Speaker 1: If you're planning to record remote interviews for your podcast, in fact, if you're planning to start an interview format podcast and record remote interviews, then one of the prerequisites, one of the most important things that you will need is a good remote recording software. In this video, I will show you how to use one of the softwares that I use and recommend for remote recording, which is Zencastr. And I'll also show you some of the features that Zencastr offers. Hello and welcome to TPU TV. This is Dilip. If you don't know me, then I'm a podcaster, blogger and affiliate marketer and the host of the Podcasting University. The Podcasting University is basically a podcast around podcasting tips and getting started with your own podcast. And this is a channel where I share a lot of practical and implementable tips around starting your own podcast. So if you're new here, then you might want to subscribe to this show and hit the bell notification so that you stay updated whenever I release a new video. I release a new video every Thursday, so don't forget to tune in every Thursday to watch the latest video. So recording remote interviews. Now, recording remote interviews can be extremely tricky considering that there are a lot of variables that come into play when you're recording remote interviews, like, for example, the Internet connection, your computer's speed, your guest's computer's speed. So all of these things can impact the quality of the recording if you don't use the right software. Most people prefer recording remote interviews on Zoom, but that is not a recommended software if you want to use these recordings for your podcast because Zoom is not made for podcasters. But there are a lot of different tools that are made specifically for podcasters. In my next video, I'll be talking about five such tools. So don't forget to tune in the next Thursday. But for today, I'm going to show you a software that I use and recommend and which is free to get started, but has excellent audio quality and in fact, video quality as well. This is Zencastr. So let me quickly take you to my desktop and show you how to use Zencastr for recording remote interviews. Okay, so let me start with showing you how to get started with Zencastr. You can see here, you have to go to zencastr.com. It is Z-E-N-C-A-S-T-R, zencastr.com. And you can see here, this is their homepage. And they talk pretty much everything about their features on this page. So you'll be able to go through some of the features on this page itself. The best part is that Zencastr is an all-in-one tool, which means that it gives you pretty much everything that you will need to get started with your own podcast. You can record your episodes, including interviews, you can go about beautifying your audio by removing all of those filler words like the ums and the ahs and long pauses. Zencastr also helps you beautify your audio in terms of using the compressor, the leveler and all of those. So you can use that post-production tool to make your audio better in terms of the quality. And once that is there, Zencastr now also gives you the option of hosting your episodes for free, which means you can host your podcast for free on Zencastr. So that's a new feature that Zencastr is offering. So pretty much everything is available with Zencastr. So if you want to get started with your podcast, Zencastr is an all-in-one tool which you can use to record, produce, host your episodes and even to monetize using their marketplace. So let me quickly show you how to get started with Zencastr. So when you are on the page, you can click any of these buttons. You can click on let's podcast and it will take you to the pricing page here. So basically this is a pricing page. You can see here there is a free option which gives you pretty much all of the features, the premium features, except that some of these features will have a Zencastr branding on it. The pro version starts at about $20 per month if you're going on a monthly plan and the yearly plan will be at about $18 per month. This is a very powerful plan. If you are seriously into podcasting then I would recommend going with this because this gives you pretty much everything that you will need to get started with your podcast and you don't need any other tool other than this. And all that you need to do is just click on the start now button here. It will take you to the signup page. You just need to enter your first name, last name, a username, the email and a password and click on sign up and then you're done. Your account is created. But since I already have an account with Zencastr, I'll quickly show you how to go about using Zencastr to record remote interviews. So let me quickly log into my account first. So here I am on the login page. I'll go and log into my account here and when I log in I'm taken to this dashboard which talks about some of the latest features which is the unlimited hosting that Zencastr is offering and also the post-production feature that Zencastr is offering. Now using Zencastr to record remote interviews is extremely easy. Something that you might want to keep in mind is that Zencastr only works with some browsers like for example Chrome and Edge. It doesn't work with all of the other browsers. So you might want to keep that in mind that you and your guest both will have to be either on Chrome or on Edge to use Zencastr. Now in order to get started all that you need to do is just go here to this new button click on there are three options that you see here. It's room, episode and show. So what you have to do is you need to go and click on this room button here. So once you click on the room button it will take you to this page where it gives you these three options. It talks about record audio and video including transcriptions, then record audio, show video, transcriptions available which means video will not be recorded and the final one is record audio, no video and transcriptions available which means there will be no video and no video recording as well. So whatever is the option that you choose you can go with it. Now one of the best things here is that you have this option where you know when you're talking to a guest it is always advisable to be on video because when you see each other that conversation becomes much more engaging and much better than a conversation where you're talking to somebody on the other side of the phone and you're not seeing them. So you can always go with this option if your podcast is not recording videos but if it is recording videos you can choose this option. All that you need to do is just give the room a name. For example in my case what I will do is I use it to record an episode. Let me say it is episode number 84 and I mention the name of the guest here. So for example if I am going to interview let me say Pat Flynn. So I enter Pat Flynn here and once that is done all that you need to do is just click on create. Now if you have multiple shows the shows will show up here otherwise if you have only one it will show the only one podcast that you have that is here. So you need to just select that and click on create and it will create a room for you. You can see here that the room has been created. It will take you into the room. Now you're already into the room. This says record video record audio so that is the option that you've selected. Now this is the webcam that I'm using. It's a camo studio which means I'm using my smartphone as a webcam. So that is why this is showing up here but you can see here that this is how the dashboard looks. Now you need to send an invite to your guest so that they can also join this interview. So what you do is you click on invite and you can enter the name of your guest here and an email address. Let me just put a dummy email address here and then you can just click on send invite and the invite will go or else what you can also do is click on the copy invite