Your Opinion on my YouTube Tutorials
Keith Young
Posts: 569
I'm in the process of making tutorials based on my ActivityBot Maze Solver. I'm looking for constructive criticism on this first quick video. This doesn't deal directly with the bot I just wanted something I knew I could quickly cover in under 10 minutes without having to make Part1 etc. Need to test my mics, screen capture, editing, all that jazz.
Also, please let me know if you see any ads etc. I turned them off but I'd like to make sure they are indeed off.
Font too big or small? Volume OK? Background noise etc. Talking to quick or slow? Thousands of little things to in to making the video and I could really use your opinions.
Thanks a bunch.
Hoping to start punching out the ActivityBot tutorials in the near future. Just want to polish a bit (or a lot) first.
Also, please let me know if you see any ads etc. I turned them off but I'd like to make sure they are indeed off.
Font too big or small? Volume OK? Background noise etc. Talking to quick or slow? Thousands of little things to in to making the video and I could really use your opinions.
Thanks a bunch.
Hoping to start punching out the ActivityBot tutorials in the near future. Just want to polish a bit (or a lot) first.
Comments
As a long time C programmer who is totally ignorant of OpenCV I would say there is no introduction as to what we are trying to do before we start. Like "Why would I be watching this?"
Then there is a bunch of code being typed that had no meaning at all if you have not seen it before and which was not explained. In fact I was surprised when a window popped up with an image and sliders in it. Did not see that coming.
There might be a need for a structure or narrative: In this video I will show how to do <insert whatever amazing thing> and this is how we do it <explain whatever amazing thing>
As I said, very interesting, I look forward to more
But that's just me I guess.
I have some decisions to make. You're right about the lack of narrative. I might basically talk about the code and not show me writing it. I do see a lot of tutorials where the person actually types the code, but I don't know what type of video people prefer. So I put in the "Skip ahead" button. I think I need to figure out how I can upload longer videos so I can show typing the code for those who want it and allow the others to skip, and have actual discussion about what the different parts of the code do.
This is something I would never dream of attempting!
My observation is that it can work very well quite often.
A classic example is the young Ryan Dahl introducing node.js:
Well worth watching if you have the patients and even if you don't care about server side JS.
It all starts from the most simple possible program, shows the results, and then builds on that, step by step.
This is a bit easier with JS that does not need the tedious edit/compile/run cycle of C/C++. But hey, when recording a video you can fast forward over those boring compile steps.
Your video is great if this is your first crack at it I'd say excellent. Unless you hire a production team it will be a big learning process. If you have good sound and good lighting you're within the realm of lots of people posting tutorials. The important thing is to be yourself, connect with your viewers. If people leave you comments visit their page and leave one for them. It doesn't take much before youtube goes to work for you.
Were there any things that stuck out to you that I should improve Xanadu?
Thanks for the feedback.
Anyway, skip the node part. My post was about the simple step by simple step approach to a presentation. And how "live" coding can work nicely. Whatever it is you want to talk about.
Actually now that I think about it, is there any other approach to this? The alternative seems to be "Here is the code" - some code is flashed up on screen for a short while. "Here it is running" - we see the output. Not very useful.
I think Keith is doing fine.
If you wanted to make it really easy you could add a link to your code in the description.
If you have a problem with background noise (very common for me too) you could try scrapping the audio from the video recording and doing narration.
Yup it's all about finding a good balance of the amount of time used and information given. There's a sweet spot in there for everyone.
It's funny how Dave from EEVBlog will post a "quick" video that is 38 minutes long. Nobody cares, they love to listen to him. If I posted a 38 minute video even my mom wouldn't watch it!
Then I put myself to sleep at night listening to the Amp Hour podcast with Dave a Chris.
I'd also recommend Shahriar's Signal Path Blog https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSignalPathBlog/videos
if you want to get a glimpse of some serious high frequency electronics. Shahriar has a much better record of actually fixing broken stuff
I'm thinking I want to start from the beginning, and when I get to the end, stop. So I'm starting literally with installing the Raspberry Pi, then OpenCV, SimpleIDE, etc. Then moving on to simple OpenCV and SimpleIDE stuff, and moving on to more complicated functions and applications. I figure it will be more useful as a series than a lump of various videos.
