On today's show I test out livestreaming again. This is for my music podcast called Sats and Sounds. I got it all working to be able to record but there was no audio coming from Curiocaster or The Split Kit. These are things to figure out in the coming weeks.

But, at least the live stream worked in Podverse and it was streaming on the website at http://stream.satsandsounds.com.

This is a test of putting on a live streaming music show with wallet switching from The Split Kit.

Here are some links to apps where you can see this happen in real-time.

To listen to my music podcast, Sats and Sounds, go to satsandsounds.com.

Here's a direct link to the episode from this post.

To listen to my music podcast, Sats and Sounds, go to satsandsounds.com. Here's a direct link to the episode from this post.

This post is experiment number 3 in live streaming a music podcast using Value4Value and valueTimeSplits.

I'd like to know how to do a live streaming music show. My music podcast Sats and Sounds would be more fun to do and more interesting if I could figure out how to stream it live while incorporating the valueTimeSplits. 

For those who don't know valueTimeSplit (VTS) is the magic tag in Podcasting 2.0 that makes the Magic Wallet Switching Technology in new podcast apps possible. When VTS is employed and a Value4Value enabled song is played the satoshis being sent to the podcast automatically switch to the music artist during the duration of the song. This is enabled by modern podcast apps.

I do this already in my Sats and Sounds music podcast. Get a modern podcast app, load up your wallet, and check it out. But, doing it live is more complex and I have a hard time visualizing how it works. I was able to figure out streaming using Icecast. Now I need to figure out how to combine the two.

My music experiment finally worked and I've been producing a music podcast since August. I called the podcast Sats and Sounds and it is just one of many music podcasts that have popped up since Adam Curry started Boostagram Ball and Podcasting 2.0 created the valueTimeSplit tag which enabled "Magic Wallet Switching Technology". I saw a couple videos on how other people produce their shows so I thought I'd take a crack at showing my process.

I use simple cheap tools that do the job to my satisfaction. Admittedly I have a low bar when it comes to quality of production because I mainly podcast to understand how it works. I try to use tools and software that are cheap, free, or I already posses. I also record live to bits because if I had to fully produce and edit I'd never make a single episode of anything. It's bad enough the other podcasts I do become intermittent because of the time it takes to create something.

The video below shows all the tools I use and the production of Episode 14 of Sats and Sounds. You can also listen to the audio only version using your favorite podcast app. Just search for Podcast Idiot or click the RSS feed link above.

Here are links to the tools I use.

To listen to my music podcast, Sats and Sounds, go to satsandsounds.com. Here's a direct link to the episode from this post.

Let's see if I can get it right this time. The last time out I think I published my RSS feed with a mistake in the song's GUID. This time out, using Podcasting 2.0's last episode's RSS feed as a guide, I confirmed which GUIDs to use. So before I hit Podping to publish my feed I will make sure everything in the remoteItem and valueTimeSplit tags are correct.

The song I chose is titled "Cherry On Top" by Ainsley Costello. It's a rockin' little pop tune by a 19 year old girl in Nashville.

In preparation for posting this episode I searched this track on Podcast Index. Here is that listing. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/6471422. Clicking on the RSS link in the listing takes you to this feed on Wavlake. https://www.wavlake.com/feed/d0efe4fb-714e-4ea1-a6b4-422842262cf2.

Examining the feed you can see the podcast GUID is b55c93d2-4571-55fd-9562-7966beaa7ea2. You can find that by looking for the tag. The item GUID is 729ff127-1fcc-4086-8e67-4386e87ac585. The item GUID is not so intuitive. There is a string in the URL that looks like a GUID. And maybe it is for Wavlake's purposes. But it's not the GUID needed for the remoteItem tag. At least that's what I gather looking at Podcasting 2.0's RSS feed. The GUID needed for remoteItem is directly under the tag in the item. In this case, for the track I'm playing here the link tag looks like this:

https://www.wavlake.com/album/d0efe4fb-714e-4ea1-a6b4-422842262cf2

That string at the end is not the GUID. Here is the line directly underneath.

729ff127-1fcc-4086-8e67-4386e87ac585

This should be the proper GUID.

If I've done this correctly this time around when the song starts playing the album art should change to the proper art and any sats streamed or boosted should go directly to the artist. Let me know if anyone gives this a try. I'd like to know if I finally got it right.

As a precaution, I will also include this artist in my episode's value block.

