GWJer Video Makers Thread

Good question, I'm honestly not sure if it does that or not. I still have an active trial so I can try it out this evening. I'm pretty sure there are third party utilities that can do what you're thinking. Not as seamless obviously but it might make the editing process easier.

Thought I'd drop a note here about my latest experience with video editing software. I learned that Nero Video 12 used AMD GPU acceleration for the AVCHD encoding, so I ponied up the $20 to get it. The editing interface is pretty simplistic, but the encoder is ridiculously fast - just about real time for medium quality, about half that for high quality single pass encoding. That's considerably faster than the Premiere Elements software encoder I'm used to. Problem is, it's only single pass, so the quality isn't as good as the double pass results I'm used to.

The good news is that a lot of encoders support both AMD (App Accelerator), Nvidia (CUDA) and QuickSync (Intel HD) hardware accelerated encoding now.

BTW, ccesarano, Premiere (incuding Elements) allows you to do what you're describing with clips. To cut up a clip and use multiple parts of it in your project, you just import the clip into your project bin multiple times, and use the Clip Monitor to set in and out points for each copy of the clip. You can rename the different clips in the project viewer to keep track of which part is which.

BadKen wrote:

BTW, ccesarano, Premiere (incuding Elements) allows you to do what you're describing with clips. To cut up a clip and use multiple parts of it in your project, you just import the clip into your project bin multiple times, and use the Clip Monitor to set in and out points for each copy of the clip. You can rename the different clips in the project viewer to keep track of which part is which.

This would still have resulted in so much more time invested than Movie Maker.

I found out that evidently there was a Movie Maker 6.0, and now they're on to 2012 and dropped "Live" from the name. I may end up being a plebeian of video editing, but it seems like I got so used to Movie Maker when I was cutting together sh*tty AMVs in high school that it has defined my expectations of what video editing should be.

Alright, the next (and what I hope will be the final) beta is up after spending 3 times as long processing as it took to upload on my home connection.

It's the same capture and commentary but with the snazzy new intro and outro sequences I managed to create thanks to trial software and some inexpensive stock templates. The previous video in the outro is a community made Giant Bomb thing I just picked cause I don't have a previous video yet but needed something to put in there.

Honestly haven't gotten much feedback so if you know anyone who might be interested in this, please pass it around. I'm going to do one more re-record of the commentary before I publish a final version of this but I think I've got the idea solidly down now. If I don't get much feedback, I'm just gonna' throw caution to the wind and start doing it.

ccesarano wrote:

This would still have resulted in so much more time invested than Movie Maker.

I don't see how it would take more time. Seems to me that it would be easier to keep track of a large number of clips in a clip list, rather than having to rely on movie maker's visual "filmstrip" editor. You could tweak in and out points for clips already on the timeline much more easily. And you'd have the ability to work with multiple video and audio tracks in the timeline, letting you do stuff like this:

I guess I'm not understanding what you're trying to do. Premiere Elements' editor is much more flexible than Movie Maker.

That is a really nice intro Parallax, and I see the outro is currently linking to Giant Bomb?

Badken, I think Movie Maker post 6.0 (Windows Live Movie Maker and on) started to remove some of the better features. But with 2.6, and from the looks of it 6.0, I can import a video file into the collection and then slice and dice it up into as many small segments as I want. While it sounds cluttered, the thumbnails basically allow me to find what I'm looking for quickly and I only have to import a movie one time.

ccesarano wrote:

That is a really nice intro Parallax, and I see the outro is currently linking to Giant Bomb?

It's linking to a community video making fun of a Giant Bombcast sequence. I don't have a previous video to link to yet so I just put that there to make sure it works. If I decide to finalise this, I'll be initially recording a little webcam thing describing what the show's going to be about and such so that'll be the previous video.

