quick feedback on Dayz video quality!

[evilsandwich2 (DayZ) 46]

I need some brutally honest feedback from a few people.

Pretend you are my coach and tell me where to improve! Be as harsh as you can!

If you only watch the first 3 seconds then stop, let me know why, please!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDUaY5cculg

If you could copy/paste this with your own answers, you sir can have my beans.

1 = Didnt even watch. Cell phone recording of a 4:3 old tv

5 = Barely watchable, but watchable.

10 = Perfect. The best quality I've ever seen

Video Quality (standard view): 8-8.5

Video Quality (fullscreen): 7.5

Did you use HD?: yes, 1080p

Sound quality (voice): 6.5-8 (really, impossible for me to judge my own voice)

Sound quality (gameplay): 9.5

The following are completely Optional! (honesty counts!):

Do you like this type of video?: yes, I make them

Starting at 0:00, how far did you go before you paused/skipped?: xxx seconds/minutes , its my own video, i've seen it before.

Did you care about the topic?: yes / no / didnt make it that far before pausing

Was the ending entertaining?: yes / no / didnt watch

Would you click on that thumbnail if you came across it on youtube? yes / no / maybe

Remember, I'm not looking for replies like "good video" because those types of comments will only encourage sub-par videos!

Act like you hate me and you want to point out all of my flaws!

In return, I will share youtube knowledge I've learned so far:

The video quality doesnt make the game look better than it really is:

--- After spending literally 20 hours rendering this video in different ways with different options, nothing could change the fact that I have some settings on "low". This is why the grass looks kind of blurry. I need to forget about 60fps+ and aim for 30 with higher settings.

DayZ is terrible with color corrections:

--- Sunlight changes, shadows, and the game automatically adjusting brightness (when zoomed or indoors) make it nearly impossible to apply saturation adjustments, brightness/contrast, etc. I need to make sure the game looks good AS-IS. Also, motion blur sucks.

servers with crappy FPS suck

--- my FPS heavily relies on the server. Sometimes its 100fps, sometimes its 5fps, or anywhere in between. I will only find a server with 50+fps before recording anything from now on.

some audio is nearly uneditabe

--- I've been struggling with mic quality for a while, There's only so much I can do without professional equipment (soon, not now). Removing the background hiss (with audacity "noise removal") made it sound 100x better, but nothing can fix laughing into the mic and having the audio peak out like I blew into it. I've tried to tone those peaks down, but it sounds stupid if I mute it, and it breaks eardrums if I leave it in.

interface size gives false sense of quality

--- I have my interface size set too small. It's impossible to read unless you go HD+fullscreen. Setting interface size larger will make the video look higher quality when played in HD

custom thumbnails can be misleading

--- No one will sub my channel if the thumbnail says "BIG TITS AND ASSES" then it turns out to be a dayz video. My goal is to gain subscribers, not views. If I wanted views, I could spam people's inboxes all day long, but that means nothing for my next video. A channel will not succeed without subscribers and it's my primary goal (not even money is important right now. I de-monetize my videos because no one wants to sit through an ad!

best or gtfo

-- i only sub the best, so why should I think anyone else is different? How many channels on youtube have under 100 subs but over 10 videos? A LOT OF THEM. No one wants to sub garbage videos with no themes or direction. If I watch a dayz video, then click on the guy's channel and find a bunch of stupidass minecraft videos, I'm not going to sub.

wallpapers and recent videos go a long way

-- my wallpaper sucks and I've been desperately looking for some photoshop time. If someone liked your video then clicked to your channel, they need to see a professional grade wallpaper and some quality videos! If they see it, they might actually sub! How many times have you subbed a channel with a default background? never?. Also, your recent videos will tell the viewer what type of channel it is! If I watched a DayZ video, then seen the guy uploads mostly mw3 videos, I probably wont sub! If you go to http://www.youtube.com/seananners you'll see what I mean. If you create a new playlist (mine is named "featured videos" http://www.youtube.com/evilsandwich2), you can arrange your videos in any order, and be sure to remove the videos that got a lot of dislikes! If you have a gameplay channel, then your videos should be of gameplay!

HAVE TOPICS IN MIND BEFORE RECORDING

-- How not to start out: "uhh hey guys its uh XxXxTh3R3alD3alxXxLEGIT and I have this video I wanted to share so I uh figured I would make a commentary and put it on youtube so you can watch it". I wrote down a list of topics that are on my mind, then I stuck to it until things started to heat up, then I switched to talking about my surroundings/gameplay Talking about the gameplay works for dayz, it actually works very well, but it doesnt work for games that are dead like mw3. I only managed to talk about 1 of those topics, but it was better than nothing!

edit out parts!

-- Dayz involves lots of running. LOTS. I ran for 8 minutes before reaching cherno, but I edited out my own commentary because it was BORING! I turned an 8 minute run with blah blah zombie commentary into a more to-the-point version that was 90 seconds long

the first 15 seconds will make up 99% of people's mind

-- youtube partners know this, and so should everyone else. It's actually in the youtube partner handbook about how to gain subscribers. Most people will watch for 15 seconds or less before they either A) click away because they are not interested or B) want to find out what happens and keep watching of course, there's always option C) watched for 1 second because of misleading thumbnail and D) watched for 5 seconds because of quality. I struggle with this because I always forget! Your intro should be quick and to the point: "sup its JJ and I'm gonna do some crowbar pvp and have a good time". If the title + thumbnail + intro = all match, then the person will likely watch most of your video, and perhaps sub because they want more!

phew ok. so there's a few things I've learned. Most of it I learned on my own from trial & error. And now I'm here :)

thank you for any help!!!

Edited August 20, 2012 by evilsandwich2