Showing posts with label Producer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Producer. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Which Vlogging Camera Should You Actually Buy? (Luna Ultra vs Sony ZV1)



We took two completely different vlogging cameras out for a chaotic, rainy real-world test around London with the family: Insta360 Luna Ultra (pocket gimbal camera) directly against the Sony ZV-1 (compact point and shoot camera) to see which one is actually worth buying if you want to start a YouTube channel or upgrade from your phone video camera.

Buy Insta360 LUNA ULTRA camera HERE:  (Commissions Earned)
👉 (Amazon US/World) https://amzn.to/4piOj7Y
👉 (Amazon UK) https://amzn.to/4gv6GnK
Microphone: INSTA360 MIC AIR
And SONY ZV-1, BUY ONE HERE:

From fighting tight lens focal lengths and sudden dead batteries to wrestling with messy wireless microphone setups and torrential London rain, we put both setups through their paces across Tate Modern, Oxford Street buses, and Camden Lock Market. Which camera handles real travel vlogging best? Watch to see the side-by-side footage and our honest breakdown.

Which Vlogging Camera Should You Actually Buy? (Luna Ultra vs Sony ZV1)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
So, we're in London for a very special camera test. Can I get in the video? Yeah. Yeah. Subscribe. Subscribe to Neil Mossey! Thank you. So, we're here. We're here in London to do a very special camera test and I'm doing this with my family. Oh, I've lost half my family. They're over there. [laughter]

Edit them in in the background. This might not work. So, this is a strange video. I wanted to compare two cameras that you probably shouldn't even really compare. The first camera is like a... is a pocket gimbal camera like this Luna Ultra from Insta360 against this camera. If I spin my other camera around the Sony ZV1 or ZV-1 being modelled uh and operated very fantastically backwards by my son here. Thanks for your work. mind you're going to hit a food... street food stand there. But they are two wildly different cameras and if you're wanting to start a YouTube channel or maybe you want to upgrade your camera maybe from a phone it's always a difficult choice isn't it? Whether to pick something like this pocket gimbal camera like a... like a DJI Pocket 3 or Pocket 4 or P4P or the Sony ZV1... ZV-1 Mark II or maybe something like the Canon PowerShot V1. Which one do you go for? Obviously, it depends on what you want to do. Uh, so today I'm doing some vlogging here in London with my family. Maybe with your channel you're mainly indoors, or maybe you want to do something even more extreme than just out and about city travel. I'm going to show you the pros and cons of each camera, and I'm going to do it out and about in London, which might be a bit tricky. It's also a really terrible uh weather day today. So, it's going to be a good test for these two cameras. But, I'm going to try and give you as much footage as possible so you can compare the two. And I'll just I'll just point out the pros and cons of whether to go for something like this or something like this.

Time to get some food.

We've just noticed that on the on the big wheel, if I spin the camera around, my son just noticed pointing out I can zoom in. So, this is two, three, four times, eight times, 12 times, 12 times zoom there. A capsule is missing on the London Eye. Yeah. Oh, that looks dodge, doesn't it? And just to compare this on the Sony ZV1, I'll zoom in before the wheel turns round. So, this is the optical zoom up to there. And then I'll push in on digital zoom. And you can see the missing capsule there. We'll just move around a bit. Zoom out before we miss it completely. There's Royal Festival Hall. So, I've got my daughter camera operator for today or one of the camera operators for today. You've got the Luna Ultra. If you push that rocker up, it zooms in. And if you pull it back, it zooms out. I could do a comparison of the two cameras. So, this is the Sony ZV1 camera. I'm holding it arms length. I don't know how big my face is. I've got a feeling my face is a bit too big in the frame, which is one of my gripes with this camera. Anyway, so if you point it up, see if you can zoom into the uh Big Ben Houses of Parliament. I'll film you doing that.

And then if you press the the the joystick three times, it spins round to film you. So if you just go click click click.