link. Now it says that the link is copied. Now all that you need to do is just send them an email with this link pasted in there. So when they want to join the interview all that they need to do is just click on that link and they'll be able to join this interview. It's that simple. There is nothing that they need to download. There is nothing that they need to use to log in. All that they need to do is just click on the link and they'll be able to join this room and when you are ready to start your recording all that you need to do is just click on this button which says start recording. I'll just quickly show you. I hit the start recording. It gives you three seconds before it starts and then the recording starts. You can see here here is a waveform. What is recording is basically what I'm talking. So this recording is here. Now this gives you also the option of switching on your audio and your video. You can switch on your video and you can also switch on your microphone. So you can see here when I'm switching off the microphone the wave is not showing. I'll switch it on again and the wave starts. So you can mute your microphone. You can switch off your video and record. It's that simple and if there is any question that you want to ask or if there is something that you want to tell your guest that you have a question or you want to ask all that you need to do is just click on this button here. It'll raise a hand here and it'll say DK speaks has something to say which means I have to say something. So there are some of these features that are pretty handy in Zencastr. They have this live chat here. So if you want to chat with your guest all that you need to do is just enter the message here. Hi Pat how are you and the message goes. So it's that simple and once all of this is done all that you need to do is just click on the stop button and once the button is stopped you can see here the track is uploading. Now all tracks are finished uploading. All that you need to do is just go to this mp3 file. Click this mp3 file and the mp3 file will be available for download and this is the video file. You can click on this and the video file will be available for download. So which means you'll be able to download a video file. You'll be able to download an mp3 file. So both audio and video separately and it is the same for your guest as well. Some of the other things that you might want to keep in mind is that on the dashboard you have the call settings option which basically helps you set up all of the audio input the output. If you want to monitor you can use a headphone you can use select the camera that you want to use if it's the integrated camera or the you know whatever webcam that you want to use you can use that. Here you have the option of selecting if it is a full HD or an HD and you also have an option of using a monitor. Echo cancellation you can if you decide to disable it you can always disable it but I usually keep it enabled. There is also a built-in VoIP option that is available. It is using Zencastr's VoIP but if you want to use Zoom or Skype or something you also have that option but I would recommend that you keep it enabled because you want to use Zencastr's VoIP itself. So these are some other options in terms of the settings here but otherwise it is pretty simple that is all that is there to record the interview. Once the interview is done you can always download the recording and then go about editing it. Now let me quickly show you the dashboard where all of the recordings are available. You can see here I am on the dashboard now and it shows me all of the recordings that I have done till now using Zencastr and the best part is that this also helps me produce from this dashboard itself. So if I go here and I click on this produce button it will take me to the production dashboard where all I need to do is go about editing it. You can see here it says produce and download. Now this shows the credits here. All that you need to do is select the video option if it is going to be 16 is to 9 or 9 is to 16 or if it is going to be a square option and once that is done all that you need to do is just go about producing and publishing this episode. So producing this episode is as simple as that all that you need to do is just go and hit the produce and publish button. Now there are some post production options also that are available here. So if you're doing some post production edits so what you do is you go to this edit button here and you can see here I am on the audio settings it talks about all of these features that are there. Noise reduction is enabled, loudness normalization is enabled, noise gate is enabled, cross gate is disabled. Just keep it disabled. The levelator is enabled. The tracks will be mixed or if you want to select separate you can click on separate. That is all that is there just finalize it. Your post production settings are done. Go and click produce and publish and your episode should be published. So using Zencaster is that simple. You know it's all about creating a link and sending it to your guest and them clicking that link and joining the interview and the best part about Zencaster is even if for some reason your internet drops you are always reconnected. All that you need to do is just stay there online and you're always reconnected and the best part the audio is also uploaded on the user's computer which means on your guest's side as well the recording is uploaded which means if for some reason there is an internet disconnection all that you need to do is just ask your guest to download their side of the audio and send it to you. It is that simple. So Zencaster is pretty simple to use and if you're getting started Zencaster has a free option which has pretty much every feature that they offer in their premium version as well. Go ahead and get started with the free version but I would recommend upgrading to the pro version and if you want to upgrade to a pro version I have a discount coupon which can give you 30% off for your first three months so give it go give it a try. So that is all that is there to Zencaster. So that is Zencaster and you saw how powerful Zencaster is. There are a lot of features that Zencaster offers even on the free plan but the pro plan is so powerful that you won't need anything other than Zencaster if you're planning to get started with your own podcast and if you sign up for the pro plan today you can get 30% off by using my code which is thepodu. You will be able to find that code in the video here and also in the description. Use the code on the pricing page and you'll be able to get 30% off for the first three months of Zencaster pro. Go ahead and upgrade your plan to Zencaster pro and see how powerful Zencaster can be. It offers you free podcast hosting, it offers you some basic editing and cleaning of your audio, excellent audio quality, separate tracks for all of your participants, video and that too excellent video quality as well. So go ahead give it a try and if you have any questions around using Zencaster you can always put them in the comments below and I will respond to all of those comments and if there is anything in specific that you would like to learn about podcasting you can drop them in the comments below and I'll create a video around that. So that is all that I have for this video. I'll be back again the next week like what I said I'll be showing you five powerful remote interview recording tools which can be a game changer in your podcast. So stay tuned and don't forget to subscribe to the channel and also click the bell notification. You'll be able to find the subscribe button here. Go ahead subscribe to the channel today itself and if you like this video do give the video a thumbs up so that I can create more such videos. That is all that I have for this video. I'll be back again the next Thursday with another video around podcasting. Until then keep watching TPU TV.