What makes the production quality of a video good ?

[Faisal A]

What makes the production quality of a video good ?

[minibois]

"What makes the video better"

Options 1 and 2: the appareance of a video before watching it:

Options 3, 4 and 5: the actual video.

HmM!! Real brainbreaker here!!!

 

But to me it's a good voice-over with excellent B-Roll and a good story around the whole thing.

It's the whole thing that should come together.

 

That would never excuse a terrible thumbnail/title though.. But those are of less importance to me (as long as they accurately represent the content).

[GoldenLag]

you dont really need a good camera if you can get some decent lighting in place. as such that is probably the biggest step-up in terms of video quality. 

[Praesi]

What Video? YT?

[rEkmAInc1csBnlM6C85H]

Me personally I find audio mixing to be king; it is the one thing that can make me immediately stop watching a video when it is slightly wrong. Things like:

• Incorrectly panned stereo audio
• Hissing
• Humming
• Desink
• Anything that makes me have to readjust volume multiple times

[Kisai]

44 minutes ago, Faisal A said:

What makes the production quality of a video good ?

1) Good Microphone

2) Good Camera

3) Good Lighting

4) Good software package

5) No distraction.

 

Audio:

I kid you not, there are videos out there that I can't stand to listen to because the audio echos, pops, clips, or sounds like the person is in their bathroom. Like there are two youtubers that I'd watch more of if they just upgraded their audio equipment so they don't sound like they're on the telephone.

The microphone should have the full 20-20,000hz frequency response range, cardioid or directional, non-wireless, preferrably connected directly by USB, but an external DAC will do too. Do not use the microphone built into the PC, webcam or camcorder.

 

Video:

Please, if you're doing videoblog stuff, get a USB 3.x 4K Camera today. There is no reason to keep using the crappy 720p USB 2.0 cameras. If you are not live-streaming, get a DSLR and record on that, otherwise just straight up avoid everything under $300.

 

Your mobile phone camera is rubbish, and you should feel bad if you are using it for anything that's not a cat/situational video. A GoPro is likewise not an appropriate camera for serious video work. These are special-purpose cameras that are designed for one type of footage, and using them to blog or conduct interviews with other people will look and sound poor. A mobile phone does not have the necessary lens and low-light capability to be used indoors without external lighting. It can be used outdoors in the sunlight without a problem.

 

Lighting:

Like with the video hardware choice, you should have actual "lights", not just be lit by your computer screen. Get a few tripods, put lights on them. Programable LED bulbs are all the rage now, they suck for lighting, but that's still better than being lit by a 60w incandescent indoor bulb.

 

If you are INDOORS, proper lighting is REQUIRED. Even if you think it's bright enough indoors, it probably isn't. If you are outdoors, then make sure you record when it's sunlight, not overcast or raining. Overcast may pass if it's the middle of the day, but is generally too dark.

 

Better lighting means the camera has to work less to give you a clear picture. 

 

Software:

 

Please use more than the video software that comes with the PC/Mac. If you are going to make a career out of posting videos, Get Adobe Premiere Pro or Vegas Pro, or if you're on a Mac, Final Cut Pro. I know techies like to make a big deal about using alternative software products, but that just does not matter with video. It's GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you produce videos that look bad to you, then they are likely going to be bad for everyone.

 

The software that comes with the PC is again, for uploading the cat videos and various impulse videos (Eg, that you were in the right place at the right time for) , they always look amateurish.

 

Distractions:

 

If you are literately doing a video blog type of video like how many LTT videos are, write a script. Unless you can absolutely wing it and adlib without having to cut "uh..."'s out of your video, write a script. Not many people can adlib successfully.

 

Get to the punchline. There are a lot of clickbait rubbish videos already. If the title of the video posits a question, and you don't answer it within 90 seconds, then that video is a failure. Do not play the CNN/CNBC/Fox ad revenue bait game where you keep teasing the punchline to the story for 40 minutes and then finally reveal it right before show ends. Viewers are not idiots, and if you're known for this, people will just skip to the end of the video, or spoil the video in the comments anyway.

 

Change locations. This is more tossed at people who made themselves a home studio. I'm sorry but I don't want to watch a 45 minute video of you standing in front of a solid background. Put interesting things on your "set" and change it up between videos.

 

[JoostinOnline]

12 minutes ago, Kisai said:

*snip*

Most of this translates to: Have lots of money.

[kelvinhall05]

I mean considering that Chyrosran is my favourite YouTuber, all I value is an informative title (no clickbaity bullshit) and a really good voiceover.

 

 

 

Also helps that he's funny as fuck but still.

[JoostinOnline]

I cant really vote on this because it depends on the video type. Two things that will stop me from watching/continuing a video though are:

1. Poor audio quality. I'm not picky, but it has to be easy to understand. This generally rules out anything that was shot on a cell phone.
2. Misleading or clickbaity title. That's why I almost completely stopped watching LTT videos. Even though Gamer's Nexus is often "too technical" for me (in other words, I'm not smart enough to follow everything Steve says), I always prefer his videos because of the straightforward title. Trust is very important to me.