There you go. And then you might want to zoom out. [laughter] There you go. So if you hold it at arms length, that's that's quite a good shot, isn't it? You know, we're not too big in shot and it's about arms length. Whereas if I hold the ZV1, this is the comparison between the two. So I've got this at arms length and then we'll go back to the Luna Ultra being held at arms length. And uh that's the difference in the lenses between these two particular cameras. For me, this is a much better vlogging shot than this shot. I think I'm a bit too in your face, but that's as much as I can zoom out. Enlarges your head. It... It really does enlarge my head.

So, the weather today as well as the noise, the weather today might be a bit of an issue, which is an issue for these cameras.

So, we are in Tate Modern now on the Luna Ultra. If you take a look at the art, this is the current art installation in the turbine hall. It looks quite interactive. And I'll just show you what it looks like. This is for indoors footage. I've got the wireless mics on. Hopefully you can hear me. I didn't want to have them out cuz I look like a bit of a tool walking around with a wireless microphone, but if you can still hear me, this is what low light footage looks like indoors. It's not that dark, but it's not that bright. So, we can compare the two. Let's go to the Sony ZV1. This is the... the turbine hall here. And let's see if we can zoom in on some of this interactive art. It's called Serendipity Island.

It's participatory. It's a participate... participatory artwork. So, I'm glad that we're up here. Ruining the art. They are ruining the art. You walk around the maze. Yes. Have you had enough art?

Yes. Now, what bridge is it?

Yeah. You know, they go down the river. Mary, Mary Poppins. Yeah. Now, the the good thing with this was with the the Luna Ultra, I was able to just get it out my pocket and hit on, press the the on button, and then um spin the camera around to get that crazy umbrella. That's art. Then, if I zoom in, it's so nice to be able to zoom in. I couldn't do this on my Pocket 3 or my action cameras. So, there you go. A nice bit of artistic umbrella down the Thames action. Pay me for that. Dad,

would you like to get one

with cheese?

Bagel. No, that's not bagels. The pretzels. We got... We got two bagels. Yes. Smoked salmon and cream cheese. We're going to go in. It's really crowded here. So, uh, wish me luck.

I don't think that shot will be approved. What? Which shot? I just got a No, now I got a closeup of of you tearing it apart. Oh, sorry. No, no, don't apologize. I I apologize to you for filming it. Not bad. You won't let you won't um put that on YouTube. This £7.50 bagel is... is lovely. Wait. Oh, yeah.

It's a bit difficult carrying these cameras and eating. Oh, do you got some apple slushie?

Yeah, it goes out focus if you go too close, I think. Lovely. Look at this.

Portable grater with giant hands. Yeah, I am massive haha. So, this is a good chance to show you some more lowlight stuff. This is on the Sony ZV-1. Got a tube coming in. Let's do this.

So, this is where the lens isn't is a bit too tight for this kind of situation. I have to give it to someone else to make it go further back.

I thought our one was 30. 38. That's the one that just left. So, we're waiting for a full circle. Yeah. Sit down. Wow. That number four is on a mission.

That one isn't. That's ours over there. 38.

Go, go, go, go, go. Take your ticket.

Thank you. These tickets are getting damper by the minute. So yeah, we're on the number 38 now. Oops. Uh to go to Oxford Street.

We're in London. This is uh another low light situation. Uh but it's good to get out of the rain.

We're getting off at this stop.

That is so impressive.

