Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

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tepples
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Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by tepples »

DRW wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2015 12:46 pm They already sold the cartridge? Because I'm really curious. That's the first modern NES game that really caught my attention and that I consider buying. But first of all I need to know a bit more about it. So, would you mind telling us a bit about the game or maybe uploading a video of the gameplay of the first level?
tokumaru wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:25 pm I too am interested in seeing some gameplay footage.
turboxray wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:30 pm Do you have a twitter or youtube account with videos for your effects/demos/experiments?
So far, at least DRW, tokumaru and turboxray have asked me to make videos of NES projects that I have produced or programmed and upload them to YouTube. I'd like help getting started with a channel.

One thing that has held me back in the past is difficulty in exporting video from emulators running under an operating system not published by Microsoft. This was true of FCEUX in Wine in October 2015 as well as in April 2020. I ruled out using generic screen recorders like OBS, as those have tended to capture an emulator's stutter as a stutter in the recorded video. I ended up settling on Mesen.

Even once I have settled on Mesen, other things that have held me back are the time it takes to script, record, and edit each video and to curate playlists on a channel, as well as the CPU speed and RAM needed to edit video. My PC isn't quite the fastest (laptop with quad-core Pentium N3710 CPU), and I have not subscribed to a license of any proprietary video editing software. Which video editing software is any good on X11/Linux?

I have noticed that a lot of video-game-related channels such as DGR Dave have channel art, a theme song (or at least sound effect) and animated logo sequence at the beginning of each video, and a channel trailer. How would I learn to create these? Would I need to commission them, and if so, how much does it typically cost?

I have noticed that some videos on YouTube about video games reveal the player's face overlaid in the corner. This requires a green screen, an appropriate camera, and a willingness to reveal one's actual face to the world. Other videos instead have a cartoon character's face moving around and emoting; I seem to remember the word "vtuber" having something to do with these. Is an avatar in the corner critical? What software is used for producing these?

Another thing that has held me back is my perception of the limits of the YouTube platform. Which of the following points do I misunderstand, and how do producers normally work around them?
  1. YouTube has a 15-minute duration limit for videos.
  2. YouTube has a limit of 30 frames per second for videos that are smaller than 720p. As far as I'm aware, all videos of the output of an NES PPU are smaller than 720p, as the PPU produces only 240 lines of picture. This limit would provide a misleading impression of tech demos that I have produced that rely on persistence of vision between frames, such as the RGB121 tech demo.
  3. If I overlook something when researching a video's script, and this results in an inaccuracy in the video, I cannot correct it once the video is uploaded without deleting and reuploading the video, and this process loses all the video's views and comments.
  4. If I upload a video to a personal channel and then later establish a brand channel, I cannot move the video without deleting and reuploading the video, and this process loses all the video's views and comments.
  5. The recording industry will watch your channel like a hawk, and a music publisher can shut down your channel if the music in your videos is too similar to a musical composition that it controls.
  6. Several notable video game publishers have raised copyright claims or strikes against producers who make videos incorporating footage of their games. My channel received such a strike in May 2009 for a video documenting The Tetris Company's activity against fan games, which is probably one of the big reasons I haven't put much game footage on my channel.
  7. Links in cards or end screens must be to other videos or playlists, not to a site other than YouTube. All external links, such as links to a Patreon page through which to support the channel, must be in the description, and showing the description is a multi-step process.
  8. Videos that are deemed "made for kids" because of their subject matter cannot use comments or an end screen. If a video includes brightly colored cartoon characters, which are common in videos of certain kinds of video game, YouTube is likely to presume that it is made for kids. This means each channel owner needs to operate a separate website through which to collect feedback on such videos.
  9. Some but not all of these limits are lifted on channels that hold onto 1,000 subscribers, sustain 4,000 watch hours on public videos per year (such as 1,200 views of 4-minute videos per week), and have no Content ID claims on any of their public videos.
  10. I have no idea how a channel owner goes about attracting the first few views and the first few subscribers. Do I need to spend money on AdWords to put my video before someone else's?
And what else should I know before starting to post videos of my NES work?
Oziphantom
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Oziphantom »

I can be bothered to work out all the quoting for this so I will just inline it


YouTube has a 15-minute duration limit for videos.
This is only when you first begin, you unlock longer fairly quickly when they work out you are not a joke/fake account.

