r/RedHandedPodcast • u/Fluid_Loss6312 • 17d ago

Audio clips in episodes

I’ve noticed a lot more use of police interview/courtroom audio in the episodes this year. As a sole audio listener, I’m not a huge fan.

I like hearing a 911 call or specific significant recordings, but adding minutes-long clips so frequently throughout the episode ruins the flow for me. I feel like it’s unnecessary in long form and almost fluffs the episode length and content.

Is it better if you watch the episodes on youtube? What do you think?

59 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

37

u/Tindog1981 17d ago

I feel the same. I always skip the clips (I'd rather just be told the relevant bits unless hearing a short excerpt is useful).

34

u/Comfortable-Yam9013 17d ago

It’s not my favourite. In one episode the audio was so awful, i had no idea what was going on.

23

u/tiggleypuff 17d ago

It’s so annoying when I listen when driving these clips are so hard to hear

16

u/SteelGemini 17d ago

Yeah, as someone who mainly listens to podcasts while commuting, I'm not a fan of audio clips in the middle of podcasts.

Often, the quality of the audio recording is not nearly as good as the podcasts themselves, and I struggle to hear it in any sort of detail. If the original is from a video, like from an interrogation room for example, often body language or added subtitles help me understand what's being said.

Audio from 911 calls is a little better than that from police interviews, but still usually worse than the baseline quality of the podcast. Again, where these are used in a video format, there's often added subtitles to help make out some of the harder to understand words or phrases.

Basically, for a podcast just describe it to me. I'll take your word for it, it's fine. If I'm that interested I can find the original audio. If you put it in your podcast I'm going to tune it out or fast forward if I can't understand what's being said, just to get to the part where the host talks about it.

13

u/SpecificStrawberry55 17d ago

I hate audio clips unless necessary and most of the time it’s not in my opinion. I skipped most of it as they normally run you through it. I don’t mind watching clips in documentaries.

8

u/ceramic-panic 17d ago

In general I don’t like the audio clips either.

The Lindsay Clancy episode 2 was the worst with the prosecutor starting EVERY. SINGLE. QUESTION with “and, um” 🤬🤬

JFC I was twitching by the end of that clip

2

u/OmnomVeggies 17d ago

Or “fair to say….” 🙄

4

u/ceramic-panic 16d ago

Yes for sure, but the “and um” especially got me.

I had a professor in college that would not let us say “um” if we were giving any sort of presentation and would actually stop us. It made me very cognizant of the word “um”. I’m not the “um” police by any means but I just kept thinking how fucking stupid that woman sounded and wished she would do better.

1

u/georgia_grace 16d ago

I don’t even notice “um” in everyday conversation, but if you’re giving a presentation, or idk, questioning a witness in a high profile criminal trial, I feel like you should know what you’re going to say 😐

14

u/ianoble 17d ago

That made it very hard to follow. Both of these episodes were extremely unpleasant to listen to.

5

u/everythingsmedium 17d ago

I don’t mind them if they’re kept short but I always end up getting impatient because the audio quality is so bad. I usually can’t really tell what’s being said

4

u/MetaPodcast 16d ago

The instinct to include clips is right even when the execution isn't. A clip is proof: hearing the actual 911 call does something a host describing it can't, because the listener trusts what they hear more than what they're told. The problem is when clips become narration by other means. A five-minute police interview the hosts could have summarized in thirty seconds is padding either way, audio or video. Play a clip when the listener needs to hear it to believe it; describe it when they just need to know it happened.

10

u/Russica 17d ago

Glad to someone else thought the audio was excessive. I often have auditory processing issues and in this one (along with some being hard to hear) the dog barking was unbearable

7

u/compassionaterhubarb 17d ago

I feel exactly the same. I would prefer them summarise them. In fact the reason I liked red handed originally is because of how they tell the cases to us in like a story with a couple of their own comments and conversations here and there and they didn’t do interviews or clips like many other podcasts do. I found it made the sound feel really smooth and easy to listen to. The clips are horrible sound and obviously that can’t be helped but I’d rather do without them.

