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New Podcast Update
Okay here is an update on the podcast...
First just to give you an idea of what it takes to do an hour-long podcast, it takes me around one hour to prepare, an hour or so to record it, and then a little more than an hour to do post-production work. So in reality it takes me a good three-plus hours to get a podcast done per week. Before this wasn't so bad since I would do it in the afternoon, but now with my new schedule it's a bit more difficult.
The other problem is that the place I was recording my podcasts is occupied during most evenings during the week, which has lead to more complexities. Hence my solution seemed like a simple one, I was going to setup my laptop so that I can record my podcasts in a different room (as well as for E3 next week). Of course, what seems simple is actually a million times more complex. And so begins the tale of woe...
I won't go into all the details but here is the quick-and-dirty. The hardware seemed to working fine but after I recorded an ENTIRE show it turns out that something went wonky during the recording and messed up the sound quality (basically there was a tone of "nothing" throughout half of the show). So I tried to record it again, and yet again this problem happened. And again, and again, and so on. What made it so madding is that the problem was seemingly totally random. Sometimes I could record for almost half an hour and everything would be okay, while other times I wouldn't go more than two minutes before the sound became corrupted.
Of course tech support was no help, as were other places I tried. After basically reinstalling Windows and doing a million other tricks (turning off all extra services, trying different recording programs, and so many other things) I figured I would try something different. For my setup I use a pre-amp which is plugged into my computer using a Firewire cable. On a hunch I bought a Firewire card and instead of using the Firewire built into the computer I tried using the Firewire card ... and so far it seems to be working. Of course, this just happened today and I'm not 100% sure but I want to test it out before I waste several more hours recording nothing but tone. But it seems that the Firewire hardware built into the laptop (Sony by the way) is somehow faulty. We will see but if everything goes well I will try to get the show done this weekend.
Again, I never expected to have so much difficulty setting up my laptop to do what my desktop does no problem week after week, but that is what makes working with computer so much fun! Of course the good news is that this happened this week before I went to E3 and not during E3 (which would have been a total nightmare). So very long story short, hopefully the laptop will be ready to go and now I can concentrate on recording the show and not trying to get my hardware working.
Thanks for bearing with me during this ordeal. I know some people have written me wondering where the show is, but it will be back and soon. Again, write me if you have any other questions but I'll keep you informed...
This may sound stupid, Steve, but I don't think we, the listeners, require that the entire show is recorded in one go. I for one wouldn't mind if there's several cuts throughout it, if that saves you some pain (e.g. reusing the portions that did record correctly).
Posted by Weltall Zero at May 12, 2005 1:54 AMRock on, Steve. I'd like to throw my agreement behind weltall zero and also wish you luck with your tech problems. I think it's pretty cool that this is up at all so rock on. -leeman
Posted by leeman at May 12, 2005 2:57 AMya, we all respect what you do so just do whats causes the least amount of pain or annoyence.
Posted by jujubee at May 12, 2005 6:20 AMNo problems here, Steve.
I hope it works out well. Give it some thorough tests to make absolutely sure.
And like WZ posted earlier here, you can do it in cuts if that works. One go would be insane.
Do you actually intend to record a podcast at E3 or am I misreading that? It's going to be so noisy.
You'll need to head into the bathroom or your car every few moments to get some quiet recording. I don't know all that much about microphones, but I hope yours is unidirectional.
Or... you might have some kind of wacky recording program where you can actually turn down the background chatter.
Egh, I don't know.
But good luck with all that stuff. Here's hoping it works out just fine.
Steve, take your time, we understand your conditions, and we will always respect your descions, hope to see your podcast soon :)
Heat
Posted by Heat at May 12, 2005 7:36 AMAs mentioned earlier, you might want to record the show in chunks, you could link them together with video game sound bites.
I do computer support for a hosiptal chain, so we have to deal with Doctors and misc recording devices for transcription. Many of them use an Ipaq or equiv. to record information. A transcriptionist then ties all the .wav together and types it all up (newer version uses voice recognition software and the transcriptionist just edit them as they go.
IF you did it that way you could do the podcast all week, or at least for E3 make notes (over the noise might be an issue) for the podcast later.
-Lego
Yeah, I actually do sometimes put together small segments, but in this case it would be putting together like 20-30 segments. Since the errors are random I'm not sure when the errors occur, hence I have to listen to what I recorded, find what was messed up, and then rerecord it over and over again. It's really hard to do since sometimes the recording would be messed up after just a minute.
Anyhow, it looks like it's just about solved. I have been recording room noise to test and so far so good.
As for recording at E3 ... it should be interesting! It will insanely loud, but I know a few quiet places to record (in the back, near the food isn't too bad).
Posted by Gaming Steve at May 12, 2005 12:17 PMIsn't it just great how technology works? My hard drive died right before I finished KOTOR last week... althougth that wasn't as big of a problem. But it just seems to quit at the worst times. Anyhow, I'm sure you'll make out fine. The nice thing about technology is it does work out in the end... eventually.
Posted by syphonbyte at May 12, 2005 1:29 PMHey Steve, Get a MAC. <evil grin<
I love love love my 12" ibook.
'course I still keep a PC around for gaming.
Maybe it's just me, but Sometimes I think computers wig-out for a reason, to get you to try something different and find a better way, which in the end works out for the best.
Like you'll get pissed off, then you try and try to get it to work (to no avail), and eventually you give up and do something else in your life that needed to be done, and when you come back to it another time it works perfect again. Or you try a new program that works better, and you're glad that things wigged out after all.
Posted by Deep Lee at May 12, 2005 9:22 PM