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The Vivecast - my new podcast dedicated to the HTC Vive

687 views 18 replies 2 participants last post by  Anthony1 
#1 · (Edited)
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#2 ·
Episode 2 came out awhile back, but I was locked out of this website for a number of days so I couldn't post about it.... :(


But now I'm back, so if nobody knew about it, here is a link to episode 2 of the Vivecast. I think it's much better than the first episode.

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-2-6-20-16
 
#3 ·
Episode 3 is now up:

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-3-6-28-16




Topics covered in this episode:

1. Reactions from the Fallout 4 VR demo
2. Is Doom VR going to actually be a thing ?
3. Lack of big e3 news for the HTC Vive ?
4. Star Trek Bridge Crew coming to VR
5. Topic of the show "VR Haters - Why the hate"
6. Deep dive discussion about Budget Cuts demo
7. discussion about Unseen Diplomacy


I had a problem with the recording on this episode where I was forced to record in two different sessions. The second session, at the beginning for some reason I'm kind of whispering into the mic. It's only weird for about 5 minutes and then gets a bit better, it's just I'm a bit more subdued. (people in the next room during the recording and I must have just automatically went into whisper mode even though I wasn't really aware of it at the time). Still, I think it gets a lot better about 10 minutes into that, so just try to power thru that part and you'll be all good.
 
#4 ·
Episode 4 is now up:

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-4-7-5-16


Here is the stuff covered on episode 4:


1. Oculus gives up on it's Cat & Mouse game with revive
2. Summer Steam sale somewhat disappointing for Vive owners
3. Battledome Battledome Battledome
4. Topic of the show: Everything that's wrong with the HTC Vive and VR in general

So, the topic of the show is basically the Top 10 or so things that really bother me about the HTC Vive and vr in general. During the first 3 episodes of the show I've heaped nothing but praise on the HTC Vive and VR in general, but now it's time to get really negative, and take a hard look at the dark side of VR. What are the HTC Vive's biggest problems, and are there any solutions to these problems coming in the near future ?
 
#5 ·
Episode 5 is now up:

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-5-7-12-16


So, on Episode 4, I spent the majority of the show talking about all the various problems with the Vive and VR in general and we ended up running out of time, and I didn't get to any deep dive VR experiences. This week, with episode 5, there won't be any news or a Topic of the Show. Instead we are going wall to wall with nothing but deep dives on various games for the Vive. First we start off with the 3 games included with the Vive. Tilt Brush, Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator. Then we get into two other games available on day 1... Space Pirate Trainer and HoloBall.
 
#6 ·
Episode 6 is up...

Not sure how long I'm going to keep doing this podcast. I might just retire from podcasting altogether. Too much work, for almost zero feedback. I mean sure, it's kinda fun to do it, but it still takes a number of hours to edit and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth all the effort. I've put up 6 different episodes of the Vivecast so far and only have one single VR review on iTunes, with 2 other reviews from pissed off RetroBlast listeners complaining that I'm not doing RetroBlast anymore.
 
#7 ·
I've listened to the first two episodes since I'm trying to absorb as much info as I can about my new Vive purchase.

Podcasting is hard. I had a short run about 5 years ago on one.

Do you get any usage metrics from Apple?

You could reduce workflow and just do it all in one take.
 
#9 ·
In one take I meant just one audio clip that you drop into whatever software you use (I know audacity was popular back in the day), run it to remove noise/hiss, paste in your intro and call it a day. The post production of inserting all of the other sound clips (which means you have to capture them first) I'm assuming eats up a lot of your time.

I'm currently on an assignment in work that has me driving 1 hour to 1:15 hours each way (luckily it's away from my office so it's all expenses) so I get plenty of podcast listening time. Your show is right on the outside of that which makes it longer than most that I listen to.

Here are some thoughts I have that you could consider, if you want to keep this going. I'm not bashing, so I hope you see this as constructive. I think you're doing a better job that I certainly was able to and trust me, unlike most podcast consumers, I know the work that goes into these

1) Shorten them a bit. I imagine you'll find in the future, if not already, that you're stretched for subject matter or topics. Shortening the episodes lets you spread things a little and get more mileage.
2) Go into less detail with the experiences. I think it's good to go into more detail than a general gaming podcast, but probably not as much detail as you get into. Talk more about your feelings of being in the space and less a step-by-step walkthrough (i.e., you turn the corner on your right and then to the left there is button that you hit by pressing the trigger on the the vive controller in your left hand).
3) You could do an episode on Revive (assuming you haven't already), and cover the setup, what it takes to get it running, how well it works, ect. Pros and Cons. I know I'd personally like that information.
4) Maybe an episode on other applications outside of games. Things like virtual desktop
5) Maybe an episode on non-gaming passive experiences (like theBlu, Disney) that are good for maybe children that can't grab the controller or older non-gaming people that would appreciate trying a VR-experience. I've found in my 4-days of ownership that I like watching someone else's reaction to an experience I've already experienced quite a bit.

