154 Enhancing Your Podcast with Video: A Deep Dive into Riverside. FM with Stephen Robles

[00:00:00] If you are an audio only podcaster and you are considering maybe adding some video to perhaps enhance your podcast, then stick around because this episode was made especially for you. Be heard.

[00:00:22] Welcome to the podcast where you get exclusive behind the scenes tips to make your own show sound truly spectacular. This is Podtastic Audio. Hey, what's happening? How are you doing today? Thank you so much for being here. I am Chris and you have found the right place.

[00:00:44] This is Podtastic Audio, the show which I've designed and created to help you. Yeah, you make an amazing podcast of your very own and that podcast can be about whatever it is you want to talk about. It's your show.

[00:01:01] You are the captain of your own podcast ship, so you can create something that's spectacular for you and your audience. As we enter into summer of 2024, you know, and I know that there are a lot and I mean a lot of different ways to create a podcast.

[00:01:21] And since this podcast has always been audio only, hence it is in the name Podtastic Audio.

[00:01:29] I've always focused on ways to create amazing audio for your podcast, but for the very first time, I'm going to create a video podcast focusing on ways to merge video into your podcast production.

[00:01:46] And one of the most popular tools out there right now to create video for podcasters or even just general content creators, maybe a YouTuber or something like that has got to be Riverside. FM. Now, if you are not too familiar of what Riverside.

[00:02:04] FM is, well, think of it like a very souped up performance version of a Zoom call.

[00:02:12] But more than just recording a conversation back and forth with multiple participants, the team at Riverside have designed a system that basically handles all the production of the video recording and audio recording. All the editing.

[00:02:29] If you want to do script based editing, like you type in the word, remove these, it'll clip out all of them just like the script does. It also can enhance the audio through AI.

[00:02:41] It also can add in little bumpers and video elements and even audio elements during a live presentation.

[00:02:48] And then you can physically download every element, every piece and every video and every piece of audio separately straight to your device so you can edit things however you want on your own software or you can use a software that's already built in to Riverside. FM.

[00:03:06] To help me understand what Riverside. FM truly actually does, I invited Steven Robles, who is the face of Riverside. FM on the show today to go over all the wonderful things that Riverside. FM can do, and I'm going to participate in this conversation using Riverside. That's right.

[00:03:30] Our conversation today has been entirely recorded using the Riverside platform. Steven goes over all the details of what Riverside can really do for you as a content creator, especially a podcaster. Being that he is a big tech guy, I couldn't leave this tech conversation off the table.

[00:03:49] So stick around to the end where I asked him what it's like having Apple Vision Pro. So please enjoy my conversation with Steven Robles. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Chris. I appreciate it. Man, this is amazing. It's like blending both worlds together.

[00:04:07] You being a big video guy, me being the audio guy. It's like DC and Marvel got together and made a movie. Absolutely. But I will say I was audio only for many, many years. I started the Apple Insider podcast in 2015, audio only for many years.

[00:04:23] And so I'm trying to add the video thing as everyone in the industry is kind of moving that way. But no, I love the audio side too. So I'll do both. Now we are using Riverside. It's my first time using Riverside as a host of Riverside.

[00:04:39] I've always used it as a guest from time to time. So I'm trying to figure out all the different buttons and walk through all the different things. And when you log into Riverside, your face is like the first thing you see on the screen.

[00:04:52] So you are the face of Riverside. Well, it's an honor to do it. You know, actually, it's going to be two years at the end of this month that I've been on the Riverside team making video content and tutorials for them.

[00:05:03] And I was using them before I joined the team when I was trying to add video to my podcast and even just recording audio only podcasts. I started using Riverside. And so and I was looking for a remote work and it just worked out.

[00:05:15] And I've loved being on the team. I got to visit their headquarters in Tel Aviv last June, which is an awesome experience. So, you know, I just love what they're doing, I believe, and their mission. So it's an honor. So what is their mission then, you think?

[00:05:28] Like if the mission statement, what is it, you think? You know, I wish I had it on hand or memorized. But, you know, it's really just to give tools to people so they can share their story in the highest quality possible, because that's important all over the world,

[00:05:42] whether it's with remote guests or not. And, you know, we have Riverside being used by journalists, by animators, by major news outlets, interviews, documentaries. And we just want to make it as seamless and easy as possible to record that high quality content, but really share the important stories,

[00:06:00] anyone's story and making it and giving everyone the tools to do it easily. Because while we love recording and you may even enjoy editing you personally are on the other side of this podcast. But that is usually the most time consuming.

[00:06:15] And for many people who are like one person shows and they're doing all the production and the editing, it can hinder getting the story out. And so Riverside is just trying to make it as easy as possible.

[00:06:25] So you can do it all audio, video, high quality, and we'll do all the hard work for you. That's what it's all about. Because like me getting into this whole thing, podcasting, you know, generally speaking was like my whole idea behind the thing was

[00:06:39] not so much like why we're creating something and what we're talking about. It's more like, can I stitch all this together? Can I make any of this stuff work? Am I talking? Is this actually being recorded? What does it sound like when it's done?

[00:06:51] Is it even good audio? How do I take that audio, make it sound amazing? I know a lot of people jump into the whole podcasting space. And the first thing they want to go into is like, you know,

[00:07:01] the marketing side of it all, like how do I get this out to everybody? But did you check first see if it's any good? Let's try that. That's always a big one. So I know you've got a big massive YouTube channel, you know.

[00:07:13] You know, it's funny about YouTube is that I've been on YouTube probably since before Google owned YouTube. And I just had a channel just for funsies and I still have it. But I rarely post anything on there.

[00:07:22] And I have a small number of subscribers, but some of my videos have done fairly well. So when it comes to YouTube, what's the deal with the subscriber count versus the view count? Like which one is more important to have?

[00:07:36] It used to be subscriber count, but now it really doesn't matter as much. You know, I've been really focusing on it the last two ish years. And last year I was around three thousand, four thousand subscribers.

