- 6 minutes ago
We talk about Riverside's latest updates, their annoying changes, and Frankie's Red Cow Video toolkit.
Edited by Anthony.
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Edited by Anthony.
🙏 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/redcowentertainment
👕 Merch: https://redcowentertainment.com/store/
✅ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJWaXzdM3BHjg3UYi-hyOPg?sub_confirmation=1
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FunTranscript
00:00Okay, a look behind the curtain.
00:01Some people ask what technology is used to bring you this incredible podcast,
00:07this technological, modern, 2026 podcast.
00:10When we have guests on, often the guests will be like,
00:13so is it just like a Zoom?
00:14And we say we use this thing called Riverside,
00:16or as Jimmy mistook it, Riverdale.
00:18Before you had things like Riverdale.
00:20We use this program called Riverdale.
00:22Yeah.
00:23Talk to Archie.
00:24Yeah.
00:25Yeah.
00:26Archie is not fucking Mr. Weatherby.
00:28That's from Chasing Amy.
00:29Archie is not fucking Mr. Weatherby.
00:31Way back in the day,
00:33sometimes what you would do if you wanted to have a high-quality remote conversation,
00:36in fact, when we used to podcast, you know, 10, 15 years ago,
00:39the idea that you wouldn't do it in the same room,
00:42that you would do it over remote was kind of like really chintzy.
00:44You're like, are you guys going to be able to vibe in any kind of real way?
00:48Is that going to work?
00:49A lot of podcasts, I remember that was a huge thing.
00:51It's like, we got to build the studio.
00:52We have to commute in.
00:54We have to do this thing.
00:55Like, that was a thing, yeah.
00:56Remote podcasts were not a thing.
00:58Joe Rogan seems to have a hard rule about it.
01:00Like, he never does remote, it seems like.
01:02Which kind of makes sense.
01:03Like, that show, it feels to me, is supposed to be very, like,
01:06we're just luxuriating in time and focused entirely on one another.
01:09There's no looking at phones.
01:10It's just like a very one-on-one, like an antidote to being distracted or something,
01:15regardless of how distractible Joe Rogan is as a human being.
01:18Did you see that guy accidentally hit that moose with his car?
01:20No.
01:21Holy shit.
01:22Jamie, pull that video up.
01:23Actually, I saw a podcast studio recently, like a little podcast studio that I visited.
01:27Of course, now a podcast studio is never just audio.
01:29It's always video.
01:30Sometimes we explain that.
01:31I have to explain that to people.
01:33They're like, I'm starting a podcast with my friend.
01:34I'm like, don't make it audio only.
01:36Like, even if it's bad, like, you know, at least with video, you can put it on YouTube,
01:39and YouTube is where some of the eyeballs are.
01:41You know, it's like a little more audience will be there.
01:43But these guys had PTZ cameras.
01:45You can do an incredible thing.
01:46You ever do this at your job?
01:47Like, the PTZ is starting to really, like, advance.
01:50What is the PTZ?
01:52Oh, a pan-tilt-zoom camera.
01:54Oh, yeah, okay.
01:55Yeah, they'll be up.
01:55Yeah, I always thought of them as, like, security cameras.
01:57Like, that's all a PTZ would be any good for.
01:59But now you can hook them up to Blackmagic, whatever they call it.
02:03The thing that we saw at PAX East, where it's, like, churches and live events do it all the time
02:07now.
02:07For $5,000 to $8,000, you can have, like, a professional switcher.
02:11You know, instead of having human camera operators, they have these, like, really expensive, really advanced PTZ cameras.
02:18They can get, like, exactly the shot that you're looking for as long as they're well-placed.
02:21And so this podcast studio I saw had, like, two on one wall, two on the other wall.
02:25And it's, like, kind of, you know, you just have one guy in the room switching.
02:28And, you know, they're small, right?
02:30So it's not like you're setting up big tripods with cameras on them, right?
02:33Way back in the day when you wanted to do a remote podcast, if you wanted to do a remote
02:37podcast,
02:37it would have been, like, okay, we'll do Zoom so that we can talk, or we'll do Skype, actually.
02:42I remember it was Skype for us.
