Practical
Veteran Member
So, was looking at our setup because we set up everything on my desk and was adding up the costs recently. What started as a goofy little gimmick has spun out of control! We began with just a bargain basement audio setup that had really cool boom arms for the cheap microphones so it was exciting to pull the pics out and put them away, felt very professional. The 'kit' came with a free license to use Ableton Lite recording software which was a hoot because I had no idea how to use it! I'm going to start adding up the costs and let's see where we are at roughly!
Original audio kit with Focusrite audio inputs (this is not a USB board), $299 which was all inclusive.
10 hours or so learning how to actually use the recording software, I make 40 an hour working but we will cut that in half for the time wasted learning at rookie levels: $200
40 hours actually learning how to podcast. I figured you just talked and posted and people will listen to it...nay nay nay! Between scripting, style, editing ( we spend about 10 minutes editing, to say we are not professional would also be an understatement ) starts, stops, tears, arguments, we actually got a podcast out and posted! $800
Podcast hosting - This was actually the cheap part: $26 a month
New website - because folks don't like to go to a thepodocasts.buzzsprout.com, they would prefer a ThePodocasts.com, $180 annually
Then the real costs started kicking in. My 20 year old daughter informed me that Podcast is old people medium and that we need to live-stream on YouTube as we are doing them! Great idea I thought!
What began with a 26 dollar webcam has spun into...
OBS encoder software that took me maybe 5 hours to get configured and setup correctly: $100 for the time
Canon Rebel T7 using the canon beta webcam software because apparently we MUST have a bokeh effect! $499
Samyang 14MM prime lens with 2.8 aperture for the wide screen field of vision: $399
2 LED key lights: $99
1 photo quality fill light: $129
Green screen because our space is limited down in the basement: $24 for material
Mounting rail for green screen because I am not going to hide in a hole with the green screen up! $48
Second Monitor to use as our background which can be programmed in OBS: $240 (It has to be a touch screen dad!)
4K interface card for all of these damn inputs: $299 (it has to be 4K dad!)
New PC to run all this stuff: $1499 (It has to be water cooled dad!)
Logitech C920 webcam for picture in picture and transition scenes: $199 (that one is the best dad!)
There, we are done! Got everything right? Nope!
We need T-shirts for marketing dad! I want to give them to my friends! $370
We need hats dad! I want to give them to my friends! $137
We need can koozies because you are always drinking soda on the live-stream and we need to market! $117
So, after all of this! All of this money! All of this time which I didn't break out all the way because it will make me weep, our last live-stream had 3 viewers...apparently the T-Shirts aren't getting it done! Further, my daughter decided she didn't want to do the podcast anymore because only old people podcast, so I ended up taking it over and made it simply a fire and brimstone conservative podcast! Last episode, downloads, 6. At what point do I decide hell with it, I am going to make compilation videos of guys getting hit in the nuts and get my 100K views...lol.
But know what? I learned a LOT! I don't want to say you cannot put a price tag on that cause as I illustrated above, you damn sure can, but we are as close to professional quality as one can get without being professional. Ended up moving our live-stream to crowdcast ($240 annually) and hosting on our own site because YouTube gave us a community strike and pulled down one of our videos and let's be real here, you aren't going to win a fight against them, so we are just going around em =)
This has been a very brief introduction to the world of live-stream podcasting!
ThePodocasts.com
Original audio kit with Focusrite audio inputs (this is not a USB board), $299 which was all inclusive.
10 hours or so learning how to actually use the recording software, I make 40 an hour working but we will cut that in half for the time wasted learning at rookie levels: $200
40 hours actually learning how to podcast. I figured you just talked and posted and people will listen to it...nay nay nay! Between scripting, style, editing ( we spend about 10 minutes editing, to say we are not professional would also be an understatement ) starts, stops, tears, arguments, we actually got a podcast out and posted! $800
Podcast hosting - This was actually the cheap part: $26 a month
New website - because folks don't like to go to a thepodocasts.buzzsprout.com, they would prefer a ThePodocasts.com, $180 annually
Then the real costs started kicking in. My 20 year old daughter informed me that Podcast is old people medium and that we need to live-stream on YouTube as we are doing them! Great idea I thought!
What began with a 26 dollar webcam has spun into...
OBS encoder software that took me maybe 5 hours to get configured and setup correctly: $100 for the time
Canon Rebel T7 using the canon beta webcam software because apparently we MUST have a bokeh effect! $499
Samyang 14MM prime lens with 2.8 aperture for the wide screen field of vision: $399
2 LED key lights: $99
1 photo quality fill light: $129
Green screen because our space is limited down in the basement: $24 for material
Mounting rail for green screen because I am not going to hide in a hole with the green screen up! $48
Second Monitor to use as our background which can be programmed in OBS: $240 (It has to be a touch screen dad!)
4K interface card for all of these damn inputs: $299 (it has to be 4K dad!)
New PC to run all this stuff: $1499 (It has to be water cooled dad!)
Logitech C920 webcam for picture in picture and transition scenes: $199 (that one is the best dad!)
There, we are done! Got everything right? Nope!
We need T-shirts for marketing dad! I want to give them to my friends! $370
We need hats dad! I want to give them to my friends! $137
We need can koozies because you are always drinking soda on the live-stream and we need to market! $117
So, after all of this! All of this money! All of this time which I didn't break out all the way because it will make me weep, our last live-stream had 3 viewers...apparently the T-Shirts aren't getting it done! Further, my daughter decided she didn't want to do the podcast anymore because only old people podcast, so I ended up taking it over and made it simply a fire and brimstone conservative podcast! Last episode, downloads, 6. At what point do I decide hell with it, I am going to make compilation videos of guys getting hit in the nuts and get my 100K views...lol.
But know what? I learned a LOT! I don't want to say you cannot put a price tag on that cause as I illustrated above, you damn sure can, but we are as close to professional quality as one can get without being professional. Ended up moving our live-stream to crowdcast ($240 annually) and hosting on our own site because YouTube gave us a community strike and pulled down one of our videos and let's be real here, you aren't going to win a fight against them, so we are just going around em =)
This has been a very brief introduction to the world of live-stream podcasting!
ThePodocasts.com