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April 12, 2005
Podcast Review: Shakespeare Souffle
This entry posted in:
3 stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: rambling talk
Content: talk about Bradley family culture
Rating: 
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: 15 - 30 minutes
Shakespeare Souffle is a "blogcast" of the audio antics of a family of 4 from Chicago. Subject matter is as widely varied as the activities and events of Bradley family life, ranging from a soundscape of a typical day to a recording of a trip to the field museum to 2 or 4 of the family members (and maybe some firends, too) sitting around a microphone and talking.
This family has the good fortune to get along well and to lead fairly busy and interesting lives, as families go. They're homeschoolers and have what appears to be a wide social circle. Daughter Fiona and son Liam get along as well as can be expected, as do the parents Ken and Kim. They have a cat. Fiona is a girl-scout, and Kim participates as well.
If you found the preceding paragraph somewhat interesting then Shakespeare Souffle is for you. If you found it less than compelling (as I did) then probably not, because that's largely the extent of the content on Shakespeare Souffle; details of the Bradley family life. My intention here is not to belittle the effort the Bradley's are putting in to their podcast; quite the opposite. They enjoy the podcasting, and it is the first podcast that I've heard that involves an entire family. They have a great time doing it and it's a great new way for a family to spend some additional time with each other, which is great! However, for some listeners the subject matter will be less than riveting.
Early in the podcast series Shakespeare Souffle suffered from some problems with audio quality. They've made great gains in that area more recently and their "at home" podcasts are intelligible, although with 4 or more people around a microphone it's inevitably hard to hear some portions and other portions are too loud. Their mobile 'casts still have some quality difficulties, but that's perhaps in the very nature of mobile podcasting. Track-naming is adequate but not ideal, comprised of the podcast channel name and podcast number, but no date; the file names contain the date and a shortened name, which is fairly accessible. Tracks are encoded at a variety of bit-rates, from 64kbps (probably a good rate) down to 24 kbps (too low in my opinion), and may be the cause of some of the quality problems they've had, especially seeing that the later podcasts have been the one with the higher bit-rates. The show is typically kid- and work-friendly, but on occasion hasn't been - and they've let the listeners know when it's not, which is good form. The Bradleys podcast somewhat irregularly, but average about every 2 weeks.
Subscribe to mp3s.
Tagged: podcast podcasting review Chicago Shakespeare Bradley family
Posted by cori at April 12, 2005 03:57 PM