Good camera for electronics youtube videos

[VEGETA]

Ok so how should one pick keywords?

[Red Squirrel]

The Youtube search/recommended algorithm seems to be so odd.  When Rick Roll and Trolololo was all the rage in memes I decided to combine them and made a video. Figured it would at least get lot of hits, even if it was not liked, as it was literally just mixing both together as one.  I think I had called it rick trololo roll or something like that.   I got it taken down because of copyright but don't think it ever got more than like 50 views.  It would not even show up in search, like at all, even if I typed it verbatim.

Meanwhile I made this cringy video: youtube.com/watch?v=yZ3lVdwmATw a long time ago and it is by far my video with the most views.   I don't expect to get much views on my videos in general as my channel is just where I put random stuff and I don't really have a specific target audience, but out of all my videos, that has to be the one that is popular? lol.   

[kalel]

I'm not sure how exactly it works with YouTube and could be wrong, but I think that if you (anyone) simply use popular keywords that already have tons of videos made, your video will be behind those, especially as a new channel.

So, the sweet spot should be keywords that are searched for, but do not have many videos already covering them. That should allow for your video to show up favorably. I don't know what happens if then a famous channel makes a similar video, that channel's video might still get better position (as that video might get more views and "thumbs up, etc") but this depends on how YouTube search works, which is not something I'm familiar with.

In time, once an audience is built, this should/might help with search positioning as well.

[EEVblog]

but this depends on how YouTube search works, which is not something I'm familiar with.

No one does, and that's very deliberate. Because if someone knew then they would game the system as has happened in the past.
Youtube have gone to great lengths using AI system to make it as game-proof as possible.
But basics like consistent channel uploads, watch time, views in the first hours after release, interaction (thumbs down don't matter, it all counts), comments, shares etc all count.
And the more consistent your channel is the higher you'll get ranked in the algorithm.

[VEGETA]

but this depends on how YouTube search works, which is not something I'm familiar with.

No one does, and that's very deliberate. Because if someone knew then they would game the system as has happened in the past.
Youtube have gone to great lengths using AI system to make it as game-proof as possible.
But basics like consistent channel uploads, watch time, views in the first hours after release, interaction (thumbs down don't matter, it all counts), comments, shares etc all count.
And the more consistent your channel is the higher you'll get ranked in the algorithm.

I have removed tagging from each video name, now they are as short and meaningful as they can be. I didn't rename the channel to "Raigeki" yet though. Will do when I make the next video.

I originally planned to make 2 videos per week, but that is not practical as it looks like. One good video plus a short 2 minute video for a specific thing or one info, I have a playlist just for those. Right now I have planned a 10 video Arduino tutorials for beginners which I had in mind for a long time. Will do Arduino projects too as well as Instrumentation videos and occasional teardowns and stuff. So yeah, pretty much comprehensible channel but impossible to make 2 videos per week. I would be glad to be able to one per week.

[kalel]

Just out of curiosity, what are the most time consuming parts of making a video you've found (per each video, not one time things)?

Is it finding/selecting and researching the project (how to do the thing I will explain in the video and how to explain it well),
or setting up the recording system (camera, light, bench organization for videos),
or actually recording the video,
or etc

[VEGETA]

Just out of curiosity, what are the most time consuming parts of making a video you've found (per each video, not one time things)?

Is it finding/selecting and researching the project (how to do the thing I will explain in the video and how to explain it well),
or setting up the recording system (camera, light, bench organization for videos),
or actually recording the video,
or etc

Shooting equipment are essential regardless of video idea and research. So my problem was getting a good tools to record, I had to do stupid setup many times until it fits to shoot very short stuff... then I moved to just recording audio then filter it (since it is recorder by smartphone) then do animation and stuff. So I was limited to that only.

Audio recording on smartphone is not perfect as sometimes there is fault in audio (stops for a moment and so on) and then I have to get it to laptop via Wifi..etc.

As for ideas, I had these ideas fairly easily and sometimes instantly but getting to do them was the hard part. I revised my AFX skills to be able to make good stuff which took a lot. Doing animation is very hard and time consuming so making 1 video per week is so good.

Getting these good quality recording set will allow me to get footage (high quality ones) easily which will make animation stuff a lot less and maybe none in some videos! I get to make whatever video idea I think of without the fear of my recording set failing me.

One downside of my method is English speaking skills, which makes me repeat stuff over and over to get them right in terms of pronunciation and tone. Doing a live recording while speaking and explaining stuff is not the way to go now.. voice over is.

[kalel]

Can you record sound directly on the laptop, to avoid transfer?

[VEGETA]

Can you record sound directly on the laptop, to avoid transfer?

One of the items that I ordered is a USB microphone, which is just for that purpose. This will help me record high quality audio very easily.

[coppice]

Can you record sound directly on the laptop, to avoid transfer?

