** Official Recording/Streaming Tips & Tricks Exchange **

arc@css said:
In terms of ease of use, performance when recording and file size - it's fantastic. However, the quality won't be as good as Dxtory, but for me right now, it's good enough most of the time. However, when I start doing commentary I might need the flexibility of Dxtory.
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I think another worthwhile point in the argument is what your recording style is...

If you're the sort of person who can sit down, hit record and then carry through an entire episode without any awkward pauses, interruptions or other parts that need editing out - so your "edit" step becomes simply chopping a few seconds off of the start and end of your recording... Shadowplay is amazing; you'll end up with a file already compressed and ready to shove straight to Youtube

If you need to do a lot of editing on the footage then having a higher quality raw capture will always result in a better quality end-result (although depending on who you ask and how much it bothers you, it may be only slightly better!). Also Shadowplay's files are a bit of a pain for heavy editing as they aren't CFR (constant-frame-rate) so require an additional encoding step before most editors will edit them nicely
 
uncle_rufus said:
I think another worthwhile point in the argument is what your recording style is...

If you're the sort of person who can sit down, hit record and then carry through an entire episode without any awkward pauses, interruptions or other parts that need editing out - so your "edit" step becomes simply chopping a few seconds off of the start and end of your recording... Shadowplay is amazing; you'll end up with a file already compressed and ready to shove straight to Youtube

If you need to do a lot of editing on the footage then having a higher quality raw capture will always result in a better quality end-result (although depending on who you ask and how much it bothers you, it may be only slightly better!). Also Shadowplay's files are a bit of a pain for heavy editing as they aren't CFR (constant-frame-rate) so require an additional encoding step before most editors will edit them nicely
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One of the things I also prefer about ShadowPlay is it runs smoother in the editor I use, where as AVI footage seems to be somewhat choppy.
 
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^^ If the editing software can't handle them it's very easy to correct them to CFR using Handbrake, unlike some other programs as the files Shadowplay writes has enough information in them for it to fix, many other programs don't - which is the issue I've had with DXTory and why I use Shadowplay for video/game audio recording, I just can't fix it afterwards with DXTory.

Fixing Shadowplay IF you have a problem is pretty straight forward though, 2 mins work for you then AFK whilst the PC sorts it.
 
Hi Guys,

At the moment i am only streaming, i have a few videos but found I spent most late nights 2am onward editing videos. I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.

I currently use the following.

Mic - Blue Snowball
Capture - Avermedia LGP Lite 1080p
Cam - Logitech c920

Streaming - OBS
Video Edit - Sony Vegas
Youtube Thumbnails - Photoshop

1) I cannot get my party chat along with in-game sound on my ps4 while streaming, what do you guys do?

2) Do you guys have a schedule for when to edit videos and when to upload them for youtube?

3) Video intro, do i need it. Also where do I start and try to be unique with it? This bit I dont have the experience or skills to do this myself (i think)

I try to do this as a hobby but I think i need to organize and plan a little better in the future. Not been doing it for long but with practice and a lot of patience I should do ok. I tend to do a lot of gaming with my brother in party chat and I think the banter we have provides enough entertainment. But I fear that might not be enough!
 
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Halfmad said:
^^ If the editing software can't handle them it's very easy to correct them to CFR using Handbrake, unlike some other programs as the files Shadowplay writes has enough information in them for it to fix, many other programs don't - which is the issue I've had with DXTory and why I use Shadowplay for video/game audio recording, I just can't fix it afterwards with DXTory.

Fixing Shadowplay IF you have a problem is pretty straight forward though, 2 mins work for you then AFK whilst the PC sorts it.
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So, rather than fix the files individually before rendering (as I have done in the past), I could sort problems out after it has rendered by using handbrake at the end to re-encode the video? If I've understood you right, then that sounds like a better method.
 
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clartymarty said:
Hi Guys,

At the moment i am only streaming, i have a few videos but found I spent most late nights 2am onward editing videos. I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.

I currently use the following.

Mic - Blue Snowball
Capture - Avermedia LGP Lite 1080p
Cam - Logitech c920

Streaming - OBS
Video Edit - Sony Vegas
Youtube Thumbnails - Photoshop

1) I cannot get my party chat along with in-game sound on my ps4 while streaming, what do you guys do?

2) Do you guys have a schedule for when to edit videos and when to upload them for youtube?

