The Enthusiasm Project
The Enthusiasm Project
What Should You Name Your YouTube Channel?
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So you want to make a YouTube channel but you don't know if you should use your real name or a "brand" name. Let's go through the pros and cons of each and I'll also share why I'm so glad I changed my channel name after 3 years and 24K subscribers.
Register for NAB for free!
https://geni.us/NAB2025
🎙This week's mic:
sE Dynacaster
https://geni.us/IL9rw (Amazon)
⚙️ Gear of the Week:
Lilliput 4K Monitor:
https://bhpho.to/49v2Cwr (B&H)
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——————————— CONNECT ———————————
Electronic Mail: tom@enthusiasmproject.com
Main Site: https://himynameistom.com
Social Medias: @sodarntom
——————————— PODCAST GEAR ———————————
•Rodecaster Video: https://bhpho.to/3Ub88j2 (B&H)
•Rodecaster Duo: https://geni.us/ULKDFkp (Amazon)
•Elgato Prompter: https://geni.us/elgatoprompter (Amazon)
•Mic Arm: https://geni.us/zc7hAbW (Amazon)
•Elgato Stream Deck Plus: https://geni.us/EzyY6o5 (Amazon)
•Headphones: https://bhpho.to/3JNacqg (B&H)
•XLR Cables: https://geni.us/bluexlr (Amazon)
S13E08 | Series Episode 182
Podcast Artwork by Kevin Ramirez
Original theme music written by Patrick Boberg and performed by Mike Alvarez
Thank you, hello and welcome. My name is Tom. This is the Enthusiasm Project, season 13, episode 8. And it's gonna be great because we're gonna be talking about stuff and that's what we tend to do on the podcast episodes. I am wearing my hoodie today. That is just a VHS cover printed on a hoodie, because it's very bright and I like bright colors. So actually a lot to cover today, which is kind of cool, including some stuff that I have changed in my own setup after last week's episode. I'm also using a microphone. I've never well, I've used this microphone once before never used it. Otherwise We'll talk about that Kind of some cool stuff happening.
Speaker 1:Cool stuff happening, including this might be a little bit dated depending on when you're listening to this, but NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas, is coming up at the time I'm recording this. It's going to be April 5th through 9th in Las Vegas. You know I talked a lot about NAB last year, definitely wanted to go back this year, put all you know, made all the reservations, booked all the things, and then I was actually able to get a promo code from NAB to share that gives free registration to the exhibit hall. So if you just want to go there. They have like classes and events and all that kind of stuff. Those things are still, you know, still paid if you want to do any of the add ons. But the big thing, like really the main thing at NAB is the exhibit hall where you can go and see everything. And you know, I don't even know if you could get through it in, honestly, two days. I want to see if, like, we can actually make it through the whole thing. And, depending on your interest in what you do, some of it might be more relevant than others, but it is unbelievably massive and that is really cool.
Speaker 1:So you can go to nabshowcom or use the direct link in the description, if that's easier. The direct link will just take you to a registration page where everything is $0. If you go to nabshowcom, you can use promo code PR05 to get free registration as an attendee. So it kind of looks like P-R-O-5, pro five, but it's a zero. So I asked them to give me a promo code because it was something they offered last year and I thought it'd be really cool and really helpful for anyone who wants to attend or you're on the fence of attending but you don't really want to pay the admission. So I'm super appreciative. But they gave me the promo code that I have to explain. It's a zero and not an O every time, so PR05,. Or you can just use the direct link in the description and that's good, anytime before March 25th 2025. That's this year, obviously. So there you go.
Speaker 1:If you want to go to NAB or you just want to save a little bit of money on NAB, you can do that. I'm super appreciative of them doing that. There's no kickback or anything. I don't get a commission on the free registration that people sign up. There's nothing along those lines. It's just a cool thing. There's no like kickback or anything. I don't get like a commission on the free registration that people sign up. There's no, nothing along those lines. It's just a cool thing. But if people do actually use the link to sign up, it will make it easier for me to be able to do that in the future, probably, I would guess. So you know that's beneficial to everybody. And there you go, and I think that wraps up the I don't want to spend too much time talking about NAB because I know that's a dated, timely thing and you know, obviously we want to talk about stuff that maybe is more relevant for longer than that. So the next thing we're going to dive into, of course, is our mic of the week. That's right.
Speaker 1:The mic I'm using today is a microphone. I've only used on a couple of streams before in Heather's office. I don't think I've ever used it in here. I haven't used it on any videos. This is the SE Dynacaster. This is a microphone that people have been recommending to me for years, for so many years, and I finally have one, because Bronson from Audio Hotline sent this to me a while back and just gave it to me. So that's awesome. It does have a $299 MSRP. So thank you, bronson, much appreciated from the Audio Hotline channel with a very cool channel name, something we might be talking about later. And the DynaCaster what's pretty cool about it?
Speaker 1:I have reviewed an SE. I reviewed the SE X1A microphone, which is a condenser. I got the red one. I did a whole video on it. It's it's a good microphone. And I reviewed that one because it's really, really affordable. It is like 70 or $80, maybe even less, and it's a cool condenser microphone. Mine did have a weird issue where it's like kind of backwards. Oh crap, I realized I just gave that away to a friend and I don't think I told them. It's the side that you're supposed to talk. I hope they figure that out. Anyway, it was a good. It's a good microphone and I liked it.
Speaker 1:This one, obviously, is a little more premium, and what really makes this one stand out? It's built like a tank, which is very, very cool. I have it on my Elgato low profile arm. It does have kind of the same mounting issue as the Super 55 that I used last week did, where the XLR port and the mic mount are really close together. So you might need to use an extension tube that's what I'm using right here just to give a little more room for the XLR cable. It depends on the stand or the mount or the boom arm or whatever you're micing it on. It might be a problem, might not be, but what really makes it stand out? The build quality is fantastic. I do think it sounds pretty good, but it has a built-in booster. So this is one of those microphones that does have a built-in booster, something like the Blue Sona or I guess now it's called the Yeti Studio. Does A couple other microphones have? A couple other dynamic microphones have built-in boosters, which is really cool because you never need a cloud lifter. You never need a Fethead If you're planning to use these with interfaces or mixers that don't have a lot of gain.
Speaker 1:Basically, if you're using a modern interface that has more than 70 decibels of gain, you don't really need to worry about boosters. There's going to be enough to power anything, even all the way up to the Shure SM7B. But if you're using something that's a little bit older that has like 50 to 55 decibels, that's where, on a microphone like this, you're going to be maxing things out and it's going to maybe start to sound a little bit funky, and that's where those boosters can really clean things up. The fact that this is just built right in means you can use this with any interface. You just turn on phantom power and you're good to go, which is very, very cool, and you can turn the booster on or off, so you don't have to use it.
