I’ve been inspired by a recent thread to start my own YouTube channel. I’d welcome your thoughts on a possible first video. A possible script and indication of the visuals are....
Video Title:
Review of the New Bus Pirate 5I’ve occasionally thought it would be useful to have a Bus Pirate for quick-and-dirty peek/poke and protocol analysis of modern communications over busses like SPI, I2C. I’ve hesitated because the Bus Pirate 3 is distinctly long in the tooth, but the Bus Pirate 4 “upgrade” can’t do as much as the Bus Pirate 3.
When the Bus Pirate 5 was announced a few months ago, it seemed to be a definite improvement - so I took the plunge and ordered one. It has just arrived, rather late due to a manufacturing cockup. Kudos to the supplier for being open and honest, and offering alternatives. If only all manufacturers were like that.
Anyway here’s the box. Not very pretty, but hey, I’ve never thought Apple’s “delightful box and unboxing experience” to be worth much. I just want to use whatever’s in the box.
So, here it is connected to my computer.
<video of bus pirate, cable, monitor: 15s>Oh dear dog, those blinkenlights. Got to find a way of turning those off ASAP; they are so bright they are making it difficult to see the BP5’s screen.
Oops, need to do a bit of configuration to udev. Don’t know what would be necessary on Windows, since I’m not clever enough to know how to use that safely.
<video of finding and typing in configuration: 60s>Let’s see what it can do. Need to use LED mode, obviously
<video of typing a few commands: 60s, including correcting typos>It works!!! I can change the colour of the LEDs and turn them off. Isn’t that pretty, and good value for money.
<video shows lights changing: 15s>OK, back to the starting mode. Aargh. Those blinkenlights have rematerialised. Must Turn Them Off ASAP.
<video of using help command, finding config, trying it, turning LEDs off again: 60s>Back to starting mode, and they stay off. Excellent!!!
It looks like I can use it as an oscilloscope, so let’s see how good that is. The specification says it is a 500kS/s scope with a maximum 5V input.
<video of paper specification: 15s>Now my edge generator has a 5V 50ohm output impedance with a 250ps risetime, so if just connect it directly to the Bus Pirate inputs with dupont jumper leads, the overshoot will damage the input. To avoid that I need to use an inline 50ohm terminator, which controls overshoot and reduces the voltage input to 2.5V.
<video of attaching pulse generator and inline terminator and getting the scope working: 180s>Yes, that too works!!!!
Hey, this really looks good. I can recommend it to everyone
<Fade to black>
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Overall that contains around 450 words, so speaking normally at 60 words per minute would take 9 minutes. But realistically I’m not a good speaker used to reading a script, so the ums, ahs and gaps might extend the talking head time to 12 minutes. The video of the operation and results are likely to take an extra 8 minutes, since I’m probably not going to be very good at talking and simultaneously operating the equipment. I’ve also got to reattach connections, and move the camera between shots, so that will probably add 1 minute. The mandatory Google video adverts will add 120s. All in all that is maybe 20 minutes long.
I reckon that video would take me 30 minutes to shoot on a smartphone, and at HD resolution it is the odd 1GB or so.
So, what do you think? Should I do it?
Which of these channel names do you think would be most appropriate?
MyTimeIsMoreValuableThanYours
LookAtMe
WotACleverDudeIAm
YetMoreMonetisedClickbait
For the avoidance of doubt… None of the above applies to content creators who take the trouble to edit the footage, who create a table of contents under the video, and who do more than simply open boxes. Unfortunately such content creators are very much in the minority.