A short YouTube tutorial (by Scott Adams) describing a starter kit for someone beginning podcasting or live streaming. The speaker recommends ergonomic furniture (taller table, adjustable chair), an adjustable iPad stand (often placed on a lazy Susan), two adjustable-color ring lights positioned slightly off-axis, and a wireless lavalier microphone (inexpensive options ~under $20). The segment emphasizes proper camera/face alignment, lighting color choice (warmer/orangish preferred), mic localization to reduce background noise, and controlling room ambient light (shades) for best results.
Chapters
All right, let's say you know someone in the family who wants to start podcasting or live streaming and they don't know how to get started. Here would be a starter kit. This is based on my actual setup in my man cave. Number one, get a table that's taller than the average table and a chair that can be adjustable so that you're sitting as upright as possible when you're in the chair. If it's a low table, you'd be a little slumpy and your back would be arched. Get a stand. And I'm not going to give you brand names for these because any brand will work in this general category. So you get an iPad stand that's adjustable up and down, so you make sure that your face when you're sitting in this chair is exactly even because you never want to be looking up or down. It's a huge difference. Using an iPad is the simplest setup for live streaming. It's not as good as the best you can do, but for most purposes, it's really, really good. It's what I use. You notice that it's on a lazy Susan. Again, doesn't matter what brand it is. You can just Google any of this stuff, and you'll get lots of options. These are called ring lights. These are the best for a nice, cheap lighting solution. In this case, just two of them, one at each side. Again, just look for ring lights. The only thing you want to make sure of is that your connections have options for changing from a more orangish light to a whiter light. You'll find the orangish light is more pleasing and forgiving. And in this case, the stand is just a stand that didn't work out for holding iPads. I didn't like it as much as this other one, so I just repurposed it by getting a ring light that just clips on. Usually they'll give you a cheap little stand or a clip on. And then I also find that not having it directly on my face is best. A little bit of a angle will give me a better light. So there's just two of those. An iPad, a lazy Susan, a stand chair that's adjustable. And the last thing you need, and I recommend this is a type of lavalier. It's called, if you're going to search for it, lavalier. And it's a wireless. So the whole bunch of them, they all look the same, they all operate the same. They're all about, you know, under 20 bucks. And I can't tell you one is better than the other, but next to the biggest, most expensive professional type of microphone you can get. Those are the best sound you can get. Because they're very localized, it'll cut out a lot of the background sound. So that's your setup if you want to get started yourself or buy a little instant podcasting kit. This, plus the ability to affect all the lighting in your room, will give you everything you want. In other words, it'd be great if you had shades that block out the light completely so that the only control over it is yours.
