Just_five_fun youtube let's plays

Recently I have been making youtube let's play videos with my family. We play on Empire a lot of the time but also adventure maps. You may notice the whole family has residences on smp4. Just_super_fun is my wife, a_little_fun is my 4 year old daughter, and just_having_fun is my son.

We are hoping to promote EMC and entertain viewers. Our videos are family friendly and sometimes a bit childish, but we have fun and chat to keep things interesting. Not every video is of great quality, but I have been working on the sound and editing and if you look at the dates, you should notice a big improvement in quality. Try not to hate on me too much yet.

[I am planning a 'scavenger hunt' series where you will need to find clues in videos and on our residences while solving puzzles to win prizes.] *This has been delayed but hopefully still possible some day.

Please check out one or more of our videos and comment if there is any particular series you would like to see more of or an adventure map you would like us to try. We are not ready to begin installing server and client mod packs yet, but my prior dev work will make that doable if we get enough interest.

I was wondering why the just_five gang was online so much. I'll check this out when I get some more free time, sounds like a load of fun.

Wish you guys the best!

Another you-tuber! Your videos sound pretty interesting and if you haven't already, you should try for the youtuber team.

Thats cute (Sniff)
I love the vids

Cool.

Watched some of the EMC one (most recent uploaded one), your daughter sure does like Minecraft .

Will stick around for future EMC uploads

Thanks to everyone for your supportive comments. I applied for the youtube team but it was suggested that I get a little more practice editing first. I am getting some better software this week and can hopefully splice together some more fast paced content. It's all starting to come together so please excuse some of the quality issues of the older stuff. You guys are the best!

Please take notice that my playlist page is a much better organized for watching episodes. I don't understand why the link doesn't take you there.

By the way, I subscribed. Hopefully we can your channel up there, promote EMC more!

If you need any hand learning editing, let me know. Even if it's just to learn basic "how much pause between speech is best when transitioning"stuff, I'd be happy to give you a hand.

You can pin playlists to your main channel page.

Great videos! It is always great to see a family playing some MC together

I will take all of this constructive comments I can get. I will look for a pin playlists button, that would be so much better than the default page layout. I am not seeing those options, but sure they are right in front of my face.

YouTube puts the button in a really dumb place and calls.it something strange (might be modules). If you've not figure it out by the time I'm home, I'll do you a screenshot guide.

erm jack, I remember screen shot guides(nostalgia)... but seeing as you are giving advice on doing vids: Why don't you just make a vid? ;-)

To say the least, my recording setup is currently a bit.... very... borked

Alrighty, so for playlists:

1: Scroll to the bottom of your channel, you'll see a box like this:


2: Click it, and you want these options:


3: Choose your playlist and save it.

Random other tips:

• THUMBNAILS! They are way more important than many people imagine. They don't have to be amazing - even just a screenshot with some text on is a good start.
• Stick something like "- Minecraft" at the end of your titles, it helps YouTube (and viewers) know what your videos are about. Don't format them like "Minecraft: video name" though (where Minecraft becomes the primary part of the title), as this can lead to instant rejection if you ever intend to get partnered to unlock extra features.
• Not sure what recording software you use, but try to get *only* the video in frame when recording. If you use Fraps, Dxtory, Action, Bandicam, OBS or similar, you're able to capture the game directly, rather than the window. DO THIS! It greatly improves quality, is less laggy, and is generally just nicer.
• Not sure how your setup is, but either have 1 mic per person and merge them when editing, or make sure their audio is centered in editing - it's generally considered better sound quality if the audio comes out of both earphones/speakers equally. Eg: currently, depending on who's speaking, they're louder in one ear than the other.
• Not seen anything too bad yet on them, but if you go caving in a really dark area, edit the video to be brighter. I've got the exact numbers I use somewhere, and they work great - so will try to find them for you.
• Background music's quite good at hiding static/noise, and can help create atmosphere. Don't always need it playing, but at certain points, it's nice to have. Incompetech has a ton of great free music you can use, and Epidemic Sound is available through practically every partner network (Freedom! is the easiest network to join ever, and will give you access to their library).
• Try to get rid of the black bars on your video. Record, edit, and render at either 720p (1280*720) or 1080p (1920*1080) - I've found 720p to be more than fine for Minecraft.

I searched for that button for quite a while last night and still had not found it. Thanks a million for the graphic.

So much good advice. In no particular order I will respond to some comments just so that you or others reading have some details about my setup. I am assuming that if you are still reading that it is a little interesting to you.

Black bars are a thing of the past. I was having trouble with hardware configuration and have worked through it. Currently I am configured to capture full screen at 720p due to limits of the monitor that I am viewing my game play, but can capture 1080 once the budget permits a better screen. I did not have software to resize in the past, but am planning to purchase wondershare edit as a first upgrade from the basic windows essentials video editor. I doubt I will be going back and revising all the previous works, but this should open some doors for moving ahead.

For recording I am using a HD PVR-2 from Hauppauge (HDMI version) and the capture software that comes with that. I have updated to the most recent software version and athough it can be pretty clunky and glitchy at times, I am getting comfortable with how to get it to do what I want. Some of the issue is the age of the computer hardware that I am trying to run the software on.

For audio, I have 2 mics, a left and a right as you have noticed. Hauppauge fails when I ask it to record more tracks than that so I have been limited, but realize it isn't good enough yet. I experimented with audacity and was able to merge left and right, but the workflow wasn't very smooth and I only actually used it in one video. (I don't recall which one, I think it is in the first 'fun and super survival'). I'm hoping that wondershare has some sound tools, but it's an ongoing issue.

I am aware of custom thumbnails, but haven't put the extra time into making them yet. I have no doubt that they would be good for adding interest and views.

If it doesn't, Audacity's are easily good enough. You just need these sliders (2nd ones down): http://gyazo.com/59121f9c19cfb456f5911f9f307effb6. It's noise removal seriously is the most amazing thing ever though. I always aim to get in and out of Audacity as quick as possible since it's so clunky, so just balancing audio and removing noise is all you really need to do in it.

I have such a huge backlog of recorded play that I want to release. Some of it needs released right away or it will be stale, so with that in mind and since I have a full time job, I am going to still post some stuff that has minimal editing while I catch up. One such release is available new today! Last Friday nights mining event footage is nearly an hour long, but I have managed to compile the first 2 parts. Hope you enjoy while/until I continue to produce the rest.

I have 2 questions Just_Five_Fun. One, what kind of computer do you have, and 2, what recording software do you use?
Thanks!

I have 4 workstations and a laptop in the house + some older computers that won't run minecraft. The lowest workstation is a core 2 duo processor with 4 gig ram and the best is only a core 2 quad with 8 gig. They all have some form of nvidia aftermarket video card, but each is a different version. The newer of the 2 laptops is a new hp with an A8 processor, but my wife uses it for work mostly and I worry that running too much minecraft will fry the video like we did with her last one.

The recording setup is hardware and software. Hauppauge makes the HD PVR2 model video capture device and it is supported by a proprietary software package from the same company. We chose this setup so that we can also record from the xbox one and xbox 360 that my son plays on.