Adapter and MPEG Streamclip are handy to have in the digital toolbox

“What software can I use for converting and compressing files?”

It’s a question trainers are often asked on broadcast and multimedia courses involving a lot of work with audio and video files.

Adapter and MPEG Streamclip are a good starting point. Both are free and work on either a PC or a Mac.

These tools are particularly useful as video or audio Swiss Army knives – between them they can handle just about any sort of file and convert or compress it to whatever size or format you need.

And both tools let you create a batch list if you have a lot of files to convert or compress at the same time.

Journalists who want to add archived sound material to current affairs stories usually have one big problem: how can they find relevant material in a broadcaster’s archive?

Damaged historical audio tape before restauration

For the keepers of these archives, it’s a challenge to catalog sound material so that it’s easily accessible to journalists. And if the material is on tape or analogue disks, the archive workers also have to find ways to restore and digitize the carriers. Tapes deteriorate easily – especially in tropical climates.

These are key issues that Heidrun Speckmann and Nguyen Pham Hoa Binh (free media consultant in Vietnam) discussed with an international audience at the German Embassy in Hanoi on May 8th, 2012. Heidrun Speckmann has been working as CIM integrated expert and DW Akademie’s Media Archive Developing Consultant at Radio The Voice of Vietnam (VOV) since September 2009.

At the German Embassy, the two archive experts presented their long-term consulting projects aimed at modernizing the sound archives of Asian broadcasters. These projects are financed by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Even high in the Himalayas, reporters these days are being asked to do more.

As part of a modernization drive, Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) has combined their radio and television newsrooms. In the future, reporters will be required to provide news reports in both media. It’s hoped that the convergence will allow the state-funded station to cut costs and do more with limited resources.

It was against this background that two DW-AKADEMIE trainers went to Bhutan’s high-altitude capital Thimphu to conduct a workshop with an enthusiastic group of 12 young BBS journalists. While several already had some radio production experience, many had previously only worked on the TV side of things.

Together, the group started with a review of the basics, such as news judgment and news writing for radio, before moving on to the interview and how to ask that all-important first question that will grab your listeners and keep them from turning the dial.

Sound clips make a story livelier, more interesting and more authentic. But not all voice clips are good and make sense. Before you use a sound clip, you should consider whether it will truly provide users or listeners with new insights.

In practice, some “golden rules” for using voice clips have evolved:

1. Voice clips should be unique.

Sound clips make sense if they contain at least one of the following:

* Strong feelings
* Expressions of opinion
* Humor/wit
* Something about the personality of the interviewee
* Eye witness reports
* Historical sound documents

2. Voice clips are not for conveying facts and background information. These essentials should be part of your text, not part of the voice clip.

When it comes to professional radio journalism and audio production training, it's hard to beat having the opportunity to attend workshops conducted by experts. But if you have access to the net, learning new skills or brushing up on the basics via online tutorials and web resources could be the next best thing.

Whether you're a working journalist, trainer or j-student, here is a selection of resources useful for radio journalism and producing audio materials.