[Faisal A]

@VegetableStu Which mic should I get. I need something around £20

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

 

 

just because you have the best tool on earth doesn't mean you'd be a good editor overnight. that paragraph is frankly pretty absolutist.

yes, people should learn software that's used in the industry, to get better accustomed to what the thousands of studios are using, but to expect that on the get go without formal training is expensive to say the least.

 

(of course, if the school sponsors the NLEs then this point is moot on both sides.)

 

---

 

put it this way: if everyone took your advice quite literally, there would only be 7 submissions for ROG Rig Reboot this year.

 

The right tool should be used for the right job. Too many people with a hammer see every job as a nail to be hammered. If you want to do everything with AVISynth and FFMPEG, be my guest, but that is too slow and sloppy for good quality video in the end and will waste your time. Windows Movie Maker will also waste your time. I can identify videos that used movie maker because they're over compressed, and have this generic white Arial font without an outline against a solid color background thing going for them.

 

The Microphone and Camera are easily the the things that people can make a proactive choice about. Picking hardware without knowing what the end result will be, always will result in poor quality footage. Hence, mobile phone cameras produce garbage video because they have tiny lenses, with poor low-light support, and because the lighting is typically too poor on mobile phones, they over-compress the footage. Sure you could use an iPhone's 4K recording, but it's not a 100mbps footage, the "best" indoor video I have on one video is h264 high L5.1, yuv420p, 3840x2160, 46126 kb/s,aac lc, 44100 Hz, mono, 94 kb/s. Yet the video is full of noise, and the subject in the center of the picture's hair looks like it's been smoothed out. Generally mobile phone video is rubbish tier no matter what device you use.

 

As much as Apple touts their devices as being great to "shoot a film" with, that leaves out significant steps that would be required to get that kind of footage. 

 

A Logitech 4K Pro Webcam, which costs about $200, is probably the minimum that would pass for good video, if attached to fluid mounted tripod. But it actually comes with a monitor mount which means that if you use it, your monitor is going to ruin the shot.  If your camera is not mounted to a tripod, every little vibration (from you walking around a room, to putting your hands on a table) will vibrate the camera. Cheap cameras do not have OIS (Optical Image stabilization.) I'm not asking people to spend $4000 on a DSLR kit to make video blogs. I could even get into the entire rolling shutter issue which makes damn-near-all consumer cameras rubbish. Cheap cameras also can not be handled and moved around because the rolling shutter will make everything look like it's made of jello.

 

The question posed was "what makes the production quality of a video good", not "how can I make a LTT quality video for $50". Someone entering a contest isn't going to stop at BestBuy and buy a bunch of equipment without knowing how to use it. They're going to use what they have.

 

Which is why you see people in this thread all say "audio" first. You can get some decent Lavlier mics that do 60-18Khz for $100 which is good enough, but avoid everything that has a frequency response capped at 12khz (like your average "pc headset"), because that will make everyone sound like they're under water.

[Faisal A]

@VegetableStu Which mic should I get. I need something around £20

[Thanatopsis]

There was only one thing on the list that raises the Production quality of a video which was lighting.  Voice overs, thumbnails, graphics can all be done poorly or well.  at the end of the day what increases production values is good lighting, good audio, and good camera work.  What defines these as good is not the amount of money spent on them but the planning and execution of use.  Incandescent lights are fine for video use, LED lights are fine for video use Fluorescents are fine for video use, you just need to understand how they look in your camera and how you are going to use them to the best look for what you are doing. 

The only thing to avoid is your front camera mic as your primary audio source whenever possible try to use an external mic, even $20USD mic tend to be better than the built in mics and no you do not need a 20-20k hz mic.  That is bad advice if you are going to spend money on upgrading your audio then look for mics tailored for your needs. If you are going to be in front of a pc talking you will want a mic tailored to the human vocal range,  if you are shooting outside you may want a wireless mic if you are doing interviews or you may want a shotgun mic if you are doing more staged/dramatic work, ect, ect.  this again goes back to understanding what it is that you will be doing planing out how your going to do it and then looking for the right gear for the task or ways to make what gear you have work for the task best.

[Zodiark1593]

On 10/15/2019 at 10:09 AM, Thanatopsis said:

There was only one thing on the list that raises the Production quality of a video which was lighting.  Voice overs, thumbnails, graphics can all be done poorly or well.  at the end of the day what increases production values is good lighting, good audio, and good camera work.  What defines these as good is not the amount of money spent on them but the planning and execution of use.  Incandescent lights are fine for video use, LED lights are fine for video use Fluorescents are fine for video use, you just need to understand how they look in your camera and how you are going to use them to the best look for what you are doing. 

The only thing to avoid is your front camera mic as your primary audio source whenever possible try to use an external mic, even $20USD mic tend to be better than the built in mics and no you do not need a 20-20k hz mic.  That is bad advice if you are going to spend money on upgrading your audio then look for mics tailored for your needs. If you are going to be in front of a pc talking you will want a mic tailored to the human vocal range,  if you are shooting outside you may want a wireless mic if you are doing interviews or you may want a shotgun mic if you are doing more staged/dramatic work, ect, ect.  this again goes back to understanding what it is that you will be doing planing out how your going to do it and then looking for the right gear for the task or ways to make what gear you have work for the task best.