Thank you. Whoa. I tell you what's really interesting is that I'm on the Sony ZV1 now. I find that... As I'll say bye-bye to the the bus. Thank you. Number 38. I'll just pull this out. It's a lot easier to pull out the Luna Ultra. It's a lot easier to just whip out a pocket camera than my Sony ZV1. And maybe it's cuz I've got the the grip attached to it and the the wireless microphone on top, but I'm making a real effort to film things on the point and shoot because it's just so much easier grabbing this one. I just do this, flip it on, and it's good to go. And I'm recording that instantly. I don't find it that easy. If I spin this camera around, I don't find it that easy to pull out the Sony ZV1. Maybe it's because I've got the grip and the wireless attachment today. "YEAH, I'LL MEET YOU BY TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD ON THE CORNER. Where are we? So, I grew up in London. I... I think... I think I know my way around a bit. I have no idea what these screen things are for there. It's like some kind of PR events that they... that they use them for. But, let's try the cameras out here. I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm on the ZV1, [music] the point-and-shoot. It's a giant uh Tetris, which it looks like you can join in with. You can do it on your phone or something. And they've got screens all around this cube.

[music] So, I don't know how you're finding the loud noise with the wireless mics with the um I'll go on this camera here. We've got very challenging lighting conditions. I don't know how you you're finding it. Um say in the comments which one you prefer. If there's already a footage that you prefer. either the Luna Ultra or the point and shoot Sony ZV1.

Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry they're coming on. Got slow pass. We're only going one stop. Thank you. So, this bus then going one stop, but um it was a bit of a problem at the door. Woah, nearly got my foot taken off by the front door there. Uh here we go. So, we're going to sanitize now cuz we're in London. Anything you touch will kill you.

We are being max tourists right now, which is excellent. The only way to experience London is to wander aimlessly through the traffic. I'm holding this at arms length and I know already that it's too close to my face. Big problem for the ZV1. I'm sort of remembering why I never vlog with this camera. It is not kind to your face or to the surroundings around you.

I don't know how frenetic this video is going to be. We're just jumping from location to location, but we're in um John Lewis now, and I'm very excited about this because it's one of my favourite places to come. They have a restaurant on the top floor, and it's really nice to just sit there and just get half an hour of sitting down time. And it's been closed for like 3 months and it's just been reopened. So, we're going to we're going to see if it's any good. I don't know if I could be bothered to film it because it is a department store cafe, but why not? It's more testing of the cameras.

So, we've got a situation here where that police car wants to get past that bus and that bus ain't budging.

There we go.

There we go.

They're going to arrest the bus driver.

Were is that taxi going?

So, I've already hit the first problem. In my opinion, the the Pocket Camera, the Luna Ultra, is better in these situations. Battery's dead. It's a new battery. Uh, I started filming about the same time. I think I've been filming about the same amount of material, and this is dead. I've had this on airline mode, so all the Wi-Fi is turned off, the Bluetooth's turned off, the screen isn't particularly bright, and it's dead. And it's what, 3:00 now. This is the first casualty. But it's okay cuz I can top it up with uh battery that I've got in my rucksack. But this is something the reviews go on and on and about the the battery life. I think it is kind of better on the on the Luna Ultra. Also, don't forget, I mustn't forget. I need to keep the microphones charged up as well. I think they're holding up. I've got them tucked in here. This could sound like total rubbish, but that might be clearer now. So, I don't even know if the sound that I've been filming has been uh not very good. It's time for another bus. This time on the Luna Ultra. Oh, that's helpful. Trying to push here. There we go. Up to the top deck. Indoors. Low light capabilities. We're only going two stops. Huh? Has it got stuff in

Because this is Carnaby Street. I'm now on the Luna Ultra. I don't know. I think my... I think my wireless microphones are holding out. My son and his nephew are looking for glasses here now. Uh we're going to go to the RayBan shop, which we've been to before back when the you know those RayBans, the pervert glasses came out where you could... the what? The meta glasses. The meta glasses, that's what they're called. Not pervert glasses. Um we came to try them out when they first came out, but we just want to get some regular sunglasses. We did manage to find a very specific brand of matt black new wayfarers size 52, but they don't have them in the store. So, we've ordered them, which... that happens a lot, doesn't it? I know it's not about the cameras, but this is for me to test the microphone to moan about, you know, when you go into a shop and they say, "Oh, no, we haven't... we could order it for you." And you just think, "Well, yeah, I... I thank you. I could have done that by just being sat on my ass at home." But anyways, this is good because we've ordered it. We paid for it. Uh, so I'm jumping between the Luna Ultra....

