In this special episode of 1337 Wine TV, Mark takes you behind the scenes a bit on how the show is created. He also covers how to get your video podcast on the ‘Net and iTunes. If you’re looking for some wine, then this not a show that will interest you. If you’re curious on what it takes to create the show, or you stumbled upon this video in the hopes of creating a video podcast, then this will interest you. There are a lot of links below on equipment, software, services, etc.
Resources – Here are some resources on the ‘Net to help you with creating video including audio, music, and photos:
Larry Jordan – An expert in video editing software. His newsletter alone is worth subscribing to.
The Frugal Filmmaker – How to do it on the cheap.
Izzy Video – Newsletter has a few free tips and he has some free content on his site. Most of his stuff is behind a paywall.
VideoMaker – A good online source. Subscribe to the newsletter. Lots of free tutorials.
fcp.co – Major online resource for all things Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor. Forums, plugins (many free), videos, etc. Tons of free content.
FCPEffects.com – I forgot to mention this site on the show. I get most of my plugins from here. Reasonably priced and they have frequent sales where you can get plugins for 40-75% off depending on how much money you spend.
FxFactory – Another plugin site I forgot to mention. Has some free stuff that’s useful. Also plugins that you’ll need to buy. Some have demo versions.
MacBreak Weekly – The guys from PixelCorps have a weekly video podcast on all things OS X on the TWiT.tv Network. They do a lot of FCPX, Motion, and Compressor stuff.
Productiontrax – Where I get most of my music and sound effects for the show.
AudioMicro – Another resource for sounds and music.
SFXsource – Yet another audio resource.
Mark Blasco – THE podcast music composer. He’s done many of the TWiT.tv show themes. He composed my normal intro.
iTunes – Yes iTunes has a lot of royalty free music. It’s where I got the music for the setup of the green screen. Just type in Royalty Free.
For photos/videos, Flickr, Photobucket, google, VideoBlocks, etc. Even Getty Images if you have the scratch.
Equipment – A list of equipment I currently use, have used, or suitable replacement. All links direct you to Amazon to purchase. Items purchased using these links are credited to my Amazon Associates account. i.e. I get some kind of small commission.
Canon VIXIA HF M500 Full HD 10x Image Stabilized Camcorder with One SDXC Card Slot and 3.0 Touch LCD
I suggest a newer model – Canon VIXIA HF R500 Digital Camcorder (Black)
Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder
NEEWER® 160 LED CN-160 Dimmable Ultra High Power Panel Digital Camera / Camcorder Video Light, LED Light for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Panasonic,SONY, Samsung and Olympus Digital SLR Cameras – Lights I use.
For about $10 more get the 216 LED version. NEEWER CN-216 216PCS LED Dimmable Ultra High Power Panel Digital Camera / Camcorder Video Light, LED Light for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Panasonic, SONY, Samsung and Olympus Digital SLR Cameras
The model of lavaliere mics I use. Prime eligibility and shipping costs vary widely throughout the year. Neewer®: High Definition Professional Flexible Hands Free Clip On Mini Mic Microphone for Gopro Hero 3 3+ 4 ( 5x Lapel Microphone)
Shotgun Mic I used when necessary – Audio-Technica ATR-6550 Video Camera Condenser Shotgun Microphone
Studio Boom Microphone Stand. This is a big, heavy stand. On Stage SB9600 Tripod Studio Boom Microphone Stand
Bag for the stand. I fit that stand, 3 tripods, the shotgun mic, and various other stuff in it. On Stage SSB6500 Speaker And Mic Stand Bag
Green Screen. CowboyStudio Photography 10 X 20ft Chromakey Green Muslin Backdrop with 10ft Heavy Duty Crossbar Background Support System with Carry Bag
The shop lights I use the light the green screen. On Amazon they’re a bit more expensive than Wal-Mart. Amazon link – Bayco SL-1005 1000-Watt Convertible Tripod Tower Halogen Work Light
Wal-Mart link.
Software – Apple software you can find on the OS X App Store. These links are for other software; some of which can be found on the App Store:
MPEG Streamclip – By far the best converter software out there for the money. As in free. It’s best feature for me is I can adjust the bit rate and see the estimated file size. The others don’t do this, or it’s hidden elsewhere.