Speaker 1:I do have it on, even though I don't need it with the Rodecaster Duo that I'm running it through. I just it's kind of cool. I have 24 decibels of gain. That's pretty low. Usually, a dynamic mic like this would be up around 56. I think it sounds awesome.
Speaker 1:I am using the SM7B preset and this is something too that I tell people all the time with the Rodecaster Pros, the new ones or any of the Rode stuff that has presets. Sometimes people ask like, oh, what are your settings for that microphone? It's like 99% of the time I'm not using a custom preset. Well, actually I should take that back. The only custom presets I have made are for the SM7B and the PodMic. I made custom presets that I like on my voice for those two microphones. Any other time that I'm using a microphone with the Rodecaster, I'm using one of the built-in presets, just the default ones, and I rarely make any other adjustments. I kind of just go through until I find one that sounds good. And so this, knowing it's a dynamic microphone, I just went straight to the SM7B. This is a more full sounding microphone than the PodMic, so it doesn't really need like the adjustments that are made there. So I am using the SM7B preset and if I go over here and I turn that off, this is just the Dynacaster's default sound. This is what it sounds like there, which is still good. It's very crisp and clear. I just kind of like the way that this SM7B preset rounds everything out and I think that works really well and I like the way that this microphone sounds. So thank you again, bronson, for the SE Dynacaster.
Speaker 1:Now moving on to the next little update before we get in today's topic, this is something that I changed after last week's discussion where I did my camera timeline. I was sort of thinking about my cameras and kind of going through things and remembering I had a camera that I really really loved as I talked about the timeline, which was the Canon EOS R, the original full frame mirrorless camera from Canon, which I've had, you know, forever. I mentioned all the reasons I'm not going to get rid of that camera in last week's episode, but I was kind of going through some things and like organizing and putting things away, and I kind of mentioned Heather had been using the Canon 6D Mark II for a long time. When she had the 6D Mark II in her office she was using a dummy battery. A weird thing with Sony is Sony seems like they really push you to use USB power with their microphones, with their cameras, and that works great. I've honestly not had any problem as long as you use like a powerful enough USB source, then the cameras can stay on indefinitely. You can get dummy batteries for Sony cameras and they can work okay, but like they're all kind of third party things and that can be really hit or miss. You kind of never know, like, how reliable or how effective those are going to be. Sony doesn't really provide a clear way, whereas Canon just sells like dummy battery adapters that it's just nice like to get an OEM. When it comes to batteries and power and all that kind of stuff, I don't know Especially something that's gonna be like left on for long periods of time. I like it to be as reliable as possible. So Heather always ran her 6D Mark II when she had it in there off of a dummy battery and the.
Speaker 1:I never got one for me. Even when I was using the EOS R as my main camera, like for all of my online teaching during the pandemic all the streams and podcasts and things I just swapped out batteries. I just kind of knew I could get at least two hours minimum and I would just swap out batteries. You can find live streams like really long live streams from times past where I have to change the battery in the middle of it, but that was kind of rare because usually I wouldn't go for more than like two or two and a half hours or anything, but it definitely did happen. And that was just because I was being cheap, because I think it was like 150 bucks to get the dummy battery and I just didn't, for some reason, didn't want to spend the money, but I realized I was like oh, so here, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1:Let me explain some friction in my workflow. The camera that I've had mounted on my desk since I redid everything has been the Sony a7 IV, which is great, and sometimes I swap out other lenses I have, you know, like my Tamron 20 to 40, which is pretty wide and works well at the desk. Here I've got the, I have a 16 to 35, and the 24 to 70. I've got cool lenses that work well, but they're a little bit big for like a desk setup and they're also not as fast as I would like. So I typically use I move my 24 1.4 over here when I'm doing podcasts and streams, just because it does, I think, look the best in this setup and gives me the best amount of background blur. But it's a little bit of a hassle because I find I'm constantly moving the lens back and forth and I'm not gonna buy. I don't know, I didn't wanna buy a second 24 millimeter lens, so I'm always moving the lens back and forth.
Speaker 1:My frugality seems to be the like cause of a lot of problems in these stories, I'm realizing, which also means taking the prompter on and off over here. And then I'm also using the a7 IV because that is my kind of take everywhere camera that I mentioned last week. It does great photos, it does great videos. It's, you know, kind of the all arounder, so I'm always taking that out places. It's also my third studio camera, so I have my FX3 as my main one. My A7S3 is always set up as my secondary camera. And if I need something else, another angle, which happens a lot, especially if I want to show stuff like on the desk and show close ups of things, almost like filming B roll live as I'm making a video, then the A7IV works really really well for that, especially because it does have the really nice Super 35 mode which kind of crops in and gives you more reach, which it can be very, very helpful for what I do. So I'm always I'm always kind of changing the setup and it really is a bit of a hassle.
Speaker 1:And then I realized, wait, a minute, I still have the Canon EOS R, which is great, oh sorry. Also, the reason I put the A7IV here was because I wanted a 4K setup at my desk. So when I originally did this, it was running through the Cam Link 4K and everything was recording in 4K. Then I got the RODECaster Video, which has been my main capture card since it was released in September of 2024, which is 1080. So my A7IV has been going into a 1080 capture card. All my settings are just switched to 1080. And it's just been and it's been fine, you know, but yeah, so anyway, those are kind of the frictions I was going in.
Speaker 1:That's when I realized I've got this EOS R. After talking about it last week, like wait, this camera is amazing. It still works totally fine. I've also got the dummy battery power supply that Heather was using, so now, like I could just power that camera permanently. And I have the 35 millimeter f2.0 lens that Heather was using for a long time too, which is not you know. Obviously it's not as fast as an f1.4 lens is, but it's pretty good and it's got good autofocus and the EOS R has clean HDMI out. So that's what I'm using.
Speaker 1:Now I basically switched this whole setup to be my Canon EOS R, which is awesome because it's not just living in a drawer anymore and I'm using my 35 millimeter lens, which works great, because something like a 50 is way too tight on this shot, but 24 was a little bit wide, so I was always just kind of cropping in a little bit on Ecamm or with Ecamm before, and now I can just use this 35 millimeter lens with no crop and there we go. So this is awesome because now I don't have to change anything like ever here. The only thing I have to move sometimes if I want to is the Elgato prompter, because sometimes use it on my camera when I'm filming. Most of the time it lives here at the desk. So anyway, I thought that was kind of cool. That's something that you know.
