Riverside Reviews & Product Details

I like the possibility of marrying podcast audio with podcast video on the same site. This makes it a great alternative to podcast enthusiasts and beginners who look for a creative start.

I´m a little thrown back because of pricing; it is a little bit expensive for a complete beginner who looks forward to building an online presence on different platforms

I was a little bit slow on my content creation workflow because I was the only person involved with the process, so it took me much time to perform all duties due to my project, Riverside solved my problem with time, everything was much easier

What sold me was that it was one of the first solutions for recording separate native audio tracks for podcast guests. Riverside has since improved its platform, adding some quick video editing tools.

Sometimes there are issues with remote guests getting their complete audio track synced and uploaded, but it was solved by reminding guests that they must leave their browser open until it's done.

I am producing higher-quality audio for my remote podcasts. Other video conferencing tools like Skype and Hangouts produce "watery" sound for guests over the internet.

Riverside.fm does a great job of connecting hosts and guests for any level of podcaster, new or professional. Being able to see and hear WHILE recording local audio and video is not just convenient, it provides a workflow solution that every podcaster needs.

The platform can do a better job of syncing audio and video once a recording is uploaded. If you're working with older equipment, a laptop or desktop with not the latest CPU or enough RAM, poorly synced audio and video could occur.

Finding guests for an interview-based podcast is always a challenge, being able to tell them to sit in front of their computer and camera makes that task remarkably easy.

Riverside features local uploads that operate consistently throughout the podcasting interview. This has saved me so much time when remote guests have internet glitches. For this alone, I stay with Riverside.fm. I'm also a fan of the auto-transcript feature that was added. And the user interface is easy to navigate.

There were issues with the syncing between downloaded video and downloaded audio. But those have been fixed in my most recent downloads.

Riverside.fm is an affordable all-in-one platform for audio and video podcasting. The integration of auto-transcripts, magic clips, and other editing software makes it a no-brainer.

Easy to use, intuative for guests and producers alike

Would like an ability to export video titles into excel

Podcasting

High quality finished product. Easy to use.

The audio lag with poor internet connections make it really difficult

Filming my podcast and video cast

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I used Riverside.fm for virtual podcasting. It was easy to pre-record and download all of the materials in a relatively short timeframe.

I canceled my subscription after two months but was still charged for the next month. When I asked Customer Support for a refund, they refused and simply offered to switch me to a free plan. I will need to use a virtual podcasting studio again, but it certainly will not be Riverside.fm Since my original review, I was contacted by Riverside.fm and they did offer me a refund. I appreciate the effort they took to rectify my previous encounter, so I wanted to give credit in this review.

It allowed for me to connect with the other hosts for my podcast even though we all live in different cities. I could access previous recording in my personal studio.

The most helpful feature on Riverside.fm is their Chat support. I get a friendly and helpful solution for every question I ask within minutes! The recording function is easy and reliable.

The only downside to Riverside.fm is that most organisations have some form of VPN or Anti-virus that blocks it. It takes a lot of effort for these organisations to unblock sites like Riverside.fm The solution is to use your mobile, but this isn't always the preferred method for interviewing.

I needed a reliable method to record interviews online. I wanted the audio tracks to be separate and the video quality to be usable and not mangled due to low bandwidth.

Riverside allows me to remotely record high quality video and audio for my podcast. It is easy for guests to understand and doesn't require them to create an account. I also love that there is an iOS app. Another highlight is that Riverside can export your files into a Premiere Pro timeline - this saves me a lot of time!

When it works, it works beautifully. However I have had multiple recordings be out of sync, to the point they cannot be salvaged in editing. Sometimes chunks of audio are even missing. When contacting support, they also haven't been able to help. This isn't the norm, but it has happened enough to make me consider switching platforms. Riverside offers the ability to edit but it is clunky, slow and imprecise. The transcriptions generated are also separate for each speaker which isn't a useful format for a 2 speaker podcast where one transcript would be ideal. A minor bug bear, but it is annoying that Riverside only works in Chrome/Edge.

Better quality recordings than offered by Zoom as the video and audio is recorded locally.

The customer support and people have been lovely.

