Category: 3 and a half stars :: Go to Main
April 08, 2005
Podcast Review: open source sex
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
tiny nibbles - podcasting
Format: talk
Content: education sex talk and reading of erotica
Rating: 
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: 15 - 35 minutes
Disclaimer: this review may not be suitable for all audiences
Our host for Open Source Sex, Violet Blue, is a professional sex educator, author, and porn reviewer. As such she is highly qualified for the content of her podcast. Not only does she have a strong background in pornography and sex education; I believe she's also given up her day job to do this stuff full-time. Violet (may I call you Violet?) is striving to open our minds to the power of eroticism, fantasy, and sexual play.
She does a good job of it, as well. Her voice is well-suited to reading erotica, with a soft and sultry quality, and while she's not an actor she clearly enjoys the reading and puts herself into the characters' roles.
Early in her podcasts she was including a little more in the way of educational topics, and the more recent ones have been directed more exclusively at readings of a wide variety of erotica, from the racy to the raunchy. I don't think of myself as a prude, but I'm less interested in the erotica than in the educational topics Violet covered in her first podcast or two. She has returned to more "informative" topics in her latest podcast, however. In any case, if you're looking for erotica in a podcast, this is the place to go.
Violet's early podcasts suffered from some audio quality problems; the audio was difficult to hear on my portable player, even when turned all the way up and piped through my car's audio system. The levels were OK for listening on my laptop, however. In addition, there was a liitle bit of a tin-can syndrome in the first few podcasts. Since then, however, the audio has improved greatly, although they could still stand a little more volume. Violet encodes at a variety of bitrates, the early podcasts encoded at 32 kbps, which probably accounts for some of the quality issues. The more recent ones are anywhere from 64 kbps to 128 kbps, although I think the 64 kbps would be sufficient. The podcast meta-data is lacking some detail, but the latest few have been OK, albeit without a date tag in the file name (rant).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 06:31 AM
April 01, 2005
Podcast Review: Acowo Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
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ACOWO: Introduction of High Quality Netlabels
Format: individual music tracks
Content: independent music
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: 3 - 12 minutes
The Acowo podcast is essentially a companion to the Acowo blog, a resource for "Introduction of High Quality Netlabels." In other words, Acowo is essentially a site for tracking new releases from a few hand-picked netlabels.
Your host at the weblog is Kengo Miyazaki, and for this site he's picked a few "labels that are dealing with minimal, techno, abstract, experimental, ambient, noise and stuff like that." (from the FAQ). Kengo blogs information about new releases from his chosen labels, including label, artist, album, track information, availability of a donation page or shop, license for the MP3s, and host for the MP3s. There is often additional descriptive information about the artist culled from the source site for the netlabel. To that extent, the Acowo site seems to be a very useful place to find new music of this sort.
The podcast aspect of the production consists of the individual tracks that Kengo links to from the blog posts; all of the tracks he posts links to on the site are also 'cast over the feed. In this sense the Acowo podcast is very similar to the Starfrosch Podcast. I have detailed my opinions of single-track podcasts previously, in the reviews for both the Starfrosch Podcast and The Big Chap Podcast, so I won't go into detail here. Suffice it to say I can't comment meaningfully on delivery or production values for this podcast. The music Kengo podcasts is not altogether to my taste, but it is well executed and of high quality. The encoding rate is high (typically 192 kbps or above) frequently resulting in fairly large downloads. Given that the podcast comes out several times a week, you'll be downloading a fair amount of data. Track naming is satisfactory, and the file naming is OK as well, although it's sometimes difficult to decipher.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review music minimal techno abstract experimental ambient noise netlabel
Posted by cori at 03:58 PM
March 12, 2005
Podcast review: Teach42 Podcast
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I watch
, Podcast Review
Format: audio blog entry
Content: technology and education
Rating:
What I'm going to do: watch
Typical Length: 25 - 35 minutes
Stephen Dembo at Teach42 is an educator by vocation and a podcaster by obsession. Stephen's podcasting about educational issues and often about the conjuncture between education and technology, as befits his role as a Director of Technology. Stephen also occasionally podcasts about podcasting, blogging, and gadgetry without a direct link to education.
Gadget-based podcasts often provide interesting information about how other real people use their technology and how well the technology works in the real world - I found some of Stephen's commentary about his iPaq phone/PDA to be very interesting. However, I think the real value of Stephen's podcast is his commentary on education and technology in education. Stephen's been in education for some time and has seen it from a variety of positions, both in the classroom and out - he's one of those rare male teachers who loves to teach early childhood and has more recently been the Director of Technology for a small school in Chicago. His insights cover a wide variety of subjects within education, and he pays a lot of attention to other educator's blogs and podcasts and comments freely on those as well, bringing many different viewpoints into his podcast. His commentary on technology and education is especially enlightening, and he's clearly got a love of technology that provides an important viewpoint into this controversial topic.
Stephen is in his last semester as Director of Technology, but I hope that Stephen will continue to evangelize the importance of technology in education even after he's left behind the day-to-day worries of network outages and printer problems.