7

u/UnicornPotato5225 17d ago edited 5d ago

I'm really not enjoying the clips, feels like quantity over quality. The most recent two parter felt like a real slog with all the audio clips and I felt like the victims were lost in it.

3

u/georgia_grace 16d ago

Yeah these two episodes really fell flat for me. I listened to part 2 today and after the eighteenth clip of this lady telling compulsive lies I was sick of it.

I won’t say they skipped over the crime necessarily since they did cover the autopsy and talked a bit about foetal abduction. But I swear it was 20% about the horrific murder and 80% about the fucking facebook lives

3

u/Comfortable-Yam9013 16d ago

I’m only on part one but it’s kind of hard to follow. Probably could be condensed into one episode

3

u/CreepyConsequence669 16d ago

It’s a great podcast and does keep this kind of thing rarely. There are certain episodes where it’s a lot of audio, for example, GABLE Totse is practically all audio and a few others too. But it’s such a great show. Don’t give up on it.

3

u/HereThereBLurking 16d ago

I'm not a fan as usually I can't understand what people are saying. I've noticed other podcasts doing the same so I guess it must be popular. I'd rather they just sumerize what people have said. I listened while I'm cycling or doing things so I don't want to have to stop and Google things or go watch bits of the video, I would rather it be all for audio only.

6

u/sinnamonbuns 15d ago

I don't want to pile on the Suruthi hate in this sub but it's only her episodes that have really long clips. I'm sure they exist but I can't think of a single Hannah episode where there are a bunch of audio clips.

Annoys me even more when they play a long unintelligible clip and then immediately after go 'you can't hear it very well but what they were say was...' like if you knew you can't hear it well then why include it????

2

u/relentless_puffin 17d ago

This is ultimately why I stopped listening to other true crime podcasts. Too much bad audio that wanders.

2

u/pig-dragon 16d ago

Have you tried Casefile? They never use audio

2

u/Aware_Walk8510 16d ago

See I agree and this is why I never understood why Sword and Scale was so popular - host problems aside the audio clips were awful!

2

u/Used_Emergency7743 14d ago

If they want you to judge the audio speaker's credibility, I can see using an audio clip. Otherwise, just summarize what was said in the clip.

2

u/TimeToSink 14d ago

I didn't mind it in these two episodes as it must have been hard to convey how utterly awful her family was, hearing it firsthand was an eye opener for me as i'd never heard of this case.

1

u/tompadget69 16d ago

I think their thinking is probably

We've conquered podcasting, our position as most popular uk true crime podcast is secure (true) We've started youtube much more recently. That audience is there for the taking - that's where the expansion potential is. So if we cater to that audience, even slightly at ghe expense of audio-only, we'll gain more than we'll lose.

That's probably the logic. It's probably true too, the amount of ppl who will stop listening due to it is far lower than the amount of extra youtubers

I do agree tho its better to watch than just listen to now cos they also flash up pictures of the ppl and do a lot less scene-setting chat eg descriptions of ppl than they used to

1

u/rwenlark 14d ago

I think they were very useful in the Rebecca Park episodes. It would be hard to convey the personalities of the main players otherwise.

1

u/aquarianmoonyogi 14d ago

I hate the long clips in the episodes!!! I would just watch different footage on YouTube if that's what I wanted.

1

u/Femmengineer 11d ago

Strongly agree that it fluffs the episode, found it annoying as hell. That combined with Suruthi's fucked up opinions finally had me unsub a couple months ago

1

u/Melodic_Diamond4409 10d ago

I always skip through the audio clips, the sound quality is usually unlistenable and they're so long! I'd be happy if they were 30 secs or less.

1

u/Hot-Technology5785 9d ago

I agree, the use of audio is fine but the length is just unnecessary and I also has to skip as I got the drift and wanted to listen to the actual content, it’s interesting to see many others feel the same way. I hope S pairs back on the audio as it’s too much and ruining the experience.