I'll play some devil's advocate here. 

 

It's certainly true that, while keeping in mind the limitations of your equipment, you can make decent looking video with minimal gear and whatever lamps you can find. However, it would also be a great disservice to not reinvest profits made into improving production values, whether it be higher end gear, set pieces, etc. You don't need expensive gear to get started in video production, but if you earn enough that it approaches or becomes a livelihood, making the investment into more robust gear and eventually talent will become the more prudent decision.

 

LTT is a pretty good example. Linus started out with some pedestrian camera gear. Over time LMG aquired continually better equipments as the company grew. Linus put a good deal of the company's profits back into the company (gear, employees, set, etc), and eventually wound up where he's at today.

 

Don't let costly gear deter you from doing what you want. The important thing is to use what you have/can get now, figure out what you can do with it, and get started.

[Thanatopsis]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I'll play some devil's advocate here. 

 

It's certainly true that, while keeping in mind the limitations of your equipment, you can make decent looking video with minimal gear and whatever lamps you can find. However, it would also be a great disservice to not reinvest profits made into improving production values, whether it be higher end gear, set pieces, etc. You don't need expensive gear to get started in video production, but if you earn enough that it approaches or becomes a livelihood, making the investment into more robust gear and eventually talent will become the more prudent decision.

 

LTT is a pretty good example. Linus started out with some pedestrian camera gear. Over time LMG aquired continually better equipments as the company grew. Linus put a good deal of the company's profits back into the company (gear, employees, set, etc), and eventually wound up where he's at today.

 

Don't let costly gear deter you from doing what you want. The important thing is to use what you have/can get now, figure out what you can do with it, and get started.

I get your playing Devils Advocate so im just using this to expand on what I said and clarify.  

At no point did I recommend not to buy better gear but instead to first look at what you want to do and then get the gear that directly improves that.  For instance a jump from a Canon EOS 5dmkII vs a 5DmkIV may not make sense for someone who bought their 5dMKII used and is happliy shooting in HD still. It also makes no sense if the end of the video production/Content creation market you are in has moved too 4k and your customers or viewers expect that now.

This is a issue in mic's there are price points where honestly you stop paying for quality improvements and instead are now just going for specific manufacturing techniques to get specific feel to the sound or for specialty use cases.

[Faisal A]

@Zodiark1593 @Thanatopsis @Fasauceome Is this camera any good ? And what mic should I get

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Thanatopsis]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:28 PM, Faisal A said:

@Zodiark1593 @Thanatopsis @Fasauceome

That is a 35mm film camera.  It wont shoot video but canon EF lenses are nice, this particular film camera probably will not support IS though so for still film photography its probably a good place to jump in at.

 

in terms of mics first you need to talk about what you plan to do,  A shotgun mic is good for one set of things and a Condenser mic is good for other things so some more info on use case matters.

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Faisal A]

@Thanatopsis I need 1 mic to clip on a t shirt and another one for far away sounds like machinery. Also, I need a camera for around £40. I have a sony cybershoot right now

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Thanatopsis]

3 minutes ago, Faisal A said:

@Thanatopsis I need 1 mic to clip on a t shirt and another one for far away sounds like machinery. Also, I need a camera for around £40. I have a sony cybershoot right now

Keep using your camera for now, If you only have 40 for the camera Im going to assume you have about the same for audio and my suggestions will be based around that assumption.  At 40 you will not be able to find a video camera better than what you have.

 

the lav something like this should be better than the internal mic of the camera  Lav Mic here is a cardioid patern mic try this. You will also need something like This to get both mics into your camera.

 

please note that none of these mics are GOOD they are just better than the internal mic on the camera.  when you are ready to movie up to the next level of quality some brands to look at are Shure, Audio Technica, Sennheiser, and Rode. 

[Faisal A]

@Thanatopsis I think I will buy the seond mic you mentioned. As for a camera, I want one where I can plug the mic into it. Is this mic also fine

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Faisal A]

Is this better the my current 12mp camera @Thanatopsis

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Thanatopsis]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:55 PM, Faisal A said:

@Thanatopsis I think I will buy the seond mic you mentioned. As for a camera, I want one where I can plug the mic into it. Is this mic also fine

The Mic is fine probably the same as what i linked just with a different brand on it. In terms of the camera it will not have a audio in jack on it so the mic will be useless.

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Faisal A]

@Thanatopsis I have found this camera. Should i save up for it

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Thanatopsis]

On 10/18/2019 at 6:13 PM, Faisal A said:

@Thanatopsis I have found this camera. Should i save up for it

Thats not going to have a Mic in jack.  I know you have a tight budget but you will probably have to move up to something like a used Nikon D3200 or the like.  Im US based so i'm not going to claim i know what the british market looks like for cameras but the d3200 from my quick looking seems to go for between 70 and 90 pounds.

Edited November 25, 2019 by LogicalDrm

[Faisal A]

Theyre going for £200 here which is like $300