Author Topic: The reality of design videos  (Read 29996 times)

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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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The reality of design videos
« on: October 19, 2016, 12:38:35 am »
Just wanted to share this.
The reality of doing (what I think is good) design videos "everyone" says they want to see.

 
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Offline T3sl4co1l

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2016, 12:53:16 am »
A fact that has befallen all too many TV stations in their life; nowadays, Discovery isn't about discovering, TLC isn't about learning, History isn't about history; need I go on?

Just don't fall into the same trap. :)

Tim
Seven Transistor Labs, LLC
Electronic design, from concept to prototype.
Bringing a project to life?  Send me a message!
 

Online ataradov

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2016, 01:20:07 am »
Here is a tip on how to get even more views - naked women on thumbnails. Works for so many junky channels.

Interestingly, they all have  very similar number of likes.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 01:23:18 am by ataradov »
Alex
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2016, 01:34:37 am »
Here is a tip on how to get even more views - naked women on thumbnails. Works for so many junky channels.

My most popular mailbag ever, by more than three times:
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 03:30:30 am by EEVblog »
 

Online ataradov

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2016, 01:38:31 am »
My most popular mailbag ever, by more than doube:
Yep.

But seriously, would it help if thumbnail was more interesting (not unrelated, of course)? White board does not look so good and a lot of white board videos are horrible, so people may have learned to not notice them. I do for unknown channels.
Alex
 

Offline karoru

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2016, 03:19:09 am »
Hey, what's wrong with whiteboard videos? I tend to become more interested when I see a whiteboard on a YT electronics video because there's more chance there will be an actual discussion of design choices, principles of operation and so on, instead of most a video being a guy connecting a meter to breadboarded circuit or showing a sine wave on an oscilloscope which happens sadly often.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 03:23:45 am by karoru »
 

Offline AlanR

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2016, 03:37:59 am »
I guess you could do some destructive videos. Those seem to get all the views. Like Photonic Induction's and ElectroBoom's do.

Maybe build a 2000 volt, 300 Joule capacitor bank and show the design details and then go blow up stuff with it.

OR

Talk about magnetic fields and how motors work, and then take a DC motor and hook it up against a gas engine in a shaft vs. shaft duel.

OR

Test surge protectors with a Variac to see which ones can take sustained over voltage before catching on fire and maybe explain the downsides to them for surge vs sustained over voltage.

OR

Build a Zero Voltage Switching oscillator that powers a huge a flyback that you make deadly high current, high voltage arcs with to melt things.


Basically, it seems this generation likes destructive things a lot while still learning the fundamentals.



« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 03:43:08 am by AlanR »
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2016, 03:43:19 am »
I guess you could do some destructive videos. Those seem to get all the views. Like Photonic Induction's and ElectroBoom's do.

Not necessarily, even when combined with pretty girl thumbnail


 

Offline apelly

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2016, 05:06:19 am »
You have to be in the mood for pure theory. I'll watch it eventually, but I wasn't overly inspired by the first part.

I think what people actually want is to see you build or debug something that they can, or want to be able to, build at home.

I bet you'd get a million views for a 3 stepper controller with on board mcu. Even though there are a thousand of them available online. Be like a hobbyist. Design your thing, build your osh park pcb, drive your rotating Delorian display.

 
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Offline ivaylo

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2016, 06:34:49 am »
Thanks for the effort. Those definitely keep me coming back. You've said many times you do these to have fun yourself. Won't speak for you, but feels the sense of accomplishment from a nice design video no one has done before is much greater than puppies, kittens, piece of ass, whatever. Keep up the good work!
 

Offline hayatepilot

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2016, 06:45:51 am »
I think it depends on the ratio of design-/other videos.
Too much is not good as it reminds me of MOOCs.
The current ratio seems pretty spot on for me.  :-+
 

Offline HackedFridgeMagnet

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2016, 06:58:59 am »
Doesn't the Pi supercomputer count as a design video? 65000 views.
 