One of the items that I ordered is a USB microphone, which is just for that purpose. This will help me record high quality audio very easily.

You still seem to think equipment is the answer to every problem. A good mic will give worse results than a cheap one, if you don't take the room acoustics seriously, and getting serious is not achieved "very easily".

[VEGETA]

Can you record sound directly on the laptop, to avoid transfer?

One of the items that I ordered is a USB microphone, which is just for that purpose. This will help me record high quality audio very easily.

You still seem to think equipment is the answer to every problem. A good mic will give worse results than a cheap one, if you don't take the room acoustics seriously, and getting serious is not achieved "very easily".

I pointed out above that I know tools are not everything but you seem to ignore it. If you put the same effort using a cheap mic then the same effort for a good mic, the result will certainly be better. The mic I got is not expensive but just good... around 30$ or so. Nothing is bad in the room to cause massive noise plus I cancelled most of it even by using my smartphone to record.

You seem to think good tools are nothing important, more like you can make EEVBlog the way it is now using the stupid web camera Dave used in his first episode.

[coppice]

If you put the same effort using a cheap mic then the same effort for a good mic, the result will certainly be better. The mic I got is not expensive but just good... around 30$ or so. Nothing is bad in the room to cause massive noise plus I cancelled most of it even by using my smartphone to record.

If the cheap mic is in a smartphone it generally comes with some very effective noise reduction facilities a separate mic does not have. With a cheap dynamic mic you will probably never hear things like your computer's cooling fans, unless they are exceedingly noisy. Cheap dynamic mics sounds pretty reasonable for voice, but don't generally pick up background noises very well. This can often simplify your life. Change to a good quality condenser mic might you might be driven crazy by all the background noise which appears, and it might seem like the room's reverberation has been greatly accentuated. Now you might need to drive down the background noise, and acoustically treat the room. Look at videos about Dave's place. He has acoustic tiles to tame his room's reverberation.

Better equipment is generally capable of better results, but there is often a price to pay in the complexity it brings.

[jaromir]

VEGE is from VEGETA and teK refers to tech. I originally wanted VEGEtroniX (referencing electronics) but it was taken by another user, so I had to change it. Raigeki is a Japanese word means lightning strike or lightning bolt, and it is a famous word actually. It is famous because there is a Yigioh powerful card holding that name... in case you played it. However, that has nothing to do with choosing it as a name... I choose it because I like it, simple as that.

Choosing a name that is identifiable all across the world is not easy.
Honestly, I had no clue what is "Raigeki" and had no need to google it up, as it sounds like random chunk of characters. On the other hand - in this part of Europe, for decades - Vegeta is trademark for cheap food additive (mostly salt and glutamate) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegeta_(condiment) . It is used in cheap restaurants and generally it isn't something you may want to eat too much. Ask 100 people here what is vegeta and 95 of them will tell you it's food condiment. First time I saw your nickname here I was sure you are from different part of world, but the connotations with the word are still the here.

Like, I'm pretty sure my name can mean "fermented bear paws" in some language; my point is that you can't choose universally understandable and pleasing nickname.

[VEGETA]

VEGE is from VEGETA and teK refers to tech. I originally wanted VEGEtroniX (referencing electronics) but it was taken by another user, so I had to change it. Raigeki is a Japanese word means lightning strike or lightning bolt, and it is a famous word actually. It is famous because there is a Yigioh powerful card holding that name... in case you played it. However, that has nothing to do with choosing it as a name... I choose it because I like it, simple as that.

Choosing a name that is identifiable all across the world is not easy.
Honestly, I had no clue what is "Raigeki" and had no need to google it up, as it sounds like random chunk of characters. On the other hand - in this part of Europe, for decades - Vegeta is trademark for cheap food additive (mostly salt and glutamate) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegeta_(condiment) . It is used in cheap restaurants and generally it isn't something you may want to eat too much. Ask 100 people here what is vegeta and 95 of them will tell you it's food condiment. First time I saw your nickname here I was sure you are from different part of world, but the connotations with the word are still the here.

Like, I'm pretty sure my name can mean "fermented bear paws" in some language; my point is that you can't choose universally understandable and pleasing nickname.

I followed many channels without understanding their names such as greatscott and afrotechmods, so as other electronics channels. So my main goal is not to get a universally identifiable name, and you call it an impossible which is kinda true.

I picked Raigeki simply because I like it. No one knew what EEVblog even means until he watched it over and over... really. So my point is you can pronounce Raigeki and it is a simple word to read and even memorize... so by time they will know it. ALL my viewers in channel do not even know what VEGEteK means lol... but they followed the channel regardless.