On the Podcasting 2.0 podcast they've been playing music regularly to promote the idea of Value4Value streaming payments to music artists. I see this as a first step to really opening up all entertainment to Value4Value. Anyone with a Lightning Network Node ID and an RSS feed can have their entertainment streamed, viewed, or listened to and get paid directly from the consumer as it happens. I find this stuff fascinating.

All this happens because of the valueTimeSplit and remoteItem tags. If the music has an RSS feed using these tags allows a podcaster to put in the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) of the music's feed and the GUID of the item (the individual track) so the value block automatically changes and the artist gets paid. When the song is done the value block switches back to the podcaster's value block.

I wanted to see how easy it is to do this myself. I found a track on Wavlake that I like. It's called The Underclass by Longy. Adam and Dave on Podcasting 2.0 put their songs in a live stream when they podcast. I can't do that and I think most podcasters would put music in after the fact or while they record. So that's what I did. Here is a short podcast experiment.

Please listen using Podfriend or Curiocaster. They're the only apps I know of that support valueTimeSplit tag.

I guess I'm podcasting again. This time I'm a little more independent because I want to see how Sovereign Feeds work and I feel more comfortable with an XML file for my feed rather than one that is autogenerated at a directory. It's definitely not as easy as PowerPress but it's more complete and flexible when working with Podcasting 2.0 standards and tags.

In this episode I talk about the new podcast I created and give an overview of what I've done so far. I plan on giving regular updates here on the nuts and bolts progress of that podcast.

That is the real question for me. I don’t like wearing headphones while podcasting and I wanted to hear what it sounds like if I don’t wear them while recording. I think I sound much better and more natural. I feel like I’m whispering a bit when using headphones because I can hear myself too well. You be the judge. I went back and listened to other episodes of my other podcasts and I think I sound louder and more energetic when recording without headphones.

Enjoy the rare episode of Podcast Idiot.

I traveled to Chicago a week ago and thought I would record two of my podcasts from my hotel room. Big mistake and EPIC FAIL!!

I didn’t test out anything prior to leaving. I just figured everything would work! Hahahaha. I was dead wrong. The equipment I brought was a Zoom F2 Field Recorder and my Microsoft Surface Go. I also had my Pixel 3 and the necessary cables to connect everything together. Little did I know the TRRS cable I have did absolutely nothing in getting audio from my phone into my Surface Go. Also, connecting the Zoom F2 to my Surface Go using the audio out from the Zoom F2 to the microphone/headphone jack in the Surface Go didn’t work. In essence I had no way to get audio from my devices into my computer unless I record and transfer over USB.

It was too much work. I had maybe two hours to record and I already spent a good 45 minutes finding out nothing worked. So, I recorded one podcast directly into the Zoom F2, uploaded that via USB to the Surface Go, then edited it together in Audacity. I hate editing so much and I wasn’t prepared to do it this way. It took forever to import the intro music and cut it all together. I don’t know how professional podcasters spend so much time editing when I can’t stand simple importation and insertion of clips before and after.

I always record “live to tape” so to speak. No edits all blemishes and mistakes for all to hear. I’m not a professional podcaster nor do I pretend to be. I’m doing this to learn about the medium, podcasting 2.0, and how streaming payments are going to work. I believe streaming payments for live and recorded content is the future of media consumption. It’s a great way to remove the middlemen from the transactions.

Next time around will I have to pack my PodMic and my Zoom Podtrak P4? I hope not. I like to travel light. I’m going to actually do some work this time to figure out how to mobile podcast with the equipment I want to bring. Hopefully I can make it work.

By the way, did you listen to the last episode of Podcasting 2.0? There’s a whole lot of stuff coming down the pipe. There was also a great episode of The New Media Show where Todd & Rob debate Tanner Campbell on RSS, its future, and the big platforms (namely Spotify). Personally I would like to see the continuation of RSS. What Adam Curry and Dave Jones, amongst others, are doing to extend the functionality of RSS and what the new podcast apps are doing to implement them is nothing short of magic. In just a year’s time they’ve implemented transcripts, location, chapters, etc. Making podcasting richer with a fuller experience inside the independent apps. When the value block is finished and implemented there will be nothing standing in between a creator of content, whatever that content may be, and the consumer of that content.

I said it was episode 8 but it’s actually episode 10. Ooooops! I guess I haven’t refined my workflow enough yet.

