If you are a broadcaster at an Austrian community radio you will receive your account from your program coordinator.
If you are an independent podcaster, a radio station or want to participate as an organisation, just send an email to office@cba.media and we'll inform you about the possibilites.
You can easily transfer all your files to us using an RSS feed of your podcast. We provide an import function that does everything automatically for you. It is important that you own the online publishing rights ("making available") for this material.
Commercial podcast hosters usually store your data abroad and often in countries with poor data protection regulations. It is not uncommon for your data to be sold for advertising purposes and unfair terms and conditions apply. We store all data on Austrian servers and can therefore guarantee data protection at a European level. We are a non-profit organization and do not sell any data, be it your content or your personal ones. Our terms and conditions offer you data protection and data sovereignty and thus a fair framework for podcasting.
Additional features include:
Yes. We offer tailor-made functions and prices for institutions (e.g. universities, museums, clubs, etc.) with potentially large data sets. With daily in-house and out-house backups, we can guarantee the long-term availability of your productions. Just contact us directly at office@cba.media.
Yes, there are so-called channel manager accounts with which you can independently manage users of your channel and assign access rights to podcasts/videocasts. We also provide tools for mass editing and export functions. Just contact us directly at office@cba.media.
From Wikipedia: A podcast is a series of mostly subscription-based media files (audio or video) on the Internet. The English portmanteau “podcast” is made up of “pod” (“capsule”, “sleeve”) in the name for the portable audio player iPod, on which the medium was first widely used, and the term broadcast. Around 2016, podcasts were primarily listened to on smartphones. Due to the growing popularity of smartphones and the success of individual podcasts, they have become more popular every year. A single podcast consists of a series (episodes) of media articles (e.g. interviews, reports, recordings of radio shows, music shows, etc.), which can be obtained automatically via an RSS feed. (Text licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
Each of your podcasts has a so-called RSS feed (“Really Simple Syndication”), located at https://cba.media/podcast/name-of-the-podcast/feed. This is a machine-readable document that your listeners can use to subscribe to your podcast with a podcatcher. A podcatcher is a program or app for subscribing to podcasts. Your listeners will then automatically get noticed when you publish a new episode without having to visit the page themselves.
You just need to know the URL of your feed and pass it on: You can find it out on the home screen after logging in ("View feed URLs").
You can use the feed to distribute your podcast to other podcast platforms or directories. All you need to do is know his address and copy it to the right place. To do this, we will provide you with a link on the start screen after you log in that you can use to view the feed URLs of your podcasts.
Find more about it here
With the podcast player you can automatically embed all of your contributions on an external website for quick listening. On the start screen after logging in you will find a link through which you can easily generate a code snippet with which you can then integrate the player.
Find more about it here
You can embed individual posts in external pages using the embed player. To do this, go to the page of a post (e.g. https://cba.media/1234) and click on the </> button in the waveform to generate a code snippet that you can simply copy into another page.
You can share the RSS feed of your podcast (e.g. https://cba.media/podcast/stimmlagen/feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To do this, you must enter the fields “Contact person”, “Contact email” and “Apple Podcasts.) when editing the podcast Category”.
You also need an image for your podcast. It must be square for both platforms, and between 1,600 and 3,000 pixels wide or high for Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts itself recommends an image size of 3,000 x 3,000 pixels. Allowed file formats are: PNG or JPG.
Yes. To do this, simply copy the URL of a post, podcast, channel or station and paste it into your posting. To do this, you should upload an image to your post (or at least for your podcast) that is at least 1,200 pixels wide and 628 pixels high and enter a description.
Unfortunately, an audio player cannot be integrated into social media. However, in the future we plan to offer an audio-to-video tool that will allow you to automatically turn your audio files into videos and then integrate them directly into social media.
See “How do I distribute my podcast?”
For such cases, we provide a REST API that can be tailored to individual needs. Just contact us directly at office@cba.media.
We back up all of our data multiple times in-house and out-house twice a day. In the event of hardware damage, we can restore data at any time. We also have a number of failsafes that ensure continuous accessibility. We are currently developing a tariff model for truly long-term availability, lasting years or decades.
