Filed under: Podcasts
TUAW Talkcast #6: iPod announcement recap
Last week's TUAW Talkcast features an extended program of reactions, questions and reader responses to the big iPod annoucements with bloggers Lisa Hoover, Erica Sadun, Dave Caolo and Nik Fletcher; it also marks the talkcast debut of Mat "The Philosopher" Lu. We had great contributions from our call-in listeners and it was an enjoyable show for all, if a bit echoey at times. It clocks in at 1:08 and 39 MB. You can pick it up from our RSS & iTunes feeds, via direct download here, or via download and streaming over at Talkshoe. If you enjoy the show, be sure to throw a quick Digg our way.
Thanks to all of your poll responses, we're moving the talkcast to a new day and time: 9 pm Sunday nights, starting next week on September 16. We look forward to talking to you all then! For those who have had issues with the Talkshoe client, the new version released this week adds a more graceful text chat interface and the wide availability of the Shoephone VoIP built-in tool, plus 'anonymous call-in' allowing you to listen to the show over a regular phone without having a Talkshoe PIN -- more details next week.
TUAW & the entire Weblogs, Inc. family mourn the loss of TV Squad blogger Adam Finley. Our thoughts are with Adam's family and friends at this time. TV Squad will be publishing a tribute to Adam on Monday, September 10.
Thanks to all of your poll responses, we're moving the talkcast to a new day and time: 9 pm Sunday nights, starting next week on September 16. We look forward to talking to you all then! For those who have had issues with the Talkshoe client, the new version released this week adds a more graceful text chat interface and the wide availability of the Shoephone VoIP built-in tool, plus 'anonymous call-in' allowing you to listen to the show over a regular phone without having a Talkshoe PIN -- more details next week.
TUAW & the entire Weblogs, Inc. family mourn the loss of TV Squad blogger Adam Finley. Our thoughts are with Adam's family and friends at this time. TV Squad will be publishing a tribute to Adam on Monday, September 10.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
blatz said 11:33PM on 9-09-2007
My God, guys....you REALLY need to get cracking on the sound quality of your podcasts. You've done so many already that you'd think you would have figured out how to get a decent sounding recording. But the wildly disparate volume levels (I actually had to pull my headphones out of my ears the other week because I had my iphone volume cranked up all the way so I could hear one of you talking, and then when someone else started talking, his voice was so loud, it blew my ears out because the volume was cranked all the way), Skype/Talkshoe dropouts & stuttering (Mike's was particularly awful on this one) and LONG periods of dead air when nobody would have anything to say...all this makes your otherwise excellent podcast extremely difficult to listen to.
I'm not one of those audiophile snobs who thinks that you have to have radio quality fidelity and voice talent, but you guys really need to at least work on getting the BASICS of listenable podcast audio quality down. At the very least, get your dang audio levels consistent...it almost seems like you dont even botheer to do a sound-check before starting the recordings.
Can't AOL throw some money your way to get you guys some decent microphones, mixing board and compressors? Adam Christianson's Maccast Loop podcast sounds MUCH better than yours, and he's for the most part a total DIY podcast.
Sorry to be so harsh, but the horrible technical quality of your podcast really does a disservice to the otherwise excellent discussions you have...I don't look forward to new TUAW podcasts like I do other Mac podcasts I subscribe to primarily because I dont look forward to enduring what is certain to be an ear-abusive listening experience.
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Michael Rose said 11:47PM on 9-09-2007
Blatz, thanks for your input. I actually did put in quite a bit of work this week to normalize the audio and clean up the gaps, so I'm not sure whether you're specifically concerned about this week's show's levels or not -- I'll renormalize the file and repost just in case, and you can also check the streaming file at Talkshoe to compare.
I do agree that we ended up with some skype/voice quality issues last week, and unfortunately a lot of that has to do with the sundry connections to Talkshoe -- if we were all using Skype and backing up with a locally-recorded session we would have a lot more control over the audio quality, but in a Talkshoe show everyone's coming in at their own levels and there is no graceful way to sound-check ahead of time, leaving me to do cleanup in post (which is not my strong suit).
What I'm trying to do for the upcoming shows is
a) get everyone on the same page as far as equipment, levels and connection method so we can have some similarity of tone
b) clean up my ISP connection (the cause of some of the dropouts)
c) keep a local AudioHijack file in case of dropouts from my end, so that I can patch back in a clean version of my own stuff
d) continue to learn and absorb suggestions from more experienced podcasters to get the overall quality up to where it needs to be. I think you've brought up a lot of valid points and I hope we can continue to improve what we're doing.
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Michael Rose said 11:51PM on 9-09-2007
One more point --
Can't AOL throw some money your way to get you guys some decent microphones, mixing board and compressors?"
Heh. Not likely. Plus, we're all in different cities, so unless the mothership springs for eight sets of gear...