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Offline StuUK

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #12 on: October 19, 2016, 08:04:07 am »
Part one has 50,815 views so I don't see the issue
 

Offline ProBang2

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2016, 08:10:20 am »

BTW: How is the rating of the "DIY DC Load" video?
(Still my favourite design video...)   
 

Online coppice

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2016, 08:13:04 am »
The different ages of the videos in your list makes comparisons a little difficult, but you only show a 3:1 ratio between the least viewed and most viewed videos. That's not huge. I somehow expected mailbag to have at least 10 times the views of anything analytical.
 

Offline StuUK

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #15 on: October 19, 2016, 08:25:57 am »
The different ages of the videos in your list makes comparisons a little difficult, but you only show a 3:1 ratio between the least viewed and most viewed videos. That's not huge. I somehow expected mailbag to have at least 10 times the views of anything analytical.

I agree, you'd need to look back at least a month to get any reasonable comparison
 

Offline CM800

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2016, 08:44:02 am »
Honestly, I think some more real-day design projects would be better IMOHO.

I don't really feel that attracted to the idea of a multimeter, it's not something many people will be going on to develop.

I'd say there is a lot more electronics interest around:

3D printers / stepper motor drives / controllers
Coil accelerators ('coilguns')
smaller and fancy Tesla coils (some of the newer designs even have FPGAs in them!!!)
Robotics (robot arms, wireless controlled vehicles)
Electric Vehicle projects (or even a brushless motor controller? Do something on control theory?)


 :-//
 

Offline elgonzo

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2016, 08:51:24 am »
Just wanted to share this.
The reality of doing (what I think is good) design videos "everyone" says they want to see.

Who exactly is "everyone"?

It would not be surprising to me if the people who would like to watch more design videos (and other EE videos) are your patrons, i.e. people who pay for the content they would like. It's certainly not easy to create the right content mix that always both satisfies the small paying audience as well as the vastly larger general YT subscriber base...
« Last Edit: October 19, 2016, 08:54:29 am by elgonzo »
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #18 on: October 19, 2016, 10:33:53 am »
That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers

Actually more half of my audience are professionals/graduates, or engineering students
 
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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2016, 10:34:42 am »
Who exactly is "everyone"?

The majority who request stuff.
 

Offline Kalvin

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2016, 11:04:25 am »
Electric Vehicle projects (or even a brushless motor controller? Do something on control theory?)

That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers, so IMHO it makes no sense to teach Arduino level DIYers how to derive s and z domain transfer functions and solve differential/difference equations.
Implementing designed controller in DSP is fun and not very math intensive, though you may need some knowledge in discrete LTI systems, but designing the transfer function itself is not fun, even for professional engineers.

Actually you can perform practical, basic analog and digital control loop design using the free Octave or commercial Matlab toolboxes. There are readily available functions which will provide transfer function plotting and functions which will perform conversion from the s-plane to z-plane, and give the needed coefficients to the digital filter. The video could be made as a high-level tutorial so that it will show the process of the design, analysis and implementation of simple control loop using the toolboxes, instead of going into the very details in the theory. That kind of overview presentation would encourage people to try things out as the Octave/Matlab toolboxes will hide all the scary stuff. 
 
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Online Monkeh

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2016, 11:10:03 am »
Doesn't the Pi supercomputer count as a design video? 65000 views.

It has 'raspberry pi' in the title, so it's perfect clickbait.
 

Offline AlanR

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2016, 08:34:00 pm »
Texas Instruments already covered motor control theory very well:
 
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Offline Howardlong

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2016, 08:48:52 pm »
I find TastyPC quite informative, I'm not much into PC gaming but I enjoy the style and technical prowess demonstrated.

https://youtu.be/l-i5LgakaDQ
 

Offline rrinker

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Re: The reality of design videos
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2016, 09:04:29 pm »
 CM800 brings up an interesting one - I'd love to see Dave get that Sinclair C5 running again, and then maybe update the technology - modern batteries, maybe some regenerative braking to assist the rather weak mechanical brakes, etc. Bet it could have more power capacity AND be lighter for easier pedaling with modern batteries and not that honking big lead-acid thing.
 Plus it still looks like something from the future, not the 80's.


 


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