Descript is a collaborative audio/video editor, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, that works like a doc. It includes transcription, a screen recorder, publishing, full multitrack editing, and AI tools.
$12
per month
Spotify for Podcasters
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Spotify for Podcasters, formerly Anchor, is a podcasting platform, enabling the user to create, distribute, and monetize a podcast. It is available via a free plan. It features built-in uploading, recording, and editing tools so the can easily create and publish episodes.
Anchor gets the job done. It's free and with the direct ownership of Spotify, there is the ability to have the backing of that large stable organization. Anchor also supports video podcasts - not many of the other podcast platforms support this functionality just yet - a HUGE …
I've recommended Descript many times as it has really helped me in my video production. In my experience, Descript is well suited for importing multi-cam footage and creating a script from the video / audio. Sharing the project file and having the client highlight key moments or sound bytes of interest. Exporting XML files to be opened up by video editing software and speeding up the process of finding files to creating a rough edit. If you are just using Descript for transcription, I think that is where it is less appropriate since there are many other services that offer this. Where Descript shines is: - adding content that sounds just like the original - being able to build the actual file with an editor - use AI to help clean-up words or add to - and more
Anchor is a great podcast app for folks just starting out with podcasting or who want some of the technical things to be streamlined and simplified. With the built-in audience of Spotify subscribers, it's also easy to get started with a listening audience. There are easy ways to connect to other Podcast platforms and easy ways to integrate ads if that's something you want to do as a podcaster.
UX Performance. Because it's synced to the cloud, there can be some delay or lag in the UX when editing.
Editing Transcriptions. Machine-based transcriptions always need some post-editing. While Descript makes it pretty easy, I still think there is some room for improvement. For instance, I would like to be able to automatically update for all occurrences of a word after fixing it in the transcript.
Automatic importing of YouTube and hosted video files. I often have to download a video from YouTube to be able to import it into Descript. Would be nice to be able to just paste in the URL to the video and have Descript automatically import it.
Monetization features are currently present in only a limited number of countries, I look forward to the various monetization features like pre-roll and mid-roll ads to be made available soon in my country India.
Add more platforms to its distribution services such as Amazon Music and similar ones so that we would not be required to submit the RSS Feed to platforms manually.
It's pretty user friendly, has a easy-moderate learning curve. However during updates they do change the features in different panes / sections that make them harder to find. The text editor is near perfect, some of the other tools such as colour, templates, audio etc. are arranged in a slighlty less intuitive manner
It's intuitive from the moment you log in until you publish. The only reason I'm not giving it a 10 is because some sections aren't translated into Spanish, and while it's not a problem for me, it's something that could be improved. Furthermore, the design is very clean and doesn't feel overwhelming with options. Everything is where it should be, and the process for publishing episodes is clear. Es intuitivo desde el momento que entras hasta que publicas. Si no le pongo un 10 es porque hay ciertas secciones que no aparecen traducidas al español, y aunque no me supone un problema, es algo mejorable. Además, el diseño es muy limpio y no da sensación de "saturación" de opciones. Todo está donde debe estar y el proceso para publicar los episodios es claro.
Descript is by far superior to the other editing software you can get on Apple computers. It's able to do a lot more and really save us tons of time. Other Adobe apps are great, but take a while to learn. Descript is very user-friendly, making it easy to start from day one with very little training.
Anchor is less expensive and, in my opinion, much easier to use than SoundCloud for podcasting. Anchor makes syndication easy, and their recording and editing interfaces are clean and intuitive. SoundCloud seemed somewhat cumbersome to use, and I didn't care for its UI. Honestly, they seem better suited for other use cases.
I can get video completed much more quickly and cheaply
We can produce more video content because of the speed with which we can have a finished product
We can have shorter timelines for example I record on Monday and we publish on Tuesday which wouldn't be otherwise possible with other methods I've used