I try to do this as a hobby but I think i need to organize and plan a little better in the future. Not been doing it for long but with practice and a lot of patience I should do ok. I tend to do a lot of gaming with my brother in party chat and I think the banter we have provides enough entertainment. But I fear that might not be enough!
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I have no experience whatsoever with audio commentary / streaming, but I'm sure some of the other chaps in here will be able to help. As regards to a schedule, no, I don't have a set time when I edit or upload. I do, however, try to upload a new video each day, or occasionally two if I have the time and drive. Also, every now and then I'll leave things for a few days and take a break.
 
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Yeah, while streaming I have a few veiwers which i dont mind and recently hit 10 followers hehe HYPE!

The only problem I have, which i will not be the only one is holding down a full time job getting in at 6.30pm, having a family, gaming/streaming and fitting in editing haha

along with eating and sleeping haha
 
clartymarty said:
1) I cannot get my party chat along with in-game sound on my ps4 while streaming, what do you guys do?

2) Do you guys have a schedule for when to edit videos and when to upload them for youtube?

3) Video intro, do i need it. Also where do I start and try to be unique with it? This bit I dont have the experience or skills to do this myself (i think)

I try to do this as a hobby but I think i need to organize and plan a little better in the future. Not been doing it for long but with practice and a lot of patience I should do ok. I tend to do a lot of gaming with my brother in party chat and I think the banter we have provides enough entertainment. But I fear that might not be enough!
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For (1) I'm afraid I also don't know as I don't own a PS4 and haven't tried streaming from a console - sorry

(2) Is an interesting one... we make some sort of attempt to upload something every couple of days, but since we're fitting it around work etc. don't always manage to stick to it. Also I find different games require different levels of editing depending on the pacing of the gameplay (if it involves lots of uninteresting travelling for instance I usually edit some of that out). In terms of a schedule I try and do a bit of editing in the evenings and usually in the mornings at the weekend - don't do much in the day at the weekend as that's when we typically record more footage. Definitely upload things early in the morning as the upload speeds seem to be better at that time...

(3) Completely up to you; if you ask around on any of the common let's play type communities people seem to say intros are the worst thing ever made and you should never ever do one - but I think actual viewers (i.e. who aren't channel owners themselves) don't mind. Probably try to keep it fairly short and not too obnoxious (no 30 second+ over the top animation with blaring techno that's way louder than the rest of the video!) We've tried to go for something fairly quick (but hopefully recognisable) in our videos.

As for how to make the intro... I didn't really know what I was doing either but for something fairly basic you can get away with creating some images using a graphics program and arranging/animating them in the video editor itself (I used GIMP for the graphics and Blender for the video)

Playing games, having fun + banter can definitely be enough (eventually) but it seems (anecdotally at least) that it's the process that comes before that - gaining some sort of viewerbase - that is the real uphill struggle... and nobody really has the answer to that
 
arc@css said:
So, rather than fix the files individually before rendering (as I have done in the past), you could sort problems out after it has rendered by using handbrake at the end to re-encode the video? If I've understood you right, then that sounds like a better method.
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Once I've captured them I just shove it into handbrake, after that the audio/video are in sync even in editing software as it's got a constant framerate so no more sync issues.

Doesn't take long and of course you can queue them all up and AFK :)
 
I am very very amateur when it comes to all this, but for ease of use I find shadowplay to be great (bar the lack of options for PTT). I stream to youtube for the better quality, and shadowplay let's you create a custom overlay for your streams if you so desire. For recording and editing it isn't ideal since you won't get separate audio and the quality of compression isn't as good as others out there, but for streaming the performance impact is practically zero, and it's easy.

Now I just need to make my streams more interesting!
 
uncle_rufus said:
gaining some sort of viewerbase - that is the real uphill struggle... and nobody really has the answer to that
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I'm probably stating the obvious, but I don't think many game play videos are likely to attract a substantial audience as it's so incredibly saturated anyway. For example, recently I was watching Gopher play Clear Sky / Shadow of Chernobyl, and the views dropped to a low of around 7,000 in one episode. Although that may sound like a lot to most people, when you consider the number of subscribers he has, it's very little.
 
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arc@css said:
I'm probably stating the obvious, but I don't think many game play videos are likely to attract a substantial audience as it's so incredibly saturated anyway. For example, recently I was watching Gopher play Clear Sky / Shadow of Chernobyl, and the views dropped to a low of around 7,000 in one episode. Although that may sound like a lot to most people, when you consider the number of subscribers he has, it's very little.
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It really depends on the game. If you play niche games with not many other YouTubers out there doing videos on them you can still get decent viewers but yeah it is hard.