Stephen often speaks very quickly, which shows his enthusiasm for his subject, but can make it hard to follow his podcast - this issue might be worth an extra effort on Stephen's behalf to try to account for. Audio quality is mostly good in the Teach42 podcast, although Stephen's car-casts have an understandable weakness with regards to audio quality. In addition, some of Steve's podcasts have less than ideal balance between music and vocals and I occasionally have to adjust the volume of my player to account for the difference between Stephen's intro / outro or interstitial music and his vocal segments. Stephen makes a point of noting that he's not editing his podcasts and we're getting the "real Stephen" all the time. I think that it's great that many podcasters aren't editing what they say in their podcasts - that level of honesty is one of the things I like about podcasting. The downside of this "live production" model is that the balance of content to environment doesn't get the attention it deserves in many cases. Stephen encodes at what seems to be a variable bit-rate (the podcasts range from 65kbps to 96kbps) which is ok, although the structure and content of this podcast doesn't seem to require a 96 kbps encoding. Stephen's vocal quality is decent and his podcasts are almost universally work- and child-safe. Music track lengths not too important - Stephen doesn't always include music in his podcasts and rarely more than one track. Meta-data is OK - Stephen gives us the name of the podcats and the date in the file and track name. He uses the album name tag to include descriptive information about the podcast, which while not logical from a data standpoint at least gets that information on my portable player where I can see it. Stephen podcasts every couple of days, perhaps twice a week.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 08:58 AM
February 26, 2005
Podcast Review: The Big Chap Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
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Format: back to back music tracks
Content: wide variety of different styles
Rating:
What I'm going to do: I subscribe
Typical Length: 1 hour to 1 hour & 15 minutes
While I haven't written it in so many words, but I think from my previous music podcast reviews it's clear that I'm not partial to podcasts that are nothing but music. The audio/music-phile in me definitely sees that advantages of having little or no talk mixed with the music itself, and I fully apreciate the departure from the mainstream radio model of incorporating commercials and "personality" into the soundtrack that most radio stations broadcast, something in me still wants to hear something of the personality of the editor of the particular musical thread that I'm listening to. I suppose this is partly becuase when I'm listening to a music podcast I want something different than what I get from listening to a CD - I spend a fair amount of time listening to music while alone, and one of the reasons I used to turn to radio was that listening to a CD seemed lonesome, while listening to the radio provided some level of companionship. Podcasts of music without the human touch of commentary seems more along the lines of a CD. I suppose this also might be due to being conditioned by listening to the radio for so many years.
But that's enough about me. Obviously (or not so obviously, perhaps) The Big Chap Podcast is a podcast of this type. As such podcasts go, it's brought me a little closer to embracing the format of a music-only podcast. Gordon's our host here, and he puts together as varied and appealing mix of music as I've heard. Listening to The Big Chap Podcast is remeniscent (to me, at least) of getting a new mix from that friend with the really eclectic musical tastes. Listen to the Big Chap and you'll hear music you've heard before and some you've never heard. You'll hear from artists you know and ones you've never heard of. Anything from The Who to Frank Zappa to Cake to Alison Moyet to Curtis Mayfield is fair game. The music Gordon mixes matches strangely with my own varied musical tastes, and the juxtaposition between tracks lends a great deal of interest to the flow of the podcast.
Unfortunately Gordon is that friend whose musical tastes you like a lot but you don't hear from nearly as often as you'd like (like I can talk, huh?). He hasn't sent out a new podcast for nearly a month, and even the posts on his blog have been irregular. Also on the negative side, the sources that Gordon uses for his music are widely varied as far a quality; some sound great and a few less so and the volume varies somewhat, requiring some adjustment over the course of the 'cast. Gordon also doesn't concern himself with RIAA risks as far as I can see, because much of the music he 'casts is certainly freighted with RIAA licensing issues. All of this said, if the Big Chap offers up more podcasts I'll definitely be downloading them.
Meta-data is minimal (rant); I'd at least like to see the channel name in the track and file name. For the last 2 podcasts Gordon included a date-stamp, which is useful. The Big Chap Podcast is also encoded at a fairly low bit-rate (48 kbps), which means that the hour-loing podcasts are relatively small, but certainly effects the quality - since this podcast is about the music, I think a slightly higher bit-rate would be adviseable. Clearly since there's no podcaster voice in the podcast, it's unlikely that individual track lengths will be forthcoming.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 06:51 AM
February 08, 2005
Podcast Review: The Overnightscape
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: personal talk radio
Content: new york area life, product reviews, personal commentary
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: 30 minutes
The more podcasts I listen to, the more I am impressed with how personal the content of many podcasts are. The Overnightscape is no exception to that tendancy. Your host at the Overnightscape, Frank Edward Nora, brings to the podcasting world his experiences and unique perspectives dealing primarily with New Jersey, New York, and the mental space between them. Throw in a few product reviews, some Nora family members, and the audio from a home-cooked video series and you'll have The Overnightscape.
Frank's is certainly a unique voice, both from the aural standpoint, and from the point-of-view standpoint. As is the case with most "personal record"-style podcasts, I think most listeners appreciation for this podcast will be primarily based upon their sense of Frank's personality. Frank's got some interesting things to say about working in New York City and living in New Jersey, and having spent a little time in NYC (but not much) there's a certain fascination that goes along with hearing about day-to-day events in Manhattan and its surrounds. Frank's attitudes regarding his fellow New York/New Jersey denizens is sometimes a little harsh, but to his credit Frank often turns that same harsh light on himself. These two sets of commentary, coupled with the sessions with Frank's father, Frank Ralph Nora, comprise the best of what The Overnightscape has to offer.
On the other side of the coin are the product reviews and the "Beublin A. Richardson" video series. I didn't find Frank's product reviews particularly insightful or entertaining, and the video series isn't particularly captivating either. To be fair, I had no interest in any of the products that Frank reviewed (OK, that's not true. The Hot Nuts sounded interesting, if mildly risque) and the current episodes of the Beublin A. Richardson videos that Frank is playing may be less successful for the fact that they are originally in video. Frank indicates that later in the series it switches to audio-only, and perhaps those episodes will be more successful in the podcast format.