YouTube has a limit of 30 frames per second for videos that are smaller than 720p. As far as I'm aware, all videos of the output of an NES PPU are smaller than 720p, as the PPU produces only 240 lines of picture. This limit would provide a misleading impression of tech demos that I have produced that rely on persistence of vision between frames, such as the RGB121 tech demo.

Really? I think they might transcode it down to <30fps as a quality cutting thing, but upscaling your NES footage to work on 1080 shouldn't be to hard.

If I overlook something when researching a video's script, and this results in an inaccuracy in the video, I cannot correct it once the video is uploaded without deleting and reuploading the video, and this process loses all the video's views and comments.
Yup, this is a blessing and a curse. You also can't put overlays on anymore so "pinned tweet" or "edit description" are as good as you get. I also use Errata in next video as a nice was to advertise the older one in case you missed it ;)

If I upload a video to a personal channel and then later establish a brand channel, I cannot move the video without deleting and reuploading the video, and this process loses all the video's views and comments.
Yup

The recording industry will watch your channel like a hawk, and a music publisher can shut down your channel if the music in your videos is too similar to a musical composition that it controls.
Yup

Several notable video game publishers have raised copyright claims or strikes against producers who make videos incorporating footage of their games. My channel received such a strike in May 2009 for a video documenting The Tetris Company's activity against fan games, which is probably one of the big reasons I haven't put much game footage on my channel.
Yup

Links in cards or end screens must be to other videos or playlists, not to a site other than YouTube. All external links, such as links to a Patreon page through which to support the channel, must be in the description, and showing the description is a multi-step process.
Yup

Videos that are deemed "made for kids" because of their subject matter cannot use comments or an end screen. If a video includes brightly colored cartoon characters, which are common in videos of certain kinds of video game, YouTube is likely to presume that it is made for kids. This means each channel owner needs to operate a separate website through which to collect feedback on such videos.
As an American this will be a big issue for you, but not really had an issues with my other retro stuff. Anything touching a NES should fine.

Some but not all of these limits are lifted on channels that hold onto 1,000 subscribers, sustain 4,000 watch hours on public videos per year (such as 1,200 views of 4-minute videos per week), and have no Content ID claims on any of their public videos.
I have no idea how a channel owner goes about attracting the first few views and the first few subscribers. Do I need to spend money on AdWords to put my video before someone else's?
Posting on forums, facebook groups, twitter etc seems to work.

as to how to learn to make graphics, intro tunes etc. Lots of tutorials but if you don't have the ability to do graphics then commission will be your answer.
As for editing software, Brian Lunduke has mentioned he is now able to do a full edit and episode on Linux, maybe research his site for what tools he uses.

for reference my channel is here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAUFd- ... CMQ/videos
calima
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by calima »

You won't get any money by doing that. YT has been making it harder for years now, and most folks doing it fulltime still aren't making anything or just a pittance. It's the rough reality that to earn anything now you need to show tits and do something interesting.

IOW, you should only spend what time you want, not try hard to gain followers and fame. These are very niche videos, upping production values on them won't make any difference to you, it's just more time and money spent.

My advice would be to do the bare minimum to show off roms or gameplay. No scripting, no talking, no fancy animations. Just the bare recording from the emulator, upscaled to 720p before upload. No GUI video editor necessary, I do such basic video work with mencoder on the command line.
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gauauu
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by gauauu »

Yeah, what's your goal here? You quickly jumped from "people would like to see video of these games" to "I need a Youtube presence"

There's nothing wrong with just dumping some simple videos up there like Calima suggested, which is probably all that you need.

Unless you just WANT to be a YouTuber. In which case you deal with nonsense and requirements of the platform, invest in a better computer and camera and software, etc.
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NovaSquirrel
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by NovaSquirrel »

When I'm just looking for gameplay footage to see what a game is like (or to show someone else a particular level or mechanic or something), anything added past just being plain gameplay footage usually makes a video less preferable for that purpose.
pwnskar
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by pwnskar »

Blender has a built in video editor. It's free, open source and available for linux. https://www.blender.org/

I agree with what's been said here that if the purpose is to just show actual gameplay, then simply showing a video of that with no voice over, intro or anything should do just fine!

If you do make an intro, it might be cool to actually make it in code running on the NES? :)

About the 720p thing, why not just upscale the video? That way you'll get all the pixels looking sharp even on a big LCD.