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blatz said 12:03AM on 9-10-2007
Thanks for the response Michael. I know it's kind of a pain to be at the mercy of Skype/Talkshoe. The reason why it frustrates me (and im sure others) is that lots of other podcasters have figured out how to get decent recordings with very minimal expense, so realizing that you have the bank account of AOL behind you guys makes it puzzling why you still have audio quality issues.
A few more bits of advice:
1. REQUIRE that everyone on your podcasts use an actual microphone/headset, and NOT the built-in mic on thier Macbook Pros or whatnot. Erica sounded absolutely horrible on this podcast because she wasn't using a proper mic, and that, coupled with the way that Talkshoe/Skype compresses the hell out of your voice, makes it even worse.
2. Don't run any other apps on the computer(s) that youre using to to the talkcasts from. Anything that diverts CPU time away from the VOIP encoding and recording contributes to stuttering and other issues
3. Keep all exotic birds and/or other livestock out of the room you're talking/recording from. A closed, quiet room with carpeting (or even pillows or blankets around the area youre recording from, which dampens any echoing) goes a long way to getting better sound.
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animefan316 said 12:05AM on 9-10-2007
You're not the only one Lisa, I also don't own an iPod, and I am getting the iPod touch the first chance i get.
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animefan316 said 12:08AM on 9-10-2007
First time listener btw :)
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Joseph said 4:02AM on 9-10-2007
i'm a regular visitor of this blog, and on the most part find it informative but your podcast is something less than desirable. Surely you can do a better job producing this. I'll tunes in to your next podcast instead...sorry!
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Lisa Hoover said 6:31AM on 9-10-2007
animefan316 - That's terrific! I'll certainly be posting about my experiences with the iTouch and I'll look forward to comments about yours.
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Michael Rose said 12:07PM on 9-10-2007
Will -- you'll be stuck with EDGE on that device, yes.
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Ginny Brady said 12:59PM on 9-10-2007
What will happen to the operating systems on the iPod Touch and iPhone when Leopard comes out? Anyone know?
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Olivier said 4:05PM on 9-10-2007
Hi, just a quick reaction after listening to Talkcast#6: iPod PLAYS Mpeg2 audio, because to my knowledge MP3 is a short for "MPEG2 Layer 3" ... So... not only the WAV format, but also the MPEG 2 are valid answers to your give away question...
Regards,
Olivier
PS: Can't wait for iPhone to arrive in France... Can't wait for Leopard to arrive, my 1st gen MBP just NEEDS it :-)
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Michael Rose said 4:47PM on 9-10-2007
#12 -- Unfortunately, Olivier, you are slightly off target. "MP3" is short for MPEG-1 Layer 3, not MPEG-2 Layer 3. MP2 is MPEG-1 layer 2. Neither of them is MPEG-2 related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3
An MP2 file (MPEG-1 layer 2) will not sync to an iPod.
Thanks for listening though!
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Olivier said 5:09PM on 9-10-2007
Sorry, my awful mistake.. :-( Made a mix between AAC MPEG2 and MP3 MPEG1.
Your podcast is cool (not using "very cool' which must be a Steve Jobs patented expression), i do appreciate to listen to it. (Following some comments i read about the recording quality, i would say that while it is true some glitches appear in the soundtracks, it is still very very understandable).
I'll give you my actual feeling about the new Apple products, while i am writing this comment (sorry in advance for my english):
You know, iPhone is a huge phenomenon for Europeans... We love to learn about a product we don't have access to, its features & weaknesses. By the way I must admit, as a software developper myself (but on the windows world, too bad... on Mac as soon as possible !) i am very excited by Erica's achievements on this device. "Unbelievable" as Steve would say.
I am not so excited about the iPod Touch. Yes its a great iPod, it's the one-and-only way to access the multitouch technology for the rest of us, but in a way it's a bit more than an iPod, a bit less than a PDA. To my taste, it's some kind of "unachieved" product because it would have needed a more complete PDA functionality (edit of events/contacts/Todo, and so on). But it's just my personal opinion. I guess future firmware evolutions could give this "hybrid" product a true identity.
As for the nano ... Well, good product i guess. A bit disappointing at first with regard of design, but quite promising on the tech side. Coverflow: yes, good idea, we are getting more and more used to this selection mode. Flash: as usual, very good for power management. But i regret the choices made for the new UI. A screen divided in two sections like this make me LOVE my 5G iPod menu system.
iPod Classic, well... it sounds classic, true.
The iPod line of products had to be refreshed, this is done.
After this keynote, my feeling is that the iPhone is the true winner. But a larger flash memory and it would be even better...
So, please continue evaluating the products, describing functions, hacks, announcements, i like it :-)
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Will said 4:04PM on 9-15-2007
question:
if i buy an iPhone now and apple later releases a 3G iPhone, can I join in on the 3G fun, or am I still stuck with EDGE?
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