If you're a podcast host like me or you're interested in becoming a podcast host you've probably looked into different options for recording your podcast.
Especially now with remote interview becoming the standard, it's more important than ever to focus on quality to stand out. In this post and the below video I share my favorite solution that i finally landed on after trying every different platform I thought might work including Zoom, Skype, Squadcast, and Zencaster.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Links to Riverside.FM in this article are affiliate links. Any commission earned goes to supporting the Happy You Are Here Podcast.
do you need to record video for your podcast?Only 17% of podcasters record video along with their podcast.
If you are only looking to record audio for your podcast, there are many more options available. However, if you want to record BOTH audio and video, the possibilities become much more limited.
But do you really need video for your podcast? While you don't need video for your podcast, there are some distinct advantages.
In fact, the video versions of my podcast (Happy You Are Here) get more views on Facebook Video than any other single platform. They often have hundreds or even a few thousand viewers, including about 2-5% listening/watching for 20-30 minutes.
BEST SOFTWARE FOR RECORDING REMOTE VIDEO PODCASTS
There's a bunch of softwares out there for audio and they all do a pretty good job for that one thing. But, after a ton of experimentation, I have finally found one that I am incredibly satisfied with.
There is one reason. It records great video. The video version of this post is recorded through Riverside.fm. They do a great job of balancing powerful, high quality video and audio recording while also being easy for your guests to use. They also have some other great features like Live Streaming, listener call-ins, and the capacity for multiple guests. If you are thinking about trying to use Zoom or Skype, those work fine. They're totally acceptable ways to record a podcast. Zoom is probably the easiest and has the lowest barrier to entry for you and your guest. However, the audio on zoom is very hard to make it sound good. Check out this example comparing audio recording on Riverside.FM vs Zoom:
Zoom also is quite lacking in the video front. While you can record passable video from Zoom or Skype, it is often dependent on strong internet connections for both the host and the guest. Even then, the amount of compression happening diminishes quality. This will do just fine when you're just starting out, but eventually you'll want to take video quality more seriously. You might think the best move is to buy a camera to record as your webcam, but a better first step is to record with a better software. You can't rely on your guests to have high quality cameras. It's a bit awkward when there is a huge difference in video quality between you and your guest. Trust me, I've dealt with this directly many times before using Riverside.fm. The below example is from an episode I recorded while screen capturing Squadcast calls. 
Example of video quality disparity while screen capturing Squadcast.
There is also the latency issue. If you've been recording online in 2020 you might have noticed as everybody has been using the internet to record videos and be on video calls there's been a lot more latency and lag in the videos. That's really frustrating as a podcaster trying to hold a conversation and also record something without having to do a ton of editing on the back end to make sure it all lines up. Riverside.fm is recording the podcast on the local computer. So while the podcast is going on, it is recording right on my computer. Both audio and video. The same for the guest. It is recording on their computer and then uploading to the cloud while the interview is going on. I've done about 12 different episodes now with Riverside.fm and this was before the most recent update that it made which made it even better. I only had two issues. ISSUES WITH RIVERSIDE.FM
The first issue I ran into was that you have to use Google Chrome. It's testing and for sure works with Google Chrome. Both you and your guest both have to be using the browser.
Thankfully, Google Chrome is one of the most popular internet browsers available. The reason for this is some of the back end compression going on with Riverside.FM videos. If you've worked with Zoom videos, or even worse a screen capture, the file size of those videos are massive. Riverside.FM is retaining a high quality while compressing the videos to be downloaded. A 30 minute episode comes in somewhere around 300 MB for me generally. Compared to 30 GB or more when screen capturing. Zoom generally comes somewhere in the middle. I only ran into an actual issue once. A guest joined using FireFox. Everything seemed to be working fine, so we went ahead and did the interview. It wasn't until the video was "processing" on the backend that the issue arose. It never stopped processing after a few days. I reached out to Riverside.FM support and they quickly got back to me. That is how I learned about WHY they say you have to use Google Chrome. They were able to share a raw version of the recording, but it ended up only being a few minutes of the full recording. Thanks Firefox... Luckily, that guest was happy to re-record the episode so that we could get a high quality version to share. The second issue was with a guest that had a very slow internet connection. While normally, I would be a stickler for a good connection, she was in rural England and it just wasn't possible. Broadband speeds are a notorious problem in rural areas in most countries. The interview as fine with a bit of lag. The issue came when it was time to upload the vide on her end. Normally, the guest's video is uploaded within seconds after the host stops the recording. For her, however, we spent about 30 minutes talking afterwards and it was still only at 27% uploaded. Thankfully, I had her keep her browser open overnight and it eventually was fully uploaded by morning. Even with the internet connection issue, now we have a high quality, no latency video for both the host and the guest. Try riverside.fm for 1 hour for free
To sum things up, Riverside.fm is the platform that I'm choosing to use now after using a lot of these other ones that are available.
If you sign up with the link on this page, I will get a small percentage of the revenue that will go to supporting the Happy You Are Here Podcast. You'll also get 1 free hour to test out Riverside.FM. Claim Your Free Hour Here. I highly suggest you at least go check it out. Use the free trial record an hour episode. If you don't want to use it for your real podcast, do it with a friend. Maybe spend a half an hour to check out the video quality and features. You will not be disappointed. There's nobody else out there that's doing this. Squadcast was the closest when it came to audio quality, but they don't have video recording at all.
Links to Riverside.FM in this article are affiliate links. Any commission earned goes to supporting the Happy You Are Here Podcast.
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