Podcasting ?? Working from home ??
The CallMe family provides cost-effective solutions.

CallMe diRECt-X
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE ON HOW TO GET GUEST CONTRIBUTORS ONTO YOUR PODCAST WITH PROPER AUDIO QUALITY USING CALLME-DIRECT.

SO – you’ve done all the clever stuff; good idea – check; home studio sorted – check; decent microphones – check; headphones – check; recording – check; editing– check; publisher – check; sponsor – check (fingers-crossed). Your first podcasts are doing really well; lots of followers; not bad for an idea hatched round the kitchen table and indeed recorded there.

BUT now the next stage; why not have some guest contributors; people not around the same kitchen table; but how? CallMe-diRECt to the rescue.

CallMe comes from Broadcast and is used to put Guest Contributors live on-air to the studio with 20kHz audio without them needing to have dedicated hardware or download custom software. With CallMe-diRECt, you – the Host – logs into your CallMe Account and you see details of your previous Guests. You can use of the stored links or add a new Guest – but in any case, you send them a web link which can be as a QR Code. Once your Guest connects to your page on the CallMe-diRECt server, you as the Host you see them arrive and you can select them, connect to them and talk live Browser-to-Browser. The connection is end-to-end encrypted.

The 20kHz audio can stream live into your home studio kit and be recorded but there is always the danger of an internet issue causing glitches. This is where CallMe-diRECt comes into its own. The Host can initiate in-Browser recordings where the Host’s audio is recorded in their Browser and the Guest’s in their browser with nothing stored on any server – ie fully GDPR-Compliant; the CalMe server is simply for addressing and connectivity whilst the audio travels directly between the browsers.

Cleverly, whilst the conversation is being recorded, the Guest’s recording is being transferred to the Host in the background and is shown on the Host’s display. There are two recordings for each session – on with the Host’s audio and the other with the Guest’s. Multiple Recordings can be included in any session with each on showing on the Host’s screen. The Recordings are in a standard format – Lossless FLAC which can be imported to most editing software and is the standard for lossless audio quality.

Guest Contributors; sorted – even when the internet connection is not so hot. 

SO – HOW DO YOU PRE-RECORD INTERVIEWS WITH YOUR OWN GUESTS ? 

CallMe diRECt is the answer – it is a browser-to-browser solution that lets you connect to your guest contributor without the need for them – or you – to have a hardware codec or download special software. You send them a web link to connect to your CallMe-diRECt account and once connected you can stream live between your web browsers as you might expect. But – and here’s the clever bit – you as the Host can initiate a recording of the conversation which takes place within the browsers and is downloaded to the host in the background providing a lossless recording of both sides of the conversation. This can be edited as usual and maybe played-back “live” using CallMe Click-&-Connect as described.

Sign up to CallMe diRECt Here!

NEED MORE THAN ONE GUEST?

CallMe diRECt-X is an enhancement to our well-established CallMe-diRECt Cloud Codec service which is widely-used by Journalists, Podcasters and Voice-Over artists to connect over the internet by linking the Host’s Browser to the Guests’ Browser to stream LIVE 20kHz two-way low-delay audio with the additional capability of the host being able to record the conversation.  The diRECt-X upgrade provides simultaneous conferencing up to 5 separate contributors plus the host (six in total) with each receiving mix-minus / clean-feed return audio.  No Hardware codec is required by either the Host or any of the Guests; everything takes place in the Browser.

An address book is maintained with new Guest Contributors sent a link or QR code that connects them to the Host, who can add them to the session via their browser interface which initiates low-delay 20kHz 2-way Opus audio streaming.  Echo Cancellation can be enabled to avoid the need for Guests to have separate headsets – though this is of course advisable.  The streams are end-to-end encrypted and in-browser recordings, which are downloaded to the Host in the background, can be initiated for later use, thus avoiding that gurgling gargling sound which can occur with poor internet connectivity.

SO – YOU’RE A JOURNALIST AND YOU NEED TO WORK FROM HOME and your studio already has hardware IP Audio Codecs.

CallMe Click-&-Connect lets you connect Live from your browser to the Studio hardware codecs with 20kHz low-delay audio. The CallMe web link has mapped into it, the back-end codec or codecs to which you will connect for “live” broadcast. You can use a desktop, laptop, mobile smartphone or tablet; just connect your microphone and headset and off you go. For live / pre-recorded reporting, CallMe Click-&-Connect has another trick up its sleeve; you can drag pre-recorded audio files onto the browser page and play them out as you choose providing Live introductory links and pre-recorded audio over the same high-quality low-delay link, avoiding the need for complicated playout from the studio.

OR – MAYBE YOU NEED YOUR OWN HARDWARE CODEC BUT CAN’T REALLY JUSTIFY A FULL-PRICE, FULL-BLOWN, FULL-FEATURED UNIT

This is where CallMe-TR comes into its own. Housed in a small desktop enclosure as the CallMe-TR has buttons on the front panel that provide 8x “Quick Dial” addresses so you can easily connect to your normal destinations. As well as balanced stereo line level in-and-out, CallMe-T has USB Audio which means that you can connect a USB Headset or Mixer for a complete home studio integration. And if you want to record a “Zoom Meeting”, CallMe-T can connect directly to the Zoom server to provide the best-quality audio available. CallMe-T is compatible with most IP Audio codecs that support OPUS and G.722 audio encoding and SIP.

Article from Le Lettre Pro: Vortex’s Valuable IP Audio Codecs Solutions for Journalists