Charging Batteries

 It seems that all I do these days is charge batteries - cheaper than buying and on a good day charging is from the solar panels.

Video Editing

 A busy day editing files made over the last few days. Many are for @ArticulateXyz with their new app which launches in a few days.

New NAS

 Using Black Friday to buy a Synology NAS and a few 12Tb Disks to build a new NAs just for all the videos we are making. The amount of storage seems to go up and up. At least this one will hold 15 drives.

Voice Overs

For better voice overs we chose the Roland Rubix 22. I suppose cost had a lot to do with it but it also has midi on it and i need to do some more of this in the future

 

Using a sz-isoball for voice overs

 Using a sz-isoball to get good acoustic isolation when doing some voice overs. A simple acoustic ball with pop filter that fits over the microphone, and improves the sound by 100%

Halo Infinite tutorial with father.

 My son takes me though the Halo Infinite tutorial on YouTube. No one believes that I have been playing at this level for 20 years. https://youtu.be/5VmnmjHiBzk

Making a gaming video

I never knew making a gaming video could be so dangerous. I tried Call of Duty and Halo infinite My son put me in charge whilst he did the filming - the guys were shooting at me.

Extracting Sound using an HDMI Splitter

 Setting up an XBox S for game capturing. In the end we needed a HDMI splitter for the audio. Far more effective than taking a feed from the handset. Using a @rodemics Podcaster and a Blackmagic ATEM Mini ISO.

Testing the new Halo Game out New Video

With the new Halo Game in Beta, My Son and I are working on a new series of videos on this for his YouTube video channel. Halo has been out for 20 years and I have played this with my sons for the past 20 years and it is still one of our favourite games. I must be the only person who has played this game so much and not improved. I was made to go through the new training missions to see if I could improve. You will have to watch the channel to find out if I did improve.

 

Slider

 I haven't used the slider in ages. I got this out  to do some videoing of my son using the XBox for one of his videos. The Konova Slider allows me to pan the slider automatically but centre on the subject, very useful.

Using Xsplit

 Using @Xsplit broadcaster to do some lesson streaming. Works very well with the blackmagic studio cameras and the @wacom 22 inch tablet for drawing on.

New Headphones for Podcasting

We thought that we would splash out on a couple of new pairs of headphones for the Podcasts. The real reason was that one of the sets of headphones was too short, so from now on it will be easier to do the Podcasts and the game streaming. These are a set of Audio-Technica M30X. I couldn't hear any real difference between these and a pair much more expensive, so two matching pairs for the price of one.

XBox Streaming

 All change a different shape to the studio. Recording from the XBox. We were looking at the new tutorial on the Beta version of Halo just out. I have played Halo for the past 20 years and don't seem to have improved much. So we had a look at the new tutorial to see if we could get me going better. Needless to say that failed. We discovered that some of the equipment set up was not as good as it could be - splitting the sound from the Xbox didn't work as well as we wanted so we will need to split the HDMI signal.

Video Conferencing - Use a few lights to help

Just because you are streaming, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't use good lighting. When I talk to many people, the images are unclear, because they don't use enough light. Place a light in front of you to illuminate your face. It doesn't have to be a big light, just ones in the light place. You can place your screens into a window so you can look out when you are not working, and the natural sunlight can then shine on your face to illuminate it. You don't necessarily have to face into the window but you can be at upto 90 degrees to the window to get more light on your face.

What happens when it is dark, then we have to use artificial light and that means putting a light in front of you. something can be like this - low powered led that is moveable. This also can act as a desk lamp.

You can also use a small light behind you either well above or below the eyeline to give you a bit of back lighting to make you pop out of the photo better.

Setting up an Avatar

Setting up Unity with a test Avatar and using an XBox one Kinex camera to work out positions.

 

Needing a Jib

 Sometimes you just have to use a jib to get the correct shot. Here we needed an overhead shot and the only practical way was to use a jib.