[00:07:54] And I had a couple of videos hit pretty big about the iPhone 15, talking about the new USB-C port and all the things you can do with it. This phone right here? There it is. Yeah. And, you know, I got something like ten thousand subscribers in a month

[00:08:10] just off of like two or three major videos. But what that taught me was the reach is not necessarily attached to your subscriber count. And, you know, if you just scroll your YouTube home tab or on the website and you do or you do a search term,

[00:08:26] you will likely see videos from very small channels, like hundreds of subscribers, if not less. So that should tell you as a YouTube user, like the subscriber count is not what's going to dictate whether YouTube pushes your content for other people.

[00:08:40] It's really the packaging, namely, what is the thumbnail? What is the title? Is it in a niche or topic that people are actually searching for or looking for? And do you provide that really quick and deep value as soon as someone clicks?

[00:08:54] You know, the first 30 seconds of a video are really key to making sure people understand what they can expect from the video they're about to invest whatever 10, 20 minutes in. So the subscriber count is not a hindrance to views, really.

[00:09:08] And that can be tough because it's easy to kind of use that as an excuse of like, well, I'm just starting out. I have zero subscribers. There's no hope. And that's actually not the case at all. Yeah. So I do notice that with YouTube,

[00:09:21] speaking of getting somebody to like, you said 30 seconds are the most valuable on your YouTube channel. But what happens if YouTube decides to throw an ad at the front of your video? And there goes your 30 seconds right there, right?

[00:09:35] You know, I monetize all the videos on my personal channel. And if someone is on YouTube and watches YouTube and they don't pay for YouTube premium, they know the ad is coming. If you don't monetize your videos, there is no ads.

[00:09:51] So, you know, ironically, that first thousand subscribers a lot of times the hardest and those four thousand watch hours, you don't have to worry about an ad at the beginning of your video because your channel is not monetized.

[00:10:02] So if someone clicks as you're in your early stages of growth, they're not going to see an ad anyway. And even when you do choose to monetize, you have the controls.

[00:10:10] Like, do you want a pre-roll ad or do you just want to put an ad in the middle? You actually have those controls as a YouTube creator. So and honestly, again, in the last two years of my own experience, people, they understand ads, they get it.

[00:10:23] And if the value that you're bringing is good enough, it's not going to affect whether or not they click. But, dude, I am waiting like with my own mouse, right? I have that skip button, like as soon as it's ready. That's fine. Yeah, for sure.

[00:10:35] It's good to go. So I know that with YouTube constantly are feeding you similar videos to the column, whether it's below on a phone or to the right side on a computer screen. So the retention rates got to be very, very low on videos.

[00:10:50] What is a good retention rate on average video? I mean, it depends. I have to I can look at some of my videos right now and see. So the retention rate, you know, it's going to drop for every video, no matter, you know, it's always those first 10, 20 seconds

[00:11:04] that retention is going to drop. For me, I'm trying to find, OK, here's one of my retention graphs. You know, about. 10, 20 percent are still watching after eight minutes. I have about 25 percent still watching around four minutes. So, you know, it depends. But also, this is why Mr.

[00:11:24] Beasts actually talked about this recently. Honestly, longer content and I'm talking like 20 minutes, 30 minutes or longer actually is a good idea. On YouTube right now, if you're providing value the whole time, that's the key. You can't just upload a 30 minute video

[00:11:40] of you rambling and expect it to perform well. But if you have a 20 minute video that's full of solid content, then you can expect to find success. And honestly, it's interesting. One of the most successful topics that I cover on my personal

[00:11:53] YouTube channel is shortcuts for the iPhone, which is a very niche topic. It's automation. But because I'm actually very instructional, I'm actually teaching people how to build these shortcuts step by step. I had a recent short video that was 20 minutes long,

[00:12:07] but people stick around and watch the people that click are invested and the video itself. I mean, it's got like 20,000, 30,000 views right now. I did one about Chad GPT 10 shortcuts for Chad GPT since the new app launched. That video is at 72,000 views. And providing value is the key.

[00:12:28] And yes, you have to grab their attention. And in all my videos, even if you watch that chat, you be T shortcuts video in the first 20 seconds, I'm telling you, I'm going to show how to summarize an article right from the share sheet on your iPhone.

[00:12:40] I'm going to show you how to write an email with Chachi B.T. So you can don't have to think about it. You know, so I tell them in the first 20 seconds, here's what the value you're going to get by watching this video.

[00:12:50] And then I'm just walking them through, you know, and I do say that at the very beginning. So the very beginning of the video kind of explain what this is for and what we're going to do today. Exactly. And that's pretty much, you know,

[00:12:59] it's kind of that high school speech class. If you ever had speech class back then, I think so. Like, yeah, tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them and then tell them what you told them. Interesting that that's kind of the speech class thing.

[00:13:10] And so if you as you're thinking about the first 30 seconds of a YouTube video, tell them what you're going to tell them. Like here's what we're going to cover. Here's where you'll find valuable. And if that interests you, stick around.

[00:13:21] And if you want to throw in like a curiosity generating term, you could say, you know, stay till the end and I'm going to do this. And so like in that chat GPT video, I said, stay till the end. And I'm going to show you my personal shortcut

[00:13:32] that I use to format podcast show notes using chat GPT. And it does it all for me. So I can throw in some of those teasers and curiosity driving moments as well. That's what I started doing on Podtastic Audio on my audio podcast.

[00:13:44] Probably don't have many episodes ago. I thought, like, why don't I instead of just having a cold open or a music open, why don't I just have like a recorded tease open at the very beginning and then try to hook?

[00:13:55] Like I call it the hook and I'll do is I'll record that at the very end of the episode because I already know what I talked about. Because sometimes you try to create a hook at the beginning and then try to build a show around the hook.

[00:14:06] No, no, no, no. Yeah, I was doing the very end. And I would suggest Jay Klaus. He's an amazing creator. He uses Riverside. But he's really been pushing his podcast content on YouTube, full length video podcasts, and he does a highly produced hook in the first minute.

[00:14:23] And his podcast interviews are an hour long or more. But that first minute is just a masterclass of what a great hook could be for a podcast. And that's one of the things I would, you know, remind anyone who's been doing podcasts a long time.