Okay, so we just seen this is the stage door of the London Paladium and it was just a giant cheer just went up. I don't know who it is. [cheering]

I'm filming the wrong person. Where where's the polka dot like she's got what? Say again. Polka dot polka dot thing. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Go. Okay. So, this is Kendall Jenner there. Kendall Jenner. And now an M&S food truck has just gone in the way. Superstar. Yeah. They're all holding the programs up. Oh, yeah. Who is that? I think it's Kendall Jenner. But who is it? Who is it? Who's it? Here's a big drawback with both of these cameras, and this is where they're comparable. It's raining. We've got a bit of a storm going on at the moment. I don't know if you can see it. You can see the umbrellas up. These cameras do not like rain. They do not like extreme weather. They don't like snow, dust, sand, desert, beach. All of these things will kill these cameras. So, you need an action camera for that kind of thing, like my DJI Nano. That's the one I use when it's weather like this. Oh my god, it is really bad. I don't know if you can see quite how heavy the rain is. I've got to stop filming now because this will kill my Luna Ultra. So, now we're looking for prom dresses and there's a very specific store called JJ's House. It's not for me. It's for my daughter. Oh, there it is. 
Get my measure to the sixth form. She'll have another prom dress. That's what Amber did. Wow. Look at you, queen. Oh, look at the little tiara as well. Wow. Princess. [applause] Yeah.

It's lovely, isn't it? So, the first difference between the two is really obvious when you look at it. On here, I've got Can you see that there, Joe? I've got uh Oh, I'm not This isn't turned on. Now, the first difference between the two cameras is really obvious when you look at it. I've got a wireless receiver on the top here for the Sony ZV1. I've also got this really ugly barn door of a monitor on the side. I've had to pull this out because this receiver, it is connected to my wireless microphone, that wireless microphone, and the battery has died on the receiver. It's about 4:00. I've been filming a lot, but for this camera, I've got to actually plug it in with a 3.5 mm cable. It's so cumbersome. I don't know why Canon and Sony don't enable some kind of Bluetooth thing where you could plug in any Bluetooth microphone to your point-and-shoot camera. You you're hearing me now through the onboard microphone. This is what it's like without it. And it would mean that I wouldn't have all this goubbins on the top. So, that's one huge difference between the two. The Luna Ultra, which you can see here, is just connected seamlessly to the the microphone here. It just I don't have to do anything. I just turn that thing on, make sure this is turned on, and we're good to go. With this camera, the point and shoot, it's you got to plug things in, which is really annoying. The other huge difference I can show you on the Luna Ultra, obviously, it's the way it's designed... You just and it's good to go. For today's footage that you'll see, I've attached this grip, this kind of mount grip. It just means I've got a bit of security with it. Partly for the stabilization, so there's nice steady shots on this camera with the grip, but also for security, someone doesn't snatch it out of my hand as well. So, that's one huge difference or two huge differences between the point and shoot and the pocket gimbal camera. We're now going to go north on the northern line to Camden Town, which is where I'm from originally, and we'll see if we can get mugged or robbed in Camden Lock Market. [laughter] Let's go. Maybe it'll be people on the streets, or maybe it'll be the stalls. Yeah, it's the magic of Camden.

Now, with this camera, the Insta 360 Luna Ultra, it's got the built-in legs to the bottom on the uh the clip-on handle extender. I'm just tired. I'm not... I'm not drunk. Uh let me tilt it down. So, it's a lot easier to to put down. It's not... It's not as easy as uh an action camera, but at least you've got some legs. You've got some options to stand it upright. Without that section, uh it's... it is really difficult to put down. It's the same with my Pocket 3, but you can get cages for the DJI Pocket cameras. And they've got a magnetic base, so you can stick it to lamp posts or pull out the base. Actually, I've got one on this one on the Luna Ultra here. I've got this screw on magnetic base. I could have used that instead, but this is a lot more steady. I'm not sure I want to put it in uh public place, though. I better grab it now. Okay. Look, I can I can use the screen to have this in a weird position.

Waterloo bridge.

Have you had enough footage? Is this... How's this looking? If you got to this part of the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here are all my other videos about the Luna Ultra, the Insta 360 Luna Ultra. And I might even have a playlist for the Sony ZV1 ZV-1. [laughter] That's all down in the description. Thanks for coming on our journey out into London today.

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Tuesday, 31 March 2026

How to STOP avoiding your next YouTube video



Do you feel like your next YouTube video idea is a complete waste of time? 
I'm currently fighting "The Resistance," a creative block that makes every project feel either too "stupid" to make or too important to mess up. In this video, I explain why these conflicting thoughts are the exact sign that you are onto something worth filming.

I break down the psychological hurdles that stops you from hitting record, including the fear of negative comments and the trap of overthinking. Using ideas from Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and Jerry Seinfeld, I show you why "wasting time" on a video is actually the best form of productivity for a creator. If you are struggling with creative procrastination or wondering if your video is "worth it," this might help you make your next video.

How to STOP avoiding your next YouTube video



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

I am just about to make a a new video on my other YouTube channel, My Dad Delivers Vlog channel, and I really don't want to make this video. It's because I have two thoughts in my head, and I thought that this might be the reason why you're not making your next video. So, I thought, let's let's go through those two thoughts and see if you if if this happens to you, too. So, it works like this. I don't want to make this video because it feels like a complete waste of time. The video I'm making is is capricious nonsense and the amount of time that I'm about to spend on making this video isn't worth it because nobody's going to watch it and it doesn't really need to be made. And at the same time, I have this other thought which says I might get this wrong and actually this video is so important because I don't want to make it badly. Bad things will happen. People will think poorly of me because they care so much about what's in this video. And that's why I shouldn't make the video. And these two thoughts are happening at the same time. They are complete opposites. Both of these thoughts cannot be true. So why are we having these thoughts? And if they are equally working against each other, why would either of them be correct? There's a book called I'll put it on screen now. I'll put it in the description as well. There's a book called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and he calls this the resistance. And it's a lovely book. It's really short and it explains exactly what artists go through in these situations where you have these these thoughts, those two thoughts that work in complete opposites to each other. And he says that the resistance itself is the sign that you're on to something and that you're about to make something that is worth making. And the reason the resistance will fight you on this is that because you will be a completely different person as a result of going through with making this art. In this case, a video about how to set a poll on WhatsApp. There's also a really nice video. I'll put this down in the in the description as well. It's with Jerry Seinfeld and it it's just talking him talking about how he writes a joke, but there's this throwaway comment just towards the end of the video. He says something like, "It's a long time to spend on something that means absolutely nothing. But that's what I do. That's what people want me to do is spend a lot of time uh wastefully. You know, in my world, the wronger something feels, the righter it is. So to waste this much time on something this stupid is that's that felt good to me." The process, the thought process and the effort that goes into making the joke isn't worth the time that's devoted to it. It's a complete waste of time. That's why it's beautiful. That's why you're doing it. It's because it's a complete waste of time. It's because the resistance will cause people to start mowing their lawns when you're in the middle of a video. That... that in the background there, that's the resistance. That's something stopping me from making this video. I'm sure your brain will come up because you're creative. You will come up with all kinds of reasons to not make the next video and to put it off. And I just wanted to be that voice to remind you that that's a brilliant thing. That's good because that resistance is the sign for why you should be making this video. So, I hope this helps you to waste some time, deliberately kill some time, and devote too much time to something that clearly does not deserve it. That's that's why we watch YouTube videos. Someone has spent the time in a way that it doesn't deserve. It just does not deserve that amount of time. And that's why we enjoy watching it. And investing that time in the thing, the video that you want to make... That puts you ahead of all of those people who haven't wasted their time on that video you're about to make. And the same goes for for negative comments as well. I... I was talking to someone recently and they were saying they're a bit worried about the reaction that they would get online to putting out videos. That's probably the biggest reason why they weren't making videos. You have wasted the time. They haven't. You outrank them already. The fact that they are commenting on your work means that you've created something worth commenting on. You know that. You know it. You know it in your bones. But we we're wired by biology, by evolution to avoid these threats. But we know the prize that wasting our time on this will change us and make us better YouTubers, better artists. Does this help? Uh, making this video has helped me at least get to the point where I might actually record this video today cuz the sun's out. It's nice. I've just got to wait now for this moment to stop. If if these videos are helpful, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. If you do either of those things, it really helps me to keep this channel going. But say hi in the comments as well because uh it really helped for me to see where everyone else is at with their journey. And right here on screen now, I'll put the playlist to all my tips for creators on YouTube. And here's what YouTube thinks you want to be watching next. Do it. Just do it. Waste some time.

