Sunday Night Chat

The IRC chat has been working fine, however, some of us have discussed the possibility of using Skypecast. Nate and I have been testing Skypecast for a while now and it seems to be working again. (It was a wierd Immortality chat with strangers from around the world late Saturday night...wish I had a recording :ohmy:) I had to download the newest version of skype (3.6) in order for it to work. It sounded great. I would like to try it soon

I think the skypecast offers a great new opportunity to get more out of the Sunday night chat.

1. We can cover a lot more ground with a lot more questions. Speaking is much faster than typing.
2. We can really get a feel for the emotional context of the guest.
3. We can do voice and text at the same time.
4. The whole session can be recorded and made into a podcast.
5. Random people from around the world can listen in (the ones who are logged into skypecast). Great promotion for the Immortality Institute.
6. Skype has the best audio quality of all the VOIP programs I have used.

Drawbacks

1. Probably need a high speed internet connection to listen and/or ask questions (no problem for most of us, but could be for some).
2. Need speakers and a microphone (to both listen and ask questions). Most people at least have microphones.
3. Need to download and install Skype. Typically not too much of a problem. It didn't originally work with Vista, but now it does.
4. Skypecast is in beta mode right now. Hopefully it doesn't go through any radical changes/tech problems.

Any comments or suggestions about this move. I figure we can test it out at least. Could be a very benficial move.

Not much to say except I like the idea.

I used Pamela to record some of the skypecasts awhile back and it worked well. There are some other programs out there as well. (Google "recording skype call" because anything that will record skype calls will record the skypecasts as well) Might be good for recording and archiving for future listeners.

We certainly need to figure out how to make the default listening for anyone entering the room. (I think I might have figured that out though)

Well, this topic keeps coming up every week. How can we do voice/audio chats? I would love to have the text chat as only a back-up. Voice is so much better (and this century)

Of course, it is very simple to do a one-on-one interview and post the mp3/podcast. What I have been very excited for is the Skypecast format, for the reasons listed above. It is a near perfect choice for the Sunday night chat. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I have contacted Skypecast support several times over the last 2 months and they still haven't fixed the bugs. It is supremely frustrating. So if you would like voice chats, what is the best option?

1.We could try to find another program similar to Skypecast (possibly with live streaming capability).

2.We could do a one-on-one interview or even a small round-table (5 or 6 people) type discussion and then post the podcast/mp3 recording.



For option 1 the criteria are:
1. Good voice quality.
2. Allows many participants.
3. Has moderation capability. We don't want an important guest to be harassed by some crank caller. Need to be able to kick them out or mute them.
4. Easily recorded.
5. Preferably free, very low cost, or one-time cost (no recurring license or broadcast fees).

For option 2 the criteria are very similar and really I already have everything I need, however please list your favorite free calling/recording software not named Skype.


Anyone have any ideas?

You could also consider something like icecast or shoutcast but you would need a Linux server to run it on. They are more designed for internet radiostations but I have seen it work quite well including having additional people call up on skype.

The actual listerners (ie people listening but not involved in the converstation) can just put the url of the radio feed into windows media player or VLC etc.

Mind could you check with our host if they would let us set up icecast or such like? We'd only be streaming live once a week after all.

Otherwise or in addition, I'd suggest option 2, which need not be just the interview but could be a podcast about other things as well.

Edited by caliban, 27 January 2008 - 05:57 PM.

Mind could you check with our host if they would let us set up icecast or such like? We'd only be streaming live once a week after all.

Otherwise or in addition, I'd suggest option 2, which need not be just the interview but could be a podcast about other things as well.

We might be able to do a deal with another internet radio station to make it a segment on their show instead of running our own server. This would increase listener count at least.

I am on it.