Technical issues. Takes multiple exports to get the format you want. One episode we had to throw away due to overlapping audio issues. Export functionality is inconsistent. They offered no technical solution other than refund (which was appreciated but I don't care about $25. I need basic funtionality they advertise to actually work. **Update: They did fix the export issue I was having and it's truly appreciated. I've updated my review based on this. However, I do still feel anxious about the inconsistency in the functionality. If it all worked this is an easy 10/10. The inconsistency is anxiety-inducing though. Hoping this will be addressed soon.

Using it for our podcast.

I love the easy access and uploading directly online instead of on the computer.

Audio is delayed and inconsistent (could be on my end too).

Easy to do remote podcasts and make it look somewhat professional.

I was looking for a podcast recording platform that is easy to use for me and my guests and found Riverside.fm very easily. It does look very promising and has great reviews.

At first I thought it was good and it sure is very functional, but I found the user experience to be a bit confusing after a while and some of my guests found it to be so as well. It also limits you to 60 minutes of recording, and we found that we could test for much longer on Zencastr, which has a more intuitive interface. That's why we switched.

Record podcast easily online with remote guests

I really do love the promise of all-in-one podcasting. I appreciate how easy it is to grab my guests' audio and vieo files, and the compressed audio exports for both solo and guest recordings have generally sounded good. I've seen some feedback about the audio and video not syncing well, but I've not had a noticeable issue with that yet.

Their editing tools just aren't there yet, which is unfortunate because that's the main reason I bought in on the paid plan. The *idea" of being able to edit and export video straight to Spotify/Anchor is fantastic, but I've found that editing video within Riverside is a nightmare. It requires constant browser refreshes (on a brand new, fully updated computer and with a cache-cleared browser). Additionally, the ability to accurately select certain clips/timestamps is next to impossible. There also seem to be constant bugs or issues with the editing page - not being able to scroll down, videos not loading or freezing (and then having to re-start the entire editing process). I'm hanging on to my purchase for a few more months because I really do love the direction of the product... but at the moment it's quite frustrating.

Theoretically, the all-in-one recording and editing solves the need to use multiple platforms/software/tools, which is enticing...but I almost always have to use another tool anyway because of the issues with Riverside's editing tools.

The user interface is clean, easy to understand and easy to use. It is a good piece of software for what it is meant to do - record in-sync podcats and video recordings with minimal hassle and fuss for the host and guest.

There seems to be a major issue with syncing the audio and video. It didn't work with a test I did but what is worse is it failed miserably when I did a live recording with a podcast guest which was very embarrassing. Although the audio files are of excellent quality, they are not in sync with the video which is the whole point of getting a Riverside subscription - the ability to get high-quality audio and video in stereo and HD. Secondly, the quality of the video was appalling, and I figured I could have used Zoom to record at this rate. When I wrote to customer service, they got back to me saying the situation could not be remedied and gave me a refund for the month and I was then billed for the service the next month without even using it.

If the platform works the way it is meant to, it is an excellent solution but for what it does right now, I believe solutions like Streamyard and even Iris offer better solutions in the market.

Records audio files locally. Better quality

Poor documentation, interface support lacking, audio file downloads changed making it to difficult to use

We use it for remote podcast recording

They have high quality audio and video. The editor is nice with the transcript and being able to jump around. I like that when the connection isn't great it still uploads a nice finished product.

The data integrity of this company is awful. I have been using Riverside for two years to record my podcast. At the beginning I did not realize that video was not recording in high quality because it still showed up in every recording after. A year in, they changed their UX and I saw it wasn't recording when I wanted to hire someone to go back and make video clips. I downloaded the backup files anyway, which were choppy and hard to edit, to make the most of it. A month into this, the purged all my backup videos without telling me on "stored" files. Anything that is stored takes a day to recover, and now most of my backup recordings are not available. This is not mentioned that it will happen anywhere. I also had an issue where I did record a guest properly, said he was recording, and now the track and video are gone. The quality of the technology and processes of the tech team are just not enough for a business to rely on.

I host a podcast with hundreds of thousands of downloads a month. It allowed me to record guests in high quality without worrying about their internet stability.

At first it's a great experience. I think for beginners or amateurs, this would acually be fine. But for anyone hoping for a professional quality recording and are potentially using a mixer or USB Mic to record, I would stay away from Riverside.

