I've been watching your podcast for a while now, and I've observed the quality deteriorate. Somewhere around 57 or 58 you decided to change the format so the screen looked squished (typically happens when you try to make widescreen into fullscreen without preserving the ratio by adding black bars to the top and bottom.) Now, with episode 63, the video won't even play. For some reason, the format is not mp4 but m4v. I usually download your podcasts onto my phone and view them that way (using realplayer), but I can't even watch it on my computer. As much as I love your podcast, I'm not going to infect my computer with a foul apple-induced-virus (aka itunes or quicktime, which somehow manage to run in the background even after you've uninstalled them). I'd have more fun playing my storm deck against someone who has an orim's chant imprinted on an isochron scepter.

Might I suggest avi format for future podcasts? If not, whatever you were doing before was working, so please return to the old format.

-- Adena

Adena, thanks for the feedback!

I really appreciate your thoughts. Let me address these by breaking the issues up:

1) This week's episode was a punt. Our rendering machine died Sunday and I recorded a filler episode on my way to work using a Flip camera. I've got the other episode on the render machine, but the main hard drive is dead. We've got a new harddrive arriving tomorrow and we should be back in progress soon after and with another regular episode on Monday. So this week's is m4v because that is what the camera gave me and I was trying to get something up.

2) The deteriorating quality is due to the fact Darren our video guy no longer has the time to help me with (read: handle) editing, and so I've taken on that responsibility as well. I'm trying to do what he did, but he simply is better at it. So I'm learning as fast as I can.

3) I had not noticed the squished ratio due to the way I watch them. I will definitely try to remedy it for the next episode.

4) I will see about putting out avi files. Darren was who got us going with wmv and mp4, so I will see about incorporating avi into the releases as well.

I hope this answers and addresses your issues and thank you for caring enough to email!

-- Trick