Either way, I'll keep listening shall you continue to do it.
 
#10 ·
1) Shorten them a bit. I imagine you'll find in the future, if not already, that you're stretched for subject matter or topics. Shortening the episodes lets you spread things a little and get more mileage.
2) Go into less detail with the experiences. I think it's good to go into more detail than a general gaming podcast, but probably not as much detail as you get into. Talk more about your feelings of being in the space and less a step-by-step walkthrough (i.e., you turn the corner on your right and then to the left there is button that you hit by pressing the trigger on the the vive controller in your left hand).
3) You could do an episode on Revive (assuming you haven't already), and cover the setup, what it takes to get it running, how well it works, ect. Pros and Cons. I know I'd personally like that information.
4) Maybe an episode on other applications outside of games. Things like virtual desktop
5) Maybe an episode on non-gaming passive experiences (like theBlu, Disney) that are good for maybe children that can't grab the controller or older non-gaming people that would appreciate trying a VR-experience. I've found in my 4-days of ownership that I like watching someone else's reaction to an experience I've already experienced quite a bit.

Either way, I'll keep listening shall you continue to do it.
1. I'd love for all the podcasts to be right in the 90 minute range. During my job I've listened to tons of podcasts (would go insane otherwise), and I normally prefer a 90 minute to 2 hour podcast. Of course, it has to be something I like, or I wouldn't want it to be that long. I have heard some podcasts that are like 45 minutes, and they seem too brief to me. 1 hour 25 minutes would probably be a perfectly fine length, but I always end up running a bit longer.

2. The thing about "deep-dive experiences" as I like to call them.... if you've had that experience, then it's usually pretty cool to hear somebody else talking about it, and you don't mind the deep dive. However, if you haven't had that experience, I could see how it could drag on. One of my problems is that I'm not going to buy each and every game that comes along. Not even the big ones. I'm pretty selective with my purchases. I don't spend my $$ willy nilly on games. So, it's not like I'm going to have this never ending stream of experiences to talk about, so the ones that I do know pretty intimately, I want to do deep dives on those, because I'm not always going to have the most up to date content. I know most podcasters feel like they simply have to buy all the new games and experience them so they have something to talk about on their shows. If I go to shallow on everything, I'll eventually run out of stuff to talk about. Most of the games I'm doing deep dives on right now are kinda older releases. From the launch or not too long after. Still, I have plenty of stuff to talk about and won't run out of stuff soon, but I don't mind the deep dives.

3. Most likely in Episode 8 I will get to talking about some Revive stuff. In Episode 6, I talk about a list of my top 20 VR experiences that I've had, and there are a number of Revive things on there, and I will definitely get back to that real soon.

4. I might talk about Dolphin VR soon. I'm screwing around with it right now, but don't have the settings all dialed in exactly the way I would want. I don't have Virtual Desktop, but I have used Whirligig a wee bit.

5. I think I talked about The Blu for a little bit in Episode 2. Basically most of my shows will start off with some general VR news, then I'll usually have a topic of the show, and then I might go into deep dives on a few games or experiences that I've had. That's pretty much the formula. Sometimes I won't have news, or sometimes I won't have deep dives, or sometimes I won't have a topic of the show. It all depends. Once you hear all 6 of the currently available episodes you might have a better idea to the style of the show, but I'm somewhat limited in the fact that I really can only talk about the stuff that I've personally experienced, and I'm not going to be buying all kinds of stuff just to have something to talk about. I know most podcasters feel that pressure to do that, but I'm not going down that road. I will buy games here and there, and I will try a bunch of free demos and stuff. But that's about it. I'm not going to buy games on Steam to play them for an hour and half and then return them. Some people do that, and I think that's pretty ****ed up for the devs of those games. I've yet to return a single Steam game, but I'm very selective with my purchases.
 
#11 ·
I forgot to post about episode 8....

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-7-7-26-16


Shorter episode this week (had a mini summer vacation)


News Stories:

1. Raw Data - I didn't buy the game myself, but still comment on it for a wee bit
2. Nvidia's VR Fun House - tried it out on my lower spec PC and it seemed to work just fine for the most part
3. Trials on Tatooine - Talk about this one for awhile...
4. Talos Principle photogrammetry for Destinations - way more impressive than it should be for a relatively passive experience
5. Hedge Maze for Destinations - basically an interactive game made with photogrammetry, pretty cool
6. Google working on dedicated headset that blurs the lines between VR and AR... say what ?
7. What about Magic Leap... is Google going to compete with themselves (in a way...)
8. Sony's reversal on VR games required to work with the Dualshock 4 & PS4 Neo coming same day as PS VR ?
9. HTC Vive actually causing a bit of a stir in Japan ?
10. Oculus Touch not coming till at least October...

