Riverside, the video+audio podcast creation platform, has formally launched Riverside 2.0. We have tested most of the announced features in past weeks, and they have been public-facing, so we see this announcement as a formal launch and attention-getting maneuver. Riverside certainly offers a differentiated suite of features for podcasters, especially if video is in the production strategy.
We relate to Riverside mainly as a video platform, with a sidecar of high-quality audio. The audio of each show participant is recorded separately (other non-video guest-connection platforms do separate recording also), and it all can be accessed either as individual tracks or stitched together by Riverside.
Riverside’s key feature, Magic Editor, is out of beta and accomplished the track merging. Video is HD. Sound is normalized across tracks, which is intended to eliminate volume dips and spikes. The tech can also remove some types of unwanted noise — the company’s demo reels show this working quite well, though we haven’t tested it.
Within the editing tools, users can customize show backgrounds (not the same as Zoom digital and green-screen backgrounds for individual participants, which Riverside does not offer), and add logos to the screen — very nice for business use.
There’s a certain amount of AI in the Magic Editor suite. For example, automatically removing noise from non-speakers. Riverside puts it like this: “we’ll also cut out any noise or interferences you’d rather not show, like that sneeze you’ve been holding in all morning that decided to erupt in the middle of your guest’s monologue, so the video continues to show only whoever is speaking.” Riverside claims to be the first service to automate this.
The Magic Editor also performs video adjustments such as maximizing the window of the person speaking — the AI figures out who is talking when, and actually zooms in the window just before a speaker starts talking.
Automatic transcriptions, certainly one of the most significant features, promised to convert audio to text “in seconds.” Unlimited transcriptions are included in the top two service tiers.
HERE is the summary of Riverside 2.0 features.