02:43And then you'll do a screen recording, you know, via QuickTime or OBS or something while we do it,
02:49which, of course, like, spikes your CPU and causes latency problems.
02:53Yeah.
02:53And I'll do it on my side, and then we'll sync them.
02:56Yeah, yeah.
02:56Or we would have personal recorders, like, we had our H2Ns, and they would record.
03:02And we'd sync the audio, at least, with that, yeah.
03:05And that always seemed like a swell idea until you realize, like, video calls.
03:09Like, Zoom is pretty, you know, somewhat advanced technology, where it does a really good job of having, like,
03:16variable frame rate to keep you guys in sync.
03:18So if there's any kind of, like, latency at all on either side.
03:21So I would always find that, like, when you go to sync them, they would fall and come back into
03:26sync.
03:26They would, like, contract and expand in and out of sync.
03:28And you're like, what's going on with this pod?
03:30Weren't we both there at the same time in time and space?
03:32So you discovered Riverdale.
03:34No, I'm calling it Riverdale.
03:37Oh, no, Jim.
03:39But he called Kino Casino the, he was like, Gugino Gazzino.
03:43So he made it real Italian.
03:45I don't know about the Gugino Casino, but you guys show me that.
03:47They keep shouting us out.
03:48They seem to really enjoy the pod.
03:50Like, they like the show.
03:51That's great.
03:52Red Cow Arcade said he's boring.
03:54That's the ultimate kiss of death.
03:56Whoa.
03:57I love Red Cow Arcade.
03:59Red Cow Arcade felted this guy?
04:01It sounds like they really like the Channel Awesome and, like, Cinemassacre content.
04:05So, obviously, that's what they're coming back for.
04:07One of them, Worski, said he's like, this is what I watch privately.
04:10Red Cow Arcade.
04:12That's what you watch privately.
04:14This shit, for me, is, like, what I, like, watch privately.
04:20Red Cow Arcade.
04:22Ripping on, like, the old nostalgia stuff.
04:25It's always so fun.
04:26I worked for a company that actually was invested in Riverside.
04:31So, that's how I knew about it.
04:33And they, it was during the pandemic.
04:34So, they were like, oh, this Zoom is too low quality.
04:37So, they're like, oh, hey, we invested in this company, Riverside.
04:40This is their product.
04:41It's very interesting.
04:42You should check it out, EJ.
04:43And so, I did.
04:44And I used it at work.
04:45And I was like, hey, Frankie, we should use this for the podcast.
04:48And that's how that, we started using this.
04:50I think they're kind of, like, the official, like, if you want to do a remote podcast.
04:54I mean, obviously, there's, like, StreamYard and all that stuff for streaming.
04:57And, of course, these guys support streaming.
04:58But the whole idea is that in the background, there's a little local recording that's high quality.
05:04Not, like, super high bitrate.
05:06And you leave your browser open at the end of the session.
05:08It finishes uploading.
05:09So, it's kind of, like, slowly, constantly uploading.
05:11And then they have, like, a lossless version that you can download of each side.
05:16But they remain in sync.
05:17You can download, like, a cloud recording of the whole thing, which looks more like a Zoom and does look,
05:21like, you know, high latency.
05:23But that exists, too.
05:24It stores in their cloud.
05:25I think we pay a couple hundred bucks a year, something like that, for the privilege.
05:30It's been great, for the most part.
05:31The only thing is, like every cloud provider, right, they change shit.
05:36And I'm pretty, like, change resilient, I would say.
05:39Like, I'm not John Hunt.
05:40John can't leave, like, I don't know, Windows 7.
05:42Why do all my 30-year-old electronics keep breaking on me?
05:46And I think that that's a Gen X thing, by the way.
05:48He's, like, a Xenial, or whatever they call him.
05:50I'm pretty resilient, too.
05:52Like, I can adapt quickly.
05:54But sometimes Riverside's too quick.
05:56Like, in between recordings, I, like, we're logging in to record.
06:00We don't have that much time to prepare or anything.
06:03And so we're just, like, jumping in.
06:04I'm like, oh, the button's over here now.
06:06Oh, for some reason it toggled that we're going to go live on EJ Streams today.
06:12I'll untoggle that.