Speaker 1:Like this camera had been sitting in a drawer for years at this point. You know I've used it a little bit here and there, but it is kind of like definitely not being. It's not past its you know useful life, but it just isn't getting used. And I was having friction in the workflow and after going through the whole camera discussion last week I was like wait a minute. Here's a solution to that problem and it's a win, win, win, win, win for everybody because you know, camera gets used, workflow gets improved, it's all good. The only thing is which won't be picked up on something like this is the autofocus is very loud. You can hear the clicky. All my Sony cameras and Sony lenses have like silent autofocus, which is amazing. This one does not, but it shouldn't. You know it's not the whole time I was ever using this camera as my main camera. It never. That was never a problem, because it's not going to get picked up on a mic like this. So, anyway, canon EOS R, canon 35mm f2.0 lens that's what you're looking at me on right here running through the RODECaster video and into Ecamm Live, which is super, super awesome.
Speaker 1:And now we can move into the main topic of today's show, which I thought would be kind of interesting, and that is YouTube channel names. I don't even know why this was on my mind, like what prompted me to do this. Maybe it's been switching between, like, the Tom Buck main channel, tom Buck 2, the Enthusiasm Project channel, all those things. But if we go back, remember in the Q&A episode a couple weeks ago, somebody asked the evolution, like of the Enthusiasm Project name. Where did that come from? And I was trying to explain like, oh, this whole idea to even start a blog back in like 2009, 2010, all that kind of stuff. If you didn't know, my main channel did used to be called the Enthusiasm Project. Here is an image of one of my old channel banners. That was at the top of the channel and it was like this from 2017 through 2020. So the first three years yeah, basically like June of 2017 to about September of 2020, that was the channel name, which it seems like the channel is doing fine is was a scary thing to do and, especially, I really love that name. There's a reason. I came up with it back in, you know, 2009, 2010, and wanted to use it in 2017. And, like, I really like the name. That's why this podcast is still called that, because I really like it. It it speaks to a lot of values and a lot of things that I like.
Speaker 1:There was one day in 2020, so here's the story of how the change came about. I never really considered it. I just I never really considered it. My friend, peter Lindgren, and I who, peter, has a very large, very successful YouTube channel. We had a podcast that we did pretty regularly for a while in 2020. And you know, we'd record episodes like every week, and there was one week we had Heather on the podcast as a guest. So Heather and I were here, peter was in Sweden, you know, doing his side of the podcast, and we did our episode and afterwards we were just sort of like chatting, you know, because it's just then, it's just a video call.
Speaker 1:At that point we were just sort of hanging out and Peter suddenly goes something like hey, have you ever thought of changing your channel name to just your name? And suddenly Heather was like yes, and I was like okay, clearly you've had thoughts and opinions about this for a while. Um, and I guess she was just like. You know, she knew how I felt about the name, that I was proud of it. She didn't want to make me feel like I should be doing something else. The last thing she's going to do is tell someone what they should be doing, creatively, of course. But as soon as Peter opened the door, she was like yes, change the channel name.
Speaker 1:I've been telling you that forever and the reason being is not because the enthusiasm product was a bad name, but it was. It really was not an effective YouTube channel name because no one could remember it. And I saw this like I saw um. So of course, at first my impulse is just to dig my heels in the ground, but literally within a week I had changed everything over. So once it kind of clicked probably even less than a week, a couple of days I had changed everything over Um and, and so the reason for that is because I had noticed that people were having a hard time finding the channel.
Speaker 1:Especially, it's like the enthusiasm project is kind of a hard thing to type out when you're doing URLs, because there's two E's right next to each other the enthusiasm project. These are all things to think of when you you know, when you create a name for something, all the different ways people are going to interact with it. So sometimes people didn't know like is it? You know youtubecom, slash the enthusiasm project, slash enthusiasm project, and people couldn't really remember what it was called. And so, like what I heard a lot of people saying sometimes was like it's like, it's like this guy with a lot of blue, it's Tim or something like the like the teacher with the dad jokes. It was like these are kind of the ways people were trying to explain my channel instead of just saying what the channel was and so that you know I knew that, but for some reason for me that wasn't really enough to change it.
Speaker 1:However, one of the ways Peter and I met well not met well, yeah, one of the ways that we first started communicating was early 2020, he did a video that was like you know, favorite YouTube channels and he featured like five channels and mine was one of them. It was before we had ever really talked. It was when the channel was still called the Enthusiasm Project and he, you know, had clips from the channel. He linked to the channel, but when he was saying in the video, he couldn't remember my name or the channel name and I was like, hmm, that seems like a problem.
Speaker 1:I noticed in comments people would like sometimes they would literally call me Mike because of, I think, microphones and stuff. I get called Mike a lot, like unironically. I get called Tim a lot and I tried, like I would put at the start of videos I used to put my name on screen with like my you know, social media handle, like Tom Buck at Sodar and Tom, so it's hopefully you see that it's in the description, like hi, my name is Tom, this is the, my YouTube channel and stuff. And still people wouldn't know, wouldn't know what it was. And so within a span of like two weeks, I saw three of those types of incidents happen where people were, especially this is.
Speaker 1:I saw three of those types of incidents happen where people were especially this is, you know early on in the pandemic. So everyone's just doing stuff online, and I saw three different like streams or videos where people were trying to reference my channel but couldn't, like couldn't do so effectively because they couldn't remember the name of me or the channel or whatever. And I was that that did bother me and I didn't know how to approach that. So then, a couple months later, when it was like brought up, like hey, do you, you know, have you ever thought of changing your channel name, it did kind of click like maybe, and you know, there's a thing like if it were just a random YouTube comment, like you should change your channel name. I don't probably want to listen to that, but the fact that, like a friend who I know cared about me and who's savvy in this stuff, along with my wife, who obviously cares about me and is savvy in this stuff the fact that both of them had the same suggestion and the same thought. Obviously they're not coming at this from like the point of view of trying to hurt me or frustrate me. They care about me and they want what's best for me, and so they're suggesting this because they think it is something that would be, you know, what's best for me.
Speaker 1:And I felt like it was impossible too because I was scared. I, you know, I never thought the channel could hit a thousand subscribers, much less 5,000, 10,000. Now is it like 24,000? To me that was just like, why would I? It would almost be like buying a social media platform with a very successful and globally recognized name and then totally changing to something obscure and weird. Who would do such a thing? Why would I want to change the name of the thing that people knew, you know when it, when it already kind of had an established audience? But I did have the thought like, okay, well, the channel's growing beyond what I ever thought it could do. So maybe I don't know, I don't know where the limit is. Obviously I don't know like, maybe 24,000 is where it caps out, but maybe it can go to 50 or 100 or whatever.
