This year’s MacWorld keynote has brought several interesting product releases, including the long rumoured iPhone and the rebranding of the iTV as the Apple TV. My colleague Peter at GizBuzz has posted a more in depth roundup of Steve Jobs’ speech.

For YouMakeMedia readers, this isn’t terribly relevant news (though it is certainly exciting). DV Guru has promised to post a bit about how this all is relevant and I’m sure we’ll all be nodding in agreement when they do. For now though, I’m taking the opinion that sure, it’s all cool, but the major impact is on the consumer end. It won’t change how we deliver our media - except perhaps to encourage further delivery in HD thanks to the Apple TV. The iPhone has no greatly enhanced media features, in essence we still will treat it like an iPod.

I’m very excited about the new products, but from a media creator aspect, there isn’t a lot of excitement. I’m expecting more toward NAB (Final Cut Pro 6 with Silicon Color’s FinalTouch enhancements!).

I’d argue that the biggest impact is what wasn’t announced. Apple made the change from Apple Computers, inc. to Apple, inc. (they announced that, but really, who called them Apple Computers?) - this implies to me that they certainly aren’t done. The iPhone could have easily been branded as a pocket computer and they would have been able to maintain an Apple Computers name. What other consumer products should we expect? They haven’t crossed into games yet…

They also had a huge stock boost. Stockholders are obviously content with Apple’s decision to expand outside their original area of expertise and are willing to put forth what they can to help the business expand. This will be an interesting year.

In our last installment, we covered how to record audio easily, using a cheap microphone and a copy of the free program Audacity. Now we get to have some fun and hack it up into something that is usable.

Editing

Editing is a relatively laborious process (but don’t let it scare you). You’ll have to go through your audio, bit by bit, and remove each section of audio that is irrelevant or unnecessary. It’s slow, but worth it - I’ve chopped off as many as fifteen minutes doing this.

In PodDev (an Oratos podcast), we often jump off topic or simply pause while we speak. While fine in conversational speech, podcasts are different because we want them to be relatively fast-paced and easy to follow. As such, we edit this audio out. I use Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio for this (it’s an interface I’m more familiar with) but Audacity is free and therefore this tutorial is geared for it.

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Everyone has a podcast. There are podcasts about movies, computers, fashion, art, and everything you can dream of. They’re a way that you can communicate with your users in a more personal way - through voice rather than text.

We’re going to help you create your first [solo] podcast in this new three part series. We’ll show you the software to download, the hardware to buy, and the accessories to make. It’s easy, I promise. Here at Oratos Media, we do a few podcasts ourselves using these methods. Pretty soon, you’ll be on your way to “podcast pleasure” as well.

Be warned though - this is a technical guide. I can’t give you an idea or write your script. I can show you tools that help, but ultimately, you need to imagine up an idea.

Get the details after the jump.

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Adobe have released a beta of their Soundbooth application.

Soundbooth is best described as being comparable to the open-source favorite Audacity. It’s simple and to the point (they say “in the spirit of Sound Edit 16 and Cool Edit 2000″) - not too much in the way of in depth control. It’s designed for a more video-oriented audience though, rather than the audio professionals who are likely to jump to Audition or an even more dedicated environment such as DigiDesign’s Pro Tools.

I won’t stick too much commentary here, it’s already been blogged to death by the likes of DownloadSquad, DVGuru, etc.

You can find Soundbooth at Adobe Labs.

Tom Jeffries, CEO of Divvycast posted a comment with an update on Divvycast and I thought I’d re-post that here:

[T]he inital response to Divvycast has been so strong that we have been able to open up a free hosting level that will allow bands approximately 1000 downloads of a 5 minute clip featuring music, tour dates, and interviews. We’re very excited about this new addition.

Tom Jeffries
CEO, Divvycast

This is a great improvement, since as I mentioned in my initial review I was rather upset about the cost of the service. Hopefully this will help them gain some users who can “move through the ranks” to the top subscription levels.

In a press release today, Sony and Google announced a partnership that will put Sony’s videos on Google. Notably, Google Video is referenced by name only once in the press release - is this intentional (hinting toward GooTube) or do they feel that use of Google Video is implied? /end rumour

Also interesting is this bit:

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT and Google will also work together to create a groundbreaking new service that will allow music fans to access user-created music video content featuring certain material from SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT’s library of recorded music, while at the same time respecting the rights of artists and copyright holders.

They’ll be monetizing via AdSense (it’s referenced earlier in the press release). It’s great to see that user-generated content is being taken more seriously however I’m curious as to where this leaves YouTube now that Google has gotten to Sony first. Obviously if Google buys YouTube out, they’re in the clear, but if not that’ll leave the community at YouTube hanging.

Edit: TechCrunch notes that a similar deal with YouTube was announced today, and that the WSJ and NYTimes are reporting that an acquisition could be announced as early as today.

YouTube also announced deals with CBS and Vivendi Universal. As I noted in a previous post, CBS used to be buddies with Google Video (they sold content, notably Survivor, on the service) so this is shaping up to be a very interesting weekend for internet video.

Wikipedia offers a very extensive collection of free classical music. I’ve utilized their music before for my short “The Bet” (in the sidebar - and the music was selections from Anton Vivaldi’s Four Seasons) but I wasn’t aware they had this much!

I love classical music, though I don’t listen to it enough (a little on our local classical station, some BBC Radio 3, but not much else). I’ve currently downloaded the first part of Handel’s Messiah, and I’m on my way to grab more. Just a note - all the music is in the OGG Vorbis format. OGG is playable in VLC, Foobar2000, Winamp, and Audacity.

This is a fantastic resource for anyone - those who need some background music for a podcast, film, or those who simply want to expand their collection. Definite bookmark!

Via Lifehacker

Most of the time when making a movie, people worry about creating a soundtrack that matches well with the film. Sometimes though, when doing a video montage or making a music video, you’ll need to do the reverse and match video to audio.

This is easier than it sounds - and if you’re a user of Sony Vegas it’s even easier (Vegas started its life as an audio editor, and has always had a fantastic set of audio features). Sony has posted a tutorial that is directed at Vegas users, however it’s chock full of knowledge that can be used by anyone who needs to match video to audio.

Interested in a sample (and a shameless plug, hehe)? Check out this project I did several years ago. Like Russell at DV Guru mentions, the impact is much more dramatic when you have the video and the music working together as they do.

Via DV Guru