37 replies to this topic

[Valerie Valens]

I'd like to throw in a couple of suggestions here regarding the audio formats here, because believe it or not, these mothafuckas take up space and consume a lot of bandwidth, and hosted space on the net, especially for storing upwards of 300+ megs of audio files aren't free or cheap. These can consume upwards of 1-5 GB of bandwidth a week.

So my suggestion here is this. When the episodes are put together, convert them first to APE or FLAC formats, these formats provide a good compression ratio and they are lossless. These are for private archival purposes of the staff members. The reason for that is, one of the ideas I have for these eps in the not so distant future is to add a placeholder image to the eps, add subtitle test to them, turn them to videos, and plug them into a group account on youtube, revver or metacafe. Basically, these are for storage, and not to be uploaded to our webspace, though one can always start seeding them as torrent files.

For the plain audio consumption downloaded from our webspace however, you'd want something that has a really high compression ratio, but provides not too much of a drop in quality. This is where the second conversion process comes in...OGG Vorbis. This format is far superior to MP3 in handling low bitrate compression, you can go as low as 48 kbps with it while retaining most of the quality. MP3's quality quickly breaks down once you begin to go below 128 kbps. That means that 25 minute episodes can be stored in files as small as 8 MBs. (The same length episodes in 128 kbps MP3 format would weigh in at around 24-25 MBs, a bit big IMO.)

MsFire : Imagine Sally reading a story book to you before you go to bed, only said reading is accompanied by music and audio cues.

[John Roberts]

Yeah, size and storage is a concern for this. And all though I am not technically worried about it this early into the project, I'd be a fool to leave it to the last minute. The only problem I have with OGG Vorbis are the limited of people that even know or can play that particular file on their system.

*Gets draft letter from Chief* well after all, if we don't do it who will? Onward for the cause!

And thanks for your audition fic you sent! Very impressive, and I PMed you more detail about this and that.

I'd like to know more about how it would go though before I make any commitments.

Once I get the Voice Acting Audition thread up I hope to have all the info you and any other potential VA's may need.

I have quite a few years in acting, so I am somewhat interested in this, but I'm confused as to what it is by the "radio-drama podcast thingy"? What exactly is it?

Take what the satAM cartoon is, now remove all animation, shoot the tv and turn on your radio. Okay, now we have a story-driven medium that uses only audio to animate the story with spoken dialogue, sound effects and music. So we have Sonic being pursued by Swat-bots: On top of his usual banter, we throw in the sounds of laser fire deflecting around him as he runs, the clang-clang metal pounding footsteps of the 'bot chasing him behind... Nicole's voice peaks up as it seems Sonic is carrying the little computer with him, warning him of an energy spike she is detecting. And blah-de-blah-blah, you see how this would work now?

It's just the cartoon, without the actual toons to watch.

And if you are indeed interested in VAing for this just wait-out for the VA Audition thread to properly make a decision on it.

Web management and graphic design spots, plz. I know HTML, PHP, and Javascript, and am willing to learn new markup/scripting languages as the job requires, can use Photoshop and Flash, and know karate. I have also managed a website before -- my old WoW guild's website, which is sadly no longer up. Need I remind you I know karate? Will submit portfolio if necessary.

Your karate does not scare me. A little portfolio would be great though mate! Does your little list of expertise cover making Banners and such for advertising reasons?

All depends on what you're looking for. If the music from my my SheezyArt Gallery is any indication. I am more than capable of delivering music for other genres.

You certainly are. *noddles* Some very lovely pieces of music you have there, Val, I can really see it working for this.

[Valerie Valens]

Well, we could always include links to XM Play. It plays OGG audio out of the box. :3

[chief]

Like I said last night Hazy, Id like you to try out for Rotor defintly

[Morgan]

So, basically it's like how you would have "watched TV" in the 1920s?

[chief]

Yea thats the jest of it

[Ratty Randnums]

So, basically it's like how you would have "watched TV" in the 1920s?

It's still around in Europe and Australia and some other places, but it faded out pretty quickly in North America when TV became prevalent in the late 50s.

[John Roberts]

TV? What the hell is that?

Yeah, we still have a fair few radio dramas on Aussie radio, mostly just the AM stations though. FM is only for hip-hop cool kats and their Britney shit.

[John Roberts]

No. It was what radio shows were like before TV was around.

[Morgan]

John's just lazy. hehehe

[John Roberts]

It ain't dead yet. Just need the VA roles filled so we can get it to that next stage.

Go right ahead, Dom, if you want. We need a Robotnik. As for a writer definitely. :] At the moment the writers are in a bit of mess waiting for me, but once we do get a steady flow going our writers can get to work on scripts.

[J.E.Smith]

Well John, you could always give the Voice Acting Alliance a try. Who knows, at this point you may get the roles filled faster this way. And the faster the roles get filled, the faster this thing can get started:

http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/fo ... y.php?f=42