Audacity – Free and pretty powerful audio editing software.
iZotope Music & Speech Cleaner – does a pretty good job of some quick and dirty noise reduction and enhancement. iZotope discontinued it, but you can still find it on the ‘Net. Costs a few ducats but can be helpful.
iZotope RX – Both the Regular and Advanced. Claims to work miracles. Out of my price range believe it or not. Even the Regular one.
SoundSoap – For really pesky noise that the Izotope Music & Speech Cleaner or FCPX can’t really handle, I use this. It does a really good job. Get the stand alone and not the plugin.
RSS Feed Stuff:
PowerPress – A WordPress plugin that publishes your podcast. It’s from blubrry and they offer a $5/month service that gives you stats. Worth it.
Web-Sniffer – Checks the size of your feed. It needs to be less than 512kb.
Feed Validator – Makes sure your RSS feed is valid and points out invalid parts of the feed. Extremely important for iTunes and most other pod catchers.
WordPress’ site on how to find your feed and other info.
FYI. YouTube’s RSS Feed of your channel CANNOT be used for iTunes. No matter what some dude says on the ‘Net or some convoluted scheme to get it to work, it doesn’t work. It never has as far as I know.
Video Hosting – First we cover the places to just store your video. These places can just store the videos or they can be a complete solution including distribution, RSS Feed creation, revenue share advertising, etc.
blip – No longer a one-stop shop for upload once and distribute to many site. Free hosting and bandwidth. Catch is you need to have what they feel is quality content. Might be more difficult to get in that it was a few years ago. I haven’t had an issue with the player or videos not being available in years.
TubeMogul & Viddler – Unless you’re a corporation that needs a place to host corporate videos, these sites don’t make sense anymore. I mentioned in the show I used to use them.
Vimeo – Not bad. Plus Account costs $60/yr. Not bad, but unless you need their specific features, then there are other cheaper options.
YouTube – Kind of a duh on putting your videos here.
Niche video hosting sites. They’re everywhere. I use ifood.tv for mine. They actually pull my videos from YouTube (probably via the RSS Feed) and then show them on their website, Roku, and other places they distribute.
TiVo. This one may be a bit tricky. I got on to TiVo via blip. blip no longer offers to send your feed to TiVo for approval. I really don’t know how you go about that, but as long as you have a valid RSS Feed that meets their specs, you can get on TiVo.
Podcast Services – Pretty much I suggest you don’t use these, but they do offer ease of use compared to how I do it. Most are better suited (as in cheaper) for audio rather than video:
libsyn – This is the biggest service. Been around forever.
blubrry – Again, I use them for distribution of my RSS Feed and stat tracking only. They also offer video hosting.
Podbean, Podcast Garden, PodOmatic – A few of the many other services.
Strictly storage. These sites will store whatever you want, but they charge by the byte for storage and bandwidth (data transfer). That can get expensive when it comes to video. Here are a few – Amazon S3, Google Drive, Internet Archive – I’ll admit, I don’t know how to upload to Internet Archive or even how much it would cost if anything. It was listed as an alternative hosting solution.
Webpage or WordPress Hosting – Basically it comes down to this. Pressable has the best overall deal going compared to all the other ones I checked out.
Pressable
Here are some others I found. BTW, there are a ton of choices – Host Gator, Bluehost, WP Engine, SiteGround, Web Hosting Hub.
I can’t believe I forgot this. This WordPress plugin is the whole reason I can even do what I do by hosting my videos on my site (it’s actually not at 1337wine.com, but elsewhere). And I hate putting it at the end, but it really doesn’t fit in any other category. The plugin is Add From Server. You see, I was told all I needed to do was upload the video file to my Media Library. Well, that’s all fine and dandy except that there is a 40MB media upload limit. With this plugin, I’m able to upload a new episode to a specific media folder, and then Add it to my Media Library. There’s one catch. When you do this, it takes a loooong time. And then it typically gives me an error once it’s done. If I immediately load my library, I may not see it. So I usually wait several minutes. Even so, I’ll find multiple copies. I figure out what that master copy is and delete the others. It doesn’t matter which ones are deleted, but I delete the ones whose file names have extra numbers. For example, the original file name of this episode would be something like “1337wine325,” but the extra files may say “1337wine3252,” “1337wine3523,” etc. File size isn’t always reported correctly, but the entire file is always there.
Anyway, here is the link for the Add From Server plugin. It literally saved 1337 Wine TV.
Well, that’s it for links. Except for the Podfather himself, Adam Curry. Many thanks to him.