That’s right, it’s contest time! I’ll be sending out a press release about this tomorrow, but I’m posting about it on my blog tonight. But first, some background.

Tonight’s show was a success. Through the wonderful help of the folks at Rogue Amoeba, I was able to discover that the problems I had with Audio Hijack Pro were due to a new feature called MegaMix that had been introduced in one of the two last updates. This feature, which is unfortunately on by default, pulls all audio streams. So, when Skype was up and running, it was pulling the audio from the computer (the guest’s voice) and the iMic (my voice via the mic/mixer). But I already had my voice pulled separately (to facilitate bypassing my voice when I wanted to talk to the guest without anyone hearing it live). Bingo, automatic looping of audio, and my voice echoed. I just now need to remember to unclick MegaMix (or see if I can make the single audio stream default) each time I open up AHP.

But that is why I was unable to broadcast on July 24th. And now this leads me to my contest. Long-time listeners will know that I joke about trademarking the term “technical difficulties” because my show has been fraught with them. Well, I’m going to make a bet that I’m not going to. Further, I’m going to see which one of you will come the closest to guessing the number of actual “technical difficulties” that I end up having between now and my first broadcast in December, 2006.

For the record, “technical difficulties” are any technical problem that results in a delay of five minutes or longer in my ability to broadcast a show properly. You may join the contest by emailing me at omaha@macradio.com and betting how many times you believe I will have technical difficulties between now and December 11th. Just type “technical difficulties contest” in the subject line.

The prize package starts with a copy of Call of Duty 2 and an iGame Radio t-shirt. With each show that remains free of technical difficulties, I will add another prize to the package…all in all 9 items could be in the prize package.

So, to sum up: The Technical Difficulties contest starts with a prize package consisting of Call of Duty 2 and an iGame Radio t-shirt. Guess correctly how many technical difficulties I will have between now and December 11th and win the prize package (if we have more than one winner, the prize package will go to a randomly chosen winner from the group).

I’ve been using Audio Hijack Pro for many months now, with some success. Or at least, I thought so. Yet still, I was having technical difficulties to the extent that I felt I should go ahead and file a trademark for the term. Up until recently, I was pretty convinced that the technical difficulties were due to my laziness at not doing consistent broadcast tests before shows and writing up consistent broadcast policies for myself. But I’ve changed my mind now.

About three weeks ago, I had to bag my July 24th broadcast. For some reason, I just couldn’t broadcast my voice out to the world. I was able to get music out through iTunes, but not my voice. My normal set up is that I have Audio Hijack Pro hijack my voice and any voices coming through Skype (i.e. interviews) and then transfer that audio through the use of Soundflower to Quicktime Broadcaster, then out to the world through my server in Texas. Music is the same way…AHP hijacks the audio from iTunes, out to Quicktime Broadcaster via Soundflower and out to your ears.

July 24th frustrated me because I had just several days ago made sure that everything was updated, and AHP and Skype were the only ones that needed updating. And after all that updating, I got nothing for audio.

A few days later, Rogue Amoeba, which develops AHP, released another update, and suddenly my audio worked again. Which certainly meant that some kind of interaction between AHP and Skype was the problem, and Rogue Amoeba had released a solution.

Yesterday, I did an interview with the guys who won the most recent iDevGames 21-Days contest (Carlosvision). Everything seemed to go well…I performed an audio test before hand to make sure that everything sounded fine. The one thing I didn’t do was actually listen to the recorded audio that I tested after I tested it…after all, I figured that since I had asked AHP to let me monitor the audio I was going to hear what was being recorded. Big mistake.

I just listened to it today, and my voice (and just my voice) has this dumb echo effect. And I can’t remove it. I’ve got a solution…since the interview is so short (about 8 minutes or less) I can just listen to the original interview and record my voice asking the questions again in the manner I asked them, then replace my echoey voice with the new recording.

But I shouldn’t have to do that. For some reason, the way I have had AHP set up in the past no longer works, and I’m not sure how to change things so that they will again. I’m not sure that I want to try. I’m thinking I want to try out GarageBand instead and see how that goes. Anyone have opinions about how GarageBand works for them for recording podcasts? Will it work for live broadcasts?

About a month ago my podcast production client wanted me to move forward with converting his podcasts into enhanced podcasts with chapters. I figured that I’d split the cost since learning how to do so would also teach me for the iGame Radio show as well. I downloaded Chapter Tool and did a little review of it, but today I put my head down and actually worked on it. Ouch.

First off, Chapter Tool is in beta. Secondly, it’s a command line tool…no spiffy “click from the dock and you’re a go” app. Not that I’m a newcomer to using Terminal, but still. Third, though the instructions are fairly good, they are scattered over several documents and websites, and assumed in at least one case the lack of mention of something meant a negative about it. Uh, right.

So, I’ve spent about 12 hours or so trying to get this thing right and finally, after some time of trial and error, succeeded. I now have a fully enhanced podcast, complete with pretty pictures, links, and chaptering. It even works on my iPod mini…well, without the pretty pictures and links, but with the chaptering.

I’m going to write up a step-by-step process for writing an enhanced podcast and post it here, probably tomorrow. But right now I’m busy watching Luke Skywalker get his butt kicked. Is there something wrong with me that my favorite of the first three is The Empire Strikes back?