I was once a keen follower of Martin's but he lost me after R&S were kind enough to give him two very nice oscilloscopes for review with one to be given away and for all intents and purposes he did neither.
To be honest I completely forgot about the giveaway, only briefly did a wonder what MJlorton was doing these days.
Yes he did finally give one away in his contest, but in a way which wasn't equal chance for everyone. The watt output of a solar panel as a random number generator. Think I was 124, so unless it suddenly changed season, I didn't have a chance.
His videos are random in both content and release schedule, he promises videos on topics and reviews and doesn't deliver them.
I've come to the conclusion Martin is just unreliable. He could at least set himself a goal of releasing 1 video a month.
That's a bit rough labelling him a slacker and unreliable, he's done stacks of videos and all the ones I've seen are excellent
Anything so-so about his efforts he mentions up front, and let's face it, he has a life to get on with,
rather than focusing more time on more freebie Youtube videos that may not be giving him a fair return financially (or being shafted on the numbers game as it does with many tubers)
The thing that MJL gets right in my book is that he caters for the newbs and almost knowalls in the same video,
sharing his -new equipment day- journey with the viewer with digestable 'theory' and demonstration
and revisits a product where appropriate
He's not in DJ's league
nor does he claim to be
You can do a lot worse on Youtube, some are tragic
While I appreciate the contents of his videos he has a habit of being incredibly long-winded, to the point where the videos become tedious to watch. Communicating effectively is as much about what you you leave out as it is about what you say. You could cut at least half of most videos without losing any actual content.
I think that's what sets the most successful Youtubers apart from the rest. It's not just subject matter and personality. Pacing is a very undervalued part of what makes or breaks a video. Both going too fast or too slow will cause people to tune out, but the latter seem to be more common on the Tube. It doesn't really help that a lot of people are obviously aiming to make videos of 10 minutes or more, even if the content doesn't warrant it.
..but I ask naysayers to first review Martin's work on thermal imaging equipment.
Woo, Déjà vu..
He's got his mittens on a new DT-9889 Thermal DMM, it's only 6000 counts and it'll likely sell > $400 (not a deal-breaker).
*edit - Specs clipped from site (not sure if this is final yet)
The device may have a small internal flash memory, that is why it still can save pictures with external flash card removed and did not show error message.
Also Flir seemed to follow their practice to place the usb connector in awkward locations. In this case behind the battery and with the flip stand on the way of the cable.
While I appreciate the contents of his videos he has a habit of being incredibly long-winded, to the point where the videos become tedious to watch. Communicating effectively is as much about what you you leave out as it is about what you say. You could cut at least half of most videos without losing any actual content.
That's always a debate about my videos and a claim people make.
But when I challenge them to try and edit one my videos, or go back and look myself, there is surprisingly little that can be taken out without losing actual content.
Of course there is debate over what content should be included, but that's another argument.
Sometimes after the edit I think "gee that's a lot longer than I expected" I go back though it and try to trim things out here and there, even removing some content, but I'd struggle to save say 5 minutes in a 35 minute video.
That's always a debate about my videos and a claim people make.
But when I challenge them to try and edit one my videos, or go back and look myself, there is surprisingly little that can be taken out without losing actual content.
Of course there is debate over what content should be included, but that's another argument.
Sometimes after the edit I think "gee that's a lot longer than I expected" I go back though it and try to trim things out here and there, even removing some content, but I'd struggle to save say 5 minutes in a 35 minute video.
I found Martin's main problem was always that he speaks way too slowly. If he spoke twice as fast he could reduce the running time by half at a stroke, with no need to cut any content at all.
That's always a debate about my videos and a claim people make.
But when I challenge them to try and edit one my videos, or go back and look myself,
there is surprisingly little that can be taken out without losing actual content.
Of course there is debate over what content should be included, but that's another argument.
Sometimes after the edit I think "gee that's a lot longer than I expected"
I go back though it and try to trim things out here and there, even removing some content, but I'd struggle to save say 5 minutes in a 35 minute video.
I found Martin's main problem was always that he speaks way too slowly. If he spoke twice as fast he could reduce the running time by half at a stroke, with no need to cut any content at all.
DJ and MJL are Youtubers that already do more than enough to fill up a video with content, teardowns and comment/explanations,
why waste time on more/less/fancy dialogue/blab, and head scratching just to trim a minute here and there,
that may take longer to do than the entire video shoot and original edit upload package
It's time that takes away time from the next project,
and hey, these tubers aren't exactly operating from Hollywood sets with blockbuster budgets
As for any DSO giveaway butthurt that may be lingering on... get over it guys
DJ and MJL are Youtubers that already do more than enough to fill up a video with content, teardowns and comment/explanations,
why waste time on more/less/fancy dialogue/blab, and head scratching just to trim a minute here and there,
that may take longer to do than the entire video shoot and original edit upload package
Yes. If a 30 minute video takes say an hour to edit, then it could easily take another hour to try and trim 5 minutes off that. Many hours more if I have to go back re-shoot something to make it more concise etc.
Another Black Mountain update from Martin. A lot more delays than anticipated, but he'll be producing episodes soon.. If Dave visits the US again, maybe he, Chris Gamel and Martin can do a few joint episode's
I believe Shahriar lives close to NC too.
I never watched his channel again after seeing the power supply loop compensation disaster and poor construction. At first it seems interesting, someone who's going to attempt designing a circuit almost live on YT. Then you see a first glimpse of the schematic and you instantly know that something is awfully wrong while he keeps speaking with confidence. In a fit of curiosity you think that perhaps in the next episode some magic loop compensation trick will be presented. But you can only conclude that he doesn't understand why the design is a disaster and he deliberately choose to ignore viewers who pointed him into the right direction.
This ain't engineering at all and misleading too for people who came to his channel thinking they can learn something. But those channels quickly die off because it's probably very difficult to generate meaningful content about something you don't know to much about.