Tips on video game commentary videos?

[zdude]

The title says it all. I have started doing some video game playthroughs (Doom and Pokemon Brown) that are commentated by myself. Basically all I am looking for are some pointers on what I can do to improve.

Here is the youtube channel if anyone wants to see what I have done so far: http://www.youtube.com/user/zdude0127/featured

Mods, if you feel this thread is flamebait/gets derailed at any point and is getting out of hand you may go ahead and trash this thread.

[Zalewa]

I have two pieces of technical advice.

The first thing is simple: YouTube has really crap quality for 480 videos. If you can record something in full HD, then upload it to YouTube in full HD. This is also true for all these DOS games that you can run in DOSBOX. Increase the resolution to 1920x1080 and then improve the upscaled graphics using scaling algorithms. I use:

Code: Select all

[sdl]
fullresolution=1920x1080
output=ddraw
[render]
aspect=true
scaler=advinterp2x

If you have black borders in recorded video always crop them before uploading to YouTube.

The second advice is to record commentary into a separate file. There are programs which can toggle microphone recording with a press of a button much like what FRAPS does with video. Here's a free one: A shameless self-insert. When you have game audio in the video file and commentary in a separate file it's easier to adjust or fix them in post processing. Most commonly you'd want to adjust the volume between the game and the commentary, eliminate background noise in the commentary or cut something stupid you said by accident :)

[zdude]

The program you linked didn't help for me. It caught my game audio and not my voice. Yes I did have it set to my microphone before you ask.

[NizZY']

Not being boring and not speaking in a monotone voice always helps.

[Zalewa]

The program you linked didn't help for me. It caught my game audio and not my voice. Yes I did have it set to my microphone before you ask.

Interesting, you're the first one to report that. What program do you use to record games? Maybe this program messes with system settings?

[Synert]

not speaking in a monotone voice always helps.

this is exactly why recording when you're tired is a terrible idea :<