06:13You have to kind of be aware.
06:14That literally almost just happened where you're like, fuck, I almost went live, you know?
06:18Because we only really log into it once every two weeks.
06:21There's, like, always a small surprise awaiting us.
06:24We're like, what's different about it now?
06:26And it drives me slightly crazy.
06:27And the one that was driving me nuts was I need to be able to, you know, much like the
06:31way we finally edit it, where we put it out, where I'm on one side, you're on the other side.
06:34I kind of need to see the full screen of both of us so I get a full shot of
06:39you, not, like, a skinny, crappy layout where I can just see, like, your beard.
06:44And I need one of me because I need to know, like, you know, am I drifting off frame?
06:48You got that big hat, too?
06:49We got to make sure the whole hat is in frame.
06:51Yeah.
06:52Is the hat flying out of frame?
06:54Am I, where am I at?
06:57Here is my, are my clothes falling off?
07:00You know, in other words, you do sort of have to, like, monitor your own appearance during the podcast.
07:03We did the arcade crash in the middle of the recording.
07:06And there was a while, do you remember for, like, a few months now, you couldn't just be like, there's
07:10me and there's you.
07:11Yeah.
07:13Or either that, we, like, couldn't find the layout controls for a while.
07:16Which, like, come on, there's, like, five buttons in this whole thing.
07:18Like, does anything drive you crazier in a UI?
07:20Then you're like, there's only, like, three things to click and none of them have anything close to what I'm
07:25looking for.
07:25It's like, where are the dots?
07:27And the dots are in a different spot.
07:29And each box has dots.
07:30And you're just like, there's, like, that new meme of Ed Harris from Truman Show.
07:36The boys are about to record.
07:38Change the layout.
07:39Exactly.
07:40Exactly.
07:41When do you ever, when it goes, like, do you want to see, you know, there's some new shit.
07:44Do you want to click the new tour and watch the tour, our video?
07:47When do you ever watch those?
07:49When do you ever do anything but slam the skip button?
07:52Right?
07:52Ever.
07:52We have software similar to this at my work.
07:55It's, like, they're always adding features, and I'm, like, and we have meetings with them, and we're just like, oh,
08:01do you want to use, like, this new AI feature, this new this?
08:03And I'm like, no, I just want to use the old stuff.
08:06Like, can you please stop updating it?
08:09I've worked in IT for, like, 20 years, and I do remember a distinct difference pre-COVID and post-COVID.
08:15Where, like, you know, some percentage of the workforce, if Outlook updated or something, it really fucked with their productivity
08:22in a huge way.
08:23And then some percentage of the people could always roll with it.
08:25But, you know, when you're supporting thousands of people or whatever, it's like if a hundred people are complaining, that's,
08:30like, a very busy day.
08:31Remember that when CrowdStrike, that whole situation where CrowdStrike, like, just took out most of the Windows computers on the
08:36planet?
08:36That was crazy.
08:38I'm glad we did a segment on that.
08:39That was nuts.
08:40I do feel like after COVID, there were so many, especially, like, remote work was happening, everything was virtual, everything
08:45was online, everything was picking up at the store, everything was app-based.
08:48People became, like, a little more resilient, I feel like.
08:51Like, they kind of rolled with, like, a UI update.
08:54It wasn't, you know, an iOS update wasn't so, and probably iOS was the precursor to that, too, where that
08:58kind of, like, you know, normalized.
09:01Whereas, like, Microsoft Office would only update every one, you know, a few years.
09:05Yeah, and you would have, like, Word 97 on your computer for a decade.
09:10You know, back then, they had perpetual licenses, right?
09:12Like, there was no such thing as subscription licensing.
09:15No, no cloud things.
09:17Adobe Animate's not going to go away.
09:19You paid, like, $1,000 for your copy, you installed it, and you were like, this is what I'm using.
09:24Well, I watched, they were like, it's a two-minute video.
09:27I'm like, I'm watching it.
09:27I'm going to make EJ wait two minutes, and I'm going to watch the video.
09:30It's, you know, a girl with a nose ring in Silicon Valley being like, hey, so we're really excited to
09:36show you what's going on with the new version of Riverside.