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Tuesday, 10 March 2026

Stop Talking While Filming! Try This Voiceover Technique



Are you struggling to talk and film at the same time? In this behind the scenes vlog, I share my "vamping" technique for recording professional voiceovers. I show you exactly how I use the DJI Mic 2 and DaVinci Resolve to narrate a 9-hour LEGO build in just a few minutes.

I explain why recording a separate soundtrack is a massive boost for your YouTube SEO, as it provides the algorithm with a clear transcript of your keywords and phrases. I walk you through my voiceover workflow and show you how to keep your energy high while speaking to a microphone.

Stop Talking While Filming! Try This Voiceover Technique



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Hello. Welcome back to the Happy Hut. Uh, I've not made a video for a while because I've been making lots of videos for my other channels. Uh, this one is for the Dad Delivers vlog channel. And I'm just about to record a voice over for a video over on that channel. And I thought, well, why don't I share with you how I record my voiceovers because it might be something you've not tried for your videos. I found it's a really good technique to actually get videos done. Sometimes if you're trying to walk and talk or film and talk at the same time, you're trying to think about what you're saying while you're actually doing the thing that you're commentating on. And many times it just gets in the way because you're worrying about or you're thinking about what you're trying to say as well as doing what you need to do, you know, on the topic that you're filming. So, I wanted to show this just as another way of getting videos out on your YouTube channel. So, it works like this. Instead of filming something and talking at the same time, you just film yourself doing the thing. And it just completely takes the weight off your shoulders having to think of something interesting or even calling out all the steps that you want to commentate on. It also means that you can just enjoy doing the thing that you do that you're filming and worry about how you're going to explain that to the viewer just some other time in the future. This video is about me building a really complicated Lego train station. I knew it would take me 9 hours to build, so I just went ahead and did it and filmed everything. And then I thought, well, what if I sped up the footage? So, it's like a time lapse, nine hours worth of building into just a couple of minutes, and you'll just see it come together. And it it worked really well. It looked really good. But looking at the footage now, it just feels a bit a bit plain. So, I'm going to record uh a voice over at the beginning to explain what I'm doing and point out some of the things that I want to point out. And I'm doing that with this. It's a DJI Mic 2 and it actually comes with the DJI Pocket 3 camera that I'm filming this on. I I just thought, why don't I turn the camera on and then you can see how I do this because it might be something that you want to do for your videos. So, I've got the edit up here. I've moved to DaVinci Resolve. Tell me in the comments if you want me to talk about moving to DaVinci Resolve. It's very similar to Final Cut Pro, which is what I've been using for the last 5 years. And I was on iMovie before that. And then I got worried that I was locked into the Apple ecosystem and if my my MacBook died then my editing stopped. So I wanted DaVinci Resolve because you can use that on a Mac and a PC. So I've edited the footage here and I've actually got it playing out on my laptop down here. So I've got a big screen version while the edit is playing through. So, I can have the footage playing here while I'm commentating and I'll just commentate on the footage. The other reason that I wanted to do this, YouTube takes all kinds of cues to decide what your video is about, what you write in the description. For a long time, it's been really good at analyzing the footage and being able to tell what the subject matter is just by looking at the visuals. It also takes cues from the thumbnail. Some people reckon there are other bits of metadata that might also go into that mix, that soup, where YouTube decides what the video is about. Some people reckon the file names are taken into account or tags that you put in underneath the description. For me, I think YouTube takes all kinds of cues, as much data as possible to analyze your video to decide who to show it to. One of those very very strong uh influences is the soundtrack. It's the transcription. It creates a transcript of your video pretty much within minutes of uploading. And I think it then analyzes that transcript to decide what your video is about. It makes sense. It's obvious that if you're talking about something, it will want to know what you're saying. So, if I had a video that's just a time-lapse footage of me building a Lego building, I reckon it could tell pretty quickly on first analysis that it's about Lego. But with a soundtrack on top of that, it has extra data to go on and keywords and buzzwords and phrases. So, I think recording a voice on something that is just essentially B-roll footage will help bump up its Google juice. This technique, I've done it also within videos where I might do a piece to camera. So, I'll talk to camera like this and then I'll cut to footage and I'll voice that over later on so I don't have to worry about thinking of something to say. You don't have to do this, but I've made little notes just to just to help guide me. I don't need to get it right first time. I can edit this voice over. So, I'm going to vamp. In the in the industry, we call it vamping. I'm going to vamp on these key words, these key phrases. I don't if you can see them. And I've got uh two Post-it notes worth here. Feel I feel slightly self-conscious that you're here watching it, but um I just wanted to show this process because this is another way of making videos that you might not have considered. And you can just watch over my shoulder. Maybe I'll put it in the the footage on screen, but I'll leave the fluffs in so you can see how this goes, how this rolls. When I do voice over, I like to smile. The emotion that your body is carrying will definitely come out in your voice. Or just raising my eyebrows just to uh it just gives you a bit of energy. I've got a really creaky chair as well. I always want to belch just before I start.