Subtitles improve accessibility for the deaf, hearing impaired and people who speak another language and make the content more accessible for everyone. They also help search engines to find the content more easily, which increases its reach.
The textualization of spoken words is also the basis for many other future applications that build on this, for which we are laying the foundation. These include improving the search function, content recommendations, facilitating or partially automating keywording, automated translations and much more.
Automatic creation simplifies the process and saves time. The manual process of transcribing or creating subtitles is time-consuming and requires a lot of resources, as people are needed for each language and each episode to convert the spoken content into text.
Subtitles are generated with the help of Whisper AI, a speech-to-text algorithm developed by Google. It is capable of converting spoken word into text in over 50 languages and is open source, i.e. it is open source and can be used freely. Since training such an algorithm is very expensive, we, like many others, have to rely on existing technologies such as Whisper AI.
The algorithm converts so-called phonemes (linguistic sounds) into letters, syllables and finally words. A number of different methods are used to improve recognition or increase comprehensibility for the reader. For example, it filters out grammatical speech flow disorders, such as "Er" and "Ah", or converts certain dialectal expressions into more generally understandable ones.
In addition, so-called "glossaries" are used to recognize and reproduce certain terms that are only used in a specific language or dialect area. As these glossaries are also trained more with German terms that are spoken in Germany, they are less able to recognize Austria-specific terms such as "Nationalrat", "Bezirkshauptmannschaft" or proper names such as "Freistadt". In such situations, terms may therefore be transcribed incorrectly even though they have been clearly articulated if the term is not included in the glossary. For example, the city "Freistadt" sometimes becomes "Freistaat".
The algorithm is constantly being improved and it can be assumed that the quality for Austrian German will also continue to improve.
The creation of subtitles usually takes around a sixth to a third of the total duration of the audio. The duration depends on the amount of speech or music, the language(s) spoken and the way the characters speak. On average, a one-hour file takes approx. 10 - 20 minutes for auto-transcription.
The creation takes place in the background and requires a lot of computing power, which is time-consuming and costly. We first transcribe the entire database, primarily to improve the search function. New files are only transcribed if they have already been published in order to save resources and time. As soon as the entire database has been transcribed - which takes over a year - we will consider giving you more control over the transcription process.
Many of the posts in cba have little descriptive text or keywords. However, they can only be found if sufficient text information is available. For this purpose, we enrich our search index with the transcripts and, in a next step, we can also filter out meaningful keywords and thus offer them for keywording. This process not only leads to more precise search results, but also to a better balance: content from the archive can now also be made public for which no or very little text information was previously available.
Correct transcription depends on a number of factors
Whisper AI uses a sg. language model to convert sounds into text. To understand a specific way of speaking, such as a dialect, such technology needs a lot of information about how people speak in that dialect. The training data is often available to varying degrees depending on the language and dialect area. As a result, these algorithms tend to be trained with German language variations, for example, which means that High German is recognized much better than certain dialects, for example.
In addition to the way of speaking, the quality of the transcription depends above all on the sound quality. "Washy" or muffled sound, clipping/distortion, reverberation and even the bit rate (the compression rate of an MP3, for example) can severely impair the quality and therefore lead to errors in the subtitles.
However, you can correct these errors manually using the subtitle editor.
Yes, the automatically created subtitles can be edited in the subtitle editor to make sure they are correct. You can find out how to use it here.
Yes, with the subtitle editor you can export and download both the subtitles as a WebVTT file and the entire transcript as text.
You can use the cba to publish your files from anywhere at any time and maintain complete control over your content.
Your contributions will be published solely for the purpose of free access to information and will not be used commercially by us in any way.
You must have the consent of all copyright holders to make available the published material.
According to the E-Commerce Act, there is an obligation to disclose the imprint data for the person responsible for the content. Therefore, your name and place of residence must be stated in the user profile. Only the name and postal code, not the entire postal address, will be published.
In the event of a violation of the law, you will hold the operator of the cba harmless and harmless.
You must agree to these terms and conditions (“User Agreement”) in order to use the cba.
As host providers, we have to protect ourselves legally from our uploaders so that the entire database is not at risk in the event of legal violations by individuals.