Speaker 1:And if I am going to change a channel name ever, it would be better to do it, you know, while the channel is as small as it's going to get, rather than wait till it's, you know, over 100,000 or something and and then change. Like you know, I'm going to do it. Doing it now is the best time to do. It was kind of the thought I had. And then I looked up available URLs and realized that Tom Buck, just my name was available and I was like, okay, that was kind of the thing that did it, the fact that I could just have my name, super simple, barely an inconvenience to type in. And then that that literally as soon as I, as soon as I realized the URL was available, I jumped on it, changed everything over like right away, and it's been that way ever since. And five years later, looking at that, looking at that change and how I feel about it, it was 1000% the right move. I completely know why I didn't use my real name when I started. I had never like put myself out there online in any way. So the idea of just starting with my own name when I started the channel just wasn't something I was going to do and I really was like.
Speaker 1:I've talked about the evolution of the channel. Like you know, it wasn't something I was originally the one that was planning to be on camera for. It was something that, like, I am on camera out of necessity, because it was like the only way I could regularly and consistently make videos. So it the idea of like making it my name made it. I wasn't comfortable, like being the brand, even though it's my channel, even though I'm the one in all the videos, even though I'm doing everything I could kind of hide behind. Like the bigger channel name, like the brand of the channel, and that sort of made me just feel a little more comfortable. A little like if you've never done anything like this before and I would say even it's probably less so now because social media has evolved so much where everyone's making stuff all the time for better or worse.
Speaker 1:But you know, eight or nine years ago, when it's like, oh, you're going to make this channel, that's your name and you're going to film yourself and then you're going to sit there and edit footage of yourself, I'm going to put it online because you think people like it, it's easy to feel like this is a little narcissistic and, you know, like spotlighty which is obviously not the case that's just necessity. Like, I want to make videos. Okay, I make videos. Okay, I'm the one who has to be in the video, so I got to film myself. I want the videos to be as good as possible, so I need to edit them. And, yeah, I'm making videos because they're intended to be seen by other people, so I'm going to put them on a platform where other people can see them. Like, it's not, it does not have to be a narcissistic endeavor, but if you've never done anything like that and especially where things were in the past when it wasn't it's common for everybody everywhere all the time to be making stuff you know it did feel a little weird.
Speaker 1:So having that channel name was was something I could kind of hide behind. But five years later, I am in credit, like it was absolutely the best decision. Totally, totally recommend it. In my case, when we are talking about a personal name, like using your name versus a brand name, or you know a non personal name for a channel Even though a brand name, or you know a non-personal name for a channel, even though I am saying that I loved it and it was the right decision for me. I do want to point out that there is no right or wrong. Like there is not. Like you should be using your own name, that's not the right move for everybody. Using a brand name is not the right mood, right mood, right move for everybody. There are some differences when it comes to using your personal name versus what we'll call a brand name. Big benefit is that a brand name can be clear to a niche.
Speaker 1:Tom Buck, what the heck does that guy make videos about? I don't know. They could be cooking videos, they could be gaming videos, they could be drama videos, true crime investigations, and it turns out it's audio video production stuff. There's nothing in there. There's nothing there that would tell you that it's audio video production in the name, whereas you know, I guess the enthusiasm project didn't really either, but at least the word enthusiasm communicated something I mentioned. I got this microphone, this SE Dynacaster, from my friend Bronson who has a YouTube channel called Audio Hotline. You have an idea, even without knowing anything about the channel, that it's probably gonna have something to do with audio right, audio production, audio gear, all that kind of stuff. Just based on the name. So the channel name can communicate, before anyone sees anything else, what the videos are about, what everything's gonna be about.
Speaker 1:And obviously a brand can also be really good for teams. If you're someone who's not a solo creator and you're someone who wants to, you know, have someone working with you or there's multiple people on the channel or whatever, then a brand name makes sense. I think it can. It can make a lot of sense. It can sometimes be weird when a personal channel becomes a team channel.
Speaker 1:You know, like, sometimes people are upfront about. Upfront about. It's like Marques Brownlee with MKBHD. That's a channel he started as a kid just by himself and then over the years had people you know, hired people on, had people help. Now there's a whole team of people in a big warehouse in you know New York City that run this channel, even though it's still kind of just under his name. But he's upfront about it. So that's why, like, he's always the example I use of someone who uses a team well, because it's not just that the team is effective in what they do, but he never hides it. Like the team gets to shine. There's even like side channels they have, it's just people. He's not even in them it's other people on the team making all the videos, so that can work.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, though, people, like their channels, blow up it's just their, it's just their name, and then the channel gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and then they hire their editor. They hire, you know, like there ends up being several people working on the channel, but it's still just the one person's name, and sometimes people aren't always super clear, upfront about that. It's just a little weird. It's just a little weird when you have a personal named channel and that person isn't like the main voice or the only voice. It's just. Sometimes I personally find that to be a little bit strange. So that can be something you know. If you're someone who plans to get to that point, if that is, your goal is to build something huge. It's like a team and almost like a, you know, a studio type situation.
Speaker 1:I'm not throwing you too much under the bus, bronson, but if you watch any of Bronson's videos on Audio Hotline, obviously they sound really good because he's super good with audio production. He's completely brilliant at it. They're also some of the best looking videos on YouTube. Period Like. He is so incredibly good when it comes to videography. He has got. You know he's done it professionally, he's done it personally, like he knows a lot about cameras. He has all kinds of cameras from different camera systems. He knows the ins and outs of like working with log footage and all the really complex stuff that I don't even go into on my. He's very, very good at that. So obviously he's got an interest there. Plus, when you see how good his stuff looks, his B-roll, it's all just so amazing.
Speaker 1:You kind of want to know hey, how do you do that? And you know, like we've had chats where it's like he might get a camera or something where he's like I kind of want to make a video about this camera or this piece of video related gear, but the channel is Audio Hotline. Should I do that? You know, and those are decisions that can pop up when you do have a brand name that is very specific, it can sometimes limit you if you want to do something else. So that's just something to also consider.