[00:14:35] And for me, I did audio for such a long time. And the world of podcasting was very different. You know, there would be small talk or banter. And a lot of times it would take a while to get to the actual content.

[00:14:45] That's what I felt a lot of shows did. And as podcasters, if you want to grow your show today, you do have to change that mindset and think like a YouTube creator, where even in the audio version of your show,

[00:14:56] there should be some kind of hook at the beginning. So for my technology podcast, I spend the first 30 seconds running down what we're going to talk about, telling them what we're going to tell them. And it's just a teaser.

[00:15:06] So this way, if they're interested in WWDC coming up in a couple of weeks or OpenAI's deal with Vox Media or Google search documents leaking, you know, I throw all that at the beginning this way. If any of those things are interesting to them,

[00:15:18] they'll know we're going to cover it really soon. And I use chapters in all my stuff, too, in my YouTube videos and my podcast. So if someone's interested in a specific topic, but they don't want to hang around for all the other stuff, just jump to that chapter.

[00:15:30] I'm just glad you're listening. Just glad you're watching. So use the chapters. Now, with the chapters in YouTube, for example, can you see where people jump around? Like what chapters are more popular than the others? You can definitely see in the retention graph

[00:15:42] where there are jumps in that retention. And so you don't get a report of like this chapter is popular. But you can even see this as a YouTube viewer. You know, if you're looking at a YouTube video, you kind of see that opaque white line throughout the video.

[00:15:57] And the high peaks are the moments that people keep coming back to watch or jumping to. So you can absolutely see, OK, this is a moment that a lot of people want to see in this video.

[00:16:07] And as a creator, that should tell you if you have your podcast on YouTube or you're doing any kind of YouTube content, look to see what are the spikes? Where are people tuning in? Maybe I should be doing more of that. Right. Right. Definitely. Every time.

[00:16:21] So YouTube for Hotman, I don't know if it's still popular or not, but are those YouTube shorts? I think you've done shorts and you've dabbled. Everybody's dabbled with shorts. I have it. My son does. He creates shorts all the time. His channel has really kind of exploded.

[00:16:34] And I don't understand it at all. It's like video game screen recording on his phone or something. That's what the kids are into. I don't know. Video game. Huge. They are. I don't know what he does. I mean, I don't know how he...

[00:16:44] He got like a couple thousand followers of subscribers or whatever in no time at all. And one of his videos got like over 4000 views in the first 24 hours. And I'm like, well, what is he doing? You know, but so what is the power of a video,

[00:16:58] of a short video versus a long form video? So like you just said, it got 4000 views overnight. You know, that is the power of shorts. 100% discovery. Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels. That format of video is how you can be discovered and start having people recognize your content.

[00:17:17] I would not think of shorts as like your main content. There are channels who only do shorts and they will succeed. A lot of them honestly are TikTokers who have come to YouTube or people who are like old school Vine people. Nice.

[00:17:32] You know, but shorts, I think of it in my world as just the discovery platform. It's not as revenue generating. So if that's a part of your equation... Wait, wait, wait. It's not? You can't even have... No, no, no. You can make money on shorts.

[00:17:46] But you will earn much more doing long form video getting significant views, especially over time. You know, I have YouTube videos from the start of my channel. Literally my very first video I posted on YouTube, which is about screen time on iPhone.

[00:18:03] I still get comments from people who are watching that video today. And that video is almost three, four years old or something like that. Yeah. So that's the power of the YouTube long form content, which if you're really creating valuable stuff,

[00:18:16] people are going to discover it years from now, which is not necessarily the case with short form content. You might see shorts come up in search results. You might come across it. But a lot of times short form contact has like high peaks.

[00:18:28] Maybe it'll go viral and then just a very steep drop and a low over time, if anything, if people are still watching in months from now. So it's a discovery platform. But for podcasts, huge opportunity for discovery.

[00:18:42] You're not going to get a ton of followers or subscribers from it. You might even get a lot of engagement. But all you need is a couple of short form videos to hit big, get a few thousand views.

[00:18:51] And that's how you can start growing your show both on YouTube and move those audience members over to your audio version as well. So if you want to grow subscribers fast, if you put more energy into doing short videos, would that increase your subscriber count quickly?

[00:19:06] I mean, there's no guarantee for anything. But yes, I would do short form content. You know, you really have to make sure your long form content is good. Like you said at the beginning of this episode, you have to have good stuff first.

[00:19:18] You like don't you can't think about growing until you have something good to point people to. So always focus on the long form content. Make sure you're providing value there so that when people go to it, they'll stick around and that they'll keep coming back.

[00:19:33] So always focus on that. But yes, to grow, I would. And this is what I try to do with my podcast. I post a short form video, a clip from the show every weekday, Monday through Friday. I'm posting a short form video on YouTube shorts,

[00:19:47] TikTok, Instagram reels, and sometimes just posting it straight to threads and Twitter as well. So post every day, post a short form. That's why Riverside's magic clips feature is really ideal. You can do one click creates a bunch of vertical clips for you.

[00:20:01] You can have one a day if you do a weekly podcast super easily. Now, can it send it directly from Riverside or download it first into your own thing? You got to download it first and then upload it in all the apps.

[00:20:10] And that's something where it's, you know, TikTok does not make it easy to post a TikTok from outside. Same with Instagram reels. You can do it through Facebook Business Manager, but it's a pain. So honestly, I just find it faster just download it from Riverside,

[00:20:22] which you can do right on your phone. Nice. If you already have the clips exported, you can download them in Safari on your phone, upload it to all the platforms. That's great. Now, does Riverside do any kind of like video enhancements

[00:20:33] with like lighting, color correction, stuff like that? We actually do have exposure and color temperature settings that you can adjust. That's recent. You should see it rolling out on mobile if you're recording on iPhone or iPad and on the desktop.

[00:20:47] And we do have blurred background and virtual backgrounds that recently launched. So you can do those enhancement effects and the exposure and temperature colors. Now, the experience on the mobile device for Riverside, is it very similar to this or is it different?