This is Brickester station. It's also known as the meeting point. I want to call this Lego station brick cross, but that's a whole other Lego design. See, I've gone wrong there. So, I'll go back. I want to call this model Brick Cross, but that is an actual name of another model in the world of Lego compatible railway models. But look at it. It's absolutely massive. It looks like a really major mainline station. And I think it's beautiful. I would. This is actually an originally This is originally a Lego ideas design, but now it's a Jie Star set. I've not heard of that brand either, but they're pretty big in the world of construction bricks that are compatible with LEGO. And this set is the 89154.

It has 2,50.

It has 2,850 pieces and it lights up. There's a lighting kit that comes with the set, which is fantastic. Now, I'm going to speed build this for you right now in a moment. I'm going to go back to the beginning and we're going to speed build this in just under a couple of minutes. This model is the centerpiece of my Lego city railway.

I've built a whole subway layout around my uh garden office, and I think this is going to take pride of place on one of the curves. There's a playlist in the description for all of my hidden Lego City Railway videos. And to this model, I'll be adding some Blue Bricks modern platforms. I have a a build video for you down in the description. And also some TrixBrix track automation. So, I've got some points and uh signals that will be built around this station. I really enjoyed this build. It comes with a really nice book. You can probably just see it on the on screen there. The printed instructions are great and really super clear. All of the pieces were there, which was a bit of a worry when you're buying something on AliExpress that isn't branded by like the Danish company, but the all the pieces were there and the price is absolutely fantastic for how big this model is and how impressive it is. So much detail. You can see me building the bookshop, the WH Smith news agents. Uh, I'm going to call this station Camden Road when it goes onto my layout. And I'm actually going to turn it on its side so that it will act as a terminus. And there'll be one through platform down the side, but I'm going to twist the station round so that the platform that you see in this model will actually be the concourse for the platforms joining it, if that makes sense. This set took me 9 hours to build. I've seen from the video footage. I've added it up. I did it over a number of days and it was just so much fun. There's so many little interesting techniques here. And I think the intricate detail of some of these rooms, I'm not even going to see them because it's just going to be on the corner of my layouts, but you can see it from a distance, but through the windows you can see it's got a nice restaurant area,