Speaker 1:And when we're also looking at a personal versus a brand YouTube channel, looking at privacy is huge because obviously you're putting your name out there. There are. You know, I wasn't hiding my name when my channel was the Enthusiasm Project, because it still said it at the you know every video description and at the front of every video. But there are people who don't want their full name out there. If you look at, you know, if you look at someone like Gerald Undone, no one is. That is not his legal last name. Like people don't know what his legal last name is. Look at podcastage you don't know Bandrew's full legal name. There's, you know, there's a channel I watch called Cathode Ray Dude, which I absolutely love.
Speaker 1:Tons of videos, super in depth, can even be very personal and open about, like you know, career, all the things that are happening in the life of a creator and stuff. Still don't know the actual name of the person behind the channel. Some people just want to keep their name private and if that's you, then using a brand name, a different name for your channel, is obviously the way to go. You don't have to use your full name. You can still be an online personality. You can still even show your face and actual personality and you don't have to use your full name. You can still be an online personality, you can still even show your face and actual personality and you don't have to, you know, give away your total name, fortunately for me.
Speaker 1:I guess, when we're talking about personal names, the other thing is what is your personal name? My name is two syllables that are spelled exactly the way that they sound, so like. I'm very lucky in that regard. Spelled exactly the way that they sound, so like. I'm very lucky in that regard. You know it's seven letters, two syllables. Tom Buck, it's, it's you don't? I don't have to spell it out for you. Some people have long, complicated names that are very, very tough to spell, and so that's where it's like.
Speaker 1:You know, do you use an abbreviated version of your name or a different version? Or, if you have a name that is just something that you like, how? At the beginning of this, I had to say it's PR05. I know it looks like an O, but it's a zero. If you do that kind of thing to explain your name of your channel every time, it's going to be a nightmare.
Speaker 1:So you know, keep it simple. That depends on your name and it also depends on what's available. You know, like, if you are just John Smith, it's gonna be hard to get the slash John Smith URL. So you know what can you get to direct people quickly and easily to your channel. If Tom Buck wasn't available, like I might have to try to find something else that would work, like what? What would be a way that's not going too far like off topic but would still be effective. It can be a little bit tricky, so in my case, things lined up, I have a very simple name and the URL was available. So those are all things to consider, but if you do want to use your real name, your personal name, believe it or not, using your personal name makes things personal and I mean that in a really good way.
Speaker 1:It changed the way I felt about things when YouTube comments would more regularly start to say hey, tom, because also Tom's. My legal name is Thomas and like that's a lot longer but that's very formal, like nobody really. Maybe my mom is the only person on planet Earth who calls me Thomas or like someone at like the DMV or the doctor's office. You know anybody who knows me, the way I refer to myself for decades has been Tom. That's my, that's my name and so that when I when people on the internet this thing where there's people I don't even know and and you know it can be a scary place when people use the name that is familiar to me and that other people are like, who I'm familiar with, call me. It makes things feel a little bit friendlier and a little bit more approachable. And I didn't really expect that. But I just kind of noticed when, when those comments popped up and people would start saying my actual name, it just sort of felt a little bit friendlier and it was nice to be called Tom and not Tim or Todd or Mike or whatever. Like it's nice to be called Tom and not Tim or Todd or Mike or whatever, like it's nice to be called my actual name. And it it kind of made the, you know, it made the, the internet, a little bit of a friendly, friendlier place. But again, I did luck out because I have a name that is easy to say and spell. So it does.
Speaker 1:It does also depend on your name. A benefit to your name too is that it is not limited to a specific niche or topic. So you know, like I said, tom Buck, right now I do audio video production, but if I really wanted to change to something totally different, the channel name doesn't necessarily have to change. So you do have a little more flexibility because it is. It is putting you in that you know front and center position and not the brand name, not the niche or anything like that. But again, at the same time, it doesn't convey the niche or topic. So a benefit is that it doesn't limit you to a niche or topic, but a negative of using your name is it does not necessarily convey the niche or topic. Again, tom Buck, you don't know what the heck that could be like someone who does discount, like you know, I'm going to give you like all the discounts this week on, like Costco or something, because I'm going to save you some bucks. That's why my name is Tom Buck.
Speaker 1:Like my real last name is like something else and there's also the hybrid option, which is a thing, so it's. You know you incorporate your name into something else. So if I was super into tech and I wanted to be like tech Tom or whatever, you know you do old school video games and your name is Ryan and you want to be like retro Ryan, like there are, I guess I'm really into alliteration when it comes to that, but there are ways that people can incorporate their actual name. I mean Gerald Undone. That's an example too right. Like you have first name, which we're assuming is the actual first name but not the last name. So you can, you can do kind of this hybrid thing which could be a good compromise, especially if maybe you have a simple first name but a last name that's a little more complicated or you don't want to put your last name out there publicly. You know that can be a good thing.
Speaker 1:It's all about whenever you're talking about any of this stuff, it's all about what works for you and what works for your audience and you know what makes sense. And the thing that I really learned when it came to the whole enthusiasm project versus regular name thing was to not try and choke an idea to life. I was so attached to the name, the enthusiasm project, that that's what I wanted the channel to be. But I knew it was never like the channel was succeeding in spite of it, not because of it, and that just wasn't effective Things. Everything kind of clicked into place for me when I changed using my real name, and so that's something. You know. I wouldn't say that's what you have to do, but it's. Whatever you're doing is something to consider how and why you're doing it. And then the name I still really like that name and it's like, oh, that actually works great for the podcast. Like I don't know why, like Tom Buck podcast doesn't work for me at all, but the enthusiasm project as a podcast works great.
Speaker 1:So it's, you know, you can kind of reconfigure, reorganize, restructure things and then they can actually, you know, they can actually work quite well and suit your needs pretty well. So if you've, if you're someone who creates things online, especially on YouTube, there's a good. You are going to have to come to the decision of what is your channel name and you are probably going to think do you want to use a real name, do you want to not use a real name? Do you want to use some combination of real and fake thing or fake nickname? And I kind of wanted to go through some of that just to share my experience and my thoughts on it and maybe help you, help you navigate that, if that's something that you're going through as well, but also encouraging you that if you did make a decision a couple of years ago about what your, your channel or whatever is named, you don't have to be stuck with that for ever, even if you get past the 100,000 subscriber mark, where you have you get verified to get your check mark and things. You can change your channel name and get re-verified. So it's even at that point. You're not necessarily stuck, although I guess if you end up with like a silver play button, then you would have an old, an old name on the silver play button. Those are very probably good problems to have, I suppose. But if anything, maybe that encourages you. Like no time, like the present, if you want to make that change, you should definitely make that change sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1:And speaking of change, let's change our topic. Do some channel check-ins, see what's happening here, where I can share what I'm working on, what's happening. This has been an incredibly busy week so I keep talking about my MV7i video, the next video. I know if you watched last week you're gonna be like Tom, I still haven't seen that. I haven't seen the MV7i video. That is going to be next week's video. I finally made my RODECaster video, auto switching video. That's hard to say.