[00:21:00] Because I know you're working on a phone. It's different, that kind of deal. It is different. You're not going to have as many tools like screen sharing or the media board or all of that. But if you're doing a straight video podcast like we're doing right now,

[00:21:11] we could totally do this on the phone or even the iPad. I just did a video on the Riverside channel using the new iPad Pro. And if you have a USB microphone and an iPad Pro or an iPhone 15 with the USB-C, super easy to set it up.

[00:21:24] And you can do the whole thing with the Riverside app. So yeah, that's quite amazing. As I asked you on the new iPad Pro, that thing's got the new M4 chip in that thing. Is that kind of overkill? What do you think? I mean, sure it's overkill,

[00:21:37] but it's probably not going to be overkill five years from now. So if you get it now with the M4 chip and you invest in it, this can be a long term device. It's not going to slow down any time soon.

[00:21:47] And I will say there are certain tasks as a podcaster, even if you're doing audio only. I edit the audio version of my podcast in Fairite. It's an app for the iPad. I highly recommend it because I actually edit fast with Apple Pencil and the iPad.

[00:22:01] And there's some effects in there that you can use like Apple's sound isolation effect, which is kind of like an AI tool. You could consider it to remove background noise, echo and all that kind of stuff. It is an incredible effect.

[00:22:15] It first came to Final Cut on the desktop, and now you can even use it in Fairite on iPad. And if you enable that on the iPad, it does take a while to export your project because it's doing a lot of processing in the background.

[00:22:26] And previously, I was editing on an iPad Mini. And I'll say if I ever had to use that because someone was in a noisy environment, it took a long time for that thing to process and export. And on the M4 iPad Pro, it is super fast.

[00:22:38] And so even while it might be overkill for a lot of tasks, every once in a while, I'm glad I have it to speed up that process. You know, there was a point where I mean, I have a MacBook Pro, you know,

[00:22:47] and I'm thinking about upgrading because I used to have the M1 when the M1 came out. It's still great. It is great. It does a job. It's great. It's fantastic. I was thinking about maybe going to the M3 version, but then I'm like,

[00:22:58] well, there's an M4 out there now. Maybe it's going to come on the on to the MacBook someday. I don't know. But then it's like you always want to get future proof yourself when you buy any kind of tech, really.

[00:23:08] You don't be getting new stuff every year or whatever. So I figured the M1 would be good for a little while. I think it's still good today. What do you think of the M1 still today and today? Like, would be a good buy? Absolutely. I mean, it's amazing.

[00:23:21] You can get by a refurb M1 MacBook Air, you know, for six, seven hundred bucks maybe. That's an amazing computer. I mean, I was editing 4K video that I'm doing like on my YouTube channel today

[00:23:34] on my M1 MacBook Pro when I had it, and it was a seamless experience. And so I think for a lot of people, unless you're doing super like 3D, 4D animation, whatever, like it is more than enough, plenty capable.

[00:23:47] If you have the money, spend it on RAM and or storage. Yeah, I didn't do that. I went with the 8 gig because the guy at the store told me it's an M1. Eight gigs in M1 is like 30 on Intel or whatever. So I said, OK, it's still good.

[00:24:01] It's still good. Like an 8 gig on Apple Silicon is great. But that's one of the things you just can't replace or upgrade. Right. I know that until after the fact. I was like, upgrade this thing and like, oh, you can't do that. I can't do that.

[00:24:14] I will get at least 16. And if you can swing for 512 or a terabyte SSD, that's 16 gigs of RAM. One terabyte SSD is kind of like I tell people like, shoot for that. And you'll have a computer that lasts you a long time.

[00:24:27] But also it does the swap memory, which I don't think Intel or Windows stuff even does. So how does that work when it swaps the RAM? You have to have enough. You have to fast enough SSD to do memory swap.

[00:24:40] And I'm not familiar with how it works on Windows. But basically, if you have so many applications running, that your RAM is just totally pegged where you've gone through. You've used it all like applications are using it. It will actually start using SSD space as RAM,

[00:24:56] basically to keep applications active. But the SSD is much slower than RAM than that unified memory. Right. So you will see a performance drop. But the fact that it can swap means even if you only have 8 gigs of RAM, you're you'll be fine.

[00:25:11] Like you might notice a little bit of slowdown if you have a million Chrome tabs or whatever. Right. I saw this video on YouTube where this guy, I think a couple of them, but this guy took like a Macbook Air M1 8 gig

[00:25:26] and he was just like throwing everything at it at the same time, opening every tab, every application he had. He was doing photo editing. He's doing 4K video stuff. And it was like it was still running. It was still running. And I'm like, well, they can handle that.

[00:25:39] I mean, I mean, you can handle my little audio podcast and maybe a couple of videos. So that's basically what I use it for, really, anyways. So speaking of podcasting and video stuff, how important is it for a podcaster, of any podcaster, to get onto YouTube?

[00:25:55] You know, I think it's really key in today's world, especially for discoverability. Like we said, you know, you can share audiograms, which is basically, you know, maybe it's animated captions with a little waveform, but no pictures of the hosts. You can share that as short form video,

[00:26:12] but it's going to get way less engagement and then views long term. And so I would suggest even if you don't want to publish the full length video podcast just yet, turn on the camera just so you can share that short form video,

[00:26:26] those vertical videos as YouTube shorts, Instagram reels or TikToks. But honestly, how I will say easy it is to add video now, obviously Riverside, we're doing it right now. Makes it super easy. Use your phone either in continuity camera or the mobile cam feature with Riverside.

[00:26:44] This is a very high quality camera, and I've done a lot of webcam comparisons on the Riverside channel. They're nowhere near as good as the iPhone. I'll just say that like your iPhone camera is the best option you have until you're ready to upgrade to like a mirrorless.

[00:26:58] So just use your mobile phone camera. It's going to look great if you can afford a, you know, a cheap light little LED thing like this. That's all you need. If you can't even do the light, fine. Just turn on your phone camera to record yourself

[00:27:10] so you can do that short form video for discoverability. Now, when you say the camera, the iPhone, I talk about the the main camera or the front camera? Honestly, the front camera is still better than most webcams. That was yes, because honestly, webcams struggle in low light.