09:38Riverside just made some new improvements to your studio recording experience, so let me show you around all of the
09:45updates, improvements, and changes.
09:46Now, you can see both of you.
09:49They called it out.
09:50They said the thing that we're struggling with.
09:53They were like.
09:53You'll notice that now when you jump into your studio, it's not the split screen that you used to see.
09:57You'll be able to see yourself full screen, but it's still just as easy to invite guests if you want
10:01to record with guests.
10:02Now you can tell, I'm like, fucker, we used to be able to see both of us, like, three years
10:07ago, and then you changed it.
10:08Now, the functionality we had before, and we took away, it's back again.
10:13It's back.
10:13Due to popular demand, we've been listening.
10:15After I fed my cats, we were able to put this feature back in.
10:20I don't want to get a billion dislikes, but, like, I hate cats, and I think they're actually, like, an
10:24evil animal.
10:35You know, often it seems to me, like, depressed people are, like, the one thing keeping me going is my
10:39cat.
10:40And I'm like, I think the cat's making you more depressed.
10:42Yeah, I think that's the reason.
10:43I think the cat is an enabler of your depression, actually.
10:46Bring the downvotes.
10:48Bring the downvotes.
10:49Bring them on.
10:50YouTube disabled them anyway.
10:52Yeah, fuck them.
10:53As long as you're commenting, right?
10:54That's the important thing.
10:55I saw a commentator the other day.
10:57He was like, in the interest of getting some engagement, what do you guys think about Israel?
11:07You like it?
11:08You don't like it?
11:10What the hell is Israel?
11:12Let me know in the comments.
11:16Israel, Palestine, which one's your favorite?
11:18But anyway, I kept watching this young lady talk about the new features, and they were like,
11:22now you can do sound effects.
11:25Yeah!
11:25I'm like, when would you, in the middle of a Riverside podcast, would I want to start?
11:29Scrolling down in the sound effects panel, you can now find some easy-to-access sound effects
11:33that we've added in here for you, or you can upload your own.
11:36And you'll see that each of these have a number next to them.
11:39That's because you can type in that number while you're recording, and really easily use that
11:43as a shortcut to play any of those sound effects.
11:46I mean, I guess Hayden does the, and then they were like, you can also do emojis in
11:50the middle of it.
11:51I'm like, oh, it's like emojis?
11:53You'll also see that you can turn on echo cancellation right from here.
11:55We also consolidated the react button, so you'll be able to see over here that you can
12:00add any of your reactions or raise your hand right from this panel.
12:04My problem with all that bullshit, sound effects and emojis, is that it makes it kind of feel
12:11just like a Zoom meeting.
12:12Oh, you're doing it.
12:13You're literally doing them right now.
12:14I don't know that anybody, like when we edit the final version of this, there's going to
12:18be an emojis present.
12:19I just found the button, and I started putting laughing face.
12:22It was just smiley faces going, eh, into the ether.
12:27Or sometimes I'm on Zoom at work on my Mac, and I'll be like, all right, so first of all,
12:32and then a little thumbs up will float up.
12:35Yeah, the auto, I think it's because Apple has a built-in gesture control thing.
12:41So if there's certain gestures that you do, and it'll start doing a thumbs up or whatever.
12:48Or like confetti.
12:48Sometimes I'll be like, all right, so here's my vision, and it will be like, confetti.
12:53I'm always like, if I do this, I don't need a second one.
12:56There was something I was doing, I was like screen recording something.
12:59I think it was screen recording Game of Thrones for one of my videos back in the day, and
13:03I think that was turned on somehow.
13:05And like one of the characters did a thumbs up, and then Apple put a thumbs up.
13:11It's like, no, no, no, I'm doing a screen share so I can steal this video.
13:15Can you please not do that?
13:16Shut up.
13:17Shut up.
13:18I might as well use Zoom, or Skype, or Google Meet, or whatever the fuck.
13:23Teams.
13:24There is no Skype anymore, right?
13:25It got eaten up by Teams.
13:26Is there such a thing as Skype?
13:27No, I got to know.
13:28No, I don't think so.
13:29I think they shut it down.
13:30There was a news article, I remember, being like, Skype is no more.