I decided to go down the rabbit hole of looking for microphones this morning too as I really don't care for the quality coming from my headset mic (though I've been told by several that my standards are too high). I was looking at some of the mics that the likes of TotalBiscuit and others use and was a bit taken aback by the pricing but then I found this amazing thing. It doesn't come out until April but it'll only be $100 and if the demo on their site is accurate...damn! Internal pop screen, shock resistance and sound processing in a driverless mic. Pretty awesome. We have a Blue Snowball at the office that we use for some web conferencing and it works very well and this looks tailor made for commentary stuff. Really hoping I can get my hands on one of these.

I find your audio to be of excellent quality myself, so I wouldn't worry about that yet. I figure give yourself some time to grow into it, and as you save money occasionally spend on something for the show.

EDIT: As shared by Sir Charlie Hall a.k.a. The Wanderer on Twitter, Machinima and other partners are not always too friendly.

I still gotta read up more on YouTube partnerships myself.

For anyone who has potential aspirations of attaining partnership with a YouTube network some day, this was a very interesting and honestly, depressing read. I'm launching my show purely as a hobby for now and should it actually get popular, I think YouTube is far too risky an environment for me to ever consider doing full-time. However, it would be nice to be able to monetise my videos and make some side money off it. I had already not heard great things about Machinima but Maker Studios (who hosts some of my favourite YouTubers) also has a pretty sh*t reputation too. If you're hoping to monetise, read this and budget for a lawyer if a network ever approaches you.

EDIT: Tannhauser'd.

ccesarano wrote:

I find your audio to be of excellent quality myself, so I wouldn't worry about that yet. I figure give yourself some time to grow into it, and as you save money occasionally spend on something for the show.

EDIT: As shared by Sir Charlie Hall a.k.a. The Wanderer on Twitter, Machinima and other partners are not always too friendly.

I still gotta read up more on YouTube partnerships myself.

"I went into a call with Machinima this evening, and they said that my contract is completely enforceable. I can't get out of it." Well of course they're going to tell him that. He should really have talked to a lawyer that's on his side.

So, I went down a bit more of a partnership/monetisation rabbit hole last night and wanted to share the results. Basically, it's both good and bad.

If you're like ccesarano and I who want to use game footage with commentary, the copyright issues are not as cut and dry as I thought. YouTube's own explanations of copyright issues are very nebulous and murky and I discovered there's a very good reason for that. US copyright law is such a mess that what qualifies as Fair Use is almost constantly up to interpretation. YouTube won't lay out specific guidelines for this because the only way they're really determined is by the courts on a base-by-case basis. It's an incredible mess. I read a bunch of articles and had a couple of discussions with semi-popular YouTube channel owners on the YouTube forums and here's what I've learned as it pertains to my case:

-Using game footage presents a constant risk and the more you use, the bigger the risk. The burden is always on the channel, not the copyright holder and what's required of them to make a claim is stupidly easy. You can appeal claims made against you but they rarely succeed.
-The general opinion is that with retro footage, there isn't a ton of risk because it's product that's not being sold any more and it's really receiving free promotion. What I was told is that contrary to what a lot of people in media Female Doggo about, publishers are more aware and in tune with this stuff than people think. A lot of publishers will see retro focused content as free promotion and thus not care. I am planning to make it very clear where (if) you can buy the games I feature legally and I've been told that's a smart way to avoid copyright claims.
-I've been told that content like what I am doing and what ccesarano's doing could fall under the "educational" fair use terms since we are really delving deep into the games, their histories and their designs. Again, this is very much up to interpretation and the risks are greater the longer the footage is but the likelihood is that we're in a better position than most people who try to make a go of YouTube with game footage content.
-I've been told if I try to enable monetisation on my videos and really sell the "educational" angle, there's a chance YouTube will accept them but not a big one. If they don't, the recommendation is that if I do want to make money from them (which I'd like to but isn't my primary motivation), I should promote the Hell out of the channel until it reached 3,000 subscribers or so and try to find a network to partner with. Obviously, we just had a discussion about how evil some of them are so it would really require finding the right partner and not signing with any I'm not comfortable with. Even if YouTube does accept my content for monetisation, there's always a possibility they will change their mind and they can at any time. Networks are really the way to go if you want more safety.
-Even if you aren't monetising, strikes can still be made against your content. It's less likely to happen but it can still be the case.
-What most people said is that they like my idea and they feel it's worth a go because I likely won't run into copyright issues. If I do, it wouldn't be until it got really popular and at that point, I would likely already be in a network or easily able to join one which resolves the issue. Just know the risks and understand what bad things could happen and it's worth a shot. I'd love to make money off this eventually but it's starting out as a passion project and if I have to do it for free for a while to get noticed, that's perfectly fine with me.

