Jeff and I have streamed our recording of lo-fidelity live a few times. We do so over on my Stickam account through a second computer (my laptop) while his is busy with the normal audio recording for the show. Up until last night, we’ve always just done it where the laptop picks up the audio through its internal mic, since the mixer is outputting to the Mac for audio recording.
Well, the mixer has the main-out as well as the tape-out. I busted out my audio cables last night and did a proper line-in to the laptop to complement the video feed it was serving. The feedback from the audience was great (being that the audio was great… no-one ever said the show was great :P), so next time we broadcast, we’ll be doing it “correctly” again.
That gets me wondering, though… what do we gain from broadcasting it live?
I’m well aware of the effort it takes to build and maintain that “sticky” audience that we all so desire, and little things like fixing the audio on a live stream go a long way. How about that live stream, though? What purpose does it serve? Quite frankly, it seems pretty egotistical… people love us so much, they want to watch us as we record our shows! Aren’t we so flippin’ great?!
I don’t really think that about myself, though. No, seriously. If you were hanging with us last night, you heard me complaining about Jeff and his amazing radio voice and how much of a struggle it is for me sometimes to get into the range I want to be in. There are plenty of things I don’t like about my various shows, so adding a video stream on top of that just seems crazy.
I think it works for lo-fidelity, though. Jeff and I have both been podcasting for a few years, and we both edit our own main shows. We know the effort it takes. We know what goes into it all. Due to all that, this particular show is far more conversational than the one I do for Daizenshuu EX, and so it works well for a live stream… no random dead-air (not much, anyway ^_~), no confusion over what’s happening next, no piece-meal recordings (with the exception of the ahead-of-time Anamanaguchi interview), etc. We are able to get immediate feedback, too, and while we definitely gear it toward being a damn solid audio program and really just video stream because we can… it’s nice to pull in a couple random live things here and there, like someone’s off-the-cuff Top 5 list to go along with our own.
That doesn’t really address the bigger question of added-value, though. So I guess it’s best to ask you all — the ones who are following me enough to be reading this blog. Do you have any interest in video feeds of the podcast recordings? What do you find interesting / disinteresting about them? Know that we don’t have the time or resources to put on big productions, so if and when we stream anything, it’s just going to be… yep, some folks sitting around mics recording a podcast.
Really curious, though!