VMware Communities Roundtable

I’m pretty sure this is a podcast from VMware with actual employees hosting it so I’m surprised at how low-end the quality of it is from an audio perspective. The host, John Troyer, is very good, and manages to sound as if he’s a professional talk show host with how he keeps things on track, and adds levity to what is normally very dry and boring. It verges on a marketing vehicle for VMware corporate at times, but also often has good insider info and best practice tips which make it tolerable. So far the best VMware podcast I’ve been able to find which, depending on how you look at it, isn’t necessarily saying much. UPDATE 2 years later: I think I need to give up on this podcast. The audio quality has not gotten any better despite the hosts mentioning in the show that they know how bad it is! I really wish they would get off the conference call, get into a studio, or even just a quiet room rather than the phone. Thousands of normal people have invested tens of dollars to put together a decent sounding podcast, I just don’t understand why VMware, a multi-billion dollar technological juggernaut, can’t do the same.

Let me first start out by saying I love this podcast. I've been listening since the early days of John Troyer. The content is always outstanding. The issue has always been … production quality. Sometimes you can’t even hear what anyone is saying, and last week most of the uploaded Talkshoe version the audio had cut out completely for 45 minutes. It’s unfathomable to me that it’s been an issue for 10+ years. I mean come on, this is VMware, I’m sure they have the resources to do this right. One need look no further than the Virtually Speaking Podcast to understand the production quality means. I applaud the efforts to put vBarbecue on YouTube, I'm a subscriber there too and it's great. So I give you five stars for content, and one star for production quality, averaging out to three stars. I’ll always be a loyal listener, but some weeks it’s challenging. :)

It’s 2020. Up the bitrate, invest in a decent audio interface, some decent mics, and end this terrible audio quality once and for all. Even remote callers can use Zoom and Skype, which have way better quality audio than this. Are you using landlines? Seriously guys this takes away from what could be a great podcast.

Invest in a good microphone and some audio equipment.