So there we have it. In short, US copyright law's f*cking dumb but if you're careful, you can work within its confines.

That's odd that an individual is more at-risk than if they were involved in a network, but then again, this is modern American law.

I'm honestly too busy thinking about simply MAKING the videos, truth told, that I haven't given much thought to monetization. I mean Hell, I still need to convert my website from Project Wonderful to Google Ads. But the idea of being picked up by a network is interesting, as long as it is one of the better ones. Union of Gamers was supposed to be a good one according to that article. Were they the ones who run GameStation?

Sadly no, Maker Studios runs TGS. They're not as bad as Machinima but don't have a great reputation themselves. The reason you're less at risk if you're in a network is networks have blanket licenses with most publishers so you're usually covered if you're being represented by them.

I bring this up not so much because I'm concerned about monetisation (though I would eventually like to earn some money from these given the amount of my time required to produce them on a consistent schedule) but more because even if you are doing it for free, you can still be struck down for copyright reasons. Making money increases the risk but doing everything for free doesn't eliminate it. But like I said, it generally appears to be worth trying which is totally what I'm going to do.

It's interesting that you bring copyright into this. I actually watch a channel done by one of the vlogbrothers that uses footage from recent games. Making Youtube content is actually his full time job where he produces/runs several channels, including vlogbrothers, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, SciShow, and the recently launched The Brain Scoop.

Can you tell I watch a lot of youtube?

I would be stunned if he's not part of at least one partner network. If he's not, man he's got it goin' ON!

Well, I did another re-record of the commentary for my Code Name: Viper video and also did an introduction to the show as a whole with my webcam. Both are uploading now. Thanks to my slow as sh*t home upload speed, they won't be done until some time in the morning. Now I'm all self-conscious again but I hope people will like this stuff. I'll post links once the video are online and ready to go. If people think they're cool, I'd really appreciate it if people could spread the word as I'd really like to try to get some hits on these so I can get more feedback. Man, I really hope this works out.

Well ladies and gentlemen, it is finally done. The second episode of RamblePak64.

I would love to continue this streak of discussing positive things about games, but my next video is going to be on Aliens: Colonial Marines and hopefully won't take a month to put together. After that I plan on my multi-video review of Resident Evil 6, and based on all the notes I took after playing two hours of Catherine the other night that'll likely be the next video after that.

And this is after I already have a list of videos I'd like to do.

As usual, feedback is appreciated, though if I learned anything this time it is to read this to myself aloud before recording. I did multiple drafts, but there are still some horrendous issues like saying "game" too many times in a single sentence.

Good job, ccesarano. You're doing stuff very much in line for what I want to do with GWJ video, if only I had some time! I'm inspired by your efforts.

Time is certainly one of the greater factors, though I'm amazed I managed to get that video done in a single weekend (at least, the video editing portion). We'll see if it keeps going at that rate.

ccesarano wrote:

I managed to get that video done in a single weekend (at least, the video editing portion)

Wow, that sounds like a tireless weekend! You've done a fine job on episode 2. I'm looking forward to your proposed RE6 video.

Thanks guys! But remember, sharing is caring.

Oh, and Certis, if you ever want that opening to change to "GamersWithJobs presents - In Association with Gamertagged.net", you let me know.

