Since my last update (the big-deal trigger-payment update) I've been working on... this:
Thorium Remix 2016 - Atoms
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGiwaUJYEZdPnw7H6fgTIWa5s9okLZrd
...which now contains 704 very short videos comprising the 6.5h TR2016. (You need to click [show more] at the bottom 7x to see it all.)
This sits along side the already completed...
Thorium Remix 2016 - Chunks
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGiwaUJYEZfNHZR1AUmMYoASGWBroXMM
...and used together I was able to create the "Star Trek: Fission" video you see above, using nothing more than a web browser. (And I strongly recommend Chrome as both YouTube and Chrome are Google properties.)
This was much easier than my previous attempt ("Thorium Debunked") which only relied on Chunks. Pretty much every Chunk I used in that had to be manually trimmed using YouTube Editor (YTE) 's not-very-friendly and not-very-accurate trimming features.
Also, the details of a trimmed clip are hard to communicate and share. If a remix consists not of complex trim instructions, but rather a list of video-asset ingredients, then it is more like a recipe one can follow and alter to suit one's own taste.
The basic recipe for "Star Trek: Fission" exists in a Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKfir74hxWhOCSnezwz1v_V3-td29zBr9
That is about as complicated as a Playlist should be. A few trims are needed, but not every bloody clip... that was my experience constructing "Thorium Debunked" using nothing but Chunks. (Because every Atom also exists in a Chunk, it is possible to ignore the Atoms... but then any short clip will require trimming and then you go insane.)
YouTube Editor Limitations
I've discovered more YouTube Editor challenges and limitations. Here they are in bullet-point gripe form.
- Maximum 50 clips can be used. (I use all 50 in "Star Trek: Fission".)
- Maximum 1h can be assembled. (I fill up the 1h in "Star Trek: Fission".)
- Title cards can not be put on-top of existing video. This is not a multi-track editor in any sense! A title card will either be shown over silence or a bit of music from YouTube's music library.
- Trimming is not frame-accurate to the preview. It might look ok in preview, but a frame will slip past when you render out the final video.
- It takes a couple hours for YouTube to render your video out. So fixing a difficult/tight trim can take hours to perfect, although most of that time is just YouTube percolating out a video render.
Dr. James Hansen Simple Example
If you'd like to learn to use YTE from scratch, here's a short example I'd recommend re-creating yourself.
The final video will look like this:
Dr. James Hansen - Nuclear, Solar, Wind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmFo6XVm0Yk
And here is the recipe Playlist:
Dr. James Hansen - Nuclear, Solar, Wind - Recipe for YouTube Editor
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGiwaUJYEZeQcFuzZIQtGjuzJYTnt_xi
By opening the Playlist in one browser tab, and YTE in the other, you can copy those Playlist YouTube URLs across one-by-one.
(I'll create a video tutorial eventually, but for now try make sense of the following...)
To grab the URL from a video clip, RIGHT-CLICK on that video clip and select COPY LINK LOCATION from pop-up menu.
(You need to be a bit precise when RIGHT-CLICKing on the video... if you miss the title and click the are surrounding it, then the clip itself opens up and starts to play. You want to avoid doing that.)
Once you have the video's URL in your clipboard, head to your YTE browser tab, and paste it into the SEARCH VIDEOS field. Click the magnifying glass. You should see a single video thumbnail is returned.
Drag that thumbnail down into the timeline.
You might (depending on the clip) see the top-right of YTE now showing "Quick Fixes" as it offers to help you adjust brightness and contrast... close that by clicking X on the top-right just BELOW the [Create Video] button. Otherwise you'll wonder later where the search field went.
Repeat process copy/pasting all 3 video URLs from playlist to YTE.
When finished, click [Create Video].
That video will be entirely yours. It is on your YouTube Channel. It can be given your own title, your own description, your own thumbnail JPG.
I see YouTube's policy was updated JUST THIS WEEK so that ads can only be run on channels with 10,000 views.
Official announcement, and shorter/better Verge summary .
Don't know if you care about that, but I find it a bit annoying in that it raises the threshold for experimentation... just as I'd like to have as many people experiment with YouTube Editor to quickly produce Nuclear / MSR / Thorium informative videos and seeing what is possible, I'd also have liked everyone to be able to create both non-monetized and monetized videos... at least just to get a sense of what is possible.
