What Is some good Starting Equipment?

[Sularin]

Okay so i am starting my own humorus kinda serious Tech channel and i am looking for good starting equipment, i am going to order sound dampening Things, i am mainly looking for a 1080p 60Fps camera or a Camcorder. i want it to be able to take 1080p 0r 1440p pictures.  

[Sularin]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

(Budget?)

whole set under $300

[VirusStorm]

1 minute ago, Sularin said:

whole set under $300

That's going to be difficult 

[Enderman]

Your phone?

[Sularin]

I have a budget or $3,000 for my whole set up and $1,700 of that is going on a pc and $300 on a monitor and $300 on purifreals and $450 on furnishings   

[Sularin]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Your phone?

i have a Galaxy grand prime and my back camera is fucked up 

[Guest]

Awesome PC + Shitty camera -> Shitty videos

Shitty PC + Awesome camera -> Awesome videos, but time consuming. 

 

The first thing you should think of is the camera, and then use the rest of your budget for a PC!

[Sularin]

3 minutes ago, MrHomes said:

Awesome PC + Shitty camera -> Shitty videos

Shitty PC + Awesome camera -> Awesome videos, but time consuming. 

 

The first thing you should think of is the camera, and then use the rest of your budget for a PC!

i already have a 4k picture camera, but it can only record in 720p 24Fps

and a 4k camcorder only costs around $500 but that is a little out of my budget 

[xQubeZx]

Tbh with that budget for everything you should dedicate more towards the camera gear. Though of lightning? Tripod + video head? SD cards? Card readers? Mic? (A good mic can eat up 100 of those 300 or even all of the 300 easily.) And a good image quality camera is a lot easier to find if you can dedicate more money on it.  (With that better features will come too) 

[AkiraDaarkst]

3 hours ago, Sularin said:

Okay so i am starting my own humorus kinda serious Tech channel and i am looking for good starting equipment, i am going to order sound dampening Things, i am mainly looking for a 1080p 60Fps camera or a Camcorder. i want it to be able to take 1080p 0r 1440p pictures.  

1. Aren't there already enough amateurs on YouTube who want to create "tech channels"?
2. 1080p or 1440p photos?  So you want a camera with a 2-4 megapixel sensor?

[MadOlive]

On 29-1-2017 at 10:58 PM, AkiraDaarkst said:

1. Aren't there already enough amateurs on YouTube who want to create "tech channels"?
2. 1080p or 1440p photos?  So you want a camera with a 2-4 megapixel sensor?

first of its kinda rude to call someone an amature, that asside yes there are a lot of tech channels but if you work hard and are wiling to invest with the right additude you can still do it.

[AkiraDaarkst]

13 minutes ago, MadOlive said:

first of its kinda rude to call someone an amature, that asside yes there are a lot of tech channels but if you work hard and are wiling to invest with the right additude you can still do it.

The number of people who have said the same thing to me: countless

The number of them who have succeeded: Absolute ZERO!

 

The moment they realize the amount of time, effort and especially money they need to invest in the work, they run away with their tails tucked between their legs.

[cc143]

29 minutes ago, MadOlive said:

first of its kinda rude to call someone an amature, that asside yes there are a lot of tech channels but if you work hard and are wiling to invest with the right additude you can still do it.

No it isn't its a statement of fact, the guy hasn't even set up the channel yet, hasn't made money off it, technically, until he can get a living out of it, he hasn't passed into pro, or even enthusiast for that matter. I do agree however, attitude is very important. 

 

OP, if you are going to actually record and make a product people want to watch, $450 on furniture, $300 peripherals and a $1,700 system isn't necessary, in Economic terms, not a need but a want, you have to rethink your priorities. 

 

Even with a budget allocation double what you described, the prudent thing to do would be to spend on lighting mics tripods etc. and use your phone till you can budget more money for a camera. 

 

The basic question is, how serious are you about it? If you are looking to setup a good PC and setup and the YT channel is a way to justify that, but you will quit once you are stuck at 100 subs for a couple of months then sure, you will have no use for the lighting etc. afterwards, but in that case don't spend on a camera anyway. 

 

Spending more of your budget is a way to commit to making this thing work, If however you are not prepared to do that, it would be wise to stick with your phone anyway and only invest if it does work in the end. ]

 

EDIT: Just to further demonstrate my point, https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hx9wjc this is an amazing system I just put togetther, which including peripherals and a 1440p monitor runs at under $1,600. A desk setup from IKEA could be ~$150 all in, you could probably do the entire thing for under $100. That leaves you a $1,200 budget for recording equipment. Still not enough for a great production, but 4 times what you originally said. 