My two active podcasts are in their 9th episodes. Miracle that I have the attention span to keep that going for more than two months.

I’m terrible at promotion and asking for donations.

I’m starting to feel my way through a process that allows me to do show prep as I blog.

Came up with a file naming convention that is easy for me to remember and keeps episodes and assets organized.

Transcripts are easy and I do them regularly

Chapters take up some time and I haven’t been diligent about doing them.

I hate editing so I just DO IT LIVE and upload with all the poor production quality that goes along with that.

I figured out how to enable my podcasts to receive crypto currency by setting them up on Sphinx and enabling that on podcasterwallet.org. I can’t figure out how to move satoshis out of Sphinx and into Breez or some other lightning wallet so I can use these sats. The system of streaming money is still way too complicated for the average podcaster. The learning curve is way too steep still.

I find that I still whisper when I talk. I think it’s a by product of wearing headphones while I talk. It doesn’t come natural to me. I feel like I’m speaking normally but when I hear portions of it played back I still sound like I’ whispering. I don’t like that and I’m looking to fix it.

I may invest in a shock mount so the microphone doesn’t pick up so much of the noise from touching it.

I still haven’t found a good way to mount a microphone boom because the edge of my desk is tapered and I don’t want to drill a hole through the top. I can’t be the only one to run across this problem.

At first I didn’t understand the concept of transcripts and chapters in podcasts. But I listened intently, followed along with the Podcasting 2.0 podcast, and asked questions on podcastindex.social until I finally understood how easy it is to include these features in your podcast. Here’s how I make them and include them.

The simplest part is the transcript. I start on the transcript almost immediately after the episode has been recorded. I take my mp3 file, upload it to otter.ai, and they e-mail me when the file has been transcribed.

The clearer you talk and the higher quality of your recording makes a more accurate transcription. The time it takes to make the transcript is dependent on how long your episode is. Mine are all short right now so my transcript is usually ready less than a half hour. I go to their site, click on the relevant transcript, and export the text to an .srt file. That file then gets uploaded to my web server and because I’ve already set up the link in PowerPress when someone accesses the podcast the transcript just starts rolling.

Otter.ai has a free plan but I subscribed to their Pro plan which is only $99.00/year. For that price you can upload 6,000 minutes a month with a max length per recording of 4 hours. The free plan works too if you’re keeping your episodes under 40 minutes but you’re limited to 600 minutes a month.

Chapters are a little more time consuming because they have to be created manually. But, I think I have a system that speeds things up a bit and starts with making the transcript first. I open the transcript .srt file in Notepad and keep that window off to one side. In the browser I go to JSON Editor Online and open a .json template I’ve created that contains the basic start of the chapter file. The template pre-loads the setup for 10 chapters. I can easily add more or delete the extras when I’m done using the editor.

I keep the template on the left side in code mode and copy that over to the right side and turn off code mode. It’s not necessary to do it this way but I like having the empty template on one side and the working chapters file on the other. The transcript file created from otter.ai is time stamped. This allows me to scroll through it and easily match up topics with the times that I start talking about them. A simple conversion from minutes to seconds gives me the number I need to enter into the chapter file. As you can see in the screenshot above each chapter section starts with “startTime”. Enter the seconds, put in a title, and if you have an image you place the URL to that image in the “img” field, and like wise if you have a link to something you can place that in the “url” field. Each field is easily edited by double clicking on the blank field. It’s easier than using code mode and trying to place your cursor in between the quotes every single time. When I’ve entered in all the chapters I need I simply save the file to disk, copy that over to my web server, and again because the file is pre-set up in PowerPress when someone accesses the podcast the chapters file just loads.

I use a simple naming convention for my episode, transcript, and chapter files. That way I can easily put links into the episode before the files are made. If the files don’t exist then the player just ignores them and plays the episode. Once they’re created and uploaded the podcast app pulls from that file. It’s pretty magical. My episode names start with the date, followed by the show acronym, and ends with the episode number. For example, the episode accompanying this blog post will have the file name 2021-05-15-PIP009.mp3. The transcript file will be 2021-05-15-PIP009.srt. The chapters file will be 2021-05-15-PIP009.json. I already know the location where I will place the file on my blog making it easy to place the URL in PowerPress.

I know there are other ways of doing this but for me, just starting out, this is a quick and easy solution that is virtually free. These features magically work on Podcasting 2.0 compatible apps.