Speaker 1:The RODECaster video, as you might know, has an auto-switching feature, which is super cool. This is something that had been asked for in software and switchers. I mean since the beginning, like, I've tried to find ways to do this. People have tried to find ways to do this where the switcher will switch automatically based on who's talking or based on what audio is coming into what source and it's not a feature that's ever been around or based on what audio is coming into what source, and it's not a feature that's ever been around. The Rodecaster video implemented it and then, very shortly after the YoloBox was updated, or even at the exact same time, the YoloBox was updated with its own auto-switching video follows audio feature. But the YoloBox, I gotta say, like the timing is, I wouldn't say that they implemented it differently and it's.
Speaker 1:It's pretty thorough and it doesn't feel like a thrown together feature to compete with the Rodecaster. I think, like it just it just was. It's something that's so requested. They worked hard to make it happen and it happened when Rode was working on the Rodecaster video. They knew that that was something that needed to happen, especially because it's geared so much toward podcasting and events. It's really nice.
Speaker 1:Basically all you do. You got video sources. You can take certain video sources, you can pair them with different audio sources or even multiple audio sources, and then you push a button and the switcher will just switch between them. It is based on who's talking, but it's not like super rigid or robotic, which is very cool If you well, yeah, if you haven't seen the video, go watch the video, cause there's a good example of that in there. Um, but it's not like if you did something, like if you've done things like, I don't know, google meet or discord or like kind of online things, where it will auto switch based on who's talking. It's like so aggressive sometimes if somebody like coughs or sneezes, it switches to them and they're like what, and then it switches back to the other person. This does not do that. You can set the sensitivity. You can set like how fast or relaxed. The switching is Same with the YoloBox Ultra as well, and it's so natural.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the YoloBox. The YoloBox is kind of based on sensitivity and things. I don't know what else they programmed into it, but the Rodecaster it was kind of cool. They actually and I'm so glad they didn't call this like an AI feature, because I feel like they easily could have, and I hope they don't in the future they basically created an algorithm that goes into it, which I like, because that gives credit to people who had to program a thing they did a whole bunch of research on like live broadcast, studio broadcast, and what actual directors, technical directors, do during these things and what they cut to.
Speaker 1:And of course, the thing they found right away was that people don't. They don't cut just to who's talking. Someone's talking, cut to their camera, cut to their camera, cut to their camera. That becomes way too robotic and strange. There's a mix of different things. Like in a typical setting, you will have a master shot that has, you know, like all the subjects Say it's two people talking in a podcast You'll have a shot that has both people and then you'll probably have separate shots for each person. So a three camera setup. That's probably the simplest and the most basic.
Speaker 1:It makes sense that when someone's talking you see them, but sometimes but that's not the only option Like when do you want to actually see the other person and see their reaction? When do you want to see the two shot thing you don't want to just see at the beginning, like hi, where is the show? And then the whole show is just single shots and then you end the show back on the two shot. That doesn't make sense either. So they did a lot of research into what it looked like, how professional, real world. You know, broadcasters and directors cut these things and how they work, and they implemented that into this algorithm so it does not just go based on who's talking and it does not automatically switch the second somebody starts talking. It feels incredibly natural and so I did a video that explained how to put that all together, like how to set that up, and I've been trying to like.
Speaker 1:It's a video I've been wanting to make for a while, but it's one of those ones where I don't know, sometimes I get intimidated by videos like this. I don't know, but I I decided to tackle it and then I decided I wanted to do like a sample podcast. So I asked Heather to help me out. So we do. It was supposed to be like two or three minutes. It ended up being like half the video, it's like 15 minutes. But that even kind of works better because you see, it's not just working for a couple minutes, it works for as long as you need it to work. And we just talked about ice cream. We just talked about Handel's ice cream, our favorite ice cream place in the thing.
Speaker 1:But you see how the switching works and how it cuts between them and the thing that I've a comment that has popped up so much in that video after I posted it is, people are like I was like paying attention to the discussion. I wasn't even looking at the switching so I didn't even notice the difference and I'm like perfect. That to me shows that it's working. The fact you're not, you're not even thinking about the switching, you're watching and listening to what's happening, it's like it is. If you told me that a person was making the cuts and making the switches, I would a hundred percent believe you. It does not seem like it is a machine doing it at all and in fact I would kind of argue it's better than a person, at least better than me. Not better than a person better than me, cause I maybe live on the fly, I'm a little bit better.
Speaker 1:But especially when I edit multicam stuff, I get so hung up on like when to cut to a reaction, when to do whatever, and this is just done and that's the beauty of it, it is just done. Once you stop pressing record, the whole segment of Heather and I is completely unedited, like I didn't cut anything out. It is just start to finish real time how the roadcaster did it and it's done. So it was like editing this video. The first half I was like editing like a normal video, you know, cutting things up, adding in whatever. And then the second half, I was like oh, I'm done, I don't have to do anything with this. It's great, so amazing for the workflow. But that video was just so much fun, like we had so much fun making it, I had so much fun editing it. It was one of those ones that when I was done, I was like you got to watch this because it's just, it's fun, it's enjoyable, and I just felt like I want to share this sooner rather than later. So I bumped that up in the schedule for for this week. So that's the most recent video and that's why it wasn't the MV7i, which is also a very fun video, but the RODECaster one's a little bit, a little bit more fun.
Speaker 1:I mentioned obviously earlier that NAB is coming up. So something I've been thinking about is, a couple times in the past year, instead of doing a Thursday upload, I've done a live stream. You know, ideally it's nice to do both right, like do a live stream at some point throughout the week and then do an upload, but sometimes, especially as things like schedules get busy and there might not be time to make a full video within a week or something. The live stream can really help, and I was almost thinking of the Thursday before NAB, of doing a pre NAB live stream to maybe talk like I don't know if that'd be a fun idea. So something I'm kind of throwing around is like, instead of doing a video on that Thursday whatever it is, I think it's the first Thursday in April I'm doing a pre NAB live stream to sort of talk about what I'm excited about, maybe get some ideas from people too of what they're interested in, what they're looking for at NAB and the other thing that I've been trying to do.