Installation video for just Noobs is hopefully halfway done, though this will be my first video where I later go back and narrate all the cut and glued clips. I try to avoid it, but I just see how to in this case.
Be sure to mention the at the beginning or in the notes so that people get attracted to follow along.
What is the "Hello World" of an OpenCV program ?
Then, I just stack them up in whatever program and output a complete video.
Hate to say it, but the free as in beer Microsoft Expressions has three awesome features:
1. Killer screen capture with audio. It works, and it's fast, and it's free.
2. Dead simple "build your movie" interface. It doesn't do much, but it does the right things quick. Adding all the video pieces is just stupid easy.
3. Unreal good codec package. I can get great videos into really small sizes and they play on anything. Good options on bitrates, etc... if needed for a size / quality goal. It will normalize audio and it's sane when it's done.
For me, I get stuck doing these for some demonstration purposes very frequently. I just fire Expressions up, do all my captures, start a new video job, paste 'em all in, export to movie file, done.
MS gave up on Expressions and has just left it out there. It nails this use case and not many others.
Just FWIW.
You can still do "Hello World" in OpenCV. The next thing is opening and displaying an image. You can also put text on an image so you could write Hello World on the image and save it. That's basically what I was thinking I was going to do.
Potatohead,
I've already got a license of Camtasia so that's what I'm using. Luckily for most of this I don't seem to need incredible codecs, after fiddling with things I've found when writing code the difference between 10fps and 30fps isn't meaningful so I can get much smaller file sizes. Plus it has YouTube's recommended MP4 with H.264. It was $200 or $300. Works great for me. I still probably have more to learn in it.
Another reason is likely my most viewed video will be the Raspberry Pi Setup video so I really need to nail that one and use it to hook people in to my channel.
Scratch is great and all, but I want to sell them on more challenging stuff such as robotics when it comes to using the Pi. If I can tie these hooks in to the intro/outro I think it will help a lot. So I'm probably going to delay releasing the Raspberry Pi Setup video.
I have to kind of plan how I want to name these videos, for example:
Raspberry Pi Robots Using OpenCV C++ 03 - Thresholding
Lots of work. We'll see how it turns out.
I have used that one in the past, and it's great software. I didn't mean to imply it wasn't. More like I put what I did there for others who may read this and want to give making videos a go. The little pieces idea really packs a punch when doing these kinds of productions.
Besides, it does a bunch of other really useful stuff.
YouTube is awesome. When it can't go there, those codecs pay off. I'm always pushing for more to go there so I can ignore all the little fiddly things.
I agree with your strategy. It's best to hold off and do it right. A huge number of potential subscribers do it in their first session with your stuff. Nailing your dominate few works is worth it. I'm consistently stunned at a subscribe I did only to find out the one that hooked me was the best of the lot! Good news for you is there seems to be lots of room here for people doing it right. Hope you do well.
They are all about content marketing efforts, hook setting, eye catching, and then what happens type copy intended to build your following and or help to sell whatever it is, if there is something.
Ignore the more "here's how to pitch the product" type material, and you will find a few gems in there on how to name, or headline things for appeal. There are some well proven formula type rules you can use to very seriously improve your naming. Spending a little time on this should pay off.
Sorry, I woke up befuddled and that defeated my parser until I had read it three times.
Visual Odometry is sort of the holy grail I am working towards as a matter of fact. The first videos will be covering the basics, but really this series is made with the goal of getting people interested in robotics and teaching them visual odometry, object detection, object tracking, and some other very useful things like that.
Potatohead,
Yeah I appreciated you pointing out the software. At a time I was using free software I was using Fraps and Windows Movie Maker and it was tedious at best. Definitely loving Camtasia at the moment.
@Keith: Got a chance to watch this at length.
