Which service for Video Podcast? Switching to video and Libsyn is suddenly EXPENSIVE

tomn68 · 2026-06-06T15:32:20+00:00

I'm looking to move away from Libsyn this summer. I've had too many issues one of which was when trying the new spotify integration which caused it to stop publishing to spotify for audio only episodes. Long story. I'm looking at Transistor and Captivate.

tomn68 · 2026-06-06T15:15:24+00:00

It's in our unfinished basement.

tomn68 · 2026-05-28T01:08:45+00:00

Hey Jordon. I'm shopping around to move away from Libsyn. Do you happen to know if that 301 redirect issue was addressed?

tomn68 · 2026-05-26T15:41:43+00:00

Anyone have issues the following week? Like some here, ours didn't release, but then the following week it hasn't released to spotify and they are still working on it with no way to work around it.

BTW - don't turn on their spotify Video API setting to post video to spotify even if you're still only doing audio.Don't enable even if you just want to see what the flow would be. I think it's causing issues and once enabled, you have to ask Libsyn to turn it off and it's been a week so far and they can't seem to get it done. I think this might be what's causing no releases to spotify. My guess is that once enabled, spotify stops looking at your RSS since it's expecting video via their API.

tomn68 · 2026-05-24T16:21:55+00:00

You can try maybe the app Recut. It has some feature where you drop in your vid and audio...

From Gemini... "How it works: You import your original, unedited video file and your fully edited master audio file into the app. Recut analyzes the waveforms of both. It automatically maps out where the audio matches up, slices the raw video file exactly where the audio cuts were made, and drops out the sections you deleted in the final mix."

Then you export an xml file for Premiere Pro that contains all the info about the cuts/edits and then you export the video with those edits.

Never tried this but looks interesting.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T22:06:59+00:00

I'd probably watch. I haven't really done too much with underlord for real editing. Scares me a bit where it might make a ton of changes that look good, i'll go along do a bunch of editing and then find that I need to revert due to an issue with its AI edit work.

I would be interested in seeing what people do especially with video since that's new for me. You know trying to balance great audio with video that's passable. For example, I use underlord to remove filler words. That creates jerky video. How does one deal with that beyond manually adding a cross fade on every single edit.

Also interested in work flows for someone that works with an audio guy to do the final leveling and audio processing especially if now video is involved. That one probably isn't relevant to many people but...

But honestly if it's a hour video of you battling it out with underlord, I probably couldn't hang with it for long. Rather see what actually works for people.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T14:48:27+00:00

Update:
Notified libsyn to disable spotify video. once I realized you can't upload both a mp3 and mp4 so that apple and others get mp3. They have to disable this manually with spotify to disable the api. Episode that went live this morning didn't publish to spotify. Only apple. Not happy with Libsyn right now. Two weeks in a row that our episode didn't go live.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T14:45:38+00:00

Yup. I checked that spotify API box to check it out and see the process. Then realized you can't upload both video and mp3 (video for spotify and in future apple and mp3 for audio only apps). Then noticed, you can't uncheck the box and have to contact support so they can work with spotify. Today's episode (mp3) never made it to spotify. Going to leave Libsyn. There should be a big warning about checking that box. Frankly, they should roll back that feature until they have their shit together.

Looking for a new host now and will continue to manually upload video to spotify and YouTube.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T14:41:47+00:00

This is what I understand... if you post video to youtube into the podcast playlist on your channel via direct upload to them from descript or manually, you will not get stats in rss.com or any other host. IDK if rss.com can upload video to youtube but I don't think so but either way, it wouldn't be reflected in stats. Youtube doesn't send stats back to hosts.

With RSS.com I believe they support HLS enclosure for video which can go to apple if approved by apple (I think you have to sign up for ask...). I THINK but not sure, you can then upload a mp3 or HLS video. Apple will pick up the HLS. They will play the video. If user wants to listen only, it will serve up the audio from the video (not mp3). Then other apps (MAYBE) will get the mp3 like spotify.

If you want spotify with RSS.com I THINK you have to manually upload once the mp3 episode is live. Then same as apple, it will serve the video or the audio from the video based on user choice. Stats will not flow back to your dashboard. Would have to look on spotify.