Speaker 1:So the other thing with the RODECaster video auto switching thing is, I think I mentioned last week, I have my Canon XL1, but somebody actually donated another one to me. They had one that has been in a closet in storage since 2009,. They said it really wasn't even used that much prior to that, so it's kind of just been sitting around. They knew that I really liked these things and they offered to just send it my way. So they did and I was like this is perfect, because my main camera it was the Sony FX3.
Speaker 1:So I want to make sure people know, like, yes, the Rodecaster video, the video quality looks great, but my R2 cameras, like the single shots for Heather and I, are each an XL1. So there is, you can tell when people didn't watch the whole video, because I explained that whole thing. I show the XL1, I explain this I'm very clear. Like, when you see these shots and the image quality doesn't look as good, it's not the RODECaster, it's the XL1. And then there's still every once in a while, a comment is popping up where people are, like the single shots are a little bit blurry. What happened there? It's like, ah, tell me you didn't watch the video, without telling me you didn't watch the video. But yeah, so that was really fun. I obviously love those cameras.
Speaker 1:I've made videos about you know old tech, projector, camcorder and the XL1, just sort of other things. You know off and on a lot, and I have a lot of other stuff that I want to make. But a reason I don't make those videos is because I feel it's hard for me to contextualize, it's hard for me to talk about something like the Rodecaster video, auto switching, which is literally like the newest of the new right, that is, the most modern, most relevant, like newest thing, and then the next week be like hey, here's just a video about, you know, a piece of audio video gear from 30 years ago where it's it's like there's nothing you can really take away from that. That is really more entertainment. Like it really is more just like, oh, this is cool and interesting and entertaining, whereas, like the Rodecaster one that will show you how to do auto switching, it will show you what it looks like, it could help inform your purchase, like there are a lot more practical takeaways from it, and I never really know how to reconcile those. So that's why it, when I'm trying to go through topics of videos to make and I have all of my like old school, you know tech equipment videos those always get pushed off, even though I love making them, just because I never really know how to contextualize that tech. And so I had the idea yesterday is very, very simple why not just have it be a series, not something where it's, like you know, the last Thursday of every month is a retro tech video or something although that would be like that'd be pretty slick to be able to do that, but nothing like that. But just like you know, it's a playlist, it's a part of a series. You can easily say like it's just that lets people know right off the bat it's part of a series. It's not like the channel's not totally changing directions, where we're only talking about this stuff. It's not totally out of left field, it's something that kind of pops up, you know, recurringly. So that's something I'm trying to put together and figure out and wrap my head around, because that'll give me, that'll make me feel a lot better and I feel like give a lot of context to this old gear when I make those old videos. So those are some of the things that I've been working on the past couple days, past week. Now, last thing, last bit of business, we got to do gear spotlight over here Before we. Then we have a couple listener messages as well.
Speaker 1:Gear spotlight, I am trying to look at things that are a little bit overlooked, that I don't get to talk about or I haven't talked about very much, and this one is the Lilliput 4K camera monitor. This thing is awesome. I actually have two of these and both of them are from B&H. I bought one at B&H when I went there, because anytime I am in New York and go to B&H. I like to get get a souvenir, but instead of just getting, like you know, a mug or one of those mugs are cool, heather just got a really cool hockey hall of fame bug from the hockey hall of fame and it's like awesome. So there's nothing wrong with mug, but the mug is practical right. She uses it every single day for her coffee and she likes it every day. So I always get something like a camera battery or a lens hood or like something I will use regularly and then that is my souvenir. Lilyput monitor was one of them and then I ordered a second one just because they're so good. The I don't know what the MSRP is, but the current list price is $142, which is a bizarre price, but that's quite affordable.
Speaker 1:They do have the option to be powered by batteries, like the Sony I forget what those NPF battery, the ones that are just I've been around forever um can run on those. Obviously, it runs on AC power. You've got HDMI in and HDMI out, so you can do a pass through if you need to. Even got headphones If you want. Mine is red Cause. I got this red silicone case, but this is just a. It comes with a silicone case. That just pops off pretty easily. And there's also Velcro on the inside of that, because it does come with a like a sunshade as well, so if you're using it outdoors they can have a hood there. You've got quarter 20 mounts on the top and bottom, super easy menus, super good image quality. You can monitor audio through here, you can do focus peaking on here, you can do anamorphic desqueeze on here.
Speaker 1:I just needed something that, like, looks clear and is sharp and reliable for, you know, just monitoring video. So I have. I have two of these. I have one mounted on my FX3 camera rig so that way, just even though it has a flip out screen, usually the camera's a little too far away for me to see it. So now I can see it a little more easy on here. And I have another one that's mounted it's actually the one that is in the photo here. It's mounted to my auto pull. And that one it just has a loose HDMI cord that can go anywhere, but it's usually where my a7S III is connected when I'm filming videos, because that has the 50 millimeter lens on it. So the camera's usually a little further away and again, I can't see the flip out screen. So it's there and it's nice to just be able to double check Everything's recording, everything's in focus, like it works really well. These things are great.
Speaker 1:Obviously, there's tons of options for small camera monitors, but some of them kind of get really expensive and I don't need like anything that does recording or anything like that. These don't make fan noise, they don't do anything. I have left them on all day many, many times over the years. I've had them for, I guess, three. I've had one for three years and one for like a year and a half so and they both work great. I've had no problems with any of them. Actually, does it have a VESA mount? Wow, I'm just noticing there's holes for a VESA mount on the back here it looks like, which is pretty cool. Oh, and it does. I should have mentioned that it does have the Sony NPF batteries, but you can actually take that out and it comes with some other mounts for other batteries. So if you have different battery systems when you use, you can power those with that as well. So that is gear of the week.
Speaker 1:Is the Lilliput 4k camera monitor? A little monitor like that doesn't really need to be 4k, because it's I don't know what, what the size is seven inches, I think, is what it is. It's smaller than the Elgato prompter, so that's nine inches. That's probably about seven inch monitor. Yeah, so probably don't need to be 4k. The fact that it is is awesome and it works incredibly well.
Speaker 1:I've got two of them, so now let's move on to listener messages, our last, last bit of this. We've only got two comments from last week's YouTube video that I'm going to share. Jumping into that. The first one is from Gil, believe it or not. Sorry, my computer did a weird thing. Gil said this was on the Is Camera YouTube Dead video? Gil said around 2011,.
Speaker 1:I started watching camera YouTube. There was so much to learn from, like those DIY PVC pipe videos which were dope. One hack I loved was covering your camera's pop-up flash with scotch tape to soften the light. I remember this until I forgot that. I love the garage culture of it all. It was cool to watch someone do something and then go out and try it yourself. I still watch camera YouTube, but I'm not as invested as I used to be. I think it's because there are so many manufactured enthusiasm videos about cameras and gear. I might read up on the latest thing if someone asks about it, but I'm not really into it personally, unless it's something I really like.
