Headliner.app is a web app that makes it really easy and fun to create awesome video clips from your podcast episodes for social sharing. Libsyn has integrated with Headliner, making it easy to send your published episodes from Libsyn straight into Headliner for video clip making fun. Here's how!
Sending a Published Episode to Headliner
When logging into your Libsyn dashboard, a Headliner widget will be available that includes a drop down of your available episodes. Use the drop down to select the episode you want to send to Headliner and hit the Create Headliner Video button:
Once you click on Create Headliner Video, a new tab or window will open in your browser, sending you out to Headliner.
Editing Your Video Clip
The first step is to choose your video aspect ratio. What you choose really depends on where you plan to send the video to.
Square: Great for Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook
Landscape: Perfect for YouTube or websites
Portrait: Ideal for Instagram Stories, TikTok, or Snapchat
Once you select your aspect ratio, hit Next to go to step 2.
Libsyn will automatically send your episode thumbnail up to Headliner for you. If you do not upload an episode thumbnail when publishing your episode in Libsyn, Libsyn will instead send your show artwork for you.
Here, you have the ability to set different configurations for your image and what surrounds it, such as constraining your image size or adding background color. Alternatively, you can use an entirely different image by hitting Add New Image.
When you are done, hit Next to move onto step 3.
Step 3 is where the customization really starts to take place, offering wave customization, text addition, and more.
Wave Style & Position: Your video clip can include a sine wave using anything from dots to bricks to round bars. You can also choose the color, how transparent the wave is, and where on the image the wave should appear (top, bottom, padded bottom, etc).
Text: Using the Add Text button will open a text editor allowing you to position and stylize additional text you want added on top of your image.
Progress Animation: A progress bar can be added to the bottom of your video in the color you want to use. The best part is Headliner lets you set the color of the played portion of the timeline, the unplayed portion of the timeline, and the transparency of those colors.
Once you are done with your changes, hit Next to move on to step 4.
Step 4 is going to load your entire audio file and allows you to select which portion of the audio file you want to use in your video clip.
The red line on the timeline is where your preview plays from, allowing you to listen to the episode as you work. The blue highlighted section is the section that would be used in the video clip, it can be moved around and lengthened or shortened as need be.
If you already have your start and end times figured out, you can enter those into the Clip Start and Clip End fields.
It is worth noting here that many services have limits on how long your video clip can be, and Headliner has their own limitations as well. The time limit selector along the bottom right hand side of the timeline will help you choose clip lengths appropriate for your final destination.
Once you are happy with your clip selection, hit Next.
If you haven't logged into Headliner with your Headliner account yet, you will be asked to log in at this point. You can also create a Headliner account from here, if you haven't yet done so. Details on creating a Headliner account can be found here.
Once logged in, Headliner will ingest...
...and process the audio file, launching its final editor.
Headliner has some great onboarding tool tips that walk you through the editor interface. The interface is well laid out, but there is a lot of power packed in this screen so definitely take a look at those tool tips for your first go round. Lets walk through some of the finer points.
Transcriptions
The upper left hand side of your screen will include a set of tabs, the first being Transcript (if you enabled transcript for this clip. This will give you the time codes and the words that were picked out.
Clicking on any of the text will give you an editor box so you can alter and/or correct any of the wording. You can hit the Play button to play that specific segment to help you with your wording, or you can delete it entirely.
Hit the add to timeline button to add the text as a caption to the video clip during that timeframe.
Media
Headliner allows the ability to upload additional media which can be added to the video clip. They support a range of media types including images, video, and gifs. These files would be ingested from various cloud storage solutions or via an upload from your local computer (not ingested from Libsyn).
Style
The last tab in this section is Style which allows you to revisit your already selected settings regarding the background color, progress animation, and (for Headliner Pro accounts) watermarks.
The Timeline
Along the entire bottom portion of your screen is your timeline. This is where you can see how audio and video fit together, any added transcription captions will appear and can be moved, or any additional media you've added using the media tab above would appear and be moved around.
You can use the timeline to also begin and stop playback in the preview found in the upper right side of your screen:
Exporting Your Video Clip
To export your video clip, hit the blue Export button found along the right side of your screen.
A module will appear with the export options available.
With your settings in place, hit the Export My Video button. A status message will appear in the upper right hand corner that will change to a progress bar...
...and ultimately will show the option to download your generated video. Hit the "Download it Here" link when it appears.
All your download and share options will appear. Clicking directly on a social network will allow you to share your clip straight to that network from Headliner.
Important Note: The file generated by Headliner is not shared back to or linked in Libsyn. Libsyn does not track stats on plays or access to these clips, sharing these clips from Headliner is handled by Headliner's app and not by Libsyn.
Getting Additional Help
Have questions? Contact our support staff at support@libsynsupport.com.