Filing Packages Over the Internet

Why?

If you prepare your packages at home, it's a nuisance to have to travel to a BBC studio to send bands and links. For those fortunate enough to have an ISDN set up at home, there's no problem (other than ISDN problems). For the rest of us, filing over the internet is a perfectly realistic option.

How Easy?

This isn't as difficult as it might sound, even if you regard yourself as non-technical. If you've got to grips with digital editing and email, then this is not a big extra step.

How?

There are two steps:

First save your edited audio files as "MP3". The chances are you've heard of this mainly as a way of exchanging music tracks across the internet, but that's not it's only use. MP3 is the name given to a very effective way of compressing audio files down to a reasonable size for sending by email, while maintaining near-CD quality (certainly good enough for broadcast speech, if done properly). The means of saving as MP3 varies depending on your computer and editing software.

ProTools (either Mac or PC): version 5 has a "save as MP3" option.

Cool Edit (PC): latest versions have a "save as MP3" option.

With earlier versions of either the above you may need to look for separate MP3 encoding programs, which are fairly easy to find on the internet. They're not expensive and you might be able to find a free one that does the job. The problem I've found is that there's a large number of MP3 players, but far fewer encoders and sometimes the latter are written solely for use with CD players, so you can't encode sound files.

When you save your audio as mp3, you should be offered a range of quality options. Experiment a bit, or just choose a high-quality option. It will take longer to encode (possibly much longer) but the file size will NOT be any larger -- it will just sound better when it's replayed.

The second step, once you've got your audio into MP3 format, is to get it to your contact in the broadcasting organisation. There are several options:

1) attach it to an email. This is technically the easiest, but you may find it is too large to get through the email system (there's no easy guide I'm afraid -- different internet service providers set different limits, and the same applies to broadcasters). You may need to split your audio into smaller files -- perhaps one for bands, and one for links, or possibly even smaller. Alternatively use a large email website, such as www.whalemail.com which is specifically designed to address this problem.

2) put it on your own website using FTP. Sorry -- if you don't know how to do that it's too complicated to explain here (I might put up a separate page at some future date!).
* Then email your contact to say where it can be found.

3) specific instructions apply to sending MP3 files to the BBC news centre in London. They are confidential and may in any case be refined from time to time. Ask for their technical help if that's who you are dealing with.

Dealing with Objections

MP3 has created some resistance, because of loss of quality. You may need to convince your contact (and their technical people) that you know what you're doing and you'll give them the highest quality possible. Even if it takes a lot longer to encode, it's still quicker and less hassle than wasting half a day travelling to a studio 25 miles away.

© Mike Hally 2001

Last update: 4 April 2001