Radios on the Tube

[KA3EKH]

I maybe spend a good part of my free time watching or building videos for YouTube. Have to say that I approach this from a little bit different background from most having worked in broadcasting most of my life including shooting and editing news packages, commercials and news programs back in the old days. I have a bunch of stuff out there and am always thinking of ways of improving the product, lot like how many of the big gun AM stations are always working to have better audio.
Going to assume that many here do the same, or at least spend some time watching the stuff that’s out there.
The question I have is what do you think makes a good radio video? What’s a good length? YouTube wants you to produce a lot of content per month, at least if you want to see any revenue from them so a lot of stuff tends to be long. I feel that three to ten minutes is a good length but that’s just what I think, if you look at the Carlson’s Lab stuff and his BC-348 video it runs on for days! And I think people just can keep attention to the screen that long. Conversely somehow, I hear some of the big gun AM stations that somehow often go on for extended periods of time often beyond what I would do on there transmissions. But maybe that’s just a faulty idea I have from being an editor and always trying to cut everything down to just the message?  Do people want lots of cuts or more along the line of longer static shots? And what about on-air demos? And how do people feel about all the Ham Talk show format or overproduced stuff that’s out there?
OK, so maybe its self-serving on my part but just wanted to see what others in the community think. If you want to see a sample of the stuff here is an example of my work:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekwSnH5sfbw

Feel free to comment.


 

[RolandSWL]

I think this is a good opportunity to educate those (me included) who don't have a good enough understanding of tube-based radio. The most important attribute of any instructional video is explaining things in simple terms. But that's just me.

Roland.........

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Funny, I received a lot of my radio and electronics knowledge from using technical reference material (i.e. books).
Today, YouTube is full of "wannabe educators" with lots of shaky camera movements, lots of "Ah" and "duhs", most need improvements in English and overall presentation, problems getting to a specific point, and rambling too long on a non important points.

When I go to YouTube, I find police chasing felons down the highways and good old fashion rock concerts far more enjoyable.

BUT, like a lot of things, people have the desire to make a buck and YouTube is a way to do it and there are, I'm sure, lots of users there lurking around clicking on stuff.

[Jim, W5JO]

The reason college classes are 50 minutes is because of span of attention.  Much longer than that you lose the attention of the student. 

This assumes the person viewing is interested enough in the subject matter to stick with it.  Unless there is a compelling reason, people do have an hour to sit in front of a monitor to watch for an hour or more.  I started watching the BC348 video and after about 10 minutes started skipping through it.

[KA3EKH]

Think that in the days of print and books you had a process of more then one person, the writer would submit a draft and an editor would review and ultimately the publisher did a final review. With the Tube you bypass all that. Its just you and distribution. Somewhat the same thing as with web publishing, but at least here we have some over site and review although I don’t know where the lines are drawn.
Know we cannot do offensive, raciest or pornographic content but beyond that it appears anything goes. Maybe that’s where comments come in?   If I make an outrageous statement like” soaking your electrolytic capacitors in Salt water will rejuvenate them” will suspect that people would comment that’s crazy. But if I did something like saying “to tune your DX-60 you have to peak the output loading to the point where you cannot keep your fingers on the tank coil” would assume that would be removed?
I don’t have the balls to do a test video advising people to do something stupid just to see if it would be pulled, nor have I ever intentionally written anything on line to see what happens but wonder where those lines are?
The money thing is misleading, think one tenth of one percent of the contentment creators on the Tube receive any money. I know that I don’t. Think a lot of the stuff I do is that it’s just because I like doing it, lot like operating AM or vintage hardware. You do this stuff because ultimately that’s what you do. If you’re not doing things that require some work or discipline then you might just as well sit around and watch TV or worse yet do Sudoku.
 

[K8DI]

My requests:  put camera on a tripod and leave it there.
Use graphics. Focus the camera. Use a properly placed non awful sounding mic.

Short is good. Shorter is better. Something that takes a long time should be cut/edited, or a summary at the start. Put a TOC with time stamps at the start or in the description.

I despise watching a ten minute video to glean info that could be written in a paragraph. If you could do it in a paragraph don’t make a video.

Since you mentioned AM sound… any demonstration needs to be properly recorded. Consider whether YouTube audio processing will adequately carry the audio detail you’re demonstrating — you may need to provide links to full bit rate wav files. Consider modern instrumented documentation—measure response, don’t say it’s good.

My opinions here, speaking for myself….

Ed