I never really cared much for blogging. It, to me, has always been like a place where your average nobody is trying to make him or herself look like a somebody. That is usually a need I never feel like I have. I don't really need to validate myself towards the outside world about my life or anything like that.

So, ironically innit, that I'm making a blog after writing a paragraph like that? I'd be the first to say yes in this case. I mainly want to vent out thoughts and discuss things regarding my YT channel. It will revolve around it, perhaps ideas I have for future videos or just ramblings in regards to it.

This is my first post, last time I even tried to blog I think I made two posts. That blog is still out there somewhere, on some Google Account that was hacked by the Chinese or something (true story, probably had a keylogger a few years ago that tracked my password changes, Google confirmed that IP's from China were accessing the account). We'll see how long this lasts.

As of writing this, it's a Friday evening. It's the 11/11/11 no matter where you are on the world, even if you use a stupid date system involving putting the month before the year. About two hours ago I finished recording yet another Mass Effect 2 session. It clocked in on slightly more than an hour and I am sort of dreading on how I am yet again supposed to edit it down to 5 parts without interrupting any sort of flow I may or may not have.

My process of video editing for this whole journey has been very simple. The issue really boils down to me not enjoying the sound of my own voice, or well, I get critical about it and just end up feeling slightly awkward. Did I just say that? Could I have delivered that line better? Well of course I did, and of course I could have. But having an absolutely perfect product? Is that something I want? I enjoy being able to improve upon things. I'll talk more about how I see on improvement in the next paragraph, but while still on the subject of me editing my Mass Effect adventures, it comes down to me simply checking out the audio peaks  in the editing window. Simple as. A clip can at most be 15 minutes, if I can then I will defenitely try to make it 14:59 minutes long. However, peaks usually don't allow this. More often than not I have to avoid having the clip end in the middle of me talking, cutting through dialogue in game is something I find okay though.

While on the subject of improving, we sort of need to go back where I came from. I started out probably as "early" as 2008 by throwing together Frets On Fire videos. Frets On Fire, FoF for short, is a engine more than anything for rhythm based music games. A Guitar Hero clone you might say. The editing for these videos were simple, but I improved later on, giving my videos a in my eyes, wonderful look. The video below is the "pinnacle of my editing skills" in regards to FoF.

Quality in 720p, a generally slick look and a stable framerate. I hate bragging, but I think these videos are great in terms of presentation. Of course a lot of work went into getting it to look like this as well though that isn't something I will go into detail on. Sadly, this did come to a end eventually. Copyrights became more harsh, I still have plenty of videos like this in my uploads, most of them also have copyright infringements. Guitar Hero as a general was dying out as well, I'd need a new audience and stage.

At that point I had just had my most successful YT channel to date get banned. I was starting over and this was early 2010. I had just pirated Mass Effect 2 and just thought of it as a way to get some easy views. The right content at the right time will simply generate views on it's own without me promoting it (another subject for another blog entry).

This was my first clip. I've returned to it unintentionally a few times (mostly video tests). It was released in the weekend before ME2 was released in the US. It may not have generated many views, and still hasn't; it's a plain gameplay video showing nothing special. It did start to rebuild a subscriber base though as I threw out more videos. The game was new, people were going crazy for everything about it. Videos like the first meeting with Legion or the meeting with Ashley on Horizon quickly rose in popularity.

Were I talking about editing or my personal history with the channel? The first one I assume. But there is of course a connection there. Videos were getting more complex, and just having the presentation be in 720p wasn't enough. It is, in the end pretty bare bones, and often a bit repetitive when you watch through a hidden dialogue video. The pacing did improve over time, where it went to a point where it became a lot more fluent and enjoyable to watch. These videos however didn't really bring me the most "success" if you can call it that. Below are two examples of the "current pinnacle" of needed editing in my videos.

The dialogue video is currently the only video to have those subtitles in the top hand corner. But it removes the need to show me picking the acutal options, making for better pacing and timing. There isn't much to say about the Jack video either, but it shows very well the editing level I aspire to have in my videos. A well presented video with decently edited content.

If pacing was an issue when it came to blog entries then this one would be way too long. It defenitely is. I'll save subjects to talk about for later, have a nice 11/11/11 wherever you are.