13:33Yes, the classic standalone app is gone.
13:35Microsoft officially retired it May 5th, 2025, last year.
13:39If you had told me it was 2018, I would have believed you.
13:42Yeah, so anyway, they obviously are going heavy on the social media, live streaming.
13:47But to me, what made it a premium product, what made it worth hundreds of dollars a year,
13:51was the high quality local recording.
13:53After that, I can edit whatever I want.
13:55Oh, and they got a big thing about, like, the magic editor, you know, like the whole
13:59cutout, ums and ahs, and we'll magically switch between whoever's speaking.
14:04I can just click this one button, and now Riverside is going to do most of the work for
14:08me.
14:08To which I'm always like, that's not really editing for me.
14:11Editing is layering in clips, it's getting a good rhythm, it's cutting to the right
14:15person, not just because they're speaking, but cutting to the right person at the right
14:17time, going dual screen, going full screen.
14:19I recently wrote a much more in-depth, comprehensive, notes-based version of our slob handbook.
14:25So much so, like, it is kind of tempting to be like, computer, study.
14:29This is an area where AI is not likely to, I don't think, like, anytime soon, because it
14:33can't really interpret visuals in that same way, and then, like, repeat it.
14:37It does transcript, transcript-based editing.
14:39There's some things that AI can't really do, and I don't know how well it will be able to
14:44do them, but...
14:44I don't think it's gonna, yeah.
14:45Even, like, stuff like, I was trying to get AI to, like, I had a PDF with, like, a list
14:51of capacitors and values, and I was trying to get AI to, like, transpose that into a
14:56spreadsheet, and it was just impossible.
14:58I couldn't do it.
14:59Which model were you using, though?
15:00Which one?
15:01ChapGPT?
15:01Copilot.
15:02Oh, yeah.
15:03Fuck.
15:03Well, I figured, you know, because it's Excel.
15:06It has Excel right in there.
15:08You'd think you'd be able to do it.
15:09None matter.
15:10I don't know.
15:11Look, somebody came, Ash on our Discord came to me and was like, yeah, I've been
15:15trying Claude, because you said Claude's really good, but I'm not really seeing the difference.
15:19I was like, if you're doing, like, systems-based work, you're gonna see the difference.
15:22And that's a very good segue.
15:23I wanted to talk about this while we were talking about technology.
15:27Technology that helps build the show.
15:28Okay.
15:29We have a team of editors, obviously.
15:31I think, like, at this point, we've worked with something like 12 editors total across
15:35the amount of time.
15:36Everybody kind of takes turns.
15:37You all know the lore.
15:38There are always some technical hurdles.
15:40There's a command line, an open source command line tool called YouTube Downloader, or YTDLP.
15:46So, you know, if you're on a Mac or something, you can run the command line tool and you can
15:49down, that's probably the most effective way to download YouTube videos.
15:52Of course, it's against TOS.
15:54You're not supposed to be downloading.
15:55You know, the only, the only agreement-based way to download videos on YouTube is supposed
15:59to be through Premium, and it's not non-DRM'd.
16:01But everybody does it anyway.
16:02And clearly, YouTube doesn't seem interested in, because, you know, when they put up, like,
16:05their movies, like YouTube movies, you can't, YouTube Downloader doesn't work on
16:08those at all.
16:09So I think it's, like, it's against Terms of Service, and then they don't really do
16:12a lot to stop you from doing it, but they would for something as protected as, like,
16:16a copyrighted movie.
16:17If that was the case, like, how many YouTube channels, how much, because people download
16:22gameplay.
16:23Yeah, the reality of the platform is that, like, people nab YouTube videos all the time
16:27for their edits, right?
16:28When they're, like, clip harvesting.
16:29It's just the reality of it.
16:30So I think YouTube's kind of winking.
16:32That's my theory.
16:33And if you want a UI of some kind, well, there's, like, online ones that come and go that
16:38get taken down, they have malware, they got porn, they've got, you ever, like, you ever
16:42try to use, like, a malware-infested site to get something done?
16:47Downloading ROMs, as an example.
16:48And you click the download once, and it takes you to the ad, and then you click it a second
16:52time, and it takes you to the, you know, you go back, and it takes you to the ad, and
16:55the ad looks like it's the downloader, and then you click a third time, and it comes right
16:58down to the desktop.