Frank's delivery is very comfortable and the production values are decent; he's obviously at home with the microphone, and while the intervening music is somewhat bland, the fades between segments and the encapsulating music are well-executed. The audio levels are even and require little, if any, vloume adjustments during the course of the podcast. Meta-data is acceptable - the tracks are easy to identify in Windows or on my portable player, although a date-tag in the file-name would be welcome (rant). Frank has recently changed his format to a 30 minute show every day instead of a 2 hour show once a week. I think this is a great move on his part for the podcatching audience at least - I tried to listen to a few of the 2 hours broadcasts before I was overwhelmed with backlog and never was able to get all the way through one. The Overnightscape site also has a lively user community built around the show (many of whom seem taken aback by the format change).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 11:40 PM
February 03, 2005
Podcast Review: Starfrosch Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
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Starfrosch Audioblog :: Podcast :: Netlabel in English
Starfrosch in German
Format: stand-alone music tracks
Content: Electronica, Drum & Base, Ambient, TripHop, Techno, Rock ... you get the point
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: varies widely - from a minute to over 2 hours
The Starfrosch podcast is a new kind of podcast for me to review. Basically simply an RSS feed of music tracks of various types, it shares features of the IndieFeed podcasts. But on IndieFeed there's typically a little bit of human commentary for each track - a tiny bit of background or at the least a contextual frame that indicates this is an IndieFeed track. The lack of a context for the 'casts from Starfrosch is a little disconcerting to start with; listening blithely along to a playlist of podcasts only to encounter a seemingly random musical track can be surprising. I would have preferred a little context for these files, although that would be likely to be useless since I don't speak German. A side-effect of the nature of this podcast was that I had to consider my personal definition of podcasting with respect to The New, New Podcast Review (if you care to, you can see it here).
The music that Markus puts together for podcast is widely varied in nature as well as in quality. As can be expected, some of it is excellent, and other of it less so, but what was less expected was the wildly divergent audio quality. Seemingly without regard to the encoded bit-rate the music varies in audio clarity - some relatively high bit-rate files are also highly distorted while others are low in bit-rate but sound adequate. Of course this may be intentional - I am not familiar with all of the music the Starfrosch podcasts, so the distortion may be part of the art but in some cases it definitely detracts from my enjoyment of the music either way. I suspect that Markus is at least somewhat constrained by the source material he has as far as quality is concerned, but the tracks enclosed in the Starfrsch podcast are also encoded at bit-rates all over the map, from 0kbps (okay, that was probably an unsuccessful download) to 64kbps to 320kbps (no, really!). In addition, the 'casts vary in length from around a minute to almost 3 hours (Markus apparently podcasts some full-length radio-shows).
One really nice thing about Starfrosch is that there is an RSS feed for each of the different categories of music that Markus 'casts as well as one for all of the music (the one referenced below). There are too many to list here, but you can explore the site to find the ones you want (unfortunately I did not see a page that aggregated links to all of the distinct feeds). Another nice side-effect is that if you like the music and want to keep a copy (which is apparently OK) then you don't need to trim any extraneous audio from it.
Since there's no talk, it's difficult for me to rate this podcast in terms of delivery or production values. Track lengths are also unimportant, since the 'cast is the track. File-naming is all over the map, like the audio quality and bit-rate - some tracks are well documented and others have nothing of any value in the filename or other meta-data. While I expect that Markus only controls a small portion of that, it would be nice to have the files tagged as being from the Starfrosch podcast channel somewhere in the ID3 tags (perhaps under album, since that is commonly visible from portable player displays).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 04:46 PM
January 21, 2005
Podcast Review: Two Rights Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Two Rights: Conservative Political Discourse
Format: radio show
Content: conservative discourse
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: 30 - 45 minutes
Bill Rice and Keith Burwell (with the support of Thomas Gaume of ipodio) have laid claim to the role of the conservative response to the liberal bias of the podosphere. From their "About Us" page:
Two Rights is now the strongest conservative voice on the Podasphere.
Whether they have a right to that title is an excercise for those you think about such things - I'm just here to review their podcast.
The format of the Two Rights podcast is still in a little bit of flux, which they mention in one episode; based on listener-feedback they're playing around with the overall format. At one point the format consisted of a Going Deep section where they discuss some current events in some depth, a Blog Bullets section where they parroted headlines from their blog posts for items that they don't have time to cover in depth on the podcast, and a Higher Level segment where they discuss in some detail a single issue of their choosing. At this point it's hard to determine what the format will be of course, but they haven't made drastic changes yet and some items from the prior format remains.
One of the goals of the podcast is "to create Political Discourse on the ... podasphere," and to their credit they do a fairly good job at this. They are interested in discussion with liberal listeners and thinkers and have participated in a debate with Mark Levine of RadioInsideScoop.com and played a clip of the debate on their podcast. Not only do they welcome further interaction with liberals, but they also do not share a monolithic conservative view point and we hear a conservative discourse between the two of them on some of the issues they cover. This is refreshing to hear.
Bill and Keith obviously put a lot of thought into their viewpoints and as political commentators of any stripe go they rely more on thinking and analysis than on emotion and FUD. However, like political commentators on any side of any aisle they have an unassailable belief in their grasp of the facts which, depending on your own version of the facts, may seem deeply flawed.
The Two Rights audio is still a little rough - in some of the latest couple of shows that I listened to the vocals were somewhat distorted, perhaps they recording at too high a level. They currently break their show into segments with promos for podcasts and ads, and the transitions between the vocal segments and the interstitials are well-executed. Their delivery has been improving continually since they started and they now seem comfortable "on the air". Track meta-data is great; they even use the ISO 8601 date format that is my personal preference, and unless you find their view-points offensive, the podcasts are both work- and child-safe.