So the name will not be much of a difference in my opinion as long as the channel produce nice content to its viewers, which is what I want to achieve. After that, they will surely memorize its name. If I tell you there is a company called Apple that was established yesterday, and asked 100 people what does it do? almost 100% of them will say "about food"... xD. NONE of them will ever guess it is about technology, and none of them will ever know why they chose apple and what is the story behind it until they actually google it. They will only do that when they are interested.

I don't compare my humble efforts to these examples, but it has the same meaning.

[EEVblog]

So the name will not be much of a difference in my opinion as long as the channel produce nice content to its viewers, which is what I want to achieve. After that, they will surely memorize its name.

Sure, but if that name is shared with other things, then your SEO and Youtube and Google ranking will suffer.
Type "Raigeki" into youtube and what do you get? - countless videos! including other channels named the same. It's a very bad name to use for that reason alone, I would strongly suggest that you pick something else, your channel will suffer otherwise.

You might not have known that EEVblog was actually an acronym for, but at least it has the identifiable word "blog", and "EE" is obvious to anyone in the EE field. It's not great but it makes sense, and the best part is it's 100% unique, no one else uses that name. Type it into search and you get nothing but my videos or talk about my channel. I managed to get the EEVblog Twitter handle, the Facebook page, the Vimeo name, the Vidme name, the domain name, the gmail account name, and countless other branded accounts because it's 100% unique. That is a BIG deal if you are designing your channel for growth.
It's also fully trademarkable and enforceable as a unique brand, unlike for example Great Scott.
I only learned all that later, and I was lucky I had a unique name.

[VEGETA]

So the name will not be much of a difference in my opinion as long as the channel produce nice content to its viewers, which is what I want to achieve. After that, they will surely memorize its name.

Sure, but if that name is shared with other things, then your SEO and Youtube and Google ranking will suffer.
Type "Raigeki" into youtube and what do you get? - countless videos! including other channels named the same. It's a very bad name to use for that reason alone, I would strongly suggest that you pick something else, your channel will suffer otherwise.

You might not have known that EEVblog was actually an acronym for, but at least it has the identifiable word "blog", and "EE" is obvious to anyone in the EE field. It's not great but it makes sense, and the best part is it's 100% unique, no one else uses that name. Type it into search and you get nothing but my videos or talk about my channel. I managed to get the EEVblog Twitter handle, the Facebook page, the Vimeo name, the Vidme name, the domain name, the gmail account name, and countless other branded accounts because it's 100% unique. That is a BIG deal if you are designing your channel for growth.
It's also fully trademarkable and enforceable as a unique brand, unlike for example Great Scott.
I only learned all that later, and I was lucky I had a unique name.

Nice tips.

However, there are different channels with common names that got successful like real engineering, learn engineering, practical engineering...etc. If you put "engineering" many videos show up. The difference is that "engineering" word will continuously get new videos but for something like Raigeki it is not the case. No one makes videos for that specific name on continuous basis. Also, great scot is a common name but it got popular only due to his content. So now when you search for that general word you will get him. Only one with raigeki name on his channel is raigeki fitness which is a german channel.

I do aid you that getting a unique name is the best but I can't escape loving that name *__*. I have read stuff about youtube SEO and most of them agreed on view time, watching percentage of each video, reactions, continuity, video title...etc.

I have removed tagging from my videos and I can tell there is a slight increase in views even though the channel is so small and I've been inactive for so much time (+3 months) which is not what I used to be. I think of renaming it to raigeki and see what happens. Actually vegetek is not a meaningful name either.

My youtube status shows youtube search to be first source of audience, stuff like "4-20mA loop" and "big red button" which I did videos on. Some of my videos are in different playlists and shows as suggested videos for other users (not from within my channel). So maybe this means naming has nothing to do at all with it (until now).

Again I do aid what you say, but I don't think the channel will fail simply for using such a name. lol other names that came to my mind is even more troublesome like Kaminari, Raikiri... pretty much my mind is stuck in there xD.

[coppice]

You might not have known that EEVblog was actually an acronym for

Its clearly a blog about good old English Electric Valves. 

[kalel]

If you put the same effort using a cheap mic then the same effort for a good mic, the result will certainly be better. The mic I got is not expensive but just good... around 30$ or so. Nothing is bad in the room to cause massive noise plus I cancelled most of it even by using my smartphone to record.

If the cheap mic is in a smartphone it generally comes with some very effective noise reduction facilities a separate mic does not have. With a cheap dynamic mic you will probably never hear things like your computer's cooling fans, unless they are exceedingly noisy. Cheap dynamic mics sounds pretty reasonable for voice, but don't generally pick up background noises very well. This can often simplify your life. Change to a good quality condenser mic might you might be driven crazy by all the background noise which appears, and it might seem like the room's reverberation has been greatly accentuated. Now you might need to drive down the background noise, and acoustically treat the room. Look at videos about Dave's place. He has acoustic tiles to tame his room's reverberation.

Better equipment is generally capable of better results, but there is often a price to pay in the complexity it brings.