That is a mighty fine video! You must have quite the library of video to work from, with all the tutorial clips you were able to stick in there. It looks really slick, and does a great job of illustrating what you're saying. This is the kind of video I wish I had the patience to make - I really only ever did narrated gameplay and RTS (specifically BattleForge) commentary.

I have a full capture of a Space Marine playthrough and about half of an Assassin's Creed 3 playthrough languishing on my hard drive. I never seem to find the time to edit them down and come up with narration.

You're right about the library of video, but it was all captured in a day and in the end I still felt like it wasn't enough (well, for Doom 3 at least). I basically went through my 360 games as I was packing and chose the ones whose tutorials I remembered. I didn't know how I'd start my video until I realized a lot of those games did stuff pretty well. Oddly enough, I feel like Modern Warfare would have been better if it started with the guy's execution instead of the tutorial and opening tutorial mission. That opening sequence just doesn't feel like it belongs, and that opening sequence is just fantastic still. CoD2's worked way better narratively.

But yeah, I basically dedicated a day to doing tutorials, and after I wrote it went back for any necessary back-up video I would need. I've been using my Roxio GameCapture constantly since I got it for Christmas, and can't imagine playing a game without using it "just in case".

The downside is, two occasions it seems to have screwed up capturing. I have a good 1.5-2 hours of Catherine I lost last night. I might go back and replay it depending, or I may just go on without it, but it's pretty lousy to end up with nothing like that. In addition, it could be an added problem of replacing my monitor with a television since my main TV is in the living room now (yay moving). That means telling it to Capture, then switching over to the HDMI input for the game. I'll do some experimentation and see if I can figure ways around that.

In other news, I did discover tonight that there's an added bonus to this device, but I don't want to discuss it as it could be, well, one of those things you don't want to discuss. When my next video goes up I think you'll see why. Either way, it DOES have me excited, because it opens up the possibilities of what I can have footage of and the sort of videos I can make.

We just uploaded or first "tube cast". It's basically our podcast just with video of our wonderful faces.

Google + made this to easy with hangouts. It captures and uploads to YouTube automatically.

Or channel is linked in the OP, check it out.

Also we plan on doing it every Monday around 8pm and we leave the hangout open for whoever to join.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

Also we plan on doing it every Monday around 8pm and we leave the hangout open for whoever to join.

I'll check it out when I can, but what of the Resident Evil 2 series?

EDIT: Here's some intimidating numbers for you. The script for my next episode of RamblePak is currently sitting at 23 pages, almost 7000 words (yes, large font, double-spacing between paragraphs, 1.5 line spacing). That's a lot. And I've been spending a lot of time combing through it, but feel like I can comb through even more.

The question is, should I just stop? I could probably do nothing BUT edit this damn thing. I have no idea how long this video will be, just that it's going to be longer than all the others. This is intimidating.

I don't know when it'll be finished, either. I was hoping for before PAX East, but at this length...who knows.

Making this its own post, as Chris Franklin (Errant Signal) has an insightful write-up on the differences between Blip.tv and YouTube and a bunch of negative things going on with Blip now.

I was wondering why all the content on PATV had recently changed from the Blip player to YouTube.

It really sucks that's happening. I still have real concerns about my ability to not only monetise but just get by without getting copyright trolled on YouTube. Doesn't look like Blip's a viable alternative either.

I actually have a request. I could download Camtasia again, but I would rather save that trial for when I'm going to need more than an hour of gameplay footage.

Could someone record themselves playing the first hour or so of Half-Life 1? I need to use clips of the tram car ride, Black Mesa before all goes to Hell and some of those familiar areas after Black Mesa goes to Hell. I will credit you in my video and link back to your channel.

Actually, I imagine less than an hour of gameplay, otherwise that might be one large file size.

I can probably do this. It could be a good chance for me to tune DXTory. 720p desired? If so, I will likely have to FTP that somewhere to get it to you as it will probably be a big file. I have access to one at work we could use. Even recording at 480p with DXTory and the Lagarith codec for me results in about a gig every 10 minutes.