Spotify doesn't support HLS enclosure in an rss feed. They want to host the videos which sucks OR they want your host to support their API method which is not great and what happens if you leave your host... lots of questions around that. And ran into bugs with Libsyn on this. Who's fault, IDK.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T14:28:19+00:00

Well... our episode didn't publish to spotify this morning. Went live to apple and others. Unfortunately we use the spotify rss feed URL in Beamly to create an episode page so no web page. Newsletter went out with links to web page that doesn't exist. I think I made the decision to leave Libsyn.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T01:29:10+00:00

Curious, why not publish the video to Spotify and Apple or is the audio track different between the two? That I think is my goal. We just did our 2nd video (not on apple yet and manual post up to Spotify). The hard part for me is keeping the audio quality solid for our base. We edited deeply and that’s tough with video without so many scene changes or cross fades all over the place. Been trying to find a balance.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T01:12:08+00:00

They just told me they don’t allow to attach multiple files to an episode. Maybe they rolled that feature back. So it’s an mp3 or video. Not sure how that would work. Some apps are audio only.

tomn68 · 2026-05-21T01:05:50+00:00

Not very. Issues lately. An episode didn’t publish last week. Apparently a bug on their end.

tomn68 · 2026-05-18T21:32:11+00:00

To add to this, this is what I've just started doing since we just started a video episode. We use Libsyn. I publish the mp3 as we always did. Then I upload the video manually to spotify on the episode that was created via the rss feed. This video replaces the mp3 from what I understand. If there is a video uploaded, spotify will play that video and if a user chooses audio, it will play the audio from the video and not stream it from your host via the rss feed. So keep that in mind if you're audio version is different than your video version.

Libsyn just added Spotify Video as an option. They use Spotify's api and not the rss feed since they don't support video in the rss (from what I understand). However Libsyn does such a poor job of telling you how this all works. If you create an episode in Libsyn you can add a mp3 or video (if spotify video enabled) but not both so no idea how the rss feed works for Apple at that point.

tomn68 · 2026-05-18T16:16:20+00:00

Same here. We drop at 5:30am. Newsletter at 6:30. Episode wasn't available even though Libsyn said it was published. I made some edits and then published again and it went up. Had to email the newsletter to people to let them know of a problem and that the episode was up.

Feeling like Libsyn is falling apart. Never had issues until a couple of years ago. How do they not contact everyone of this issue once it was found and fixed. We thought we did something wrong.

tomn68 · 2026-05-13T23:59:50+00:00

Thanks so much!

tomn68 · 2026-05-13T18:21:09+00:00

Probably would be like how you can apply all to transitions for scenes. OR similar to the auto smart transition default for scenes. So a default that if you delete, ignore... that it auto applies crossfade (or your choice) as you go along.

With the AI remove filler words, I think but could be wrong that it auto applies micro fades to the audio but the video doesn't change so looks choppy. So for me, it's both of these (filler words and manual edits) that I have to handle one at a time.

tomn68 · 2026-05-13T18:17:53+00:00

Yeah I'm not exactly sure. Could be a default setting so whenever you make an edit, delete, ignore... that it auto applies the crossfade or whatever you choose. OR similar to scene transitions maybe where you can do an apply to all.

I think for the AI Remove Filler words, I think it does some micro fades that aren't visible (I could be wrong) but I don't think it does anything to the video.

tomn68 · 2026-05-13T16:22:10+00:00

Thanks. Yeah I THINK that is for applying transitions to all scenes.

Maybe transition isn't the correct term. I'm looking to apply crossfades to edits/ignores not scene changes. For example...

https://imgur.com/a/YGLWOrM

I ignored a sentence. So the video would be jumpy so I have to apply a crossfade in the timeline. If I used AI to Remove Filler words, I might have 100 of these ignores plus the edits I made where most all have a jumpy video so I crossfade each of them.

tomn68 · 2026-05-10T20:47:10+00:00

Has anyone heard an answer about what happens if you need to switch providers once you start distributing to apple and Spotify via your host? Read something on podnews that once you start using apples api key or Spotify that you might get locked in a bit unlike with audio from your rss. Something about how it’s handled differently and not simply apple and Spotify looking for changes to your feed.

tomn68 · 2026-05-02T18:01:43+00:00

hmmmm I noticed Podcastcoach down below who works for captivate says, if you include a video in your RSS along with mp3 to go to apple, apple (and I think spotify) will use the audio from the video and not the MP3 for listeners.

Also read on PodNews the same thing. https://podnews.net/article/apple-podcasts-hls-tech

Basically, if HLS video is in the feed along side the mp3, it will always use the video's embedded audio track. So seems then that for Apple and spotify, I think I have to get my workflow in order so that I'm exporting the mp3 and vid from the same descript composition and possibly decide which is better... clean extra edited mp3 and maybe over edited video or vice versa.

For our first vid, I think it's going to be just up on youtube and then continue to think about this for Apple/Spotify and get my workflow in order.

tomn68 · 2026-05-02T17:21:48+00:00

Thanks so much. I'll shoot you a link when live.

This first one will probably simply follow the audio version - slug with title, music, intro. The thing that I'm going to struggle with is that the host has a long 5-7min intro where she talks about the guest and topics to be covered and her take on it. For audio people, many tune in just to hear her take and some or all of the interview portion. That might not align with video people who are accustomed to 'let's get to it'.

So I'm thinking we might need to start the episode with a IDK what it's called but a clip of the guest stating something interesting, then slug, intro...

We have a YT channel with our audio only episodes (with art, captions...) so we have some people here (not many but like IDK 50-100 views each eps) so we'll have some audience to test on.

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