Whoa… retro! Yes we’d almsot completely forgot about our First SFFaudio Challenge.
When I first thought up the idea I didn’t think it’d generate much interest – it was just an idea – maybe somebody would do one or two. Boy, was I wrong! Wonderfully wrong!
Six audiobooks from the first challenge were completed within a year of the announcement. And since we’ve long since run out of prizes I figured we’d run out of challengers too, especially considering we’ve got the All New 2nd Annual SFFaudio Challenge to consider. But, I’m pleased to say I was wrong.
Scott D. Farquhar from Prometheus Radio Theatre (and Star Surgeon fame) has written in to claim The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell. This is one of the titles from in our first SFFaudio Challenge!
Scott released Star Surgeon through both LibriVox.org and Podiobooks.com. This time, Scott thinks he’s going to release The Black Star Passes through Podiobooks.com alone. Which I think is absolutely terrific. Podiobooks.com’s system will allow people who appreciate Scott’s narration to drop a dime or three in his virtual hat, as it were. 3/4’ths of every dime will end up in Scott’s hands, which means that he might be inclined to make even more audiobooks for us! Woot!
Look for the first few chapters of The Black Star Passes to show up on Podiobooks.com in the near future.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Shrug. They want you to use that ugly mp3 format that makes the weird whistling noise in the middle of your track, and then they want you to have the pictures attached to the file. Probably they want you to eat fried liver of your own free will, too.
Considering I’m having a hard enough time convincing my own system not to mark all my mp3s “read-only” (and there seems to be no way to stop it from calling them “blues”), I think this is a bit too technically difficult for most of us.
Maureen,
“Weird whistling”? Sounds like a someone who used too much noise reduction and a very low bit/sample rate when they kicked out the .mp3 file. I can tell you that the .mp3 format doesn’t natively add whistles at any point in a track.
And by “Pictures attached to the file”, I assume you mean the ability to include a single image (not images) inside of the data so that it displays on certain MP3 players. Yes, you’ll find that all of the files on Podiobooks.com have the artwork — usually of the cover of the book — attached. Is there an issue with doing that, either from the listener or the creator point of view?
“Fried liver”. Gross. Even my grandmother wouldn’t make anyone eat that, although she swears by it.
Regarding the “blues”: that’s a setting inside of the MP3 file as well. We ask for all of our authors to tag ours as “podcast”, since that’s how they’re made available.
All things considered, I think you’ve listened to an MP3 that someone shoddily threw together. That’s unfortunate. Try a few more. I think you’ll be a bit happier with the results.
Oh, and I’m not at all sure what you mean by “read-only”. I come from the IT world, where read-only would in this case be appropriate, but I think you may be attaching a different meaning.
Evo Terra
Podiobooks.com
Hi, Maureen. I see Evo has already responded, and other than having Star Surgeon hosted with them, I’m not really affiliated with Podiobooks. From your comment, though, it sounds to me like you are somebody who attempted to submit something to them but weren’t able to get it quite to the technical specifications? Admittedly, it does take some effort to make sure the files are all correct and consistent, however that’s pretty much a necessity prior to the guys at podiobooks doing all they need to do afterward to get it set up on their site. If what I’ve said is true, I can only suggest that you read up on audio files and formats and use this as a functional way to learn more about something that you obviously have a deep enough interest in to comment about…!
Cheers,
–Scott