16:59You're like, ah.
17:01Somebody needs to put, like, a guide together.
17:02Just, like, how to navigate, like, a sketchy website.
17:04So you can do that, and then there were some, like, downloaders that you could buy for $20
17:09or something.
17:10There was, like, an Ease US one.
17:12Like, this is a company that they specialize in, like, data protection and, you know, data
17:16recovery.
17:16They have, like, a YouTube downloader, but it's pretty chintzy software, in truth.
17:20I mean, it's only, again, it's only $20.
17:22Whenever YouTube updates anything, this thing lags behind, and I've found it to be a little
17:27bit unreliable.
17:28It won't download the right resolution.
17:29Like, there's an HD clip, and it'll download, like, a 480p version, even though you have
17:36selected 1080p.
17:38What is neat is that it can download other stuff.
17:40Like, if you give it a Twitter link, it can download the video.
17:43Yeah, but sometimes, I was finding frequently, it would download the wrong codec, and then
17:48that wouldn't import into Premiere cleanly.
17:50So Premiere would complain, and then I'd have to go to Handbrake, and I'd have to transcode
17:55it, and all this.
17:56And I was like, eh, this sucks.
17:57This sucks.
17:58And when I'm doing, like, a heavy, when I'm doing a heavy edit, you know, like a cannibal
18:02video, or right now I'm working on the American movie video, I don't have time for this shit,
18:06for, like, wrestling with downloading one clip.
18:08You know, you're downloading 30 to 50 clips, like, from YouTube.
18:12I just don't have time.
18:12And then the editors struggle with it, too.
18:14Again, if they were proficient with the command line tool, that's fine.
18:17But the reality is that all of those apps that I just met, you know, whether it's online
18:21or whether it's EaseUS or whatever, they're all using that open source command line tool.
18:26Like, they're just UI wrapped around it.
18:28And that made me think, I was like, well, through the power of Claude, could I create the Red
18:32Cow Entertainment Downloader Toolkit?
18:34Because there's more things that I want to do than just download a video.
18:37I want to make sure it's always in a Premiere-ready codec, that it's always the best possible
18:41quality for the video.
18:43And then I thought, well, yeah, it'd be nice if TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, you know,
18:47like, you got to find a special one for Instagram most of the time or whatever.
18:50Sometimes, like, you just can't find the clip you're looking for anywhere but TikTok, let's
18:54say.
18:54So I made it work in all of them.
18:56So I have created, both for Mac and for Windows, some freeware called the Red Cow Downloader
19:01Toolkit, specially branded.
19:03It looks a little bit like our website.
19:04And then it was like, okay, how about, like, because they have, like, thumbnail grab websites.
19:08Now, why not just package that in here so now we can grab any thumbnail?
19:11I remember Levi had, he once edited a video about, like, our year in review.
19:15And he wanted every thumbnail from the last year.
19:18Now you can download a playlist of thumbnails in one hit.
19:21Same with, you can do a playlist of videos here.
19:23Again, all in the right codec.
19:24Then I thought, okay, well, sometimes I'm looking for, like, one particular moment from
19:29a podcast and I can't remember which video it was from, you know, from some channel.
19:33So I made, like, fetch transcripts.
19:34So now I have a little module inside of it that, like, you want every transcript from a
19:39channel because they're just text files.
19:40It doesn't take long.
19:41And now YouTube does rate limit you.
19:42So then you can build into your program some, like, stagger it, do some retries, like, slow
19:47down, get around it a little bit.
19:49And it always finds the English one.
19:51So it looks for the English one, grabs the English one.
19:53Here's something that's super common for us.
19:54We have a movie that we want to clip and it's in MKV format.
19:59Well, that's just, like, the wrong container for, like, Premiere doesn't support that.
20:03So normally what I would have done is I bring it into Handbrake and I transcode the whole
20:06thing.
20:06That can take hours.
20:07You're doing a whole season of television.
20:08You're talking about Ahsoka or something.
20:09Now you're transcoding a whole season of TV.
20:11Well, this thing can just, FFmpeg, right?