I personally do not monetize my videos. That is my own personal preference (and estimate that it is not worth hassling the viewer). However, I'd rather let a thousand flowers bloom and have everyone trying everything to see what works.
It is quite possible that monetized videos are treated preferentially by YouTube... I don't know for sure. My cycling AdSense on & off never showed that to be the case. But it is certainly true that my own non-monetized videos continue to under-perform compared the monetized copies hosted by other channels.
I can't try everything on my own channel. Don't have time. Don't want to spam subscribers with identical releases.
If anyone can make a popular custom (or identical) edit, hey AdSense is there waiting for ya! It took "Thorium Debunked " 5 days to clear 10,000 views: Click [...More] , [Statistics] , [Views] , [Cumulative] to see that data.
Seems half the comments on that video are to the effect: Your title sucks.
My proposed solution to those commenters (those of which who are not obviously anti-nuclear) is this...
1. Go into YouTube Editor.
2. Import "Thorium Debunked" into your timeline. (Yes, one does not need to only use Atoms or Chunks, these already-edited hour-long videos can be imported too.)
3. Click [Create Video].
4. Give it whatever name you like!
Again, as I mentioned in my last update, the strategy with MY naming convention is to suck up and control the anti-nuclear discussion on this particular topic and search term.
That does not mean this particular edit can only serve that one purpose.
So please, copy it and name it what you like.
Trim it, alter it, do with it what you like.
Same goes for everything I'm releasing.
The Atom videos are currently UNLISTED. However you can use them right now via the Playlist... no one else can see those URLs but you. You can copy/paste them into YTE.
The Chunks videos are currently PUBLIC. Anyone can copy/paste them into YTE. And they appear in YTE & YouTube search results for "TR2016c". Those are all videos I hope will propagate directly, and so needed human-friendly titles. The timecode and TR2016c tag are at the end of the titles for this reason.
Chunks have proper titles and Atoms do not yet. I still need to give those 704 Atoms proper meta-data.
I did not already do it, because I needed to eat-my-own-dog-food and see what Titles were possible and necessary.
Looking at a populated YTE timeline, you notice the video title is shown when you hover over it. If you are zoomed out you can only see the start of it.
Looking at TR2016 Atoms playlist, and navigating 704 short clips, I think you'll agree the timecode must be shown at the start.
That is different from TR2016 Chunks playlist, which is only 33 items long and need not be navigated so exclusively by timecode. (Better to have search-result optimized names, as that content is actually of watchable length.)
So I'm still learning as I go here.
Please feel free to dive in yourself as well. You might discover tricks and limitations we need to consolidate and share.
I'll be creating tutorial videos, so any insights or hey-this-is-not-obvious you share with me might prove very useful.
This biggest single observation I have about YTE is this: The video auto-plays as you edit and make (any) changes. It is quite annoying.
You might want to do much of your thinking in a Playlist instead. And then, when you think you have it all figured out, copy/paste into YTE and make a video based on your Playlist.
While you DO get to keep your editing decisions in YTE after you've made a video... a [remix] button appears after your video is done processing... so you can continue to tweak it and address small problems and release permutations...
If you have any interest in sharing your "recipe" with others, a Playlist is the easiest way. While you can render a finished video, and those video assets are sort of visible to the public and can possibly be reverse engineered...
Thorium Debunked - Attribution Information
https://www.youtube.com/attribution?v=H6mhw-CNxaE
...you can see it would be a difficult process.
Going forward, I'm going to try share my recipes as well as my finished creations. Would love feedback to be in the form of "You did it wrong Gord, here's how ya do it!"
I can finish paying Kilowatts for the music license.
I will attend TEAC8 in St. Louis.
And it turned out to be a very big deal I upgraded my internet connection few months ago. That's costing a bit of money, but uploading 704 videos to YouTube.... whooo boy. That is a thing, let me tell ya.
(That is why "Thorium." ends with a call for engineers rather than me groveling for money, or me pimping any particular company or organization.)
Next
Fix filenames for TR2016 Atoms on YouTube.
Fix filenames for all the MP4 files of TR2016 Atoms.
Upload the Atom MP4s to Google Drive.
Render TR2016 without Kilowatts music, for more flexible editing.