The user agreement essentially consists of four parts:
The data processing agreement specifies which of your data you allow us to process so that we can make your contributions (and the data contained therein) available. Be aware that a lot of what is said in your podcast is personal data, e.g. the voice itself. In addition, the contract makes transparent what rights and obligations exist when dealing with your data. We also have two business partners: the non-profit art and culture host servus.at, which looks after our servers and through which we get our internet connection, and Proserver1, an individual company that carries out our daily data backup. So that your podcasts are accessible in the cba and so that there is an external backup, these two organizations are also part of the contract. Furthermore, we will not pass on or even sell your data to anyone else. On the contrary, we want you to be able to make your contributions freely available without terms of use forcing you to sell your personal data, as is the case with all commercial platforms (such as Facebook or YouTube).
As an uploader, you are the media owner of your contributions and therefore legally responsible. This is accompanied by an obligation to provide an imprint in accordance with the E-Commerce Act prescribes. That's why your name and email address are displayed under every post. For the same reason, this data is also passed on via our interfaces so that this necessary information can also appear on external sites. We actively protect all other personal data from disclosure and misuse. We store your address because we have to release this data in the event of a court order.
In principle, you must obtain the rights to make available online (“Making Available”) for any material you publish. If you have obtained the usage licenses from the author or publisher/collection society, nothing stands in the way of publication. Otherwise, you may not upload third-party copyrighted material. If you violate the rules, you can be held legally responsible.
However, you can use our online audio editor to cut your files and remove these parts. That way you stay safe nevertheless. Note that this is also necessary for distributing your podcast on commercial platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
No. The terms of use of these platforms exclude this.
However, you can use our online audio editor to cut your files and remove these parts. That way you stay safe nevertheless. Note that this is also necessary for distributing your podcast on commercial platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
If contributions are not licensed, this means that the applicable legal standard applies - which is very restrictive ("All rights reserved").
Beside private use the material may then not be used in any other way, be it passed on, copied, changed, broadcasted, performed or else.
We want to be an open archive and make it easy for others to reuse the content, be it for artistic, educational, scientific purposes or whatsoever. Knowledge and information should be as publicly acessible and usable as possible in our eyes, because knowledge gets more if you share it. If you accept the user agreement, all your published files - unless otherwise stated by you - are automatically considered to be under the Creative Commons license “Attribution” (CC BY 4.0) licensed. The contributions may then be reproduced, distributed and made publicly accessible by anyone. Modifications and edits of the content may also be made - all on the condition that the names of the authors are mentioned.
Place your files under a license and decide for yourself how your material can be used.
A license can also be changed afterwards, but these conditions only apply for the future.
You can find a detailed explanation of Creative Commons in the guide to dealing with CC licenses (PDF).
Next, you can choose the conditions under which the file may be reused. You can choose between 4 conditions:
One condition automatically applies to any kind of reuse of your material: The name of the author must always be mentioned (by).
This results in 4 Creative Commons licenses, which are as follows:
| License name | You may... | Under the following conditions | License Link & text |
|---|---|---|---|
| by | ... reproduce, distribute and make the work or content publicly accessible. ... make modifications and adaptations of the work or content. |
Attribution - You must give the name of the author/rights holder in the manner specified by them. | Link to the license |
| by-nd | ... reproduce, distribute and make the work or content publicly accessible. |
Attribution - You must give the name of the author/rights holder in the manner specified by them. No editing - This work or content may not be edited, modified or altered in any way. |
Link to the license |
| by-nc | ... reproduce, distribute and make the work or content publicly accessible. ... make modifications and adaptations of the work or content. |
Attribution - You must give the name of the author/rights holder in the manner specified by them. No commercial use - This work or content may not be used for commercial purposes. |
Link to the license |
| by-nc-nd | ... reproduce, distribute and make the work or content publicly accessible. | Attribution - You must give the name of the author/rights holder in the manner specified by them. No commercial use - This work or content may not be used for commercial purposes. No editing - This work or content may not be edited, modified or altered in any way. |
Link to the license |
We recommend selecting a license that is as open as possible (BY). This helps to disseminate contributions more quickly and also make them accessible for scientific or artistic use. Allowing further use for commercial purposes also makes sense, because otherwise the file may not be used by anyone who receives money for their work - even if it is just to cover expenses. BY-NC is very restrictive in practice and is not recommended. Remember that any restriction on editing a file (ND) also prevents it from being cut. It may then not be used in extracts.