20:15So you have, like, YouTube downloader, the CLI, you have FFmpeg on the back end, and that
20:19can just, like, swap out the container.
20:21And now, like, an MKV video that was three hours now is an MP4 video in two seconds.
20:26The editors always upload a big folder full of data to Google Drive.
20:31You know, I suppose if they had zipped it themselves and uploaded the zip, it would all
20:34come down in one folder.
20:36But generally, they're throwing the folder up.
20:37And what that means, you know, Google Drive will then, when you download it, it will slice
20:41it into, like, four different, you know, or however many.
20:43Sometimes it's like, you know, if it's a lot of clips, it's like eight or nine or ten.
20:47Zip files that then you have to, what I've been doing is unzipping, finding the assets
20:51folder, moving it into the assets folder, and cobbling the whole folder together.
20:55Again, you know, it's great to have editors, but now I'm spending an extra two hours just
20:59to, like, get their clip up.
21:00Because I want to relink it and I want to watch it and I want to make sure that it's
21:02good.
21:03And then the other thing that Google Drive does is it renames, like, any weird character.
21:07Like, an example, like, quotes.
21:09So if the YouTube video that you downloaded had quotation marks in it, it'll rename those
21:14to underscores.
21:15So now it's all fucked up.
21:16So I made a little module called Rebuild and Relink, and it will read the project file.
21:21It'll find what the file names are supposed to be.
21:24It'll unzip everything.
21:25It'll cobble it into a folder.
21:27It'll trash all the zips all by itself.
21:29And then it will rename all of the files, and then everything's relinked.
21:33Boom.
21:33Like, seriously, you just, you drop the folder in and it's all done.
21:36How is there not, like, a freeware renaissance right now?
21:40Dude, that's what I'm here to tell you on the podcast.
21:41There's gonna be.
21:42There's gonna be.
21:43People just haven't figured it out yet, because they're really distracted by how shitty
21:46AI video and images are on Facebook.
21:49Because if you can do all this now, like, I just don't understand why people aren't taking
21:53advantage of it.
21:54Well, right.
21:55It's like, what's stopping somebody, you know, as I've talked about it on past podcasts,
21:58what's stopping somebody from, you know, there's freeware, but what about, like, perpetual
22:02licenses instead of subscription?
22:03Everybody hates subscription.
22:04Pay $250 or $100 a month for a suite of software.
22:09Build your own.
22:09Charge $500 one time.
22:11Now you own it forever until the next major version.
22:13Make an Adobe Animate that will last forever.
22:16And you can build software for niche audiences, right?
22:19So that's why I do agree.
22:21I think that, like, good things are coming.
22:23There's no reason to believe that this is just displacement of jobs.
22:26Like, I've never been busier with, like, oh, I could do that.
22:29Oh, I could do that.
22:30So then, like, we use a program called Levelator to normalize the audio when we're done so
22:35that it's all, you know, evenly leveled.
22:37And that's freeware.
22:38And sometimes, like, when macOS updates, it's not, you know, there's a 32-bit version or
22:43whatever.
22:43It's not compatible.
22:44You gotta track down the right one.
22:45I also, I actually think that the Levelator that we use, like, levels it a little high.
22:49So I always bring it down a little bit and then I slap, like, a high pass on it, just
22:54a little high pass on it, just so it kind of has a little bit of that compressed podcast
22:57sound.
22:58And so that if you're listening on something really bassy, there's not, like, unnecessary
23:01bass in there.
23:02Well, I've just built into this toolkit a Levelator and it makes everything the exact
23:06right amount of noise and puts in the high pass as part of it because that's the way
23:10I like it.
23:11And then I've downloaded all the transcripts for a whole channel, let's say, or for a playlist.
23:16And now I gotta, how am I gonna search for the text?
23:20Well, in, like, Mac Terminal, you'd use grep, right?
23:22But, you know, sometimes you want a UI for this kind of thing, right?
23:25Like a little, like, contains or or, or, you know, make a little, like, Boolean statements.
23:29So I made something that it'll look across all your VTT files and it will find every instance
23:34with timecode of when somebody said something.
23:36And you don't have to fetch it all either.
23:38You can do it by a YouTube download too.