The way Riverside interacts with the device you record on is damaging. Using Riverside ruined our "Mackie ProFX16v3 16 Channel Effects Mixer" as well as a "RODE Podcaster" microphone. Riverside denied they were the reason this happened, but 2 independent programmers disagreed and said Riverside was to blame. Customer support was more interested in denying blame instead of solving the problem. Unless you're an amateur or doing this for fun, I'd stay away.

At first, Riverside seemed like a solution for all of the inherent issues that come with recording podcasts remotely. I actually used Riverside for several months with no problems (except for the repetitive complaints on here like the lag, the audio recordings being slightly off, some audio clips went missing etc.). I was willing to deal with those issues because I considered them minor and it wasn't affecting the final product. But then the major problems began. First, the lag issues got so bad, that the hosts of the podcast couldn't hear what the others were saying. I know Riverside uses a feature where it records remotely to avoid any lag in the FINAL audio, but during the ACTUAL recording, we couldn't hear each other. This makes it very hard to record a coherent podcast without constantly being interrupted. Next, and most importantly, using riverside actually changed how our mixer in our studio worked. The "gain levels" were completely distorted after using Riverside. We were using the same mixer for several years with no problems on Adobe Audition, and the first time we used it to record on Riverside it was ruined. I had a back and forth with customer support via email and their customer support team essentially told me that I was wrong and they way Riverside works, that could never happen. I consulted 2 independent programmers who disagreed and said that Riverside was likely the reason why this was happening. After several emails to customer support, I was told that I was again incorrect. So, I then decided to purchase a brand new mixer. We needed an upgrade anyway so we decided this was the right time. Well, guess what happened... We were able to use the new mixer on Adobe Audition as well as several other platforms to record and edit audio. But after JUST ONE recording on Riverside, the audio levels were messed up on the NEW mixer! Several emails later, Riverside is refusing that this could have happened. I am seriously blown away that Riverside is clearly the reason this is happening and no one seemed even a little interested in solving the problem. This might be a great outlet for new podcasters, individuals who don't do professional recordings, or simply for a hobby. But if you need professional quality and have recording equipment that you use, I would strongly recommend to stay away from Riverside.

Riverside.fm has certainly brought some impressive tools to the table. I'm particularly fond of their transcript feature, which aids immensely in post-production and content documentation. Additionally, their capabilities for repurposing videos to cater to social media platforms are quite commendable. Such features are pivotal in amplifying a podcast's reach in this digital age. However, while these assets are indeed noteworthy, the platform's basic functionality issues prevent me from using it to its full potential.

I'm all for using innovative platforms, especially when running a podcast. On paper, Riverside.fm promises a lot, but in practicality, it's riddled with reliability issues that make it impossible for professional use. Firstly, there's an alarming 30% chance you won't get the entirety of an interview. In our experience, one of the host's clips were frequently missing, which, as you can imagine, is disastrous for post-production. Even when the clips did come through, there was one incident where they were entirely out of sync. This isn't something we expect from a platform that prides itself on high-quality recordings. Internet connectivity is another nightmare. If your connection isn't consistently hitting at least 200mbps, expect lag so severe that you can't even make out what the other person is saying. To put things in perspective, platforms like Streamyard don't have this issue at all. The uploading feature too is a roulette of its own. Pausing an upload and importing it later poses a 60% chance that parts of your video will vanish into the void. Lastly, the hardware compatibility. Both my co-host and I use Macs. It's baffling how a platform in today's age can't seamlessly work with one of the most popular systems out there. To sum it up, while Riverside.fm flaunts an array of enticing features, it woefully underperforms in the basic functionalities. In a domain where reliability is the linchpin, this platform, sadly, misses the mark by a mile.

Reliability

It started very positive with nice tools and design for podcast recordint solution.

The synchronization just killed the reason for us to continue using that platform. I just spoiled 1 podcast as we couldn't get through it with constant disconnects, audio going out-of-sync and guest not able to re-join. We had some signs in the but they weren't that critical. This was a last straw as we cannot simply frustrate people who joined our podcast because of recording software we use is a trash.

They promise to provide a tremendous podcasting platform. With constant disconnects, they failed to solve reliable connection and audio-sync during the recording.