[MadOlive]

11 minutes ago, cc143 said:

No it isn't its a statement of fact, the guy hasn't even set up the channel yet, hasn't made money off it, technically, until he can get a living out of it, he hasn't passed into pro, or even enthusiast for that matter. I do agree however, attitude is very important. 

 

OP, if you are going to actually record and make a product people want to watch, $450 on furniture, $300 peripherals and a $1,700 system isn't necessary, in Economic terms, not a need but a want, you have to rethink your priorities. 

 

Even with a budget allocation double what you described, the prudent thing to do would be to spend on lighting mics tripods etc. and use your phone till you can budget more money for a camera. 

 

The basic question is, how serious are you about it? If you are looking to setup a good PC and setup and the YT channel is a way to justify that, but you will quit once you are stuck at 100 subs for a couple of months then sure, you will have no use for the lighting etc. afterwards, but in that case don't spend on a camera anyway. 

 

Spending more of your budget is a way to commit to making this thing work, If however you are not prepared to do that, it would be wise to stick with your phone anyway and only invest if it does work in the end. 

This is very true. Im looking at doing what you are going to do, but something you must consider VERY well is how serious this is.. 

The first while will be a lot of work for very little return (EDIT: with this i mean it will take a while to realy get an audience and views). I assume you know you will have to get the products for reviews on your own when you start, so that's gonna be part of the investment. Then audio is important. Depending on the way you will do your videos (voice over with b-rolls etc or actually standing in front of a cam) you want to invst in a good mic, maybe a blue yeti/snowball for voiceover or a good lavelier mic if you will be in front of the cam and moving. If you have a modern smartphone it can easily record 1080 or upto 4k footage so as long as you dont move it around too much that should be sufficient for the start. Then lighting is also important. Either find a room with good natural lighting (test shoot this to make sure its as good as you think!!!!) or even better get studio lights (this is something im still looking into myself, being a lighting noob).

 

But again the first 12 months for sure but maybe 24 or more you will have to work hard and consistently! Put good efford in every single video and make sure you have the right additude during recordings. Maybe even watch some motivating videos if you feel less than optimal for a recodring session.

 

TL:DR You can make this work, but it wont go fast nor will it be easy! Get good audio equipment and make sure your camera and lighting are good! It doesnt have to be pro-level equipment right away but good enough that it wont be anoying to listen to or watch and doesnt negatively influence your contents quality by a lot.

[AkiraDaarkst]

21 minutes ago, cc143 said:

 

You mentioned the backstage side of the investment, there's also the production side of the investment.

 

People like the OP who talk about wanting to start a YT channel to do "tech reviews" are generally in their teenage to early adult years.  People who don't really have access to wide variety of the tech.  So what are they going to review?  The tech they bought for their use or what they already own.  All they can basically share is their experiences and personal opinions of what they have access to.  How will they provide comparisons with similar tech they do not own or don't have experience with?

 

YT channels like LTT and the other "big" ones have investors and sponsors (not to mention manpower) who provide them with either money or more likely products to review.  Amateurs very likely will not have such resources.  So they probably will have to invest more money in either purchasing or renting other products to review, else it can be considered that their reviews are biased towards certain products/brands/models.

[MadOlive]

4 minutes ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

You mentioned the backstage side of the investment, there's also the production side of the investment.

 

People like the OP who talk about wanting to start a YT channel to do "tech reviews" are generally in their teenage to early adult years.  People who don't really have access to wide variety of the tech.  So what are they going to review?  The tech they bought for their use or what they already own.  All they can basically share is their experiences and personal opinions of what they have access to.  How will they provide comparisons with similar tech they do not own or don't have experience with?

 

YT channels like LTT and the other "big" ones have investors and sponsors (not to mention manpower) who provide them with either money or more likely products to review.  Amateurs very likely will not have such resources.  So they probably will have to invest more money in either purchasing or renting other products to review, else it can be considered that their reviews are biased towards certain products/brands/models.

