Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Going Video? Maybe

I feel bad about going AWOL. I think one of the problems with social networking is that you wind up spreading yourself a little thin at times. You focus on one area but neglect something else. A few months ago, someone listening live to Talking 80s Music was asking me why I didn't have a cam set up (as a lot of audio podcasts have gone on to video.) I told them that I didn't know and would consider it. Picked up a highly rated webcam online and tried to set it up... and it didn't work with Vista x64. Then I went to the New Media Expo and forgot all about the experiment.

That was until I was sitting down in the audience of TWiT Live. Leo was testing out a live video program that lets you record your show live with video and audio at Stickam.com. I talked to one of their people and they gave me a webcam with a few software items. Remembering my past experience with this, it got shelved until last week. After the show, we tried out Stickam and... it worked. It seems the webcam has better drivers than some of the others I had looked at. Looks good. I don't know how the audio will work out but we will see. Essentially, by going to http://www.stickam.com/talking80smusic you can see the live video/audio feed (we'll see if that audio comes through) while recording the show Saturday at noon PST. It also has a second chat room that I will need to keep track of and yes, I'll be looking over my shoulder constantly.

Other than that, more reviews, cleaning and other nonsense getting in the way of my traditional posts. I hope to remedy that as soon as I start figuring out specific days for specific projects. My best wishes go out to all of you.

2 comments:

LoraLoo said...

I checked out some of today's show online, that's pretty cool that your listeners get to see you do the show. So when are you building the set in the house? LOL

Seriously, that's awesome that you are expanding your horizons. The sound level was a little weird, I had my sound turned up all the way and still wasn't hearing you well at all, fyi. I only saw a toggle for the sound on or off, no audio adjustment.

Martin said...

There's a definite audio problem with Stickam. I don't know how much longer that I will attempt using it unless... I do a quick short weekly show using it. We'll see. The audio problem is mainly due to my recording the show separately at the same time so that the microphone on the cam has problems capturing sound. Stuff to mess with.

I'm just happy that you got to check it out.