Is it possible do a tri-country, bi-continenental, radio-style "chat" podcast?

July 17, 2006 9:03 PM

Is it possible do a tri-country, bi-continenental, radio-style "chat" podcast?

I have two friends who will be moving to separate countries, Switzerland and Italy, and I live in the US. We have a cultural, literary webzine together. Since we're gonna be calling each other a lot, I was wondering if it wasn't somehow possible for us to do a podcast where we'd talk about things of interest to us, and then we'd publish it in our webzine. Ideally this would be like the kind of talkshow where people have conversations about certain topics. Is that technologically feasible? If so, how?


And since I'm asking, what's the best podcasting beginner's guide you've come across?

posted by Kattullus to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Yes, this is totally possible. You can use Skype and/or iChat to do such stuff. I have a friend that does international radio shows & interviews. She records everything and makes the podcasts in Garageband.

If you're using Windows, I dunno what software you'd use... but to answer the question, yes, it's feasible, and you can do it with Garageband on the Mac. :-)
posted by drstein at 9:24 PM on July 17, 2006

Sure it's possible. You should look into different VOIP software. You'll need a package that lets you set up conference calls, and to record all of the audio together. There's instructions for Skype, for instance, here.
posted by robcorr at 9:25 PM on July 17, 2006

(drstein: Since I co-habitate with the OP, I feel confident answering for him that he has an iMac running Tiger with all the fancy bells and whistles - such as GarageBand.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:09 PM on July 17, 2006

The Hobson & Holtz Report, a marketing podcast, is done from Amsterdam and the East Bay, if you're looking for an example of something like this in action.
posted by nyterrant at 5:41 AM on July 18, 2006

I had never used Garage Band before, and it's kind of intimidating when you first start it up, but I was able figure it out and do what you're talking about in half a day.

Decide early on if you want to bother with the image snapshots... they're pretty cool, but it makes editing out pauses and boring comments more difficult. The audio gets out of sync with the images. (Anyone know how to avoid that?)

You'll probably end up needing to convert and seed the podcast as a (no picture track) mp3 anyway, at least if you link to it directly from the web. Because then it will open in God-knows-what crappy player that can't understand MPEG-4.
posted by Doctor Barnett at 8:56 AM on July 18, 2006

You might want to check out TalkShoe.com. I can't vouch for it, but it sounds like it's what you're looking for.
posted by nomad at 9:19 AM on July 18, 2006

Also, go to a book store and look for this book - titled "Podcasting Made Easy with GarageBand 3, iWeb, and .Mac"

:-)

you don't have to use the .Mac bit, obviously.
posted by drstein at 10:35 AM on July 18, 2006