Recording interviews using Skype

http://www.blogarithms.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/23/skype-for-interviews/

The above is a powerpoint with voice that describes in detail how to get good "telephone interview" recordings using Skype. At least in their demonstration, they are getting sound quality that is arguably better than what you get through a telephone hybrid.

There are a lot of factors including turning off all other applications to get this good sound. I'm thinking that if we go to this methodology, then to reduce the amount of staff troubleshooting we might want to dedicate a second computer in Studio B or the interview room specifically for telephone interviews. A fast computer is important, and we'd also want a USB mic.

The demonstration gets more technical as it goes along, and I think that probably printing out the pages to make a manual would be good.

This is likely a good technology for home studio use, but not for someone who is an impatient type at the outset. The powerpoint discusses Mac and Windows options, primarily, although Linux is mentioned.

The instructions for how to do the setup are very specific and detailed, and should be easy to follow, but will obviously take a while to go through the entire process the first time on any computer, and if you use the computer for other things, you probably want a checklist on hand of settings to look at before you do any interview. Among the things they teach you is a trick for getting your router to give you a constant i.p. address, even if your isp randomly assigns your i.p. address from a pool.

I am going to ask whether the CJSF Technical Committee would like to spend the time to try to make this function operational in one or more of the CJSF studios. Maybe we could set it up in the Interview Room as it does not seem to require a mixer.