In total, this is a well-executed podcast. My "not subscribe" action is due less to the quality of this podcast than to my disinterest in political commentary.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 04:46 PM
January 18, 2005
Podcast Review: The (In)Famous Green Dragon Radio Show
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3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
, Podcast Review
The (In)Famous Green Dragon Radio Show
Format: radio show
Content: unsigned music from the UK
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: 1-1/2 to 2 hours
Green Dragon produces one very British music show for your listening pleasure. And a pleasure it is as well.
GD puts together a weekly 2 hour long festival of the best in unsigned bands in Great Britain. There seems to be no shortage of talent to be had there. While any music podcast focusing on unsigned musicians is going to have a wide variety of quality, the bands on Green Dragon's show are for the most part very good. The variety of music GD lays in any one show is quite brilliant as well; he really mixes it up, throwing punk, rock, blues, pop, and techno together to create a surprisingly cohesive pastiche of musical genres. With the length of the show, GD is able to fit between 20 and 30 tracks in each weekly event, and he rarely repeats artists within a show, so the listener gets maximum exposure to as many different artists as possible.
Green Dragon's patter is pretty well put together as well, and he provides podcatchers with some decent band-related information, almost always including where the band is located (although I'm not sure what use that information is). The website also contains the playlist for the current show, as well as that for archived shows, all of which can be downloaded directly from the site.
Green Dragon's production values are ambitious, but not altogether successful. GD tries hard, it seems, to make the show come off like a broadcast radio show, and he does a pretty good job. However, his intro clip has changed a bit over the half-dozen or so shows I listened to, and the most recent one comes across like a monkey on acid - particularly the opening speeded-up MGM theme seems out of whack. In some cases the interludes between groups of tracks are a little difficult to understand, and in fact in a lot of the pre-produced "cart" tracks the speaking vocalist is too soft. Aside from that, Green Dragon maintains a good balance between music and speech throughout the show, and the balance of talk to music to promos is pretty good.
One relatively severe drawback I took note of is, I suspect, related to bandwidth issues. GD has had some bandwidth difficulties (to be expected when you're streaming and podcasting a show of this length), and he has chosen to encode his podcast MP3s at a relatively low bit-rate - they show up on my system as around 64bps, and some are as low as 31. I suspect this was an attempt to fit 2 hours of music in a small enough file to not choke podcatchers out there and to save himself a bit of money to boot. The problem is that in some cases the music definitely suffers from that underencoding.
Green Dragon does not give track lengths (rant), but that's probably a tall order for a show of this nature. File- and track-naming also leave something to be desired (rant), changing from show to show and without any date information anywhere, and sometimes named simply "ipod16.mp3". Something shorter, with some consistency of artist, album, and track name, preferably including a date ID in the ID3 tags would be helpful, with corresponding changes to the file-name itself. The show is generally work-safe, less so for children, and not guaranteed to be either.
All in all a strong podcast that makes it into my regular work-day soundtrack based on the strength and variety of music.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 12:40 AM
January 06, 2005
Podcast Review: In The Trenches
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: talk show
Content: tech talk and personal commentary
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: from 15 minutes to an hour, but mostly 20 - 40 minutes
In The Trenches is one of several strong technical podcast available to podcatchers these days. When ITT started it was one of the few podcasts that was focused on the IT professional, as most of them were more directed at users. Now there are a few more podcasts available for the IT Pro, but ITT is still the only one I know of that is for System Admins. Kevin Devin, your host at ITT, puts together plenty of good content for the Sys Admin crowd (too much good stuff to go into here), and some general technical info of a slightly more personal nature (problems with his new iPod being the latest of these sagas).
As part of the ITT series, Kevin also occasionally Skypes together a group of interested parties and the result is an ITT Tech Chat where the folks on the call discuss some technical subject. When these episodes are on target they can produce some great content; when they're off they're a little less informative but still quite listenable. In The Trenches has also recently been including a great segment called Geek Speak, which is directed a little more at the user end of things but still includes some informative bits for the professional. Kevin has invited others who are interested in podcasting but are concerned they don't have enough content for a stand-alone podcast to contact him. Perhaps this will lead to other segmants to be included in the podcast.
The In The Trenches audio is fairly good, even in the Tech Chats, where the limitations of Skype impact the overall audio quality. Production quality is pretty good as well, although Kevin occasionally has a little difficulty with the fades between his show and the intro and outro, making those clips overpower the vocals. No music tracks in the podcasts, and the file- and track-naming is sufficient, although using the full podcast channel name instead of 'ITT' would be appreciated (rant). Kevin's bit-rate varies widely, which makes me think he might be encoding at a variable bit-rate, so the file sizes also vary widely.
All in all, I won't be subscribing to In The Trenches because I'm not a Systems Admin, but I think ITT has a lot to offer folks in that field.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 12:44 AM
December 17, 2004
Podcast Review: Bandtrax
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3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: radio show
Content: independent music and writing
Rating:
What I'm going to do: listen regularly
Typical Length: 25 - 30 minutes
BandTrax.net is a website based on a great idea for distributing independent works. If you're an independent (read non-RIAA) band (or a writer or comedian), they want to sell your work. You set the price, they'll tack an extra couple of bucks on the top, and away you go. Their podcast is a way to get the word out about the artists that have listed with them. If that sounds like an advertisement to you, I think you're partly right, but I don't think these folks are in this for the money; their promos in the podcast are solely about getting artists to submit their work. In this case that's pretty important - in their current format they'll run out of material fairly quickly if they don't get new material regularly. For the time being they're selecting some music that's not yet for sale on their site to boost the content of their podcast, but my impression is that when they have enough material on the site they'll play primarily that music.
