Untitled

Ok, so the thing works. I created a 13mb ogg vorbis file that lasts 26 minutes. Intro/exit music clipped from Paul Simon’s You Can Call Me Al (for obvious reasons and under what I am assuming constitutes fair use and all that jazz) and with minimal editing, it took me about an hour to put the thing together.

http://atuin.simud.org/podcast/storytime-01.ogg

I’m probably going to play with other audio codecs. Specifically, I want to see how Speex performs in this sort of environment. Assumedly, it will do really well.

So far, response is good. I’ll work on all of the other website-related (RSS, etc…) aspects of this project later, but I don’t need to worry about it much until wossname happens, second episode.

As a result of NerdTV, and the sudden realization that my PDA can play audio files while stuffed into my pocket, I’ve been hunting for other good material to listen to on the bus, etc…

Now, the concept of ‘podcasting’ audio content is not new to me. It was a project that Hance and I were looking into implementing for the radio station somehow, but obviously that never happened. So, I’ve pretty much ignored things until I wound up with the perfect excuse – and with a portable device myself.

So far, I like it. I like it a lot. I’m having a hard time finding good podcasts, and while I would normally not be too upset about bumping into lame content online, the fact that it is audio makes the experiment a bit more… painful? when you download and try to listen to yet another bad recording of drivel.

Today I listened to the EQ2 Daily podcast. The podcast of course being weekly, but whatever. It was 70 minutes long in a 50mb file. I listened to most of it while walking about 3 miles home (scenic route) from taking Penny to work (our car’s in the shop). I am not playing EQ2 right now, but I listened and I liked it. Almost, they persuaded me to un-cancel my account.

I’ve been throwing around the idea of an internet radio station for quite some time now. In addition to KAMP, I ran one of my own for over a year until the program I was developing got chewed up when Morpork’s HD went kaput. Danny and I were very much planning on generating original content to be intermingled with the music feed on a regular basis. We’d come up with several show ideas, etc…

Now, the odds of my ever reviving said radio station project are weak – I no longer have the incentive to develop the program right now. But, the desire to produce some of these original shows… is pretty solid. One show in particular.

Since I have a decent headset that I had grabbed for reasons of being able to talk to family, I don’t think I have any reason NOT to sit down and produce something for the mud. I’ve got plenty of interesting content, I have a potential listener base, and it would give me something to do with myself when I’m burnt out on programming, etc… I could interview people over Skype, etc… It would be neato.

And so, I am about to see what I can do to come up with a show. Segment checklist and suchnot are in the works as soon as I stop typing into this little box.