I've taken a break from making YouTube videos for various reasons but I have a couple of specific games I'm waiting for to get started again and when they get released I'll be trying to make loads of videos about them and hopefully that will help my channel.
 
I've found the videos that do best for me (we are talking big numbers here guys, like over 200 views :p) are of games that have just hit early access etc. People hitting youtube for gameplay of a game they want to buy etc. I have a colossal 6 subscribers right now so I'm assuming that's all search traffic. Plenty of people do an excellent job of streaming and reviewing big titles, but if you get onto a new game quickly you can at least get opportunities to win new viewers.

My actual live viewers tends to be in the low 1s and 2s, often the zeros.
 
Got to be honest I just make them for my own amusement, as I'm essentially making a snapshot of Star Citizens development as it goes along looking at the ships etc.

Not fussed about views, if I went down that route I'd see it as too much of a task :)
 
Devrij said:
I've found the videos that do best for me (we are talking big numbers here guys, like over 200 views :p) are of games that have just hit early access etc. People hitting youtube for gameplay of a game they want to buy etc. I have a colossal 6 subscribers right now so I'm assuming that's all search traffic. Plenty of people do an excellent job of streaming and reviewing big titles, but if you get onto a new game quickly you can at least get opportunities to win new viewers.
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This seems to agree with our recent experiences as well - you almost have to target games which are a similar relative size to your channel; that way you can stand a chance in the search results. Presumably as your channel gets a bit larger you can compete more easily (due to your "cushion" of guaranteed views from your subs)
 
arc@css said:
I'm probably stating the obvious, but I don't think many game play videos are likely to attract a substantial audience as it's so incredibly saturated anyway. For example, recently I was watching Gopher play Clear Sky / Shadow of Chernobyl, and the views dropped to a low of around 7,000 in one episode. Although that may sound like a lot to most people, when you consider the number of subscribers he has, it's very little.
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I agree with this. So many people do them, it is a hard audience to grab. I do reviews as well and the popular games are flooded also and if I get 200 views I am pleased. It is something I really enjoy doing though and have a proper passion for, so don't mind the small viewer base.

Hardware reviews seem to do the best for me and I do get quite a few thousand hits but buying my own hardware means I can't do that many but whilst I aim to get a decent size following, I am not going to buy hardware just for the sake of it.
 
Had another decent stream last night, even after Twitch went down for like an hour or so...

The only "problem" I had was that I got raided by another stream mid-way through. Obviously I don't really mind more viewers and got some extra followers off the back of it all, but I had no clue or previous knowledge of the guy who raided me, all just seemed really random. The thing that felt off about it all is that the streamer then came into chat and said something along the lines of "hey, it would be nice if you could follow back and maybe raid some other streams in the future (heavily implying his own.)"

I understand the "share the love" mentality, and I'm sure he's a nice guy with good intentions n' all that, but he's kinda forcing the fact that I "owe" him. I'd better understand if he showed some interesting in my channel prior, but I'm guessing he just randomly picked a channel to raid in hope that I would raid him back.

Is this an effective way to grow? Just seemed real cheap to me, like the equivalent of "like4like", etc. I understand collaborating with other streamers to effectively share view bases, but in a more structured fashion.

And of course I didn't say any of this went this happen 'cause I didn't want to look like a **** :D Again I appreciate his gesture, but is this something I should consider myself?
 
I'm not into the must get thousands of views, or come on need subscribers etc. I dont have many vids up, but for me the only reason I post a few up is for my mates that don't own PC's. They constantly like to watch my videos as they are genuinely saving up for PC's as they have seen the light. If more gamers can understand why the pc gaming market is stronger visually and performance wise than console, that's gotta be good for the PC gamer. I just post them for fun really.

The problem I have with software recording is the massive hit on performance. DXtory is great, but you can't use dxtory and msiAB in a lot of games together. Also, MSI AB cuts my frames in half, I'll happily be gaming around 100fps, hit record and it drops under 50fps and the motion is just pants. I don't really rate MSI AB recording.

The other issue with DXTory is, it doesn't like quite a few games, for me I can't record Fallout 4 or Project Cars, game just crashes on launch with DXTory running.
 
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Glad I bumped in to this thread. I've recently moved house and have much better internet speeds so decided to start streaming and recording again. Currently streaming to Twitch through OBS and wanted to start editing videos but not sure what is best to use. I was using my Logitech G330's too as my main mic but alas they have died. Is it worth getting a standing mic on its own ?
 
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