All in all, the quality of the works they're playing in their show is pretty high; I was pleasantly pleased with everything I heard on the show, including the clips from a book read by the author. The music was at least decent in every case, and in some cases very good. The audio quality of the music and the readings was generally pretty good as well, and they played a fairly wide variety of music to boot.
Production values for the BandTrax podcast are fairly high - they've mixed together an intro and outro that sound good, and mix in various external sound effects and clips successfully. Vocal to music balance is good; I can listen to the entire podcast without having to alter the volume on my player. Transitions in and out of the vocals are also well handled. The audio quality of the show as a whole is decent; the vocals are clear and easy to understand. They're encoding at 64Kbps, which seems a little low for a music-focussed podcast, and I think some of the music may suffer for that - I think they should boost that a little, especially seeing as they want people to buy the music heard on the podcast.
As far as my usual rants go, the BandTrax podcast doesn't do so well. The file- and track-naming is a little bit generic; they've included the date of the podcast, but not the name of the podcast channel itsel - "BandTrax" appears no where in either the filename or track title. In their first podcast at least they included the channel name in the Album title, but they stopped doing that (rant). In addition, there's no mention of the length of the included clips or tracks in their podcast (rant).
I'm going to add one more mini-rant to these two this time. Several times throughout their podcasts, I heard Canis Lupus and Chris mention bands that "deserve to be signed". I'd like to see podcasting lead to a completely different model of music distribution that exists totally without reliance on the RIAA as an infrastructure. The RIAA has decided to treat its customers as an owned commodity, and therefore don't deserve our business - I'd like to see us find a way to allow musicians to make a living from their music without the "help" from the RIAA. I think podcasting as a whole, and podcasts and sites like BandTrax are the beginnings of an infrastructure that could enable that.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 12:36 PM
December 11, 2004
Podcast Review: IT Conversations; Memory Lane
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3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
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IT Conversations - Memory Lane
Format: interviews
Content: important people in technology
Rating:
What I'm going to do: listen regularly
Typical Length: 55 - 65 minutes
Halley Suitt has a fairly long history in the IT industry. In addition, she's a strong voice for women in IT and an advocate for a larger contingent of women in technical fields. This is an important voice to be heard; it's good to know that my daughter will have a role model in IT and I'm glad that Halley has a public forum like this.
Halley's body of work for IT Conversations is in the format of interviews with a broad selection of people important in IT, either historically or currently (or both). Some of her subjects are important because of their technical contributions and some for their cultural ones. Much of what she discusses with her guests are issues surrounding the history of IT and the Internet, thus, I presume, the title of the series.
Halley's a good interviewer insofar as she is able to keep the conversation focussed around interesting subjects and for the most part keeps control of the conversation. She asks good leading questions to encourage her guests to talk about the subjects she thinks her listeners will find interesting. For my part I favor a slightly more challenging interview style than Halley's and that is occasionally a disappointment - her guests sometimes espouse contestable positions but Halley takes them at face value without asking the probing questions that I would like to hear answered. I'm not looking for blood, mind you, but when someone takes a position I disagree with I want to know why so that I can re-evaluate my position if that's warranted. Perhaps this is a conscious decision made for reasons of time, since a more challenging interview can also be a longer one. Still, she does get a lot of valuable commentary from her subjects, making a very worthwhile interview.
Halley's podcast contains a small break in the middle of the 'cast which doesn't make any sense to me. She mentions in one of her programs that her listeners demand a break around the 30 minute mark, and that would make sense in a way if the content was being streamed. But this is time-shifted audio, and we all have pause buttons and presumably know how to use them; we can take a break whenever we like. So, for that matter, can Halley. The half-time break seems like a throw-back and I'd as soon see it disappear.
Production for the series is adequate and relatively simple - Doug Kaye uses one of his standard musical selections for both the intro / outro music and the break. Doug's intro to the podcast is good as usual, and the transitions into and out of these elements are handled smoothly. The audio has some difficulties, as might be expected in what is essentially a series of phone interviews; there are definitely instances of the participants cutting out and occasionally Halley or one of her guests is difficult to hear. For the most part, however, the audio doesn't interfere with the listener's enjoyment of the podcast.
Track naming meta-data has gone through a shift in the Memory Lane series; at first the tracks were titled Memory Lane and the artist referenced the guest. This has lately been swapped, which I think is a better arrangement. In any case, the naming meta-data provides all the requisite information for finding the podcast both in Windows and on my portable. There's no date in the title or filename, but I don't think that's relevant in this case.
See also my review on other IT Conversations series:
The New, New Podcast Review: Podcast Review: IT Conversations; The Gillmor Gang
The New, New Podcast Review: Podcast Review: IT Conversations; Voices in Your Head
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 09:30 AM
December 03, 2004
Podcast Review: Not Work Safe Radio Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
ultraILK - got ilk? Home of NWS radio Podcast
Format: online conversation
Content: talk, humor, sometimes off-color
Rating:
What I'm going to do: listen on occasion
Typical Length: 30 - 40 minutes
I've been putting off reviewing Not Work Safe radio for a little while because I couldn't get a bead on it. Ilk's format has changed substantially since his first couple of podcasts, but it seems as though he has a direction now, though he states on his blog that he's still experimenting.
Ilk and his recent guest Ash produce an online ramble that we're invited to at Not Work Safe Radio. They talk about a wide variety of subjects, relying on items they've seen on TV or the web, not to mention thier own unique interests. In particular Ilk and Ash are seemingly fascinated (obsessed?) with various sexual subjects. I am less interested in such things (or perhaps I'm just in denial), so those parts of the podcast were less enjoyable for me. On the other hand, other parts of the podcasts were genuinely very funny, including the flat, emotionless reading of a chat transcript from the latest podcast. I've also really enjoyed Ilk's musical choices, especially in his latest show.
The audio, while rough in the first few posts, has matured and is now well mixed and easy to listen to. The backing music and vocals are well balanced and the volume changes from vocal to musical content are minimal. The transitions from music to vocals are nicely done as well.
The file and track naming for Not Work Safe Radio is satisfactory; I can identify the podcast easily both on my portable and in my file system. However, it would be nice if Ilk told us the track lengths for the music he's playing (rant).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 06:24 AM
November 25, 2004
Podcast First Take: iPodLounge Podcast
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast FirstTake
Format: commentary
Content: iPod product reviews and commentary
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe; don't own an iPod.
Typical Length: 30 minutes
iPod Lounge's podcast is an experiment; the editors of iPodlounge don't know if they are going to continue to produce it or not, but they request a review, so there you have it.
Jeremy at iPodLounge is the narrator of this podcast, and if you own an iPod or are interested in the technology (or even are thinking about purchasing one) then this podcast contains a great deal of useful data. The iPod Lounge website is one of the best-known resources for iPod users, and much of what makes the site so valuable can be heard in the podcast. If you are not interested in the iPod, however, this podcast is probably not for you. In addition, I think much of what makes the site so terrific a resource is the member interaction, which will be difficult to reproduce in a podcast. That said, the attention to detail in the reviews and commentary is quite impressive.
In the first 'cast Jeremy reviews the iPod Photo, Oakley's Thump sun-glasses/mp3 player, and Bose's iPod Dock. As I said, these reviews are higly detailed and they are well-organized, commenting on everything from the features of the device in question to (in the case of the iPod Photo) delving into the operation and weaknesses of the accompanying software. The reviews are impartial and factual - no product pushing here, but there are enough details for you to listen to the podcast and make an informed choice about a putchase (if one opinion is enough).
The vocals for this podcast are recorded using an iPod Photo and the Griffin's iTalk recorder, and as such the audio for the podcast is acceptable. The vocals in specific are clear and easy to understand. I don't know if the post-production work (if any) was done on the iPod, but I suspect the musical intro and outro were mixed in after the fact. These clips of music were a little distorted on the bass end on my portable, but not so bad in my automobile. The music does not cut off Jeremy's vocals at all and the fades are handled smoothly, but a little bit of a musical bed might make the podcast a little less flat.
The podcast is encoded at 56 kbps, which seems to me to be a perfectly fine bitrate for this sort of podcast, and the resulting mp3 clocks in at just over 10MB for the almost-half-hour podcast. iPodLounge's meta-data is satisfactory; files and tracks are easy to identify both in my portable and in the Windows filesystem. There are no musical tracks, so track lengths are unimportant.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review horowitz
Posted by cori at 06:58 AM
November 15, 2004
Podcast Review: Linux Log
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3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: reference/news column
Content: linux, unix, and open source news articles
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe to the site, listen sometimes
Typical Length: around 30 minutes
The Linux Log gives fairly in-depth coverage of the current buzz in the media about whatever's up right now for Linux, unix, and open source - obviously leaning a little harder towards the Linux side (given the title). The Linux Log podcast expands on that theme in an audio format.
The idea here is that Adrian Bacon and his fellows excerpt an entire week's worth of media coverage about the topics that the Linux Log site is tracking and podcast it in a half-hour podcast every Monday evening. The concept is good and the information valuable. In addition, Adrian is interested in being as supportive of multiple audio filetypes as possible - this is a great thing for OGG or FLAC users - just contact Adrian at the site and request the format that you want. However, currently Adrian is serving up both mp3 and WMA attachments in the same feed; I can't get the the WMA file, but that probably has to do with the iPodder platform, which may be ignoring WMA file. My concern is that when iPodder begins to listen for WMA files (if it's not already), I may get them both. Hopefully if the choices are expanded Adrian will split them into different feeds. For now you can get them from the site if this is a concern. Editor's Note: Actually, I've determined (with Garth of the iPodder development team's help) that iPodder actually just retrieves the first enclosure in each
If you're a real Linux propeller-head, this podcast probably isn't going to be a huge help for you. Adrian covers a lot of articles in a relatively short time at a relatively low level of detail. If you know nothing at all about Linux you're unlikely to care much about what Adrian's talking about. However, if you're only a little bit of a Linux geek (like a lot of the IT professionals I know) then this podcast will likely be right up your alley.
Adrian's delivery is a little dry at times, and the audio sometimes leaves a little to be desired; Adrian's vocals are a little muted, but he's aware of that problem and hopes to resolve it soon. Adrian also makes do without any intro / outro music or underscore, which adds a little to the dryness of the podcast; given that this podcast has a tremendously well-defined target, maybe that's OK, but a little extra production punch would add a little interest to the show, in my view. However, the think I'd like to see most out of this show was a slightly deeper analysis of the news stories he's bringing up. I'm not a huge media geek, and I don't really care too much about what media sources picked up thi story or that one, or hwhat the media source count is fior this story at Linux Log. What would be the most helpful to me is to have Adrian tell me a little bit of what makes this story so important to the Linux community. I want more why the story was picked up and a little less who picked it up. All in all a valuable resource that is sure to become more so as Adrian works out the kinks.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review media log linux adrian bacon quicksurf
Posted by cori at 02:26 PM
November 13, 2004
Podcast Review: 5 Speed Cassette
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: radio show
Content: personal and sports talk, some music
Rating:
What I'm going to do: not subscribe
Typical Length: around 20 minutes
Mark Falcon and his co-host, Zack, from 5 Speed Cassette present us with some conversation and good non-RIAA music.
