Hugo Schotman

Currently in my 'Vidcasts' playlist...

I don't watch TV anymore. That is, I have put away my TV tuner. I still watch a lot of video content, including shows that are available on TV. One of the legal ways to get TV shows is through the iTunes store.

However there is a lot of great content available for free as well.

Here is my current video playlist in iTunes:

TEDTalks

Mahalo Daily

Loaded from CNET TV

MobLogic

GeekBrief.TV

Mobuzz TV

WineLibrary TV

The Larry King Podcast

CNN Now in the news

MacBreak

Snowfix

PopSiren

and of course Diggnation

Ultimate guide for Podcast recording with Skype from the Conversations network

A few years after the bulk of my posts about recording podcasts with Skype and Audio Hijack Pro I still get follow up questions. It's great that the basic principles still work. Today I got a question on how to record using Audio Hijack Pro so that the "sides" of a Skype call are split in separate tracks.

Rogue Amoeba, the creators of Audio Hijack Pro link to a great tutorial by Doug Kaye and Paul Figgiani from the Conversations network. The "split tracks" question is answered as well as many, many more. This is a "must watch" presentation for anyone recording Skype interviews.

Here it is:

http://www.blogarithms.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/23/skype-for-interviews/

1st runner up for an Air!

Watch this episode of Mahalo Daily:

http://www.mahalodaily.com/2008/05/29/md131-the-mapprentice-episode-2/

My first attempt at doing a Seesmic comment - done in one take - made it as first runner-up for the Seesmic MacBook Air competition.

Congrats to Billy D./ Vlogg dogg!

Podcast advertising: more effective

A Bizreport article showed up in my Google alerts with some numbers that support what many Podcasters have been saying for some time: Podcast audiences respond well to the advertising that is tailored to them.
Some of the reasons mentioned: niche audiences that actively choose to subscribe to particular podcasts and audiences that follow and trust hosts/presenters.

Adam Curry's Podshow... Eh... Mevio among others was built with the goal of doing advertising the right way for podcasting and avoiding the failures of traditional media. Although, failures... perhaps inefficiency is a better word. Returns are harder to measure and audiences harder to target in 'traditional' media.
I think that the current good results are partly due to the 'newness': a large percentage of early adopters in the audience, podcasters who are really passionate about their content and advertisers who are in tune with the early adopters (and who are early adopters themselves).

Some things that may happen over time:
- Audience grows: on average less engaged, majority adoption -> more difficult to target.
- Podcasters (sources of content) diffuse: on average less engaged, less passionate, less niche -> more difficult to target. Example: CNN 'Now in the News' podcast.
- Advertisers have more choice: more chance to spend money on less effective podcasts.

Advantages of podcasting over TV/Radio/Print that will remain are:
- Improved measurement of effectiveness
- Potential for easier targeting of audiences
- Potential for Personalisation
- Lower financial risk: lower production and distribution costs

Podcastconsultant.net : Excellent podcasting resource

At Barcamp2 Boston in March I met Adam Weiss. He creates 2 podcasts himself and shares his podcasting knowledge on his website and as a consultant.
See: podcastconsultant.net

I visited Adam at his studio in the Museum of Science a couple of weeks ago and we talked about all things podcasting. He has broad knowledge of podcasting and is very practical and down to earth in his solutions and recommendations. Highly recommended if you're looking for a consultant.

Attention for Podsafe music, or: freeing music

The current system(s) of licensing music are not compatible with Podcasting and other 'new' ways of promoting music.
To get things moving a bit, one initiative is sure to draw some attention to alternative licensing.
"Bum Rush The Chart" aims to make one song from an independent music artist storm the iTunes charts on March 22.

See:


Let's hope that this will get a lot of attention so that we get a step further to modernizing content licensing.

TED Podcast : Jimmy Wales on how and why Wikipedia works

There is a recurring discussion about the value and trustworthiness of Wikipedia.
Watch this video podcast of the founder of Wikipedia - Jimmy Wales - and you'll probably be much more confident the next time you use Wikipedia:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_wales

TED Podcasts : Extremely high value

TED is a conference.
Traditionally there is one 'TED' each year in California but last year there was the first Global edition - aptly named TEDGlobal - in Oxford, UK and more are to follow.