[00:27:27] They struggle with color balancing. And a lot of times I have found in the ones I've tested, they struggle sometimes with focus. Like that's a deal breaker if you're out of focus. And I've tested the expensive webcams, too. I'm talking like three three hundred and fifty dollar

[00:27:40] four K webcams that are, you know, advertised as DSLR quality. I don't find that to be true. They can be they can look good in the right environment. But personally, I would take the front facing camera on my iPhone before a lot of those webcams.

[00:27:54] Well, I also noticed on my MacBook Pro, like the actual camera on that thing, even though it's like a 720 camera, I think it still picks up a lot of light. Like when I have my other webcam, I'm using an Elgato face cam right now.

[00:28:06] But I had a different webcam and it was like super, super dark. I had to like lights and all kinds of stuff. Even with all that, it still is kind of dark and grainy. So I'd have to like really enhance it.

[00:28:16] But the I noticed when the webcam on the MacBook was on same lighting, same everything, it was like super bright. It was like, whoa. So I don't know if it's an Apple thing or what. Not saying I mean, I like Apple stuff. I mean, you like Apple stuff.

[00:28:28] So I mean, that's what it is. I don't know. Their computational videography or photography, basically the behind the scenes work that they're doing to process that image, is just really good. And I find better than with the webcams. I will say your camera looks great, though.

[00:28:42] Like the Elgato face cam is a good option. And so, you know, that looks good. I will say if you put your iPhone back camera in continuity mode, I think it would look pretty similar to that, if not maybe slightly better. But yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:53] Some people don't want to have their iPhone tied up, which I also understand. Yeah, because I'm getting messages on my phone right now. I got like I'm looking at my on my desktop. I'm on my, you know, MacBook thing and I'm looking at, you know,

[00:29:03] the messages button. It's got four messages on here right now. So, I mean, how does that work when you're trying to record with all these messages coming through? Is it cut into it? What happens? It won't cut the video, but typically I'll turn on a focus mode,

[00:29:14] like do not disturb when I record and that cuts down on all of it. Unless, you know, you can choose who can contact you in a focus mode. Unless it's like my wife, that's pretty much it. She's not going to text me unless it's an emergency.

[00:29:26] So, you know, I usually do put on a do not disturb focus mode. That's kind of the thing when I think about like using your phone to do the whole thing is that like I'll get a message or get some some interruptions while I'm trying to do it.

[00:29:38] It just like ruins the whole mood and ruins the whole thing. So you got to do a focus mode. And, you know, that's something where I have my phone on camera a lot. If I'm doing a shortcuts video or like a iPhone features video

[00:29:50] and I don't want notifications coming in. And so I actually have a shortcut on my phone, which will turn on do not disturb, but also turn off auto brightness and screen lock. This way the screen will stay on until I've manually turn it off

[00:30:05] and it turns off auto brightness because that'll mess with the camera. You know, I have my camera set a particular way. Right. So I don't have to worry about lighting changes or the screen getting too bright. So, yeah, I automate all that. That's great, man. Tips and tricks.

[00:30:18] Steven, your channel is full of tips and tricks. I love it. And one thing I noticed about your channel is that what makes your channel so great? I mean, obviously you get great information and great stuff is that you're also doing multiple, like,

[00:30:28] camera angles and multiple different shots and things like that. I think that's probably what probably sets a lot of like the amateur videos from the better videos is the multiple camera angles and shots and things of that sort.

[00:30:40] Is it wise if you're trying to get be do something on YouTube to try to put in those different angles in? For sure. And, you know, that's one of the retention strategies is, you know, you might call it mode switching or whatever.

[00:30:53] But it's basically changing what is on screen especially at the very beginning of your video, just to grab attention. And so, you know, every few seconds showing a different angle. It doesn't have to be a camera angle. You know, a lot of times I'll just do screen recordings

[00:31:06] and a lot of the Riverside channel videos, you'll see, you know, I show a screen recording of a feature, the Riverside editor or whatever. Doesn't have to be a camera. Just record your screen while you're presenting the video.

[00:31:17] And then, you know, use your iPhone as another camera if you want. Use your iPad. You can record as, you know, multiple angles, just the devices you have around. And then what I use in Final Cut is a multi-cam clip.

[00:31:29] So I basically sync all those angles that I recorded across my cameras or devices. They're all in sync because it syncs via audio and they're all recording audio. And then when I'm editing, I can just click an angle very easily,

[00:31:42] very quickly and adjust it to one of those other shots. And so it becomes very quick to edit that kind of content because I recorded it all at the same time. Like I basically, you know, have it all ready. I just have to switch between them.

[00:31:54] That makes it very simple figuring that stuff out. That's one thing for me with the whole video stuff is like, it takes a lot of work, man. I know Riverside helps make things easier, but we start adding like all these different angles and different things

[00:32:04] and different cuts and a lot of different stuff. Then it's like, man, that's like a lot of work. And that's more for me. It's like I don't got time to be messing with all that stuff. So I just stick with audio.

[00:32:15] That's why like if you look at a primary technology is my tech podcast, we recorded in Riverside, but I record it with the intention to do very minimal editing. And so I want us to be visually engaging.

[00:32:27] Well, what can I do as we record to make it so? And so what I basically have is a Safari tab group with links to all the articles or videos that we're going to discuss during the podcast. And while we're talking about it,

[00:32:40] I am using the Riverside feature to share my screen and I'm showing the article on screen or showing the video on screen. And then I'll take that off. Talk about the next topic. Share my screen again. New article, new video.

[00:32:51] And so by doing that while we record and it takes some ability to multitask, then in the Riverside editor, it puts it all together automatically. If I shared my screen, it'll focus on that. Then me and my co-host go picture in picture.

[00:33:03] And then once I stop screen sharing, we become big side by side. And I basically don't edit my podcast. I don't have to edit. We record in such a way where it doesn't take editing. Like I don't have to cut stuff out.

[00:33:14] I don't have to granularly go through it, which planning is a big part of that. Chemistry with a co-host. But then I could just go into Riverside, set the in and out point, export it, and I'm done.