To gain a following, you could always post updates here and your social medias.
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Dwedit
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Dwedit »

tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]YouTube has a limit of 30 frames per second for videos that are smaller than 720p. As far as I'm aware, all videos of the output of an NES PPU are smaller than 720p, as the PPU produces only 240 lines of picture. This limit would provide a misleading impression of tech demos that I have produced that rely on persistence of vision between frames, such as the RGB121 tech demo.
Any modern video format will have Chroma Subsampling applied, this is inescapable.
When chroma is subsampled, you need a minimum vertical resolution of 480 to get full chroma for 240 scanlines of information. So "240p" options on Youtube and similar sites will have 120 lines of resolution for Chroma. You'll need at least a 480p encode to have the original chroma intact.

720p will have interpolated chroma when enlarged 3x from 240p, because 3 is an odd number. But at least you can keep the frame rate.

For a 1080p video, you have two choices. Either resize 6x horizontally (1536 pixels) to keep chroma aligned, or resize 5x horizontally (1280) to get a 4:3 aspect ratio (better choice). Then you vertically resize 4x for 960 scanlines tall. Then pad the image to 1920x1080.

Of course, lossy compression will still degrade chroma no matter what you do. You just don't want a 240p upload that throws out 75% of the original chroma.
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calima
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by calima »

I believe the main point was flickering sprites that either disappear or appear normal, not chroma subsampling.
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tokumaru
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by tokumaru »

There's not much you can do about the 30fps issue besides putting a warning at the beginning of the video letting viewers know that half the frames are lost at lower resolutions.
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Dwedit
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Dwedit »

The point of the Chroma Subsampling post is that you cannot upload at 240p. You must be 480p or greater.
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Controllerhead
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Controllerhead »

Most of my experience is with Twitch, but, i have done some research into making Youtube videos and they are in the works... I am also very cheap. Take my advice with enough grains of salt to make your popcorn taste better.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm what else should I know before starting to post videos of my NES work?
I recommend OBS for capturing and Davinci Resolve for post production. There are Linux versions. The free version of Resolve can do all of the post production work and visual effects you should need. There are plenty of YouTube videos and documentation on how to use it.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm camera
I use an app called DroidCam, it turns your smartphone into a high quality capturable source in OBS. Linux friendly (so it says). I own a tripod and a (cheap) phone holder tripod mount too.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm sound
Well, i am lucky enough to have music production as a hobby. You could consider a USB Scarett i212 mic interface and a decent condenser mic. Apply (audio) compression in OBS to give it a professional sound. Most people don't care about sound quality anyway, especially for engineering videos. A cheap microphone with (audio) compression added would suffice. 4:1 is a good vocal compression ratio.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm music
There are libraries of license free tracks you can use. You can also get away with using (most) video game music. Squaresoft and Nintendo songs i would tread lightly and probably avoid... opengameart.org has plenty of music you should be able to use.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm green screen
Easy. I just use a solid blue blanket and Chroma Key it out in OBS. I use a regular lamp as a light source. It works good enough. Don't wear a blue shirt!
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tepples
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by tepples »

I had already planned to double the pixels to compensate for chroma subsampling. My typical formula for making GB videos results in 320x288, and the analogous formula for NES and Super NES videos would produce 584x448 or 584x480. But even that's not enough to keep YouTube from messing with flicker.

I was thinking these recipes, including compensation for streaming boxes displayed through TVs that slightly enlarge everything as if it were formatted for early-adopter CRT HDTV sets:

NES, SMS, SNES (240p, 8:7 PAR)
Pad to 280x240, nearest neighbor stretch 3x to 840x720, linear stretch to 960x720
MD (H40) (240p, 32:35 PAR)
Pad to 350x240, nearest neighbor stretch 3x to 1050x720, linear compress to 960x720
Game Boy family (160x144 to 240x160, underscan, square PAR)
Pad to 240x180, nearest neighbor stretch 4x to 960x720
Game Gear (160x144, underscan, 6:5 PAR)
Pad to 200x180, nearest neighbor stretch 4x to 800x720, linear stretch to 960x720
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Nikku4211
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Nikku4211 »

tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm Even once I have settled on Mesen, other things that have held me back are the time it takes to script, record, and edit each video and to curate playlists on a channel, as well as the CPU speed and RAM needed to edit video. My PC isn't quite the fastest (laptop with quad-core Pentium N3710 CPU), and I have not subscribed to a license of any proprietary video editing software. Which video editing software is any good on X11/Linux?
Olive. I recommend 0.1, as 0.2's node system is a bit confusing.