23:39It just takes longer.
23:40Or AI search.
23:41So then I have a little, another little toggle that says, like, or just describe, like,
23:46hey, in this American movie commentary, at any point did Mark talk about how he plays
23:50it up for the camera or something like that?
23:52Or here's, like, 10 interviews with Mark.
23:54Like, tell me if any of them have that.
23:55And so I used, like, a Gemini token because they're free.
23:58Or it requires that whoever has installed it uses their own Gemini token.
24:03Or I also packaged in, it's called Olama.
24:05It's a local LLM.
24:07And you could just run your own local LLM and not connect to the internet.
24:10And you can do a little search that way.
24:12So I think this thing is really freaking cool.
24:14And it seems like our editors are like, this is great.
24:16This, like, solves, like, you know, half of the problems with editing right here.
24:19We could have a whole suite of Red Cow Entertainment software.
24:23It makes me wonder, like, what else?
24:25Like, after this podcast, when we record this podcast today, I'm going to, I'm going to
24:28be really tired because, you know, socializing with you is exhausting.
24:32And I'm going to go upstairs and I'm going to sit down on the couch and I'm going to really
24:35wish that I was getting to bed.
24:36And I'm going to have to put it up on the WordPress.
24:38I'm going to put it up on the Patreon.
24:40I'm going to have to describe the thing.
24:41You know, there's like, you know, an hour of, maybe an hour and a half of tasks to get
24:45it up and running.
24:46I would still have to write the description and everything.
24:48But that, that probably is a script.
24:50Yeah.
24:50That, like, just does everything, every piece of it.
24:52Like, anything that you can, like, that you wish that you could automate, like, there's
24:56some opportunity for you to do that.
24:58Man, modern computers are awesome.
25:00I just pushed a couple of buttons on my Fitbit.
25:02Whole thing was done.
25:03I remember years ago, John, when we, we made our third movie, John wrote a little, like,
25:07pre-production app.
25:08And it was so exciting.
25:09Ooh, we have our own little software to manage locations and manage, like, actors and stuff.
25:13And I was like, now you could make a whole fucking, you could productize it easily.
25:17So I think about, like, even, even really great senior programmers and stuff.
25:22Like, obviously, they're probably more inclined to, like, I'll use the AI to assist me or to
25:27code check, but I don't really want to, you know, relinquish my control.
25:30I'm like, well, it's just going to make, you're just going to be a lot slower is the thing.
25:34Like, you could just be a lot faster if you had it right the code.
25:36Yeah, and there's just so many opportunities to make a custom software where you'd have
25:41to buy some off the product shelf that didn't quite work, you know, didn't quite slot in.
25:47It was made for something else, and you're kind of hacking it into your use case.
25:53And now you can just, yeah, chat with Claude, and we can figure this out.
25:57Vibe through it.
25:58It's exciting.
25:59I wonder, you ever want to make your own custom LUT in Premiere or your own Premiere
26:03plugin?
26:03Or, like, I always do, I always have to do this in Premiere.
26:06It's like, make your own plugin.
26:07Making an Encore replacement, I think, could be exciting.
26:10I do want to do that someday.
26:11That could be, yeah.
26:12I mean, there's such an opportunity there.
26:14And the thing about the Red Cow Downloader is it's local, so you're not hosting it on
26:19some website where everything has to go through a network connection.
26:21So, outside of the download, all this other stuff, like the search and the conversions
26:26and all, you know, it's all, again, it's just FFMPEG.
26:28This is literally just a UI wrapped around, like, you know, just trial and erroring things
26:32a few times until it does it repeatedly the way I want it to do it.
26:36And then we're off to the, you know, and it helps to, like, anything to start with, here's
26:40my handbook for how I want everything edited.
26:42You get that christened, get that in really good shape, where you're like, this is exactly
26:45what I like doing.
26:46And then you can start training your computer.
26:48I think that's cool.
26:48And you have humans that can talk to the computer.
26:51Yeah.
26:52What do I tell my robot?
26:53What is my purpose?
26:54You pass butter.
26:56Oh, my God.
26:58Subscribe to Red Cow Entertainment on Patreon for full episodes every other week.
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