[00:33:24] And I record our video podcast and publish the long form on YouTube, publish the audio, create thumbnails and images all within about less than two hours after we're done recording. That's a good time, especially with video too. Especially with video. And again, Riverside makes that possible.

[00:33:43] Using Ferret on my iPad is fast for the audio side. So you can do it if you just do some pre-planning, work on that record with editing or not editing in mind. And you can do it. That's great. That's good advice.

[00:33:55] That's great stuff. I know, like I said, I mean, this whole video stuff sounds like a nightmare coming into it from an audio only side, trying to figure out the camera lighting and what's going to be in the shot and how to figure

[00:34:07] all the different recording stuff and transitions and edit what software to use to edit. And if you're on a MacBook like I am, how good is you just using the iMovie to do basic video stuff? I mean, I've used it, but. Yeah, iMovie is fine.

[00:34:20] But again, I think the Riverside editor, like as you will find editing this episode, it might have everything you need. You know, you can lay it out, you can edit it right there. And something you don't get in iMovie or Final Cut

[00:34:32] is you can search the transcript of this recording. So if you want to cut something out, just search for a word, select the text and press delete like it's a word document and you've edited your content. I saw that. That's like the script.

[00:34:44] It's exactly like the script does it, right? Exactly. I'll say it's even better. But also, of course, of course, you can do image overlays. So if you want to upload an image or even search for royalty free images,

[00:34:54] we have that in the Riverside way and you can overlay that in the video. Text overlays, if you want to do URLs, lower thirds, bring attention to a product, you can do text overlays in the Riverside editor. You can do it all just right in there.

[00:35:08] Now is that is that part of the premium package or is it all like anybody gets that stuff? You can do the image overlays, text overlays, editing like by transcript all free. Like you'll get that today or whenever you edit this. As you upgrade, there are additional features

[00:35:23] like the magic audio to make anybody's mic sound Chris Studio quality, you know, uses AI. Does it happen? Does it do it live or is it like do after the fact? After the fact. OK. And you can generate that either in the editor

[00:35:37] or you can even create a magic audio version of someone's audio and then download a WAV file raw with the magic audio applied and then edit it somewhere else if you prefer. Look at all those fancy tools. I think Riverside's got like everything.

[00:35:50] Do you guys do watch my truck too? I mean, what else do you guys do? We do AI generated show notes so you can actually get title, description, tags, time stamps, no way for you automatically using AI. So basically, OK, you described everything so far,

[00:36:05] except do you guys do any kind of media hosting, like audio hosting at all? We're not a host just yet. And so we actually partner with Spotify. And so if you want to host your podcast for free with Spotify for podcasters,

[00:36:17] we do have a direct integration there where when you're done editing, it'll send it right over to Spotify. You don't even have to download the finished file. So you can do that. But we're not we're not a host yet. So what is the pricing plan breakdown?

[00:36:30] What do you get with each tier level? Oh, you make me pull up a pull up page. You know that you're Mr. Riverside, I thought you're on top of your head. You know, Mr. Riverside, there's always a lot of changes, a lot of features.

[00:36:40] So, you know, when you get the free plan, you can you get two hours of the multitracks where you can download separate tracks. Just two hours of that. And then afterwards, you just have to edit everything in the Riverside editor.

[00:36:53] You do get the magic clips even on the free plan, which is a great feature again for discoverability. And you get 720p video quality on the free plan. If you upgrade to the standard, which is 15 a month or you save some annually,

[00:37:06] then you get five hours of recording every month for separate tracks. You get 4K video to export it. No Riverside watermark on the video. And you can do the screen sharing like I was talking about as you record

[00:37:18] to do that, you can also live stream the social media on the standard. Oh, nice. And then the pro plan, which is what I still personally pay for Riverside, even though I work for them, I pay every month for my own Riverside account. You get 15 hours of recording.

[00:37:33] That's where you get the magic audio. That's when you get the AI generated show notes is on that pro plan. You get features like those virtual backgrounds, teleprompter built into the studio and a bunch of other features too. So that's the difference.

[00:37:46] Well, what's the price on the big guy? The pro plan is twenty four dollars a month. That's really not bad. It's not bad at all because a lot of services are about 20 or 30 bucks. Well, and if you think about it, you know, you might pay for a service

[00:37:58] that gives you those magic clips. You might pay for Chai GPT plus or whatever to get AI generate show notes from your transcription. You'll get it all all in Riverside. So and honestly, like again, just for my personal video podcast,

[00:38:11] the video version, I do it all in Riverside front to back. And then I upload it to YouTube that I never download those video files or edit them outside of Riverside. Now, can you pull in clips from the outside into your recording session live?

[00:38:24] Like, say, for example, if I say, hey, check this video out of so-and-so falling off a skateboard, I pulled it in right now. We can watch it like together. Yeah. So you have a tool called the media board. And there you can upload video or audio files

[00:38:36] and you can play those live during the recording. And the best part is after the fact, if you use the Riverside editor, the Riverside will automatically like put whatever video you shared large and make all the guests picture in picture

[00:38:49] and then go back once the video is done. And you get separate tracks if you're on the standard or pro plan for all those files. So if you did a bunch of media board shares, a bunch of screen shares,

[00:39:00] you still get the raw video and audio files for the people. And then every screen share or media board file, you get separate tracks and we'll pad it with blank space, basically. So every track is the same length.

[00:39:13] So if you want to bring those into the I movie final cut, whatever, you can just drop them all in. They'll all be exactly the same length, but will just show like the media board when you had it

[00:39:22] or the, you know, screen share when you did it and all that. That sounds amazing. So to run all this stuff on a person's computer, what would be your minimum requirements to do this? Well, the best part is it just runs in the browser.

[00:39:35] Now there is some like video processing, but honestly, I mean, your M1 is more than plenty. If you have a Mac from the last 10 years, I think you're good. Any PC where you can like stream video, like watch a live stream from something, you'll probably be fine.