There's also KDenLive. It has problems running on Windows, but I've heard that it works well in Linux.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm I have noticed that a lot of video-game-related channels such as DGR Dave have channel art, a theme song (or at least sound effect) and animated logo sequence at the beginning of each video, and a channel trailer. How would I learn to create these? Would I need to commission them, and if so, how much does it typically cost?
You don't need any of that. Please don't use intros or outros, because they are annoying and get in the way of the viewing experience. Most people nowadays have very little attention span, so an intro would only hurt your view number.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm I have noticed that some videos on YouTube about video games reveal the player's face overlaid in the corner. This requires a green screen, an appropriate camera, and a willingness to reveal one's actual face to the world. Other videos instead have a cartoon character's face moving around and emoting; I seem to remember the word "vtuber" having something to do with these. Is an avatar in the corner critical? What software is used for producing these?
No, you don't need to record your face or go full Yubi Yubi animu waifu. That can get in the way of gameplay videos, too, and it can block certain visual information that you need to see.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm Another thing that has held me back is my perception of the limits of the YouTube platform. Which of the following points do I misunderstand, and how do producers normally work around them?
  1. YouTube has a 15-minute duration limit for videos.
I never had to deal with this limitation.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]YouTube has a limit of 30 frames per second for videos that are smaller than 720p. As far as I'm aware, all videos of the output of an NES PPU are smaller than 720p, as the PPU produces only 240 lines of picture. This limit would provide a misleading impression of tech demos that I have produced that rely on persistence of vision between frames, such as the RGB121 tech demo.
I recommend upscaling your NES and SNES videos to 940x720 using FFMPEG to get that buttery smooth 60fps. Preferably with no pillarboxes baked into the video stream and no stretching the video into widescreen either.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]If I overlook something when researching a video's script, and this results in an inaccuracy in the video, I cannot correct it once the video is uploaded without deleting and reuploading the video, and this process loses all the video's views and comments.
Pinning comments that correct this seems to work for now.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]The recording industry will watch your channel like a hawk, and a music publisher can shut down your channel if the music in your videos is too similar to a musical composition that it controls.
This has only happened to me when I use the original exact songs. If I use an unofficial remix of a song, like 2 different English translations of T.K.'s Unravel, or a Game Boy remix of Tony Igy's Astronomia, I never encounter a copyright claim or strike.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]Several notable video game publishers have raised copyright claims or strikes against producers who make videos incorporating footage of their games. My channel received such a strike in May 2009 for a video documenting The Tetris Company's activity against fan games, which is probably one of the big reasons I haven't put much game footage on my channel.
Note that this has never happened to me whenever I make videos of fan-made clones.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]Videos that are deemed "made for kids" because of their subject matter cannot use comments or an end screen. If a video includes brightly colored cartoon characters, which are common in videos of certain kinds of video game, YouTube is likely to presume that it is made for kids. This means each channel owner needs to operate a separate website through which to collect feedback on such videos.
Although I've never had any of my videos automatically tagged by YouTube as made for kids, I've never had a problem keeping them under the 'Not for Kids' setting either.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm [*]I have no idea how a channel owner goes about attracting the first few views and the first few subscribers. Do I need to spend money on AdWords to put my video before someone else's?
[/list]
I usually just post my videos on Discord servers in their respective showoff channels.
tepples wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:13 pm And what else should I know before starting to post videos of my NES work?
Every video will have their fans and their haters. Don't expect to receive a lot of fans, but do expect to receive at least some hate.
I have an ASD, so empathy is not natural for me. If I hurt you, I apologise.
Downloafy
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Re: Starting a YouTube channel: where should I start?

Post by Downloafy »

When it comes to video editing, I've personally used Movavi. It never gave me headaches, and its intuitive interface, along with automated features like transitions and AI background removal, made the editing process a breeze. It's one of the best free movie makers available.

For recording gameplay, I've been using the HitPaw screen recorder. It captures everything smoothly and saves in high-res formats.

As for copyright issues, always be cautious and use royalty-free or original content. I had big headaches because of this, and I have a few cases when my videos were deleted because of the music/images I used.
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