(+) Easy and Cheap Method of Recording Podcasts

Podcasts are popping up everywhere. This podcast describes how to create podcasts! You may do so easily and cheaply by using a very common audio device and an inexpensive plug-in adapter. This 15-minute, 33-second audio description tells how.

Podcasts are popping up everywhere. These are the online equivalent of radio programs. Instead of being broadcast over radio stations at pre-designated times, these audio "broadcasts" are available on the Internet whenever you want to listen to them. Location is not a factor. You can listen to broadcasts from Australia, Germany, Iceland, or the United States at any time that is convenient for you. You will never hear static or fading radio signals; the audio you hear in your computer's loudspeakers will be a faithful reproduction of exactly what was recorded.

Podcasts are digital files stored on web servers. You connect to these podcasts in much the same manner as connecting to most anything else on the World Wide Web. There is one difference: instead of reading information on the screen, you listen to the podcasts as they are played through your computer's speakers or headphones.

Just like traditional broadcast programs, the tens of thousands of podcasts available today cover a wide variety of topics. Some feature music, especially that of new artists. A few contain full motion videos. Others are "talk programs" about any of thousands of topics. You can find podcasts that focus on politics, technical topics, the news of the day, religion, or genealogy. You can listen to a number of my earlier podcast audio interviews with leading genealogy experts at http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/podcasts.

In an earlier series of Plus Edition articles, I described a method of creating podcasts. The method I described was rather "high end," using specialized hardware that is designed for creating high-fidelity recordings. The hardware I used some months ago is close to broadcast quality. I described how to convert the audio into digital files and feed it to your computer's USB port. Indeed, that method still works well and sounds great. However, it is a bit expensive, requiring a $180 audio adapter, one or two rather good microphones, and a Windows or Macintosh computer.

If you want to record podcasts while traveling, the method I described earlier requires the use of a laptop computer. I can tell you about that. I purchased a separate suitcase just to carry all my podcast recording gear. That's another twenty pounds to carry through the airports when traveling! Don't even think about packing all that electronics gear in your carry-on luggage; airport security employees will be very curious about the images on their x-ray scanners. A suitcase full of electronics gear attracts a lot of attention!

I have experimented with other devices for recording podcasts, including some rather expensive but tiny dictation devices. I have been disappointed with most of the results. I was especially embarrassed when I convinced a leading genealogy expert to take time out of her busy schedule at a major conference to be interviewed. I later had to throw the entire interview away because the sound quality on the portable recorder was so poor that I could barely understand the words!

This week I will describe another method, one that is much cheaper and also provides excellent audio. It is very portable and requires no computer when recording audio. I suspect that airport security won't even look twice at this hardware; they see similar devices many times a day. You can record audio and store it in this shirt-pocket sized device. Later on, you perform the audio editing, if any, on any desktop or laptop Windows or Macintosh computer. You also upload the file to your preferred podcast web server by using almost any desktop or laptop computer

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