Ubuntu Wiki

Ubuntu Open Week - Producing Podcasts in Ubuntu - Alan Pope - Wed, Apr 30, 2008

=== jcastro changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Ubuntu Open Week | Information and Logs: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek | How to ask questions: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/Rules | Ask questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat, prefaced with "QUESTION:" |See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek/JoiningIn to filter out channel noise | Current session: "Producing Podcasts in Ubuntu" - Alan Pope

22:01 <@jcastro> take it away popey!
22:02 <@popey> uhoh
22:02 <@popey> A challenge to those of you in #ubuntu-classroom-chat!
22:02 <@popey> Put me off, distract me (in -chat, not here ;) ), try to ensure I _don't_ get to the end of the material I have prepared.
22:03 <@popey> Ask questions, as many as you can think of, we'll take them as soon as we can, to make this more vibrant. 
22:03 <@popey> It's late here in the UK, I've had Fajitas and Beer, and I'm ready for the challenge! Bring it on!
22:03 <@popey> Here's the core messages I want to get over
22:03 <@popey> 1. It's possible to create, host and manage a (good) podcast using Ubuntu.
22:03 <@popey> 2. It's mostly not about the software, it's more about the enthusiasm, infrastructure, process and community, community, community, community  (C) Jono Bacon
22:04 <@popey> 3. The software is free, nothing payware or proprietary (if you avoid skype ;] )
22:04 <@popey> 3a.  Only cost is hardware you may (optionally) buy, and the time you spend doing it
22:04 <@popey> Schedule - here's what we plan to cover - see if you can stop me!
22:05 <@popey>  * Introduction to the session
22:05 <@popey>   * Introduction to us (who we are, why we do this)
22:05 <@popey>   * Introduction to podcasting 
22:05 <@popey>   * Communication within the team
22:05 <@popey>   * Preparation for an episode
22:05 <@popey>   * Recording the episode
22:05 <@popey>    * Hardware & Software involved
22:05 <@popey>   * Post production
22:05 <@popey>    * Editing, encoding
22:05 <@popey>   * Publishing
22:05 <@popey>    * Mirroring
22:05 <@popey> Is anyone thinking or has considered _ever_ producing a podcast?
22:06 <@popey> there's room for lots of podcasts!
22:06 <@popey> think how many there are about windows or mac osx
22:06 <@popey> there's not NEARLY enough about Linux Ubuntu
22:06 <@popey> ok..
22:07 <@popey> * Introduction to us
22:07 <@popey> I'm Alan Pope (popey), also here may be Tony Whitmore (tonytiger), Dave Murphy (Schwuk), Ciemon (pronounced 'Simon') Dunville (CieD) and Dave (pronounced 'Oi! Get closer to the microphone!') Walker (Daviey)
22:07 <@popey> unfortunately tony can't be with us, he's busy locked up in a hotel room with a laptop
22:08 <@popey> We decided there was room in the market for a fixed duration, regularly released, family-friendly, Ubuntu CoC compliant podcast, so we made one.
22:08 <@popey> All of this session is generated based on _our_ experience of podcasting, listening to other podcasts, and common sense.
22:08 <@popey> None of it should be taken as raw facts, just our opinion, other people do things quite differently, very successfully, this way works for _us_. 
22:08 <@popey> Some of what we have done involves some scripts which I think we will tidy up and make available under a nice license. 
22:08 <@popey> thats right isnt it Daviey ?
22:08 <@Daviey> yes!
22:08 <@popey> yay!
22:08 <@popey>  * Introduction to podcasting 
22:09 <@popey> In it's simplest form a podcast is a regular audio package delivered over http/ftp as an enclosure within an RSS feed.
22:09 <@popey> Anyone can do it. All you need is a microphone, computer, and a way of hosting ( more on this later )
22:09 <@popey> RSS is vital. It's no good just putting an audio file on a site and asking visitors to play/download it, although many do use this approach.
22:09 <@popey> It's important to make it as easy as possible for people to get at the audio files you create.
22:09 <@popey> This means supporting RSS and further to that having separate RSS feeds for different file formats (if you choose to support multiple file formats)
22:10 <@popey> iTunes _is_ a big deal. Whilst it doesn't run on Linux, fact is that Windows is ~95% of the population and if Windows users form part of the target market, you should make it easy for them.
