Do you have a preference between Zencastr and Squadcast?
As I’ve been recording the company podcast for #public:listen, I’ve been having some difficulties with Zencastr, and was thinking of changing over to Squadcast as it seems to be in use by more of the podcasters I know.
0 voters
Very limited experience with Squadcast - worked fine but not as refined an interface as Riverside.fm, which I’ve been using for a few months now without issue.
…I’ve added a poll — why didn’t I think of that originally?
I’ve only used Zencaster which was my choice only because of the multi-guest option. I am not sure I will continue or may only activate when I am in interview mode rather than editing. I have not used the others except as a guest.
I use Squadcast. I find it easy to use. I appreciate the opportunity to schedule recording sessions in advance. The last time I looked into Riverside, this was not an option. I have not yet used Zencastr as either a host or a guest.
Enjoying Riverside.fm and have no issues with it at all.
I love SquadCast for the quality of sound, the customer service/support & pricing.
Used it for all my in-depth interviews
Just started recording my 60 Seconds there & can hear a real differnce.
I’ve used all three, but Zencastr was first and had some issues they’ve since fixed. Liked Squadcast but prefer the interface and guest experience of Riverside.
I also like knowing that if I specify “audio only” on Riverside and internet connections get dicey during the call, Riverside will sacrifice video quality to preserve audio quality. The other two may do that as well, I just don’t know (Zencastr didn’t have video when I was a customer).
I used Squadcast today and had an epic fail 
It recorded my guest’s audio and video perfectly (super high quality) it also captured my audio but no video. I was using it to make a video for work! So I ended up having to deliver a video of my colleague and only had my voice - poor thing, she’s camera shy at the best of time to this was embarrasing.
I contacted Squadcast support and they said
"I took a look at the info we have about the session and it looks like there was a lot of packet loss going on for the participant with the name “Danny (He/Him)”. Packet loss started about 5 minutes into the session.
The best way to be proactive is to always make sure everyone restarts their computer before joining the session. That will help to ensure the best connection, most up to date permissions, and to end any lingering processes that may be a hindrance to getting or staying connected. It may also help to restart the router."
“Although recordings are done locally in the browser the data is progressively uploaded to SquadCast during the session in small chunks of data. If packet loss is happening then all of the chunks of data won’t arrive properly. That looks like what happened in this case. The Internet connection being used is very important to the process.”
In my opinion this is an epic fail, the whole point is that it should record locally and upload reliably. My machine was running a download of about 200mbps and upload 50mbps but I accept the connectivity was a little flaky but still, it should be able to handle it, especially given that it was my video so didn’t actually have to travel anywhere
I’ve cancelled my trail as I can’t afford to have such uncertainty.
Ouch!! …but thank you for sharing the experience. 
…47 episodes in, I just had Zencastr fail utterly. My guest saw my video frozen, and heard no audio from me. Everything appeared fine on my end — Zencastr showed no errors. Her video and audio was fine. We had to punt back to Zoom. (Which I don’t like because it records lossly mp3—but it works!)
So…
Anyone want to volunteer to pull me into a guest experience on Riverside or Squadcast? dm me…
Discourse tip: Hit the big REPLY button, then click the topleftmost little square button‚— it’s a menu and you can change the circular arror {meaning reply} into a mail-envelop {meaning direct message}
I’m still using Zencastr. I’m 55+ episodes into the PodComm community show. I’ve had snafus.
But today, Zencastr pulled a rabbit out of the hat for me. This terrific conversation, Reflection - with Joe Wehbe, was actually rather difficult during the call. Low res video and lots of video freezing, and at times we could barely hear each other—not volume, but parts of our audio wasn’t making it through. When we were done, we even had to wait a few minutes for the raw recordings to finish uploading.
But… well, go listen. There’s a little lag, but that’s simply Joe and I being laggy as we waited out the delays in the realtime call… I could have probably snipped out a few milliseconds here and there to make that go away (but this show isn’t edited :))
I suspect others platforms would have also succeeded for this show today. But wanted to circle back to say: Wow!
I have not used any of these and I want to very badly to switch from Zoom. I get so much anxiety changing. The only reason I want to change is…sound quality? is that why none of you still use zoom? Riverside FM seems to be popular and I have heard zero negatives about it. I would love to experience it, like Craig suggested, so please consider me if you need a fake guest. Would anyone of you who know riverside want to be my guest? so I can try it ? I am actually signed up for my one hour free trial.
cool.I was following your directions to see if this works. I would like to try riverside and I see you want to also. Maybe we can try with each other at some point with the trial or maybe we both do with someone who uses it and then practice? or maybe you no longer need to practice lol. i think this post maybe pre historic and I’m just behind
Only have experience with Squadcast but would like to try Riverside. I currently have a stack of hours credited so it makes it feel more difficult to jump ship.
I am on the cheaper package with Squadcast so don’t get video recording as an option, nor the fancy studio audio that everyone seems to be introducing.
I have had few problems with Squadcast. I find myself pointing people to Riverside over Squadcast though I don’t have overwhelming evidence for doing so - I like Riverside’s cheaper price point and the ios app.
hi Linda, I’m curious what made you leave Zoom, as one can interview multiple people on zoom too. Just curious.
@thearena
hi steve,
If you want to practic on riverside, I’d be a happy volunteer as I would like to explore this option as well, at some point. I’m still on zoom @steveh
One mark against Riverside, for me, is their pricing:
For $20/month, on Zencastr I already have unlimited audio recording (I don’t record video for PodComm’s show) and transcriptions. So for the features I’m using, it’s an extra $10 per month.
Riverside seems like it might be a smoother experience, and they have an IOS app… but I still have to deal with “it only works in Chrome.”
(both Zencastr and Riverside have discounts for yearly, of course. But just looking at monthly pricing for simplicity)
