Neowin.net presents the NeowinCAST News Edition for the week of October 31, 2007. This week our panel consists of Christopher Vendemio (bangbang023) and Rob Wright (Rob). The topics discussed are as follows:

• Apple refuses cash and continues defensive against unlocked iPhones (read)
• Windows XP coming to OLPC (read)
• Eye-Fi's Wi-Fi enabled SD card (read)
• Listener Email: Is digital video distribution primed to take over while HD-DVD and Blu-ray fight it out?

Click play to listen to the show immediately or follow the appropriate links to download the current episode. Enjoy, and remember to leave your comments about the show, either as a comment below this news post or with our new voicemail numbers:

(216)-2200-NEO (216) 220-0636
0151 324 CAST 0151 324 2278
neowincast

Download: NeowinCAST News Edition Episode #29 (Right click, Save As)
Link: Subscribe via iTunes | Subscribe via RSS

The show was recorded one daily earlier than usual due to time constraints.

I thought the week had come quick but its cool and I enjoyed it...good work

Just listened.
It was good, shorter than usual, but I know it hasn't been that wild of a week in the news really, I usually sit down and play a game while listening and it just seemed to be over quite quickly, time does fly when your having fun.

As I mentioned in last weeks Podcast topic, could you guys stick some, I dunno what you'd call it for a Podcast, but some sort of album art in there, just looks a bit bare.

And your gonna have to update the logo used on iTunes, its been stretched and looks horribly pixalated.

But ignoring all that, great show!
Pity about the no good voicemailers, its not something I would do, but I might send an email your way.

Good show as usual guys. Agreed about the wifi SD card - would love to get hold of one. Any idea how it works then (cos it works with existing cameras so it can't rely on software on the camera)?

As for voicemails - pity - but what do you expect lol. Just left one myself, but I personally think I sound like an idiot on the phone, so be warned lol.

(I've left two actually lol, tho the first one was me being an idiot. I started to talk after it beeped, but then it beeped again lol, so me thinking I had done something wrong, hung up). Went fine the second time around though (I still sound like a retard, but thats due to my welsh accent, and the fact I'm still not too used to talking into the PC lol - even though I wouldn't bat an eyelid at leaving a message on a normal answer machine).

Because of the technical problems, I had to do my same speech about 3 times over and it just became a lot more succinct with every try, so that's really why.

As for the podcast image, I uploaded a high res image, so I don't know what the hell iTunes did to it. I'll try to see if they'll let me upload another one.

Rob would have to be the one to insert album art since he usually does the editing.

Yay! the Id3 or whatever you call them were filled out this time.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the last show was just an anomaly. Since I did the editing for this show, I remembered your concern and made sure it was done. Sorry about that.

Then could you give him a lil nudge from me, in whatever ways you Admin nudge each other, with sticks or something, I dunno.

Another good show, thank you very much guys.

And I look forward to a review of that wifi SD card (that's if you can get your hands on one) - it sounds awesome!

That Wi-fi SD card will be so useful for my job so if you can get one prey tell where and how much!

The album art is something that came up recently. We'll have to find a tool to do it since Audacity doesn't seem to have the option.

ah, Fairy enough.
I'm sure you will get it sorted with something nice and pretty , but until then I whipped up my own quickly so it looks pretty on my iPod.

i agree with what you said about "physical media" i bought orange box on disk because i don't like the whole "its here but not here" and it helps with my low internet speeds, not everyone has fast interwebs

lol. I'll admit, I bought Half-life 2 online, but only because I had the ATI coupon back in the day. It's just one of those things we've grown accustomed to: Being able to hold what we just paid for.

I personally prefer to have a physical version of what I buy, as great as downloading is for a lot for things, a game for example that I really enjoy, If I buy it now, and in a couple of years have erased it for some reason or lost it, the download might not still be around any more, but the physical disc I would still have around the house.

Some might say that they can get damaged and lost too, which I would agree with, but I find losing something I can easily keep track of on a shelf is harder to lose than keeping it organised on a hard drive which due to the way technology is, could be lost at really any time if something goes wrong.
And some people might tell me to move on form older things like retro games, but it would not be a good summer holiday if I couldn't sit down and play Super Metroid or Zelda: Link to the past.

I'm kind of on the fence about physical copies. Games I don't think it bothers me much. Although if It's a game I know I'll only play through once or something - I'll get it on DVD so I can then trade it in again. But games which i know I'll play through a few times (or just that I don't want to trade in), then I'm willing to download them (I got Orange box off steam).
For music though - its another story. While most of my music library is on my hard drive (rather than CD's), if there's a band I really like, I'd much rather have the CD than just a folder of WMA / M4A / MP3 files. Dunno why lol, just the way I am.

Woot, tis a Wednesday (technically Thursday here), how long till the next episode is out?

We'll be recording tomorrow (still Wednesday here) and should have it out tomorrow night. We have a preliminary lineup set, though I'm waiting for any big news tomorrow before finalizing it.

Ah, okie dokie.
Hope you got some good call ins or emails to discuss.

I don't know about past episodes beyond the last four, but have you thought about maybe getting a guest on for random chatting for a little, maybe like Neobond, maybe discussing the set up of Neowin and such like or Frogboy (aka Brad Wardell) for maybe a chat about whatever is going on in Starduck at the moment, I'm sure he'd love the free advertising.
Or generally any links to any part of the industry that you guys or Neowin might have.