[00:39:52] Bandwidth wise, we try to do like 15 to 10 to 15 megabits. It's kind of like the minimum, especially because you're doing video back and forth. To upload or download both? I would say both. You know, try 10 to 15 both. But there are features where if you have really slow bandwidth,

[00:40:08] you can pause uploads, which you'll notice as we're recording, there's a little button at the top where it says 99% uploaded. Right. That means our video and audio has actually been uploading while we're recording. And so even if my power shut off and like you totally lost me,

[00:40:22] you have 99% of the video and audio we've already done. But you can turn that off and wait for uploads till we're done with the call. And that'll save a little bit on that bandwidth in real time. So you can have a more smooth conversation.

[00:40:34] There's also a low data mode toggle, which you can turn on, which will turn off the video for the live call, but will still record the video to your computer. So it saves on the bandwidth. But when you log in and access your recordings,

[00:40:48] you'll still have a video file for each person. So we won't see each other live, but we'll be able to get the videos in the end. So what if you're wearing like a costume? I would never even know or just talking. So when it's all done.

[00:41:00] Until you pull down that recording. Or talking to somebody with like a voice changer app or something. It's totally different. You hear each other. I mean, you have to hear each other. So you hear each other during the call. Right. Right. How fascinating.

[00:41:13] Yeah. I mean, so far so good. I mean, with anything, you know, I just want to make sure it just works, you know, in that way. When it's all done, everything is where it's supposed to be. And the files look great, sound great.

[00:41:25] And I can do my thing with it, you know, and all that great stuff. I think it's fantastic so far so good. And I love the whole little media section. Just discovered this right before we got on the call today. I'm like, what's this little button do?

[00:41:37] Because I was trying to figure out how to get the sound in my headphones. I was trying to figure out what are the sound settings were. I push it like all these clips. I push play on a clip like it's not playing. What's up with that?

[00:41:47] So I went to my computer sound settings and I was able to switch it on to the Rodecaster to be able to hear the sound source. But I think it's fantastic. You can put your own clips right in there. That's one thing when I use clean feed,

[00:41:59] one thing that attracted me to clean feed in the first place was that I could put in all kinds of sound clips and stuff in there live and play them live. But I also noticed not only was it audio, was also video too, like you were saying.

[00:42:10] Well, you can put a video clip in there, like maybe a really cool like show intro that you created. And then it plays the intro, if it's video and audio at the same time, right? So it's not just video. Yeah, I don't do both.

[00:42:22] And you can also add that in the Riverside editor. So you can upload video and audio clips in the editor as intros, outros or even right in the middle. So if you didn't do it live during recording, you can add them later too. What about fading like music?

[00:42:36] I like to have a nice good fade out at the beginning of a podcast. You know, you come in, it's a nice transition. Can you do that too or no? Ask me in like two weeks. Why is it coming? That's all I have liberty to say.

[00:42:50] Just ask me again in a little bit. I know, I know that. Well, the thing about a lot of these podcasts you'll hear, they'll like, you know, have this cool music playing and then it'll like cut like a train wreck

[00:42:59] and then all of a sudden a pause and then, hey, welcome to So-and-So Show. Like you could have easily faded that out. It'll be such a smooth transition. But people don't do that. And I think it's because I think a lot of people use maybe

[00:43:10] even Riverside or you use something like the script or whatever. And I don't think they have that option available. So they just don't do it. They just do the whole music cut and then here we are. Which I think is a little jarring for the listener,

[00:43:20] but that's just my personal take. I'd rather have it. I mean, I also come from like a radio background where things were like DJs talked over songs and talk ups, you know, that kind of stuff. So it made sense to have music playing while you're talking

[00:43:34] and you can fade it out or whatever. I think it's a nice send off. So, but Stephen, this has been so fantastic having you on the show today. And I really appreciate you spending your time with me and going over great things about Riverside.

[00:43:46] And being that you are an Apple guide, I got to ask you the biggest elephant in the room is that what is it like having the Apple Vision Pro? I mean, you know, it's funny. I actually have it right in front of me,

[00:43:57] which is not the case usually. You know, it was there's some cool experiences. I actually just reviewed Marvel has a new app. It's a what if immersive experience. It's pretty cool. I personally struggled to find a use case for it day to day. What?

[00:44:14] You know, I have three kids, wife. If we're going to watch something, I'm not going to do it in Vision Pro. We're going to watch it all together. When I'm working, I do not prefer having my Mac mirrored in Apple Vision Pro.

[00:44:28] I really prefer my studio display looks great right here. And it's better fidelity, higher resolution. And I don't have a thing on my head to have to deal with. So, you know, every once in a while,

[00:44:40] I want to watch a movie and have the screen feel like it's 100 feet wide. It's cool for that, but it is kind of it's cumbersome. You know, I got to make sure it's charged up because I don't use it all the time.

[00:44:51] You know, you have to deal with this battery and stuff. So it is very cool. And there's some very cool immersive experiences. I look forward to seeing what Apple is going to announce at DubDub just in a couple of weeks

[00:45:01] if there's new features changes coming to Vision OS. So it's pretty cool. It's fun like to have other friends and family try it. And there's some experiences that really blow them away. And I haven't found my daily use case just yet. Not yet.

[00:45:15] Well, do you think that if they bring it down to a thousand dollar price point, it would just sell like hotcakes? I don't know about hotcakes, maybe like lukewarm cakes. But you know, I think they definitely need a cheaper version. This is obviously like,

[00:45:32] they call it Apple Vision Pro for a reason. They're likely will have an Apple Vision Air or maybe just Apple Vision. Take the screen off the front, take away some of the glass, maybe put some plastic on there so it's lighter. Maybe take away some of the features,

[00:45:45] get it to a thousand dollars and it will definitely become a larger mass market product. But I still think there needs to be software or use cases that make it worthwhile because even having a lighter, cheaper vision, whatever, you still have to put it on your head.

[00:46:01] You have to wear it on your face and you have that like social awkwardness but also just the cumbersome part of having another device to manage. So there just needs to be compelling use cases in addition to having a cheaper model, I think,

[00:46:12] for it to have long-term success. I have an amazing use case for the Apple Vision Pro that I was trying to tell my wife because she absolutely loves to travel around the world. Like you're everywhere in all that stuff, not so much for me.

