The days when creating content for the Internet merely involved coding a little HTML are long gone.
While most of us don't bother doing much more than post a few photos or toss a short video onto YouTube, some more ambitious souls are putting their voices on the Web through podcasting.
Podcasting was originally developed to let people create their own little radio-like broadcasts for distribution over the Internet. Part of the idea was to make it simple for people to download podcasts to devices such as the iPod, but it quickly became much more than that. Now podcasts are also used for everything from distributing university lectures to providing self-guided tours in a museum.
Creating podcasts is neither particularly difficult or time consuming. They can be recorded right on your computer, or, if you're on the go, on a digital recording device. And while there are some expensive professional-grade recorders out there, I elected to look at a few moderately priced digital voice recorders to see if they could produce output that's clear and crisp enough to be used in a podcast.
Here's what we discovered.
The first unit I tried was a Samsung S5 (SRP $199.99), which is actually an MP3 player with recording capabilities. It's a sleek little black unit with a secret: it has a built-in stereo speaker that slides out and provides surprisingly good sound. With the integrated Bluetooth, it'll even sync with a cell phone and act as a speakerphone for you.
Recording, however, had its issues. You can't plug in an external mic, and the built-in microphone (on the back of the unit) has extremely limited range. It also captures every little bump and rustle you make. You'll need to find some good audio editing software to clean up the recordings. Quality was adequate, however it's really not worth the trouble. (But it would be great for listening to the podcasts after you create them).
Next, we explored the Panasonic RR-US500 IC Recorder (MSP $179.99). It's a more traditional recorder, with all of the usual amenities plus a few extras like a stereo zoom (directional) microphone so you can record speeches and lectures from a distance. In stereo mode, it can record up to 2000 minutes before running out of memory, and quality is quite good as long as you're not too far from the audio source.
The included software lets you cut out dead air or unnecessary dialogue from your recordings. However, it's only for the PC.
There is one huge problem with this unit – it only records in TRC (Triple Rate CODER) format. TRC is extremely efficient for voice but it's a multi-step process to convert it into the MP3 format you need for a podcast. First you convert it to a WAV file, using the utility within its voice editing software, then you use a third party utility to turn the WAV file into an MP3 (there are many free programs available, such as NCH Swift Sound Switch Audio File Converter. It can also deal with many other file formats; the full list is on the NCH website.).
OK, two strikes so far. For our third attempt, we turned to the Sony ICD-SX57 digital recorder (MSP $299.99).
Sony uses a file format called dvf, but the bundled Digital Voice Editor version 3 has a converter that will generate MP3 files for podcasts, as well as performing editing tasks including overwriting portions of an existing recording to tidy up awkward spots, and appending to a file. Sony also includes a special edition of Dragon Naturally Speaking. Unfortunately, the software is for the PC only. The recorder has 256 MB of memory – enough, Sony says, for 91 hours of recording (at lowest quality, of course – it'll store slightly more than four hours in high-quality stereo). PCs see the unit as a memory stick, so you can also use it to store data in a pinch.