Hardly any tech channels had the recourses to do say a comparison between 10 gpu's when doing a revieuw. I mean stuff like cases are fairly simple to revieuw since theres little comparison you cant make with just online info. For more preformance related tech I would look up a good buch of benchmarks online that run the same hardware (which this would require the possesion of often used harwadre so say an i7 6700k/7700k and a 1080 are used a lot). You could use this info when starting out. State VERY clearly though that those are not your benchmarks! if you took them from someone elses written review dont be a dick and give them their desirved credit and a link in the discription!

 

But it will cost you still. Can you get enough tech for your upload schedule (so realisticly like what, 4 reviews a months so 1 a week??) consistently for the comming 12-24 months? Even if you can compare with benchmarks from the web you still need an item every single week and that adds up. If you are like 15 (not ment insultive but just from a realistic standpoint) and have to run this from whatever your parents give you each week you are not gonna have a good time. Either you will run out of hardware or you will not have any money for anything else!

 

Im not trying to demotivate you, if you CAN do it and you are willing to put real efford and money into it than you have a very good shot, but it is something you should think about ahead of time to prevent running into dead ends.

[cc143]

@AkiraDaarkst @MadOlive

 

I agree, but I'd rather let people who are actual content creators and actually have to face this struggle everyday to make that known. I'm a photography enthusiast for the past 10 years with an extreme gear fetish, I don't really know what its like to have to put content out weekly, I only have a flickr account I upload some of my photos to and that's it. I like learning about photography, have used it in the past as a part time job, and like to think I'm more well versed than the average person but that's it.

 

I'm an Economist, thats why I find it easier to speak about the tangible production element and Investment that goes into it rather than  the creative side, especially for video production which I have never actually done.

 

That said, I can think of a number of vids OP could put out just regarding the tech they buy in this purchase alone. The problem is, if they wait a year to review the 7700k, no one will be interested in that video. You could also use stuff bought by friends or not restrict yourself to pc tech alone, and I often find myself looking at backstage, whats in my bag or how its made sort of videos, but its ultimately true that at some point, you will need connections that will give you stuff to review. LTT wouldn't exist today if Linus had not worked at NCIX in the past and had no entrepreneurial spirit.  It is definately an issue to be considered before investing. 

[MadOlive]

42 minutes ago, cc143 said:

@AkiraDaarkst @MadOlive

 

That said, I can think of a number of vids OP could put out just regarding the tech they buy in this purchase alone. The problem is, if they wait a year to review the 7700k, no one will be interested in that video. You could also use stuff bought by friends or not restrict yourself to pc tech alone, and I often find myself looking at backstage, whats in my bag or how its made sort of videos, but its ultimately true that at some point, you will need connections that will give you stuff to review. LTT wouldn't exist today if Linus had not worked at NCIX in the past and had no entrepreneurial spirit.  It is definately an issue to be considered before investing. 

Yes for stuff like cpu's and gpu's which cycle really fast you have to be quite fast with your content. other stuff though like peripherals, cases and non pc related hardware usualy stay in circulation longer. like a case can be over a year old and still being sold regularly thanx to the fact that it doesnt evolve (case pun sorry xD) as fast. So if you review a gpu/cpu/motherboard make sure its of this generation and the next one isnt too close yet.

 

And yes Linus had a  very favourable start with him being able to review stuff from his workplace but again, this can technically be replaced by investment and having friends that are tech lovers too will help since boroing their stuff is a good idea! 

 

all in all OP your plan is deffinately achievable, you just need a good plan and a clear vision of what methods you are going to use to realise it.

 

But eeem i think we went like miles off topic

[xQubeZx]

For real now, firstly. That budget is pretty badly split up if you are planning to proudce high quality videos. You can't make awful footage good in post with a high end rig. 

 

My rig is pretty damn good for some amateur, or non proffesional video editing without horrible render times or other problems. And that rig is not expensive at all nowadays. You wont need a 1700$ rig to produce videos.

 

What you need is to be creative. And sorry to break it too you, but you doesn't seems to be so creative as you wan't to do a tech channel as 1000's of others. Sure you may be passionate about tech, but if you want to stand out you need to be creative and do your own thing. Don't just copy what everyone else does. Come up with an original idea and not something that have been used to death. 

 

Secondly, fancy gear won't make videos good. I have personally done some small video projects and its hard. Very hard. Doing proper storytelling and creating a flow is a pain. I will link a video about storytelling and making a video interesting, its really good. 

 

But lastly, think this shit through. I don't think you really have. Be creative and original, don't just copy others. 

 

Here is the video: