I have posted before about how I enjoy the BBC program, Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Now that there is (predictably) a US version, I was pleased to discover that you can view the new shows online at Fox. No cost and no pain in the ass hurdles to jump through. Free programs, sure they show ads, but it is usually one ad per “slot” which means the whole show goes much quicker and is consumable anytime the week it shows on your computer. Is this the future? Is Paul Colligan and his Year of living Digitally listening? This week’s show was the one that resulted in a lawsuit. Great stuff!
Paul Colligan has posted that he will have a public webinar covering a live demonstration of how he manages his podcast using the GigaVox platform. It is always interesting to see what our users of GigaVox Audio Lite are up to. If you are interested, check out his post on his blog for details.
It has been one week since we debuted The Levelator™ and to say we are pleased is an understatement. The response has been overwhelming! With kudos and claims of “hit of the Expo” and “best new software” from folks like Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte, Jake Ludington, Scott Bourne, Rocketboom, Paul Colligan and many, many others it can get a bit heady. Let me take a step back and explain The Levelator™ for the uninitiated; what it does and why we made it freely available.
The Levelator™ solves a common problem for podcasters: recordings with participants at various levels. Whether this is a multi-mic setup such as a panel discussion, a single mic interview with multiple people, a “double”/”multiple” ender or the infamous Skype recording. With one fell swoop of the drag and drop, The Levelator™ will take a Wav or Aiff file and “level” all those various speakers. Here is a quick example:
Notice that the middle section is severely reduced. In this case I turned and stepped away from the microphone. The lead and end levels are me speaking directly into the microphone. I took this file and with no other audio manipulation dropped it on The Levelator™. The Result:
Now fixing a single segment like this is easy with standard tools, but imagine if this were a forty-five minute interview. Now you understand the power of The Levelator™. I took a sample file that originally took me 3 hours to fix, and The Levelator™ brought it up to broadcast/podcast standards in a minute and a half. Pretty incredible. Many see The Levelator™ and assume that is is doing normalization. While that feature is a step in the process there is much more going on. For a technical description check out Doug Kaye’s explanation. Also, please check out The Levelator™ forums.
So why has GigaVox made this available for free for non-commercial use? As many know, GigaVox Media is the parent company of IT Conversations and our other podcast channels. Currently, we have 1400+ active podcast episodes on our network and that number is growing every day. What many do not know is that in order to run a network and production team of 55 plus people we needed to implement innovative tools and solutions to automate the production workflow. Our three years of experience and development clearly establishes us at the premier podcast technoloogy company. Simply put, while others have interesting ideas, no one has the hard earned and tried and true technology that we have developed. Whether it is the monster Content Management System/Audio Assembly System that runs the entire network that allows us to inject sponsor messages into any and or all episodes with the click of a button, our recently debuted GigaVox Media Audio Lite, our coming video technology or the tools we give to our audio engineers such as The Levelator™, we are the podcast technology leader. We gave The Levelator™ out as an example. It is an amazing tool and one we hope will help podcasters make better podcasts. For those who are curious, you should see what we keep behind the curtain…
Podcast Academy 4 has just been announced and registration is open. It will take place in association with the Podcast and Portable Media Expo on Thursday Sept. 28th, 2006. (The day before the start of the Expo.) The line up this time is geared towards podcasting and video for the corporate/commercial user and podcast pros and consultants. Come and learn from the experts who have done podcast projects for companies such as Disney, MTV, Verizon and Pontiac as well as those involved in the exploding video podcast world including MacBreak, PodGrunt, 88SLIDE and French Maid TV.
The current registration is discounted and prior Academies have sold out, so sign up now. Find out all the details at - Podcast Academy #4.
(Paul, we expect you as our first registered attendee.)
Guy Kawasaki saw fit to add my Twitter posts to his newly launched social media experiment, AllTop.com. Given the company, it is an honor. Thanks Guy! (1)
Michael speaks frequently on podcasting's impact on new media and its corporate applications and is often quoted by the media including in The New York Times, USA Today, CNN and Wired Magazine.