Speaker 1:This episode was great, as always. Gil put in like this one comment pretty much summed up my whole feelings in the episode, so it's a little more eloquent there. But that's exactly the garage culture of it. It was watching someone do something and then feeling like you'd go do it yourself. That's what I thought was really cool. That's kind of the point I was trying to communicate last week where it was like I could take my Canon T2i and I didn't have to just watch videos where people are talking about the T2i. It's very cool when they were, but I could watch anybody talking about any DSLR thing and a lot of what people were sharing and being excited about were things that applied to just anything in general. So it, you know, the specifics could be cool if you want to dive into that. But that is real enthusiasm when it's just sort of like and then this and then this and then this or it's, you know, something becomes the heart of a setup and then they keep figuring out how to use it. I just thought the garage culture was like the perfect way and also manufacturing enthusiasm in modern videos also. You know perfect way to do it.
Speaker 1:Next comment was from Elemental Educator, who actually got to be on their podcast. We recorded a podcast episode which will be coming out relatively soon, so I'll be sure to share that link. Elemental Educator said pretty cool timeline and a great microphone. Oh yeah, the super 55. Multiple people in the comments said it reminded them of old school wrestling mics that would like come out of the ceiling and, like the announcer, be like, let's get ready to rumble. Uh, and then if I I did have the thought of like, couldn't I hang one? Like, could I hang one and get like a pulley and a crank and have it lower. Never say never. Educator said I switched from Nikon to Sony and I'm now using the FX30 as I felt the phones out there now take good enough pictures for what I photograph.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that Sony made a camera entirely dedicated to video to reduce the price from photography components. Love it so far. Will camera YouTube shift to Apple Vision and MetaQuest, who knows? So yeah, it is cool to see the cameras get more. They can be a little more specialized. Like you know, the FX30, fx3, FX A7S3 are geared more towards video, right, and then there's other cameras, like the A7R series with Sony, are geared more towards photo, and then there's like the A7IV, which is kind of in the middle.
Speaker 1:Somebody told me that the FX30 does not have high like shutter burst for taking photos, like it is really such. It is for video. So even though it has some photo capability, it's like incredibly limited. It's like, oh shoot, I'd actually didn't realize that. But that's great because you do get this awesome video camera for a way better price than if it had to do everything all at once price than if it had to do everything all at once, and that is kind of cool. Like it's. It's subtle changes, but it's nice that instead of like there is only the one option, like you either get the 5D Mark II or the T2i and those are kind of your options. You, you can. You can find like the camera that hits like most of your check boxes and I think that is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:But then the question here the will camera YouTube shift to Apple Vision and MetaQuest? Like, essentially, do you think the camera production and video production will switch to? Like I don't know if it's like virtual reality, augmented reality, spatial video kind of stuff. I'm not sure, because it's interesting. Those things just haven't clicked yet. I feel like at some point that must be a thing and I know there are. You know like iPhones can do spatial video and stuff and at some point something might click.
Speaker 1:I have a Quest headset that I bought for an application called Sensorena, which is like hockey training and it's amazing, like because it is absolutely incredible and like genuinely helps build skills and coordination and positioning and everything for like playing goalie and hockey, especially where it's like it's way easier to put on the headset and play sensor for 20 minutes and like try to find ice time every day and drive all the way and get all the stuff on. And you know, like what is my actual opportunity to practice something specific. I can't usually ask someone like can you take one specific shot at me 50 times so I can really practice it? Like no, but with virtual reality I totally can and it is pretty amazing. So I'm not. I don't know what the there's going to be something you know and it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1:I do miss that like excitement of a new thing, leveling up and opening up things for people, and I don't know what the next thing like that would be or if there really will be. I mean, there has to be something, right. I don't know what that would be, but I look forward to it. I think. Maybe I hope so, unless it ends up being something terrible, but yeah, that could be. Maybe I hope so unless it ends up being something terrible, but yeah, that could be. I don't know that that could be fun.
Speaker 1:Or or I look forward to people maybe kind of having the fatigue that we were talking about and then feeling like you know, let me go, let's go back into that kind of garage culture. Let's go back into that like okay, we've got, like, the most amazing tools in the world. Let's like figure out cool ways to use them and things to share about them and, like you know, dive into more than just the specific, like here's a new thing, here's a review on it, here's a new thing, here's a review on it. Like let's kind of, let's explore a little more, and I think that could be really, really fun. So, that being said, if you have anything you'd like to share, you can always send an email to Tom at enthusiasmprojectcom. You can leave a comment on the YouTube videos, you can click the fan mail link in the show notes on the audio version or you can go to hi my name is Tomcom and leave a voice message for the podcast.
Speaker 1:I hope this is interesting, especially if you're somebody who is looking to figure out what do you do with your YouTube channel name? Maybe you're thinking of making a change. You don't know how to don't know how to navigate that. Hope you took some good stuff away from there and don't forget you can register for free to go to NAB by using the link in the description and you can check out all the really awesome stuff. Maybe there'll be. Whatever the next new thing is, maybe it'll be on the NAB show floor.
Speaker 1:I am curious I don't think it's going to happen because I have I've been wanting to make a video on. Every time I talk about anything like the roadcast or any video switcher, the 4k discussion inevitably comes up and I have some pretty strong opinions about it and I think and I really do want to kind of share these and have this discussion my opinion is that there's not going to be a fully featured full-on 4K video switcher for a long time because it's technologically and price prohibitive, like the Rodecaster video, if you took that. It's not like flipping on a 4K switch and now it's in 4K To make it do everything it does, and do that with four 4K inputs that work reliably. I can't imagine the Rodecaster video costing less than $8,000. So when people like, well, it's 1200 bucks, it should be full 4k, I'm like not even close. But I'm kind of holding off on sharing these opinions until after NAB, just in case, especially that is when Blackmagic tends to announce stuff. Obviously they were first on the mini HDMI switcher scene with the ATEMs, so I don't know if they have something up their sleeves in terms of 4k.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to like, I don't want to plant my flag on this opinion hill and then be like proven wrong immediately afterwards. So I want to see what happens at NAB. I don't, I don't know, I have no idea. So that's what I'm gonna wait and see. Anyway, I'll wait and see what you think about this episode. Thank you for listening, thanks for hanging out with me. I hope you have a safe, happy, healthy, fun rest of your week and I'll see you next time.