Mark's typical topics of conversations are about FormulaOne and World Rally Championship racing and the bicycle circuit and he's got a lot of information to share about these subjects; if you're into these sports, 5 Speed Cassette will definitely be a good choice. He discusses personal details to an extent, though not nearly to the point of, say, Dawn and Drew; Mark is clearly a very proud parent. Mark is personable and easy to listen to, though the goings on around him are occasionally distracting. His musical selections are from IndieFeed and from a CD from MP3.com, and are typically strong.
Mark handles the transitions between vocals and other content fairly well. Mark's background track typically consists of Zack's various emanations; Zack is in the room when Mark records. His vocals are a little muffled-sounding; I'm not sure if this is a technology or a mixing problem, but he's still perfectly audible, and the balance between Mark's vocals and the other content in his podcast is fine - no need for me to adjust my volume.
Marks' blog has links and additional comments about what he covers in his podcasts. He does not give us the track lengths of the music he plays [rant], but filenames are good, including both podcast name and date information. His meta-data, however, contains only the name of the podcast (all of them say "5 Speed Casette") [rant].
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review formula one world rally sports falcon religion family god
Posted by cori at 06:26 AM
November 12, 2004
Podcast Review: The Miller Report
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Grand Forks Times Online - Blogging and Podcasting
Format: news radio show
Content: talk, local news, politics, some music
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe to his blog - listen occasionally
Typical Length: 25 - 35 minutes
Dave Miller at The Miller Report has some radio experience, and it really shows in the quality of his podcasts. His delievery is smooth and inviting - he treats the listener like a friend, drawing you into his conversation. Dave's audio is crisp and clear, and the balance between the music and vocals is good. Transitions in and out of musical tracks and the intro / outro are well-handled. Dave does not use a musical bed, but there's little dead air and the underscoring isn't missed.
The content on the Miller Report is a mixture of politico-social commentary and local news. Dave's political comments are a little hard to pigeon-hole (though he does lay claim to the "libertarian" label), a fact which I like a lot about his podcast - it's always challenging and interesting when someone's political commentary matches completely with your own on some topics but diverges completely on others as Dave's does with mine. The local information is less interesting, but surely valuable to residents.
Dave has made the decision to play only non-RIAA music in his podcasts (he usually plays one or two tracks a 'cast). The exception to this rule is Fridays, when Dave plays a "Top 5" list of music from this week in 1996 (obviously he's using RIAA music for this). He's plugging the bands he plays with a vengence, which is good to hear. Dave has a lot of good things to say about podcasting.
The blog has good content and links to many of the items he discusses - it's a good companion to the podcast.
Dave's mp3s are well-named and the meta-data in the mp3s gives me enough to go on both in Media Player and on my portable, but he does not give the track lengths for the music he plays (rant).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review dave miller grand forks report libertarian
Posted by cori at 04:06 PM
November 11, 2004
Podcast Review: $250 Million Radio Show
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: radio show
Content: variety of music
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: 20 - 25 minutes
I think Derrick Oien at User Generated Content has a bone to pick with the RIAA. Derrick used to work at MP3.com, and the RIAA may have cost him a job by suing the pants off them. Thus the name of his podcast, The $250 Million Radio Show.
This is yet another podcast playing extremely kicking tracks from non-RIAA artists, and if this keeps up I'm going to run out of work-time to listen. And in all seriousness, Derrick is one of the most vocal evangelists of the non-RIAA music charge in the podcasting arena, and that's great.
As I mentioned, Derrick plays some really great tunes (and a few that I wasn't so hot on). Derrick's shows are often, but not exclusively, organized around a theme (electronica, punk/hardcore, he's planning a singer/songwriter show, like that). Derrick has had some trouble with the smoothness of his fades in and out of the bumper music, and hasn't been using a music bed or intro / outro recently, perhaps for that reason.
I believe Derrick's using his cell phone's bluetooth headset to record his vocals. That's an interesting, and probably inexpensive, route to take, but the podcast suffers for it - his vocal levels are often lower than the music volume and the quality of that sound isn't great. In fact the 'casts are often hard to listen to on my portable, especially when there's ambient noise around (like in my car). The sound quality for the music, on the other hand, is universally good, as one might expect of someone who seems to have an real interest in the music. Derrick encodes at 128 kbps, which leads to larger file sizes, but not too bad - I think he might be able to do with 96.
Derrick's been pretty good about naming of his files and good use of meta-data (see my file name rant on this subject). Derrick doesn't give track lengths (see my track length rant on this subject as well).
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review non-RIAA music punk electronic mp3.com Derrick Oein $250 million radio show beelzebub
Posted by cori at 02:14 PM
November 09, 2004
Podcast Review: TheScout.Net
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: radio show
Content: label-related music and music news
Rating:
What I'm going to do: subscribe
Typical Length: 40 - 60 minutes thus far
Kevin at TheScout.Net has decided to stop updating his website and take all of his content directly to the podcatching world. Well, his site's visitor's loss is our gain. TheScout.net plays a ton of lesser known music, typically from unsigned bands, for our enjoyment. There's a tremendous variety of stuff, both harder edged and smoother, so I think almost anyone can find something that they'll like
Kevin's delivery is sometimes a little hesitant, with a few "ums" and pauses as he searches for the right words. I don't believe he has any broadcast experience, so as he continues to broadcast I am hopeful that his style will become much smoother. Likewise the handling of some of the tranisitions between songs and between his talk and the music sometimes leave something to be desired; one thing in particular he'll want to watch is that he not fade over parts of tracks that are still significant, but again, I think ith experience Kevin's skill in this area will improve.
