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May 03, 2005
Podcast Review: Viva Podcast
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4 stars
, I subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: conversation
Content: music and movie commentary, general life stuff
Rating: 
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: 15 - 25 minutes; typically right around 20
Your hosts, Lisa and Greg, are parents, students, music and movie lovers, and podcasters especiale. The Viva podcast is a podcast primarily about this couple's life. The interchange between the two of them is smooth and flows well, keeping the podcast moving along and highly listenable.
Greg and Lisa (let's not show any favoritism, eh?) are heavily into music and movies, so along with a little bit of content about school, jobs, and kids, much of what they discuss has to do with movies and music. They treat us to movie reviews and commentary, not just about first run movies, but also about rentals and movies that are off the beaten track with the occasional trailer review thrown in for good measure. On the music front Greg and Lisa listen to quite a bit of new music and give us some pretty in-depth looks at what they're listening to. They also listen to a lot of music that doesn't make the main-stream radio air-waves (at least not where I'm at), so they're a good way to find music you haven't heard about. In addition, while some musicians may rail at this, they often couch their musical comments in "sounds like" comparisons. I guess this tends to pigeon-hole artists, but it's quite helpful when looking for music you may want to try. They also play a portion of a track as a break in the middle of the show, and usually comment on it afterwards.
Lest I mislead, the Viva Podcast isn't about reviewing movies or music. Greg and Lisa also discuss their own life events with an engaging humor and vivacity and sprinkle in a bit of topical or societal commentary often based on something they've seen on television.
The audio quality is typically good; aside from the occasional clipping or distortion (I think caused by one of the hosts getting too close to the mic) the vocals are all clear and easy to understand and the levels are good. However after a recent change to the Propaganda podcasting software they seem to be still working out the levels and there's some new distortion that I hadn't heard before.
The podcast is family- and work-safe, and the balance between music and vocal is good and the fades well-executed. They started out podcasting 5 days a week or so, but have recently dropped back to thrice a week, which is still a healthy amount of work. Meta-data for the podcast is good; the file- and track-names match (which is nice) and consist of a channel name and date, and the album and artist name all work as well. The Viva Podcasts is encoded at 64 kbps, which is a good level for primarily talk.
Subscribe to mp3s.
Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at May 3, 2005 10:22 AM