There are thousands of conferences each year but this one really is different.
Just take a look at one of the talks held at TED and changes are you're immediately hooked.
You can do this right now because they are made available through a podcast.

Here it is:
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/

Check out Al Gore doing standup comedy (and talking about the climate):
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=al_gore

Ever since attending TEDGlobal 2005 I sure am hooked.
I will gladly save up for the (considerable) expenses and take vacation days to attend another one of these intellectual trips.
(Next one probably TEDGlobal 2007 in Africa.)

Update on the ol' Skype recording issue from Geekbrief

Cali from Geekbrief.tv and Rob from Podcast411 share some Skype recording tips.

They have tried several pieces of software and hardware:
http://geekbriefwp.podshow.com/podcast411/

Petition for 'Podcasters' Rights and the WIPO Broadcast Treaty'

Podcasters have been organizing themselves in the UK, Ireland and Germany and are fighting for the proper rights to use music and other materials.

The current hot topic is a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) treaty that could severely impact Podcasters' ability to use materials in their podcasts. Apparently this treaty would make it harder to use materials even if they are licensed under a Creative Commons, not copyrightable or public domain.

Here is a petition that asks for a change in the proposed treaty.

Some more background information:
- Wiki: WIPO Broadcast treaty
- Column by James Boyle in the Financial Times: Constitutional Circumvention

I signed the petition because I think it is important that these changes are watched carefully.
It would be nice if podcasters would get proper rights to use materials and easy administration of whatever process is necessary to do so...
... But something tells me this will take some time.

In the meantime you can use Podsafe music of course:
- http://music.podshow.com/
- http://www.tablesturned.com/
- http://www.garageband.com/

Second FirstTuesday podcast on IT Conversations: Music, Innovation & Convergence

The second FirstTuesday podcast is out on IT Conversations.
A series page has now been set up here.

This session is a panel discussion about convergence.
"This panel discussion regarding VoIP closed the thought leadership forum 'The road to convergence' from First Tuesday in Zurich, Switzerland. The panel speakers were Kevin Findlay of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Peter Fischer of the Swiss telecommunications regulatory authority, Stefan Herrlich of Siemens, Paul Hitchman of PlayLouder and Mikko Kukkonen of Nokia. With moderator Bruno Giussani, they discussed VoIP regulation, different forms of convergence and scenarios for the future of communications, network and other technologies."

See also the previous session.

Snowfix video podcast

Negative Gravity from the UK have started a video podcast about snowsports: Snowfix.
The makers are based in Val d'Isere, France but they bring up-to-date information from resorts around the world including weather reports and cool action videos.

More background in an Article from Snowboardclub UK.

Squeezed geek chick: wide screen fix

The first episode of Geek Brief TV I saw after subscribing today was episode #0007. It immediately occurred to me that Cali - the presenter/ International Director - looked a bit skinny! See what I mean:

(Click to enlarge.)

Having worked with video shot in the so-called 'anamorphic' mode I recognized that it might be widescreen video squished into (or pulled out to) the wrong aspect ratio.
There is an excellent explanation in the Apple knowledge database: Final Cut Pro: DV and Widescreen Video Formats Explained.

After fixing the height of the clip so that the aspect ratio conforms to 16:9 widescreen it looks like this:

(Click to enlarge.)

So here Cali is still slender but not squished ;-)

The fix was done by going into the 'Movie properties' in Quicktime player. Select the video track and then uncheck 'Preserve aspect ratio'. Adjust the height of the 'Scaled Size' to 360. (640:360 == 16:9)

(Click to enlarge.)

PS: Looks like there will be a follow-up to podshow GBTV #0007.

First FirstTuesday podcast on IT Conversations: Music, Innovation & Convergence

Here it is: the keynote presentation of the First Tuesday convergence forum!