And if the call in or emails don't work, you could always try IRC while you are recording, kinda of a live chat where people could show and talk about stories as you guys are.
Just some random suggestions.

Ahem, anyway, Until tomorrow!

Special guests are something we'll consider down the road, though I'm not sure beating the life out of the Neowin beginning story would be the way to go.

Right now, our sole focus is a consistent release cycle. Being there's only two of us, scheduling is much easier and we don't have to deal with any of the issues we had before with people with poor connections, mics worse than the piece of garbage I have, and restrictive schedules. It's also difficult to find someone we both have a decent chemistry with. Thankfully, Rob and I bounce off each other pretty well and can pretty much free flow without having to worry about losing the other. That's not always the case with others.

I don't want it to seem like I'm blindly shooting down ideas, though. I just know that we need to keep this relatively simple if we wish to make it last. We've already had a number of suggestions that would have increased the workload considerably while adding little value and I know some are left with a bitter taste in their mouths when we pass on an idea. Please just understand that there are boundaries we wish to abide by, for now, for the sake of getting the show out weekly.

We actually have a pretty good email/PM from a listener who signed up, seemingly, just to contact us.

i might give you a call next week (if i remember ) dunno what i will say or sound like!

Look forward to todays one

We just finished recording. Rob is doing the editing and I'm doing the relatively easy task of getting the news post and RSS feed ready.

Yay!

Yay X2!

You guys say yay, while the perfectionist in me spends time thinking about how I wish I could go back and rephrase a few things, shorten a few areas while embellishing on other points and so on lol. This is why I hated editing. I can't listen to the show if I wish to maintain my sanity.

x3

Eurgh. I hate editing.

1hr45mins now, but we're getting there. 75% of the way probably.

Not to sound ignorant but what actually goes on for editing, I mean what do you edit? background noise? etc...

We make full cuts and such. Someone stutters? (I do a lot) It gets removed. Screwed up word? Removed. The editing for the NeowinCAST is basically the same kind of editing that gets done to a TV show, minus the video. It's a lot of tedious work. Basically, you have to play it through and stop on every mistake, select the portion of the wave form, delete it, rewind a little, play through that part to make sure the edit is clean, and then continue the process until the end of the show.

It's any recording difficulties where we had to re-record a segment because something went wrong, or where we lost our train of thought and decided to just restart our commentary... any clicks of microphones, any background noise or additional 'umms' and 'errs' where it's overly distracting (though keeping the natural feel of the conversation - generally we leave them in but occasionally they'd be very noticeable).

Then editing in the intro music, the outtro music, the voicemails. Then sorting out volume levels, compressing the audio to MP3, adding ID3 tags and embedding a graphic in there for iTunes... updating the XML feed...

Lol, we posted at the same time. To sum it up: Post production is A LOT of work. It's the reason why a lot of podcasts die off and the main reason ours has died off so many times before coming back.

Heh, tis fine, ideas are ideas, if they are not followed, I'm not going to be hurt, maybe cry in bed at night, but otherwise fine.

Sounds like a lot of stuff to do for editing, thank heavens we have such dedicated team doing it.

Sounds like its going to be one long show o.O....YEY!


Yey album art stuffs!


But you have such a following now, you wouldn't want to let us down.

Heh it'll be a 45min show as usual but yes - it's the following that keeps us motivated. Chris+I might like the sound of our own voice (!) but I sure wouldn't do the editing if it weren't for you guys

I honestly have no idea how many listeners we have, but the thought of losing anyone we've managed to hook is what's gotten Rob and I through a show or two already, for sure. You can schedule the show, but you can't predict when you're going to have a bad day at work or something along those lines. Knowing people are waiting to listen to us talk is a bit weird, but also motivational.

I appreciate the work you put into these shows plus the stuff you chat and discuss is stuff I am really into so it is good.

That's the ultimate goal. Honestly, I'm a pretty poor public speaker and my attention span is way too short to do the show, but I just like the idea of being able to create a discussion. Getting users to contribute now with the voicemails and emails is an important aspect, to me. It means that, at least, one of the topics discussed will be something that someone wants to hear about.

Update (since this thread has become the behind-the-scenes one!): Main podcast editing finished, editing in the various segments now...

Love the updates

Yea, updates are cool.
And we love to listen to your voices as well, so it's not just you.

And id also like to point out its always good to hear a Podcast traversing the Atlantic in that out of you two is from the UK. *waves his little flag* a bunch of Podcasts that I have listened to have people from one country.

Hi guys

Looking forward to the new one

Can I make a constructive criticism. The content is great, however when Rob speaks the volume for his parts is considerably louder than BanBangs'. I'm not sure if i'm the only one it bothers, but I listen to it in bed late at night then all of a sudden it'll go a lot louder, and annoy my flatmates, lol.

Keep up the great work
Si

Ahh thanks for that funkymunky! Hopefully this one should be better, I've adjusted the levels slightly so ... here's hoping

Thank you from me, and my flatmates lol

New one going up within the next half hour I hope.

Just finishing up listening to a football podcast so it just be there in time

Awesome!
*sits and waits next to iTunes refresh button*

Its up
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...=599683&hl=