22:10 <@popey> whilst i appreciate apple and itunes are considered evil, they represent a significant chunk of people
22:10 <@popey> Other podcast download clients are available of course - ipodder, hpodder, juice receiver, bashpodder, rhythmbox, banshee etc
22:10 <@popey> :)
22:10 <@popey> Personally I use hpodder, what do you use?
22:12 <@popey> I used to use ipodder, then juice, then finally hpodder
22:12 <@popey> works for me
22:12 <@popey> everyone has their own choice, which is great
22:12 <@popey> becauase so long as you use standards like RSS, you're fine, it shouldnt matter what your "consumers" use
22:12 <@popey> yay choice!
22:12 <@popey> ok, moving on..
22:12 <@popey> Some podcasters will record all sat in the same room (like LUGRadio podcast), some do theirs via Skype (like Freshubuntu podcast).
22:13 <@popey> neither are doing it wrong, they both produce popular podcasts
22:13 <@popey> it's important to note there is no _right_ way to do it
22:13 <@popey> so long as you produce good content that is engaging, it doesnt matter
22:13 <@popey> We all sit in one room, but sometimes record stuff separately and mix it in later. see Episode 1 (FOSDEM segment) for example
22:13 <@popey> Sometimes we take phone calls during the show - see Episode 4 (Mark Shuttleworth interview) for example
22:14 <@popey> Now the absultely most vital thing of all!
22:14 <@popey> I can't stress this enough!
22:14 <@Daviey> CAKE
22:14 <@popey> * Communication is important both between members of the team, and between the team and non-team members (listeners and contributors)
22:14 <@popey> hah
22:14 <@popey> We talk to each other electronically pretty much every day
22:14 <@popey> We have an email address which forwards to all members of the podcast team. 
22:15 <@popey> you could use a gmail account or if you have your own hosting, set up a single address which forwards to your team
22:15 <@popey> this is essential to keep everyone in the loop
22:15 <@popey> If we mail anyone we generally cc: the podcast email address so everyone is kept in the loop.
22:15 <@popey> and if for some reason anyone cant make it, the podcast still gets made
22:16 <@popey> shall we take some questions?
22:16 <@popey> Daviey: any questions?
22:16 <@popey> bet he went off for a cigarette
22:16  * popey pokes Daviey in the face with a pair of scissors
22:16 <@Daviey>  Lardarse> QUESTION: relating to core message #2: Are there any viable
22:16 <@Daviey>           free VoIP solutions that work on Ubuntu?
22:17 <@Daviey> You caught me offguard
22:17 <@popey> heh
22:17 <@popey> offguard = outside?
22:17 <@popey> yes, Lardarse !
22:17 <@popey> Daviey: tell him how we do it
22:17 <@popey> *poke* *poke*
22:18 <@Daviey> Well, _we_ do it one way.. Currently we are using a SIP hardphone connected to an audio mixer that connects to the rest of the loop
22:18 <@popey> you have an asterisk server dont you?
22:18 <@Daviey> so we can all hear the call through our headphones, and all use our standard mics
22:18 <@popey> (more about mics later)
22:18 <@Daviey> Yeah, the SIP phone connects to an asterisk server, to dial normal numbers
22:19 <@popey> but we could use a desktop sip client like ekiga?
22:19 <@Daviey> however, there isn't a reason you couldn't use gizmo/ekiga et al
22:19 <@popey> in theory?
22:19 <@popey> cool
22:19 <@popey> next question?
22:20 <@popey> or shall we move on?
22:20 <@Daviey> < davidmac> QUESTION: What is a "Ubuntu CoC compliant podcast"?
22:20 <@popey> Code of Conduct
22:20 <@popey> we figured it was important to make sure we dont do anything that breaches the code of conduct that half of us have signed 
22:20 <@popey> :)
22:20 <@popey> moving on...
22:21 <@popey> this is a vital section
22:21 <@popey> no, not cake!
22:21 <@popey> * Preparation for the episode
22:21 <@popey> We have a private wiki (only accessible by members of the podcast 'team' - in order to have some level of secrecy of content)
22:21 <@Daviey>  < leftyfb> QUESTION: last I checked, Ekiga doesn't do conferencing. Only 1 to 1 communication. Are there any "free"
22:21 <@Daviey>                  apps for voip conferencing? Like skype.
22:21 <@popey> I'll come back to that Daviey 
22:21 <@popey> We create a new page for each episode eg. S01E05 and paste in anything we didn't get time to do on the previous episode.
22:21 <@popey> During the two weeks between episodes we populate the wiki with ideas etc.
22:21 <@popey> We discuss on irc and via email - very regularly.
22:21 <@popey> Between the two recordings we populate the wiki page so it has the basic framework of the content of the show - no script, just bullet points
22:22 <@popey> The day before the date scheduled for recording, we roughly set the running order, and the order of recording, and contact any interviewees to confirm times
22:22 <@popey> Also on the day before, we put the contents of the wiki into a gobby document, leading up to and during the podcast we collaboratively edit the schedule as we go in gobby
22:22 <@popey> gobby rocks
22:22  * popey hugs pkern
22:22 <@popey>   (We all have laptops open editing the gobby doc during recording)
22:22 <@popey> ok, one more short section then back to the questions
22:22 <@popey> * Hardware and software
22:23 <@popey> Simplest set up would be a cheap microphone (or laptop with embedded mic) and audacity. Hit record, speak, press stop.
22:23 <@popey> many podcasts are made like this
22:23 <@popey> lottalinuxlinks guy does his in the car on the way to work!
22:23 <@popey> More advanced: multiple microphones, stands, simple mixer (like Alan's)
22:23 <@popey> (I have a simple mackie 2 channel mixer, which has 2 xlr inputs for "proper" microphones)
22:24 <@popey> Even more advanced: More microphones (one per speaker), larger mixer. Could still record onto laptop/PC (probably worth looking at Ubuntu Studio & low latency kernels)
22:24 <@popey> to a recording device (like a Zoom H4 or similar).
22:24 <@popey> (this is what we do)
22:24 <@popey> Each speaker on our podcast has a Shure SM58 on a mic stand, plugged into a mixer, we have a headphone monitor too, so we can all hear how we sound
22:24 <@popey> this is potentially massive over kill
22:25 <@popey> it does result in quite a good sound, if we get the audio right (which we dont always)  but costs money
22:25 <@popey> Yet further advanced: Telephone balance unit, multi-channel interface between mixer and PC (firewire or USB). Allows for more complex remixing after the recording session.
22:25 <@popey> We dont do that
22:25 <@popey> :)
22:25 <@popey> That's for the twit.tv setups, not for the two-bit podcasts like ours
22:26 <@popey> ok, questions, Daviey wakey wakey
22:26 <@CieD> <davidmac> QUESTION:  What bit rate do you average when recording, what specs like sampling rate, etc?
22:26 <@popey> good question
22:26 <@popey> no clue
22:26 <@CieD> We have submission guidlines on the site
22:26 <@popey> download an episode and have a look at the files to find out :)
22:26 <@CieD> http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/audio-submission-guidelines/
22:26 <@popey> tony does most of the encoding
22:27 <@popey> and he has a funky script which does the encoding
22:27 <@Daviey> which he has FOSS'd
22:27 <@popey> if i remember correctly the high quality ones are stereo
22:27 <@CieD> 44.1KHz stereo WAV PCM
22:27 <@popey> the low quality ones are mono
22:27 <@popey> oh, of course
22:27 <@popey> when recording, duh
22:27 <@popey> recording yes wav 44.1K
22:28 <@CieD> <leftyfb> QUESTION: last I checked, Ekiga doesn't do conferencing. Only 1 to 1 communication. Are there any "free" apps for voip  conferencing? Like skype.
22:28 <@popey> good question
22:28 <@popey> gizmo5 does
22:28 <@popey> and has a built in recordeer function
22:28 <@popey> penguincentral podcast used gizmo5
22:29 <@popey> and i know the shomedo guys have a conference call regularly which is recorded with gizmo5
22:29 <@popey> multiplatform too, so if the person you are interviewing isnt a linux person they can still get involved
22:29 <@popey> next ?
22:29 <@Daviey>  < jerichokb> QUESTION: How much of your material comes initially from the community - i.e. e-mail suggestions from outside the inner podcast circle?
22:29 <@popey> Good question!
22:30 <@popey> lets take ep4 (latest) as an example
22:30 <@popey> ian (of showmedo) was on, I contacted him
22:30 <@popey> Graham Bleach was on, he contacted us
22:30 <@popey> Mark Shuttleworth was on, he contacted us
22:30 <@popey> so in ep4 66% ish
22:30 <@popey> was from outside us
22:31 <@popey> ok, lets move on to interviews...
22:31 <@popey> * Some shows have interviews which can be done in a number of ways.
22:31 <@popey> Two (or more) people and one microphone with a portable recording unit.
22:31 <@popey> or laptop of course
22:31 <@popey>  - Option one here is a Zoom H4 handheld solid state recording device with built in Mic (Used for FOSDEM seg in Ep1)
22:32 <@popey>  - Option two here is a Mic and an iRiver H140 and two pairs of headphones (as yet unused in our podcast)
22:32 <@popey> option 1 came out really well, a handheld recorder is very useful, if a bit expensive, but of course, you can get cheaper than the zoom h4 that we use (and are lucky enough to borrow!)
22:33 <@popey> the iriver is a great bit of kit, you can get them cheap on ebay, and with a simple mic and two sets of headphones (one for you, one for the interviewee) you're sorted!
22:33 <@popey> Telephone call into the show. For this we have a SIP phone (Linksys) which has phono connectors which we take the audio feed out of (and into).
22:33 <@popey> Skype one on one (or conference) recorded by the interviewer (as yet unused by us, but used by many other podcasts)  
22:33 <@popey> skype is a tricky thing
22:33 <@popey> depends how much you're into freedom
22:34 <@popey> and how much you want to produce a good podcast over sacrificing your morals :S
22:34 <@popey> how does everyone feel about skype?
22:34 <@popey> evil, should not be touched? or a necessary evil?
22:35 <@popey> it's a shame to _have_ to use it, or have no interview, I know some podcasts simply wouldn't exist without skype
22:36 <@popey> ok, the next section is a little about the editing process
22:36 <@popey> I have to confess to not knowing massive amounts about it
22:36 <@popey> tony does this bit :)
22:36  * popey hugs tonytiger
22:36 <@popey> but here's what tony does!
22:36 <@popey> Audacity. Open each track, normalise to 0db. Listen through (perhaps at high speed) and note down which bits have actual content in. 
22:36 <@popey> Chop those bits into a new project on separate tracks. Listen through each bit carefully thinking what is relevant to the subject matter and whether it fits in the flow of the conversation.
22:37 <@popey> Move chunks of speech around if necessary. Remove irrelevant bits. This is the editorial process. Also listen for technical faults, background noise. 
22:37 <@popey> (like tonys cats or my baby son)
22:37 <@popey> Listen for speakers not quite assembling sentences properly or false starts which can be chopped out where possible. 
22:37 <@popey> (like Daviey )
22:37 <@popey> Listen through and chop gaps, erms and coughs where possible, leaving breathing pauses in although perhaps shortened. 
22:37 <@Daviey> oi, i did it once!
22:37 <@popey> :)
22:37 <@popey> hey, tonys notes :)
22:37 <@popey> Polish edits (with crossfades etc. as necessary). Mix down and export as stereo WAV. Typically 20 minutes recording will be 7 minutes "off-air" comment, 13 minutes proper content. 
22:38 <@popey> This will come down to 8-10 minutes once edited. Decide whether to drop a segment entirely (or hold for a future episode) depending on duration of overall show and quality of segment.
22:38 <@popey> so in a nutshell tony is great, he takes the utter crap we talk about and makes it sound good
22:38 <@popey> round of applause for tony!
22:38 <@popey> *clap* *clap* !
22:38 <@CieD> \o/
22:39 <@popey> Thats not even the end!
22:39 <@popey> In ardour!
22:39 <@popey> Import each studio WAV onto the studio track. Import intro and outro music and news bed into music track. 
22:39 <@popey> Import sting into the sting track. Adjust volume settings as necessary for fade in/out of the music. 
22:39 <@popey> Listen to track joins etc., adjust fade times to suit. Set up compression, limiter, EQ etc. (LADSPA plugins) on studio track as necessary and adjust settings. 
22:40 <@popey> Export WAV and test (including opening in audacity and looking for unusual peaks.) Adjust settings and repeat as necessary. * LADPSA plugins (ubuntustudio-audio-plugins)
22:40 <@popey> ok, once we have the final wav, we then encode it!
22:40 <@popey> MP3 encoding using LAME or other converter. 
22:41 <@popey> (check legality of mp3 encoding in your territory :S )
22:41 <@popey> OGG encoding using oggenc or other converter.
22:41 <@popey> SPEEX or FLAC?
22:41 <@popey> Tony has made this easy with a great script...
22:41 <@popey> Podcoder (shell script to encode, set tags and embed image: http://tonywhitmore.co.uk/cgi-local/darcsweb.cgi?r=podcoder;a=summary  http://tonywhitmore.co.uk/repos/podcoder/
22:42 <@popey> any questions CieD Daviey ?
22:42 <@CieD> yep... Daviey?
22:42 <@Daviey> < CafeNinja> QUESTION: If someone was using the cheap audio setup you described, is there any advice you would recommend for them to try and achive good audio quality?
22:42 <@popey> record and listen to yourself
22:42 <@popey> get others to listen to test recordings
22:42 <@popey> relax when you record
22:43 <@popey> have a go at recording yourself having a conversation with a friend
22:43 <@popey> not an interview, just a chat
22:43 <@popey> see how it comes out
22:43 <@popey> micrphones are one of the keys
22:43 <@popey> I would _highly_ recommend downloading and watching the first ~6 episodes of Gear media Tech podcast
22:44 <@popey> they do reviews of lots of mics
22:44 <@popey> they talk about the technology and the difference between the differnet mics
22:44 <@popey> some needing a mixer, some very simple with a USB interface
22:44 <@popey> well worth a watch
22:45 <@CieD> <jerichokb> QUESTION: you have a voicemail box number for people to leave short audio messages. how is that set up?
22:45 <@popey> sipgate.co.uk
22:45 <@popey> register, job done
22:45 <@popey> however!
22:45 <@popey> I have taken a LOT of flak for choosing an 0845 number which is apparently expsnsive to dial
22:45 <@popey> we will likely change to a geographic number whcih is cheaper for listeners to call
22:46 <@popey> ok, lets move on
22:46 <@popey> Hosting!
22:46 <@popey> * The website itself is an Ubuntu Feisty Server (provided for free by Bitfolk.com - thanks) with Wordpress and some plugins:-
22:46 <@popey> Bitfolk rock! Thank you bitfolk!
22:46 <@popey>  * Podpress - manages part of the delivery of podcasts, tracks stats and makes sure the RSS feeds have the enclosures
22:46 <@popey>  * Akismet - detects spam in comments
22:46 <@popey>  * Advanced Category Excluder - To prevent duplicate posts appearing on the front page
22:46 <@popey>  * Fullscreen for WP Super Edit - To make editing the posts easily
22:47 <@popey>  * Wordpress Automatic Upgrade - To upgrade wordpress promptly
22:47 <@popey> in short, wordpress works brilliantly for us!
22:47 <@popey> very simple, and does eexactly whats needed
22:47 <@popey> * Feedburner.com
22:47 <@popey>  * 3rd party site that turns our wordpress-generated RSS feeds into something that is usable by most podcast clients. 
22:47 <@popey>  * Reduces load on our server as podcast clients check our site for updates.
22:47 <@popey>  * Produces some wicked stats.....
22:48 <@popey> Here are some stats about our podcast....
22:48 <@popey>  "We have made only 4 episodes"
22:48 <@popey> (not a great stat that one)
22:48 <@popey>  "We have shifted over 320GiB in bandwidth"
22:48 <@popey>  "We have delivered over 13000 files"
22:48 <@popey> (mp3 and ogg only)
22:48 <@popey>  "Ogg accounts for 54.1% of our listeners."
22:48 <@popey> (interesting...)
22:48 <@popey>  "86.93% listen in high quality (47.29% in Ogg)."
22:48 <@popey>  "We average 3376 downloads per show."
22:49 <@popey>  "Our average show length is 00:39:52."
22:49 <@popey>  "% of listeners in low quality has dropped from 15% (1st show) to ~10%(current show)."
22:49 <@popey>   - Of course the figures are skewed because the counts are still low for ep4 
22:49 <@popey>   - it's actually closer to ~12%. 
22:49 <@popey>  The telling question is: would we lose those listeners if we dropped the low quality version?
22:50 <@popey> ok, last two sections, mirroring and load balancing
22:50 <@popey> technically not required, but we figured it would be nice to setup to future proof ourselves for when we are the MOST POPULAR PODACST IN THE WORLD!
22:50 <@popey> MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
22:51 <@popey>  The telling question is: would we lose those listeners if we dropped the low quality version?
22:51 <@popey> erk
22:51 <@popey> * Mirroring
22:51 <@popey> We have had generous donations from people willing to host the podcast. We now have 7 mirrors which we setup dns aliases for. 
22:51 <@popey> the dns aliases work like this..
22:51 <@popey> XX-YY-N - XX = ISO country code, YY = City, N = Number, to identify them. We don't _have_ to do this but it is nice to do, and allows for easy admin and expansion.
22:51 <@popey> so we have uk-lo-0 which is UK, London, mirror 0
22:52 <@popey> and others like us-sf-0 which is US, San Fran, mirror 0
22:52 <@popey> We have rsync service setup on the main site (where the website is hosted) which is where the MP3 and OGG files get put initially. 
22:52 <@popey> Each mirror uses rsync (or wget or ftp or whatever) to get updated every hour or so.
22:52 <@popey> We only release every other week so it's not that vital, and doesn't cause huge traffic for each mirror to check in regularly.
22:52 <@popey> Thanks to Clerkwell.co.uk & Bitfolk.com for providing two mirrors each and Naffallo and Showmedo.com also for hosting mirrors for us. (I host one too) [making 7]
22:52 <@popey> all of those mirrors were donated by the community
22:53 <@popey> remember right at the start I said that community is the best part of this!
22:53 <@popey> it's true!
22:53 <@popey> final section - nearly finished :)
22:53 <@popey> * Load balancing
22:53 <@popey> We have a script on the main server which has access to a small database listing the mirrors and their priority (to take account of peoples bandwidth allocations)
22:53 <@popey> When we publish a podcast to the site, assuming all the mirrors are up to date, we specify urls to the podcast which actually point to the script
22:53 <@popey> Publishing consists of creating 5 pages in wordpress, a main one linking to the various formats which is published to the front page. 
22:54 <@popey> The other 4 pages are not published to the front page (thanks to Advanced Category Excluder) but are used to make the RSS feeds for the various formats of files.
22:54 <@popey> When users request the MP3 and OGG files, the script looks up the available mirrors and redirects the user to the file on the mirror
22:54 <@popey> Some people get in early, and get the files directly from the mirrors, bypassing our script (this makes us sad :( because we can't count those stats)
22:54 <@popey> any more questions CieD Daviey ?
22:54 <@Daviey> < jerichokb> QUESTION: whose was the best limerick? :P
22:54 <@Daviey> (requires background)
22:55 <@popey> listen to the podcast to find out
22:55 <@popey> http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/
22:55 <@popey> specifically episode 4
22:55 <@popey> Worth noting that we - all of us - are more than happy to help any other ubuntu people to setup their own podcasts
22:55 <@CieD>  <Coli2> <Question> When is Ubuntu-UK Podcast LIVE ? :-P
22:55 <@popey> we dont think that we should be the only loco doing this - every loco should have their own podcast
22:56 <@popey> if we can help we will
22:56 <@popey> hahah
22:56 <@Daviey> just don;t do better than us :)
22:56 <@popey> Coli2: you missed it, it was last thursday and I was buying the beer!
22:56 <@popey> well I think thats it
22:57 <@popey> thanks very much for watching/listening
22:57 <@Daviey> Remember, we are always looking for submissions.. contact us if you want to help!
22:57 <@popey> and dont forget over the next 8 months we have money-off voucher competitions for the canonical store! Listen to the podcast for details!
22:57 <@popey> :D
22:58 <@popey> thanks jcastro 
22:58 <@jcastro> thanks guys!