I really like how you are using "we" as a general framing for the dialog. And it is a dialog! Many, many people who make videos do not get this. There is a bit of controversy over doing that, and it's centered on "who is we?" and that's a matter of perspective and choice. I prefer the we choice much of the time. BTW: The two other common forms are the "you" form, which is talking at them, not with them like "we" manages to do. And then there is the more generic narrative style that is strictly business, describing what is happening, which is just talking to nobody in particular. I dislike it.
If you have somebody to participate with you, try one that way, just for kicks. You might really like doing it that way. If so, that can improve on the overall compelling nature of the presentation. Think, basic responses, or an audio version of what you are doing with the overlay annotations.
An actual dialog, or another person responding with their impressions can augment what you are going for here. Think, smart side kick, or good friend and you've got it about right. All of that can amplify the "we" form and bring some basic human appeal into something that people may find hard to get through otherwise.
Just a coupla thoughts there for you. Take 'em or leave em.
Your audio is pretty darn good. I found it well produced and clear. I love well produced and clear audio. That is a make or break for me a lot of the time.
Little additions with the overlay annotations seem to be the right ones, and you might actually use a few more.
I agree with Heater on the question of "why would I be watching this?" and would suggest a little bit of framing right up front to hook them into watching the rest. CopyBlogger again has some great info on how to do this, but I'll express it more generally:
On the introduction, setup a bit of drama. "And then what happens?" Tell 'em what they are gonna see, and leave some outcome expectation out there unaddressed. That's what the video is for. Think of the basic questions, "will it work?", "Will I like it?", etc... Pose one, and the video answers it kind of thing.
Either they need a similar outcome, or they identify with the one you've decided to present, and that hook sets and they will watch to satisfy it, and unset the hook.
Ideally, you can incorporate that hook into the name for the max initial impact.
Great job. Take my words here as some thoughts on how to improve on what is very good right now.
"I'm consistently stunned at ..." - Well no. I don't believe it is something you mean to say is happening every time. And no, I don't believe you were ever "stunned" by it. Perhaps "surprised". But we can let some exaggeration go by.
"...a subscribe I did..." - Do what? This toddler speak - "Mommy, I did mess".
"...only to find out the one that hooked me..." - The "one" what? The only object in the sentence is a subscription, as far as I can tell so far (although it could be a "subscriber", but that would be too weird). At this point all meaning is lost. Until I've guessed that maybe you meant a particular video in a channel. Bear in mind that neither "channel" or "video" has been mentioned yet.
With a little rearranging you could have said: I don't want to hear any arguments about packing a lot into less words. My version is 18 words and 108 letters as opposed to the 23 words and 111 letters of yours whist being clearer and more accurate!
Similarly, "getting subscribes" may pack something in but so does "getting subscribers" and it is only one extra letter!
All the young people I meet speak very well. Mostly their native language is Finnish, Swedish, German, Chinese... as do the dozens of young American rock star programmers I have been watching giving presentations on YouTube the past couple of years. What on Earth is going on with language in your neighbourhood?
I can appreciate that language will evolve over time. Do it too fast though and it becomes babel.
To quote Calvin and Hobbes:
Calvin: I like to verb words.
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now, it's something you do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
I thought for this video it made sense to go with a style Heater suggested (though I ended up making a LONG video). I introduce the problem (in the intro I need to make) and show how to solve it showing limitations of simpler methods.
I have no idea if this is going to work, but the url for the video is here, and it works in my firefox browser.
consultkeithyoung.com/media/Video/Find_the_Fruit.mp4
I'm not going to put it on YouTube until I have my intro media + outro and any branding I might have to make up.
Obviously this is a work in progress so I ask you don't share this outside here. I'm posting it since you guys seem a bit interested and I'd love to hear your opinion on it.
When I upload to YouTube I intend to have many links to skip ahead in the video for those interested in saving time.
I do have space to the right, so I might be able to show images or text over there. Even video clips actually I'd just silence them.
I can't review all of it just now, bit I did listen and watch a few snippetts.
Yeah, that kind of thing can get people through a longer production.
Nice so far.