I've found a different noise problem with motherboard sound card or laptop soundcard. This depends on the model, of course, as some may come with high quality ones.

If using the mic-in, there would be a lot of added noise no matter what you do (not environment noise). Even the cheapest PCI/PCI-e soundcards seems to solve that problem. I've found that some cheap USB soundcards from China can also solve that particular problem. Of course, USB microphones solve it too.

[coppice]

I've found a different noise problem with motherboard sound card or laptop soundcard. This depends on the model, of course, as some may come with high quality ones.

If using the mic-in, there would be a lot of added noise no matter what you do (not environment noise). Even the cheapest PCI/PCI-e soundcards seems to solve that problem. I've found that some cheap USB soundcards from China can also solve that particular problem. Of course, USB microphones solve it too.

10 years ago the mic inputs on a lot of motherboards, both cheap and expensive ones, were pretty useless due to noise injection. Modern ones aren't too bad, though. Not as good as something like a Focusrite box, but better than most of the cheap USB sound cards.

[kalel]

I've found a different noise problem with motherboard sound card or laptop soundcard. This depends on the model, of course, as some may come with high quality ones.

If using the mic-in, there would be a lot of added noise no matter what you do (not environment noise). Even the cheapest PCI/PCI-e soundcards seems to solve that problem. I've found that some cheap USB soundcards from China can also solve that particular problem. Of course, USB microphones solve it too.

10 years ago the mic inputs on a lot of motherboards, both cheap and expensive ones, were pretty useless due to noise injection. Modern ones aren't too bad, though. Not as good as something like a Focusrite box, but better than most of the cheap USB sound cards.

I guess I still have the noise injection problem with the built in Realtek (definitely a couple of years old motherboard, not the latest gen). Maybe they build in better stuff on the Intel compatible boards, but I wouldn't be sure unless they are expensive models. But since even as low as $1 Chinese soundcard can solve this problem (depending on how lucky you are, some have huge noise on the input, some very low), it's not a big deal.

[VEGETA]

I bought this USB mic: https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Fifine-Condenser-Recording-669B/dp/B06XCKGLTP/

I guess this is the best value for money and gives nice quality, I can use Audacity to filter the remaining noise.

A friend suggested that I buy a USB cheap sound card and said this will further enhance the quality. I have HP laptop so only USB external ones will work. Do you recommend the same? do you know a cheap good enough card?

[kalel]

I bought this USB mic: https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Fifine-Condenser-Recording-669B/dp/B06XCKGLTP/

I guess this is the best value for money and gives nice quality, I can use Audacity to filter the remaining noise.

A friend suggested that I buy a USB cheap sound card and said this will further enhance the quality. I have HP laptop so only USB external ones will work. Do you recommend the same? do you know a cheap good enough card?

You might want to get a cheap "pop filter" from China or improvise one yourself. Microphones can be sensitive to certain sounds and such a filter eliminates those.

I'd wait for replies from more knowledgeable folks, but my thoughts are that unlike analog signal microphones that you plug into mic-in or line-in with an amplifier, with USB microphones a better soundcard shouldn't give you a better sound.

A good one might give you a better sound/listening experience, and a cheap one might sometimes have worse sound than the computer integrated ones (it depends on the model of both the usb card and motherboard), but that's a different thing.

[coppice]

You might want to get a cheap "pop filter" from China or improvise one yourself. Microphones can be sensitive to certain sounds and such a filter eliminates those.

A pop filter is a good suggestion for voiceovers. However, if you are recording video of your face, such a filter is usually too obtrusive to be practical.

I'd wait for replies from more knowledgeable folks, but my thoughts are that unlike analog signal microphones that you plug into mic-in or line-in with an amplifier, with USB microphones a better soundcard shouldn't give you a better sound.

If you use a USB mic you do not need any other sound card. With most USB mics there is actually no way to get an analogue signal out of the mic to feed into a separate sound card. You have to rely on the mic's internal "sound card".

[EEVblog]

Again I do aid what you say, but I don't think the channel will fail simply for using such a name.

No it won't "fail", and it's your choice, but I think you are making a mistake with that name.
I've had my say and I'll stop now.
Good luck.

[EEVblog]

I bought this USB mic: https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Fifine-Condenser-Recording-669B/dp/B06XCKGLTP/
I guess this is the best value for money and gives nice quality, I can use Audacity to filter the remaining noise.

No, if you have to do that then you are doing it wrong.
Being a successful Youtuber is about optimising and simplifying your production process. The more steps like this you add to more of a chore it is to produce videos.
You should not have to process audio, get it right in-camera.

A friend suggested that I buy a USB cheap sound card and said this will further enhance the quality. I have HP laptop so only USB external ones will work. Do you recommend the same? do you know a cheap good enough card?

Do not use a sound card, only use a proper USB mic.