ll be announcing what ones are specials, as I have noticed that our enthusiasm for each episode so far dulls after a while as we weren’t prepared to go on for longer. There will be a lot more changes in the future although as I’m not sure what all of them are at present, so I can’t give you any ideas, apart from the fact that we’ll be getting a new member of the team soon, if not more. There will also be an episode recorded this weekend hopefully, although as for uploading it, that’ll take a little time. Eventually, the episodes will be updated more frequently, but this is an experimental stage so the frequencies will be kind of random.

The final idea, however is to do an episode each week, lasting no more than an hour ideally, though it may run past a few minutes. We’re going to need to be more strict with the times, as so far we keep on going over without realising it. The final idea though will be up to 45 minutes of one site (and/or a second one if the first turns out to be crap), then the final 15 minutes will talk about headlines from Fark.com and then there will be a close to the show. This is essentially the only structure we’l adhere to, as if we didn’t have even the most basic structure, we could ramble on for ages! As for transcription of these podcasts, I have no plans to do this at the moment myself; the 2007 Pilot transcription was just me testing out software. If you wish to help out the cause and also get your name mentioned on the supporting team by assisting us with transcription, it’ll be much appriciated. Proper episodes will have transcription in mind, as well as the 1st, 5th and 10th “Pilots”, but at a later date. I’m aware that officially, a pilot is just one episode, but in this case, it’s a while series, as with each episode, we try something new. The schedule as I visualise it would be something like this for new developments:

1. Establishment of format
2. Refinement of format, experimenting with impromptu specials, using site names as names for episodes
3. Recording at 16KHz Sample rate, adding another team member on to make 3, learning to keep to times better!
4. Adding a 3rd or 4th team member, depending on what happens above
5. Get settled in with more than 2 hosts
6. Varying the introduction routine a bit more
7. Eventually being able to take up to 5 hosts.
8. Consider doing a special with 2 presenters in the same place and/or having a visual special
9. Finalising the podcast procedure for proper episodes, looking at making sure there’s a regular frequency for shows.
10. Try out the decided format on an episode before properly releasing episodes, and also implementing transcription

Well, that’s roughly how I’d see it.  You might find that some of those are melded into one podcast, but there will be no more than 10 testing episodes overall, as if we can start imp.ementing stuff sooner, all the better.  This is just a rough idea about introducing certain stuff.  And even in the “normal” episodes, we appriciate feedback although the feedback on the test shows will shape the normal show, so if you don’t like something, or do… please do tell us so we can shape the show and make it right; already this show has beaten the past attempts at doing this seeing as 2 episodes have been recorded and more are coming!

Tags: Site News

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 02:14 and is filed under DiggerCast, Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.