The recording was done by me. I used a PowerBook 17" with Logic Express and a M-audio FireWire 1814 audio interface.
Luckily I had access to the individual microphone signals. The setup was able to record 8 simultaneous tracks of audio at 24 bits, 44.1 kHz. This was very convenient because I could easily mix the tracks and normalize the levels afterwards. This is easier to do with separate tracks for each microphone than when you have all audio on one track. If you have everything on one track you'd have to find and select the regions where one person is speaking separately to adjust their sound. That is more cumbersome and error-prone than just selecting a whole track and adjusting it's properties.

From the short description:
"In this keynote presentation from the 'road to convergence' forum by First Tuesday in Zurich, Switzerland, Paul Hitchman talks about the changing landscape of music distribution and licensing. Paul is a co-founder of PlayLouder, a "Music Service Provider," and in this talk he asserts that it is now only voluntary to pay for music. He also addresses the role of P2P, DRM and other technologies and paints a vision for the future for music creators and consumers."

World Economic Forum Podcasts

The WEF is podcasting some of this year's press conferences and sessions.
For example: Digital 2.0: Powering a Creative Economy with speakers John Chambers (Cisco), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google) and Niklas Zennström (Skype).

Do not leave the subject line of emails empty

Emails that arrive in my inbox without a subject line will be marked as SPAM and then they are deleted. I do not read them.
If you want to ask me a question, (post a comment on this site or) send me an email with something in the subject field.

Proper use of the subject field is good netiquette anyway: it makes it easier for the recipient (me) to sort and prioritize emails.

Syncing separately recorded multi-track audio to video from a camcorder

When I was recording an event for IT Conversations recently, I decided to put a camera in the room for the following reasons: 1. To record a backup soundtrack (in case the audio recording went bad.) 2. To have an audio track with room noise and audience sound. 3. To record a video of the presentations.

To mix the main audio recording with the video from the camcorder you have to synchronize the tracks somehow. This can be done as follows: Send a (mono) signal from the camcorder to the main recording unit during the recording as a reference track. In your (video) editing program, you can then sync the tracks by looking at the waveform display of the audio track from the camcorder and that of the reference track and visually line them up.
Of course you should keep the reference track aligned with the other audio tracks that you recorded or mix thereof because that is the whole point of the exercise. (That means: always either move the reference track together with the other non-camcorder tracks or move the camcorder tracks only.)

An example
In the first image you see the waveform of the camcorder signal (top) and the reference track (bottom). Although the signals don't exactly look the same you can still recognize that they are not aligned. This image shows a 'zoomed-out' view: A large portion of the waveform/ duration of the tracks is visible but not a lot of detail.

AudioSync-051214-1.png

In the picture below I made a first rough alignment. (Still zoomed-out.)

AudioSync-051214-2.png

After zooming in and careful positioning of the tracks this is the result:

AudioSync-051214-4.png

NOTE: there is still a slight difference in the alignment. If you want to align the tracks more accurately, you will need software that supports finer positioning, possibly at sample level. Since we're talking about a difference of a few milliseconds, the difference shown in this picture is good enough for most situations. (Barely visible/ audible in the movie, if at all.)

As predicted: 'Podcast' word of the year

Last year it was 'Blog'.
As I predicted, this year it's 'Podcast'.

A podcast for my friends in Finance

Having been living in Zürich for a while, I have met quite a few people who work in Financial institutions.
For those finance and accounting geeks, the Best Accounting Practices podcast may be of interest. They even talk about SOx! *shiver*.

Turning the tables

Right now traditional record companies, labels and artists are somewhere between trying protect their traditional way of doing business and developing or embracing new ways to get paid.
It is interesting to see initiatives such as the iTunes music store and the PlayLouder MSP pulling the music rights holders to new business models.

Pushing them with fresh competition on the other hand are new media companies who start out with new business models and new talent. If some of that talent becomes competition for the artists that are managed by the traditional labels, this will turn the tables and the new players will have some good assets to negotiate with.
Traditional media such as radio and TV will have to deal with the newcomers and their terms to be able to play the new music!

For some example newbies, see: Tables Turned, the podsafe music network and Garageband.com.

I think this will make the transition to new business models much smoother: Podcasting is already happening, it has a big reach and new artists are already being 'made'. New companies are starting out with new business models and are demonstrating what works and how. Traditional companies don't have to design, develop and test new models anymore: they can just look around them and adopt what works. Or lose money.