New show: NewsReal with Joe & Niall
- Thread starter Joe
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Show's back this week - we're live in a few mins!
Israel May Have Won The War, But Has it Lost Global Public Opinion?
Israel May Have Won The War, But Has it Lost Global Public Opinion?
I don't know whether other people sometimes have sound issues, but Joe seems to go mute from time to time and I am wondering whether it is just on my end? I watch lots of videos, but I never have issues with sound. Today when he was wrapping up the situation in Gaza I couldn't hear a thing!
It isn't the first time, either...
Thank you for all your commentary today and for keeping your sense of humour, despite the horror of it all. Very helpful!
It isn't the first time, either...Thank you for all your commentary today and for keeping your sense of humour, despite the horror of it all. Very helpful!
I don't know whether other people sometimes have sound issues, but Joe seems to go mute from time to time and I am wondering whether it is just on my end? I watch lots of videos, but I never have issues with sound. Today when he was wrapping up the situation in Gaza I couldn't hear a thing!
Thank you for all your commentary today and for keeping your sense of humour, despite the horror of it all. Very helpful!
No, it’s not just your end.
I know way less than I should about sound engineering, but I suspect it’s got something to do with the strength of the audio signal and that if Joe isn’t speaking loudly enough or maintaining a close enough proximity to the mic, then either some built in software in the mic or desk, or the audio software in the computer is applying what’s called a ‘gate’. The idea behind a gate being that when one isn’t talking, the mic stops sending a signal so that it doesn’t pick up background noise while another audio source is transmitting it’s signal, and thereby produces an over all better audio experience.
But I could be totally wrong about that. It’s just that the audio tends to come back on at full volume when Joe starts a new sentence or stream of thought, so it’s like the mic goes, “Oh, there’s a signal again. I’d better open the gate.”
My 2 cents.
My experience and observation is that Joe's mic seemingly randomly, though there has to be a reason, will over the course of a few seconds gradually reduce its volume to the point of being barely audible and then kicks back in to regular volume. I've noticed it with Naill too, though it isn't as frequent.
I'm usually listening while driving, so I don't know how far away either of them are from their mics when it happens. Just know that it happens, it's annoying, and has been going on for a while.
Would the application of a gate explain the gradual sound reduction I've noticed when Joe is speaking, or are they more of an immediate noise reducer thing? In other words, is it like a light switch that's either on or off, or is it like a dimmer switch that can reduce the brightness a bulb produces as well as turn a light on or off?
I'm usually listening while driving, so I don't know how far away either of them are from their mics when it happens. Just know that it happens, it's annoying, and has been going on for a while.
Would the application of a gate explain the gradual sound reduction I've noticed when Joe is speaking, or are they more of an immediate noise reducer thing? In other words, is it like a light switch that's either on or off, or is it like a dimmer switch that can reduce the brightness a bulb produces as well as turn a light on or off?
Funny thing is Lot of people complained to me about the same at work( remote). when I feel that I am talking calm and relax, I get more complaints like that. My hypothesis is it is related to all sorts of dynamic adjustments goes on the sound system (hardwire, drivers software dynamic adjustments). Now days, every vendor claims AI for every thing. It is hard to know which one is contributing what.
some software seems to be exasperate these things. Currently we use Microsoft Teams, not much complaints. Before we used others like MS Skype, I heard too many complaints about the voice. Webex tend to be in between.
Sorry, I don’t know. I’m basically just repeating things I’ve heard sound engineers talk about
It could also be a connection issue with YT, does it happen in all the other platforms? restroom or FB or anywhere else they transmit?
I would start there to see if it's a software or a hardware issue, or a platform issue.
Either/or.. A dedicated noise gate (could be a piece of hardware or software) can generally have its envelope configured so you can make it suddenly cut on and off, or gradually fade in and out, when noise goes above/below a certain threshold.. A built-in gate in other software e.g. zoom, skype, podcast recording software(?) probably has those settings hard-wired though... No idea if SOTT crew's mixer has a gate in it or what... I haven't noticed this problem with the fading out Joe, myself..
~
While we're on NewsReal tech issues, I STILL have problems with the podcast via the RSS feed in my weirdo podcast setup. (I listen to audio only, on an mp3 player, having downloaded the podcasts in the program 'gPodder' on PC - a while back I mentioned that for some reason every NewsReal episode - when downloaded with gPodder - always claims to date from 1st of January, 1970... I'm looking in the RSS XML file and see the episodes ARE dated so, no clue why that happens.. all other podcasts I get are dated correctly.. anyway no biggie!)
Anyway I have another issue now: Instead of gPodder I am now using a commandline podcast fetcher on linux, called 'castget'.. works great, but it refuses to download NewsReal, giving a bunch of errors. Other podcasts work no worries..
The RSS feed I have plugged into it is the one listed on the SOTT main page:
And the errors it gives:
Apologies for nerdery :) I dunno anything about XML though.. any ideas anyone?
I don't think that has anything to do with the SOTT RSS feed. RSS feeds don't have META or HEAD tags. So, I'm not sure what it's doing.
And it's not trying to scrape a URL on SOTT from a link in the feed because none of our pages include "*hallenges.css" as a stylesheet.
It could be CloudFlare, not knowing User-Agent header of castget utility, serving some static webpage instead of XML file. @brandon is there any way to inject an User-Agent HTTP header into castget?I don't think that has anything to do with the SOTT RSS feed. RSS feeds don't have META or HEAD tags. So, I'm not sure what it's doing.
And it's not trying to scrape a URL on SOTT from a link in the feed because none of our pages include "*hallenges.css" as a stylesheet.
Edit:
It seems that there's no way to pass custom UA...
Allow custom user agent · Issue #31 · mlj/castget
I have one specific feed ( https://www.codingblocks.net/podcast-feed.xml ) which does some user agent filtering in the backend which will redirect all user agents from automated tools (e.g. curl) t...
github.com
That's pretty much it. The last time I FINALLY managed to track down an audio issue, it was because we're using Xsplit + an add-on. The add-on modifies the audio sent out to the stream, but does not modify the audio meters that it shows me or the sound we hear... So everything looks and sounds good on our end, but is too low on the outgoing end.
There are now so many different software layers that it's not as simple as just "click a button" or "adjust a slider" and you're done. There are 200 steps between 'sound waves hit mic' and 'audio is sent out to stream'. It's a bit like playing Where's Waldo when there's a problem.
On top of that, both Niall and Joe speak more softly sometimes. It's hard to know how much to boost them becuz again, what gets sent to the stream doesn't always match what I hear or what I'm seeing on my software/hardware meters.
I did the same in my latest video, for which I use a pro hardware audio recorder with a good tie mic connected directly to it. Can't go wrong, right? Wrong! For some reason, when I did a 2nd or 3rd take on certain lines, I was suddenly speaking very softly, without even realizing it! I was also wearing a noisy shirt (tie mic scratchy noises). So I had to boost the audio on several parts of the vid. I almost never do that becuz I try to be aware that even turning or tilting my head will make the audio louder/softer. There's a reason the 'talking heads' on TV hardly ever move. Well, they also have an entire crew to make the audio/video pretty, and that's not just because of communism!
OH! I forgot about CF. Yeah, that's probably it.
The 'security' level on CF for RSS feeds is already pretty low, so castget is probably doing something that looks way too weird.
It's probably the same issue as here:
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