TheScout.net is highly focussed on the main stream music industry, a focus that many in the podcasting world might find antithetical to the very idea of podcasting and its overwhelming focus on non-label music. Myself, I had to remind myself that for many (most?) bands out there, the elusive record deal is still the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. This is not to mention the fact that Kevin's readers seemingly have come to rely on him for much of their industry news and he would be leaving them behind even more than he already is if he abandoned that focus. I found there to be a little too much talk about the industry presence at shows and the "buzz" around a band, but that's just my taste.
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Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 06:33 AM
November 08, 2004
Podcast Review: World's Largest Dungeon
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
World's Largest Dungeon Review
Format: online Role Playing Game session
Content: 5 players playing Dungeons and Dragons
Rating:
What I'm going to do: Watch their feed; listen occasionally
Typical Length: typically each session is about 2 - 3 hours long, typically split into 2 parts of 1 to 1-1/2 hours
These folks have stumbled upon what must be defined as a niche market - they're podcasting audio transcripts of their Dungeons and Dragons role-playing sessions.
The first thing I noticed when listening to these 'casts was the accents, which threw me for a little bit of a loop. In the group I played with, British accents were typically a sign of a player trying (usually poorly) to speak "in character". These accents, however, are very authentic (probably because they're actually Brits that are producing them).
I must say that this was a refreshing trip into the way back machine for me; it's been more than 15 years since I last sat at a table with dice in my hand - in fact, it was not that long ago that I took my Advanced D&D Player Handbook (my version pubb'ed around 1984) to the used bookstore. These people get on well and have a good rapport, which makes the sessions very enjoyable to listen to. In fact, I found myself listening to far more of these then I ever thought I would.
There are basically no production values in these podcasts - they are sent out completely unedited. I'm not sure slick production particulars like intros / outros, fades, and music beds are of any real value to this kind of 'cast, but I thought I'd mention it. The audio quality leaves a little something to be desired, but I'm not sure what they could do about this - since they're recording from a single source and the players are presumably different distances from the mic, some voices are louder than others and the overlay of the conversation can sometimes be difficult to parse. However, since they don't have the time to do any high-powered editing to balance the voices or to record from multiple source and mix the results (and I don't blame them for that, certainly), there's not too much they can do to allieviate this problem. I especially wouldn't advise trying to listen on a portable player, even moreso in an environment that has any ambient noise (like a car or bus) because much of it will be difficult to understand. However, when listening over full headphones at my laptop, I was able to understand what was happening without any real problems.
The site; RPGMP3.com also has streaming files of these podcasts as well as several Call of Cthulu sessions.
If you are (or were) into D&D at some point in your life, or are curious as to what it's all about or want to decide if you want to give it a try, this podcast is a must listen - at least a few times....
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A little background from Paul from the site after the jump....
Here's what Paul has to say about RPGMP3:
It started out accidentally back in January 2003 when I accidentally recorded part of a D&D game when testing out a new microphone for my MiniDisc recorder (I'd forgotten I'd left it on) - and ended up with over half-an-hour of us playing 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil'.I found it on the disc a little later -listened to some of it and thought it was worth adding to my website as a curio.
It kind of took off.
With thousands of downloads and a number of emails saying how entertaining people found it. There are very few (if any) recordings of such games - so if you also want to justify it as recording for posterity, you can. :D (That's what you get when you're also a bunch of Archaeologists.) Anyway, RPGMP3.com was eventually born earlier this year (2004), and we've been putting files on fairly regularly ever since, people seem to like them if our traffic is anything to go by.
Final encoding is done in MP3Pro format at 32kbps/24(44)KHz which we find acceptable for voice quality and allows people with 56K modems to stream directly if they wish. Visitors have been listening online and downloading to their iPods for a while now, and once we discovered Podcasting it seemed a natural avenue to take as an alternative and convenient method of distribution.
As you'll have noticed the audio files are pretty much raw with very little or no editing. There are two main resoans for this - Time - because they are usually 2-3 hours per week and Realism - that's how we play, not a polished drama that you would normally expect hear on the radio.
While people find them entertaining to listen to, it also appears that it's having a certain effect on people who used to play - or want to play RPGs. Check out the comments on this page for example:
Tagged: podcast podcasting review
Posted by cori at 08:16 AM
November 04, 2004
Podcast Review: The Wizards of Technology
This entry posted in:
3 and a half stars
, I do not subscribe
, Podcast Review
Format: Radio show
Content: technology talk - aimed at the less technical
Rating:
What I'm going to do: tune in sometimes
Typical Length: 45 - 60 minutes
I think these guys are a little ahead of their time in the podcasting world, but not much. Their show is all about being technical resources for people who aren't that technical. However, I think they really have something - once podcasting becomes a lot more mainstream and the podience grows more substantially beyond the techie folk that seem to be the major consumers...
You know, scratch that - I don't know who the consumers are; only who the podcasters are, so I can't really say that the consumers are all techies, now can I?
Let's begin again.
Mister Marc and Digital Bill of The Wizards of Technology Podcast have focussed their podcasting efforts on the non-techies among us. They've targeted their show at making technology accessible to the non-technically minded. I think they're really on to something.
The content they deal with is very broadly distributed. They talk about tech news, of course, and have a lot of good commentary to dish out. They dive in a little deeper about a few subjects on each show as well, covering viruses/phishing, giving gadget reviews and suggesting websites. Their commentary is insightful, but they're at their best when they have slightly differing views on a topic, which adds additional dimension to the dialog. They're also requesting that podcatchers send in questions; this will add some good content as well.
They're music choices are ok, and their use of it for breaks between the segments is great. The fades are all well-handled. They are still learning some of the ropes of the recording technology (little things, like remembering to turn off their mics and the like - nothing that's a big deal), and the bridge music sometimes overpowers their vocals when they're come in