Topic of the Week

A. My fear of heights in VR.... no more?

B. To Upgrade... or not to Upgrade.... That is the question....
 
#12 ·
Took one week off for a summer vacation, but The Vivecast is back with Episode 9:

https://soundcloud.com/vivecast/the-vivecast-episode-9-8-16-16


Tons of news stories this week. Had two full weeks worth of news to catch up on. I start off with the more current news, and then touch a few news stories from the week prior:

1. Tracking Sensors opened up for 3rd party usage
2. PS4 Neo to be revealed on September 7th ? (was a rumor at the time of the recording)
3. New Fallout 4 VR demo at Quakecon
4. Doom VR continues to be a thing
5. Netflix's 360 video for Stranger Things
6. Intels Depth Sensing camera (this probably sounds really dumb, everything I was talking about before all the news broke today about their all in one headset)
7. Everest VR comes out, and reviews are pretty harsh
8. Tilt Brush goes 420
9. Jason Rubin brags about future Oculus lineup
10. Island 359 trailer hits
11. Weekend VR sale
12. Thoughts on full version of Brookhaven
13. Quick thoughts on Pong Waves VR
14. Cyberpong VR deep dive
15. Irrational Exuberance deep dive
16. Dreamdeck (via Revive) deep dive
 
#14 ·
I'm not sure that I would say The Vivecast is completely dead, but it's definitely on life support right now.

The basic gist of it is that I can't rationalize spending as much time on the podcast as I was spending on it. If I had felt like the podcast had some legit momentum, and was building a halfway decent audience, then I probably would have stuck with it and kept banging out shows with regularity. My hope was that the podcast could develop a decent audience via word of mouth. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

So, now I'm thinking about maybe doing a live show on YouTube (with a couple other Vive owners). The thinking behind that, is that because it's a live show, there is no editing. So, we just show up at a certain time, we do our live show, and we walk away from it, and whatever happens on the show happens and we just live with it (good and bad). No editing. I'm not positive that this is going to happen, but it's one way that The Vivecast could keep going.

But other than that, I don't really have any plans.
 
#15 ·
If you're a former Vivecast listener, you might want to check this out:





Me and Gary are going to try doing a live VR discussion show. This first video is just a test video that we did. We never planned to go public with this. I wasn't even using my normal mic. However, after doing the test and checking it out, it wasn't as horrible as we thought, so figured we'd go ahead and upload this test video. It's pretty rough, and it doesn't have an intro and outro and all that, but it's halfway decent.

For future shows I will have my good mic, and we will actually have a show outline and whatnot...
 
#16 ·
If you can grab the raw audio, you can keep the podcast stream alive.

To keep it free, I believe you can use Google Drive for the hosting, using the file links to update the RSS feed in iTunes or whatever service you use. I need to be able to listen in my commute (presumably a large portion of a potential audience as well) and with any PSVR talk you might have an influx of listeners.

edit, I can offer to help on the admin of the audio feed if it's a time issue. I believe you can also just rip the audio from Youtube.
 
#17 ·
Our first "real" episode of VR Roundtable is now available on Gary's YouTube channel:




In this episode we discuss:

1. My HTC Vive support nightmare.
2. The elusive 3 in 1 slim cable
3. Onward for HTC Vive
4. Gnomes & Goblins Preview for HTC Vive
5. Alien Isolation VR Rumors
6. Gary's experience at EGX (PSVR related)
7. Is there one specific PSVR game that really excites us ?



Scubesteve3625: We are working on an audio only podcast feed for this. Gary has put up the first real episode on Soundcloud, you can find it here: https://soundcloud.com/vrroundtable

I'm not sure yet if that is a permanent home for the audio only feed or a temporary home.
 
#18 ·
Our first "real" episode of VR Roundtable is now available on Gary's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM3d6g9CS6Q


In this episode we discuss:

1. My HTC Vive support nightmare.
2. The elusive 3 in 1 slim cable
3. Onward for HTC Vive
4. Gnomes & Goblins Preview for HTC Vive
5. Alien Isolation VR Rumors
6. Gary's experience at EGX (PSVR related)
7. Is there one specific PSVR game that really excites us ?



Scubesteve3625: We are working on an audio only podcast feed for this. Gary has put up the first real episode on Soundcloud, you can find it here: https://soundcloud.com/vrroundtable

I'm not sure yet if that is a permanent home for the audio only feed or a temporary home.
Cool, glad you're keeping it alive for now. I'm still in my VR honeymoon (but it's waned some) so I very much like being able to keep the content flowing through my commutes. I'm picking up a PSVR (have a reservation) so if you want a guest on the show that is a Vive owner with immediate PSVR impressions let me know!
 
#19 ·
New episode is up:









Me and Gary talk about:


Ritchie's Plank Experience
Island 359
Space Pirate Trainer (update)
Dirt Rally
Vertigo (new demo)
Vanishing Realms (update)
VR game pricing (should prices be held in check ?)
Pixvana's 360 video tech


We are still working on a dedicated home for the audio only podcast feed, but don't have anything worked out quite yet.
 
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