Youtube Project: Day 2 - Tools For The Task

The next stop in my journey was figuring out what kind of tools I would need. I figured that i would need around 5 or 6 things to be able to create and post some content.

1. A Content idea
2. A way to see me on the video
3. A way to hear me on the video
4. A way to record 2 and 3
5. A way to edit the recording
6. The extras

The Content

Content is a non-issue. Like many of you I have more ideas of what to make content about than I have time to make that content into ideas.

The Video Recorder

My vision for the channel is me presenting content directly to the viewer. For this format I would need the abilitiy to record my face while presenting. I researched this for a bit and found that the video recording part is really flexible. I believe I saw it first in one of Magistudio's videos - but your phone is a really good source for recording video (and audio if you need it). Alternatives to this were webcams, actual cameras, and specialty video cameras. I like having equipment that serves a single purpose, so I ended up going with a very cost effective Logitech Brio.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/brio-100-webcam.960-001580

The phone would have worked nicely, but I would also need to get some sort of mount for it. Rather than spend a little money on mounting my phone I opted to spend a tiny bit more and get the webcam. This also opens me up to use the phone as a secondary camera when I get to that point.

The Microphone

The Brio webcam has built in audio that does the job for work meetings, but as you might expect it has a very thin sound. Right from the start I knew this was not going to work for me, so I spent the majority of my budget on an Elgato Wave 3. The reason I went with this mic is solely based on several videos showing off its features. You really can get a good sound right out of the box with this thing and configuration was an absolute breeze. 10/10 would buy again.

https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/wave-3-black

Edit: RoyBretton brought up a really good point in the comments. If you have an existing microphone - try it out! It might already give you the sound quality that you need. No need to spend any money :). Thanks for the input Roy!

The Recording Software

I have a couple of friends who stream themselves on the internet, so through their advice I tried out an amazing (and free) software called Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). This software is absolutely free, and really has an amazing set of features. I was able to get it up and running in a handful of hours, and so far it has been able to do everything that I need it to do.

https://obsproject.com

The Editing Software

This was another recommendation that ended up being absolutely spectacular. Davinci Resolve is a professional grade editing studio for free. Its absolutely mind blowing that this software is free to use. There is a steep learning curve but any time spent is absolutely worth it, and you can be editing videos after watching just a couple of tutorials. The basics are really easy to get working, and there is an incredible amount of depth and feature. Highly recommended.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

The Extras

There were a handful of extras that might be nice to have, but they are not at all essential for what I am doing.

Green screens will allow you to essentally clip out your background and replace it with another image. This works much better than the background features that you have on Zoom and Webex. They arent super expensive, but again they fill a very specific need and I just diddnt need one.

I saw some recommendations for a high powered computer with a beefy graphics card. I imagine this would help a lot when you were playing games, streaming, and recording at the same time. So far my Mac Mini seems to be doing fine :).

And thats it! At a bare minimum you could get content posted with your phone and an idea - nothing else spent. If you are inclined to pick up some tooling I would personally recommend spending more on the microphone than a camera. Lastly, there are a handful of other devices that can be used for streaming and recording - but the ones that I found served a very specific purpose. If you require that specific thing then great, but if its not an immediate need, save the cash (or upgrade your microphone :)).

I don't know a lot, but Id be glad to share any of my experience with you all if there are any questions. Thanks for reading!