The Technology
Production is all done in house by Clyde, with a trusty quad core PC and many WD TB HDs, dual GeForce cards, Fedora Linux and Window servers, lots of bandwidth, Sony Vegas & Acid, Adobe AfterEffects, Premiere Pro & Fireworks. If you do not understand any of that, then you are not a geek (congratulations, you have a real life).
The Webcast recording setup includes a lot of equipment I already had on hand for my video production, but a few new things as well. The recording is done with Sony Acid, which I have been using since it was Sonic Foundry's in the late 90s (along with their VideoFactory, later to become Sony Vegas). A Creative analog to digital converter lets me get multiple tracks into the recording for better mixing. The unit is called Sound Blaster Digital Music SX and seems to mainly be sold in Asia--I got it off the local Yahoo auction site, which has become a huge electronics storefront for small specialty shops. Skype audio and my own voice are pre-mixed with a Behringer Mixer before going to the digital converter. My mic is a MXL 990 Condenser Microphone, which gives a nice warm sound for a great price. I run Skype on one machine and mix everthing down and then record on a Thinkpad.
Most of the on location video is shot on a Sony VX-1000, a classic camera that stays around forever. I was able to get my camera used on Yahoo Taiwan auction for a great price. The camera was from Japan, so the menus are all in Japanese, which is kind of cool.
Studio shoots are done wth the Sony DCR-VX 2100, a couple generations later and a great camera.
Location shoots include this Sony HVR-MRC1K which records video directly to CF memory. This unit captures the HDV1080i, DVCAM, or DV stream via i.LINK output. We can simultaneously record to tape, which ends our issues with tape screw ups. The best part of this is a 32GB CF card gets double the recording time of a tape, and results go directly to disk (no more capturing). Sony did a good job on this device. The design is solid, breaks down into smaller parts real easy, and it takes the standard video camera batteries--making it all interchangeable.
Feild recordings are done with the Zoom H4, which allows multi-track recording, for better post-production work.
Everything is hosted on my servers at my NCHU office. The podcast site is a Joomla CMS hosted on a Fedora Linux machine (the top left one in the photo). Dual cores on the Windows box and one of the Linux machines, the department server, I manage, up on the top right, and everything is on Giga speed ethernet.
Our video studio. We run Adobe's OnLocation with direct to disk recording, and normally a B-roll camera recording to tape. Everything is run on a tight budget, with lots of homemade kit--PVC pipes are GREAT.
Location shoots. We often go out on location in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