“Non-commercial” is defined very narrowly in the copyright sense and has extremely restrictive effects in practice, meaning that the work may not be used in many cases. In the context of Austrian copyright law, “non-commercial” does not mean freedom of advertising, but rather refers to all flows of money, regardless of whether there is an intention to make a profit. For example, the work may not be used for a broadcast if the responsible program coordinator or editor is paid for it or receives compensation for expenses.
Further restrictions concern the usability for knowledge platforms in the areas of libraries, archives and museums. On Wikipedia, for example, no NC material may be published (see Wikipedia FAQ). Strict open access guidelines apply, particularly in the scientific sector: scientific institutions must comply with these and in many cases funding is even linked to them. At EU level, it is expected that the use of CC BY will become mandatory for ERC grants (the gold standard) in the next few years.
The use of the CC BY license is intended to generally make it easier for cba contributions to be included in scientific and educational contexts. Further legally sound information can be found in the document by irights.info: “Consequences, risks and side effects of the condition non-commercial – NC” by German copyright expert Paul Klimpel.
In general, you should consider the following questions when deciding between BY and BY-NC:
Podcasts/radio shows are often composite works consisting of various licensed materials. A share-alike license is therefore usually not even possible, because most licenses constrain further usage strongly, if they allow it at all. In addition, it has a very restrictive effect on further use, especially if content is to be incorporated into other productions, which in turn are then composite as well and can't apply the share-alike license either. We therefore do not support it. This also means that you cannot use SA licensed material in your posts.
A license can be changed at any time. The new conditions then apply for the future. The information about when the license was changed is saved. In addition, you can grant certain people rights beyond the license at any time. You can also arrange this with each person individually.
After uploading, your file goes through some automated processes. A waveform is generated. For better playback compatibility, your file will be converted and a slightly lower quality preview version will be generated. In addition, the file is analyzed for speech and music components (what is music, what is spoken word?) to offer support for chapter setting and online editing. These processes can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes, depending on the size of the file, before you can publish the file.
In addition to radio stations, which can be found in the “Stations” menu item, participating uploaders include private, freelance producers and institutions. The last two groups are subsumed under “Channels”.
freie-radios.online is an additional form of presentation (“frontend”), exclusively for the community radios in Austria, which brings the programs and services of the 3rd media sector even more to the fore as such.
If you have any questions regarding community radios and freie-radios.online, please contact the management of VFRÖ at office@freier-rundfunk.at
No, you continue to upload your files via cba as usual, they will then be accessible under both cba.media and freie-radios.online. The motto: One backend, many frontends!
You decide for yourself which of the two pages you find more suitable for your purposes and where you want to link your posts.
Yes, the domain will not change in the near future.
Should something change, cba will still be available at this address. In this case, existing links are also retained.
If copyrighted material - especially music - is to be published, a paid license must be obtained. This applies to of most commercially available music. To ensure that broadcasters can publish such material without committing a legal violation, the Austrian Association of Community Broadcasters (VFRÖ) has concluded flat-rate contracts with the collecting societies AKM and LSG for its member radio stations.
However, the contracts stipulate that if such material is included, the download must be restricted. The file can then only be listened to via the website or via external players, but cannot be downloaded. That also answers the next question.
Your files will only appear in the podcast if they do not contain any copyrighted material subject to exploitation by an Austrian collecting society (“contains AKM-required material”), see previous point. Due to the license agreements with the collecting societies AKM and LSG, we have to restrict the download of such files. They can then only be played directly in the browser. Therefore, use Creative Commons-licensed music (e.g. from https://freemusicarchive.org) in your posts to enable podcasting.
Note: For logged-in station managers of community radios, all files can always be downloaded to ensure a smooth exchange of broadcasts.
If you have any questions how to use cba, check the manual first.
If you have any other questions that are not answered here or if any problems occur with the backend (e.g. when uploading files or publishing), write an email to office@cba.media. We will help you solve your problem as soon as possible.