[00:46:24] I mean, it's like a 10 and a half hour plane ride to London from here. And I'm thinking like if there was a really good augmented reality VR version that only available to Apple Vision Pro to where you could not tell the difference

[00:46:37] between you were standing right there in London, blocker in the streets of London and not have to physically go there. I'm like, I mean, that's almost the price of a plane ticket. So, you know, that's kind of what's going on. And people who can't travel

[00:46:49] maybe for health reasons, medical reasons, elderly, whatever, I think there is a case to be made like this could offer experiences where otherwise would be impossible and to make it really feel like you're there. But Apple has not produced a lot of the kind

[00:47:04] of immersive content that makes you feel that way. They have a couple of videos like this woman doing a high line, which is like a tight rope basically in Norway. And that video is incredible. It's one of the best experiences you can have in Apple Vision Pro.

[00:47:17] You do feel like you're there, but there's only a few episodes of that and they're only about seven minutes long. So we just need more of that content. Like you're saying an app where you could experience like the top tourist attractions in London, Paris, Rome would be amazing.

[00:47:32] Yeah, you can like look around, like you scroll your head around and you look around like you're physically there. Live sports, if it's possible, I think this is a few years away, but live immersive sports where you can pay an amount

[00:47:47] and literally have that court side seat perspective, which you know, you think about it, there can only be two seats at half court on the court. You know, there's only two people that can have that perspective right now. But if you make that an immersive experience,

[00:48:02] now you can have millions of people pay for that experience, but also from the comfort of their own home. And so I think that's the kind of use cases that it's gonna draw a whole new audience. I mean, my father-in-law is a huge sports fan.

[00:48:15] You know, he'll switch between five different basketball games all night. And if he could just wear this and feel like he's court side, I think that might be compelling too. But with the audio is spatial audio and they figure out a way to make it sound

[00:48:27] like you hear a bicycle going by and whatever, and then the double decker bus goes by and that kind of thing and all that stuff. And I know there are some things like that with the YouTube VR on the Oculus that I've played with.

[00:48:39] Now, how does that compare to the Oculus? Is it, I mean, I'm sure it's like, well, yours is better, I'm guessing, but... Well, I've had limited experience. I tried a Quest 2 a couple of years ago. And you know, you can feel some immersive environment like games and stuff.

[00:48:54] I played like the Star Wars game where I was like, you know, force grabbing stuff. Like that's cool, but the fidelity of the screens on the Apple Vision Pro, I think is what makes the difference where if you want that, I feel like I'm there moment.

[00:49:07] That's something I think unique to the Apple Vision Pro or even the Quest, I think the MetaQuest 3, I've heard some people talk about. It's good to good experience, but you're not gonna have that shift of like, I feel like I'm there. And so that's what I want.

[00:49:19] Apple could take advantage of that. What if there was like travel boutique shops where they've got all they have is Apple Vision Pros, but like with all the cool, like all the travel apps loaded up and say, what do I want to travel to Europe today?

[00:49:33] It's like 50 bucks or whatever. And you rent it for like the half hour or whatever. And you're there in Europe or whatever, you know. Well, and you know, it's funny. I think of movies like Minority Reports. I think Total Recall had this

[00:49:45] where you basically go and have a VR experience, but a VR experience that's so real it feels like you're doing it. And yeah, 100%, like maybe that could be a use case, but there has to be that kind of content available.

[00:49:57] And we're just several years from, I think having that. Well, they are pretty good with those 360 cameras they've got. Have you ever used those 360 cameras? I have not. And you know, it's not 360. It's interesting. Apple's immersive video is like a 180 experience.

[00:50:12] So if you look all the way to your side, you'll eventually get to just black. Nice, yeah. The immersive video actually stops. And you can actually see these cameras now. There's been pictures at the Slam Dunk contest, where Apple captured some video from that.

[00:50:26] And you can see it's like a stereoscopic camera. So there's two lenses capturing basically what your eyes would be seeing. So they can split it and do the 3D effect. So it's actually like more 180 than 360. Yeah, they're fun toys,

[00:50:38] but I think after a while of just using it, especially if it's not a lot of use case form every day, then it just becomes another thing you throw on your desk and you're like, eh, maybe I'll use it, man, I won't, I don't know.

[00:50:49] It needs more content for sure. Definitely. Sun's got the Oculus and they were all into it the first like two weeks. But then after a while, I don't think he even uses it anymore. So. That's the thing. There has to be compelling use case

[00:51:01] to kind of charge it, put this thing on your face, and then wear it for hours. We'll see. Right, right. Well, Steven, this has been so fantastic having you on the show, man. I really appreciate you stopping by and telling us all the great wonderful things

[00:51:13] in your tech world and with Riverside and all that great stuff. Where can everybody find out all about you and your channel, all your stuff, man? For sure. Well, first go to riverside.fm and you can definitely check it out there

[00:51:24] and then go to youtube.com slash riversidefm. I have a bunch of videos on there about Riverside, podcasting, just tips to get started and gear recommendations so you could do that. And if you want to find me personally, beard.fm is my website.

[00:51:37] Nice because it got the beard. I mean, it makes sense, right? I mean, I can't grow a beard. I wanted a really short URL that was easy to remember and that one has been pretty provocative when I say it. So beard.fm and people rarely forget it.

[00:51:50] Nice, nice. Well thank you so much for stopping by today, man. I appreciate this. Absolutely. It's been a pleasure. That was incredible. What an amazing conversation. Learning all the cool things about Riverside, what it can do, all the great stuff you can do as a content creator, podcaster.

[00:52:07] Hey, if you are serious about using video for your podcast, maybe you need video for your marketing or for all kinds of different elements to add to your show, then give Riverside a try. Hey, if you want to watch the video version of this podcast interview today,

[00:52:25] it is live right now on my YouTube channel. Link to it down in the show notes below. If you found some incredible value today of the things we talked about, about Riverside, about podcasting, about all the cool Apple tech that's available right now,

[00:52:40] please give me a subscribe or follow wherever you are listening to the show right now. And that way I know to keep making these things for you so you can make an amazing podcast of your very own. And I will see you on the very next one.

[00:52:55] And until then, happy podcasting.