Zencastr Issues & Alternatives

[Matt Houghton]

Hi All. I'm working with some podcasters who use Zencastr to capture their conversations. 2-3 participants. Usually, on a technical level, it works out just fine — it provides me with a separate PCM WAV files of each participant. But recently we've been experiencing various dropouts and other artefacts. (I know the mic to be good, and no noise reduction etc on in the operating system).

Has anyone else experienced these issues with Zencastr? And if so have you had more positive experiences with other services such as Riverside FM (or whatever)?

I've used some more sophisticated online collaboration tools, but it's important that this service is lay-friendly. They need to be able to just log in, check their level, and hit record. And it needs a video link too (not to be recorded, just for communication), and to record WAVs locally (not just capture the streamed sound).

Thanks in advance for any insights/recommendations!