a station cafe, a piano, a little uh piano that anyone can play, stairs, ticket machine, and I really like the destination boards as well. I think they look really uh really impressive and really authentic as well. It comes with some it comes with some figures too so that uh you can populate your station. And I'm going to just let this build run now so you can see how easily it came together over the nine hours.

If you like videos like this, give me a thumbs up. If you like videos like this, feel free to put a thumbs up or hit the subscribe button because my videos on my LEGO builds just get no views whatsoever. So, I do appreciate you you watching along and say hi in the comments. It' be great to hear from you. But, I'll just be quiet now and just let the building commence. But I'll just be quiet now and let the building continue.

So that's it. I'm just going to let that run at the beginning of the of the video. You could hear the stumbles. That's I'm in voice over speak now. You could probably hear some of the stumbles. Um it doesn't matter because I can edit those out. In the TV industry, we call it vamping. uh where you have a rough script, but it's just down to you to vamp what's in your head. What's interesting is that I find that if you speak naturally, so you don't script it to the word. Your brain tends to edit what you what you say, people don't really mind. I obviously you'll critique this, but I think when you're watching videos and there's a voice over, the visuals are so compelling. It's almost like this audio wallpaper where it's it's nice to have someone chatting along. I don't think there's that much pressure on you to say something uh hugely insightful. Just explaining your thought process and also how you felt while you're doing the thing that you're commentating. Those kind of things really help. I think people find that interesting. What do you think? Is this something you might want to try for your videos? Is it something you do already? Do you have any tips for anyone watching this video? Is this something that you think you might try for yours? Thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button if you've reached this point of the video. And all my tips for you, you YouTube creators for YouTube creators, they're down in the description. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.


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Dehumidifier Running Costs: How Much Electricity Does it Use?


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Wednesday, 14 January 2026

My BEST Ever Gear Bag! (HP Creator backpack review...)



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I have been looking for the ultimate rucksack for three years, and I finally found it by chance. The HP Creator Backpack (16.1 inch) is a game changer for anyone who hates piling their gear in a heap. I review the customizable Velcro shelf system that makes this the perfect budget camera bag, plus the hidden anti-theft clips, RFID pocket, and the built-in waterproof rain cover. I also do a real world packing test for a weekend trip to show you how much gear actually fits. If you want a professional layout without the "camera bag" price tag, this might be your new backpack!

My BEST Ever Gear Bag! (HP Creator backpack review...)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
I think I have found the Oh, that's a bit high, isn't it? I think I have found the ultimate rucksack. I've been looking for a backpack for about 3 years with all of these features. I found it by chance by wandering through a store in the UK called John Lewis. It's the HP Creator backpack. This is it. This is the one I've been looking for. This is the keeper. I'm getting a bit too excited about it. I have been looking for a rucksack where there are shelves, there are compartments, and actually this could be the ultimate camera bag as well. The price is, I think, insane for a camera bag. But even if you're just looking for a regular just a regular backpack, this could be the one. I've paid for this with my own money. This is completely self-bought. This hasn't been sponsored or gifted in any way. Uh, I've paid cold cold hard cash for this, but the price I think is really reasonable for what you get. I'm not the world's biggest HP fan, which is a bit of an understatement. Um, not a big fan of their computers, so I was quite surprised when I saw this bag and I thought, well, it's just a laptop bag, isn't it? And then I opened it up and the colour and the layout and the quality of the materials are just exquisite. This just makes me smile when I open when I open the bag. It just makes me smile. And it has these removable compartments. They velcro on to the soft cloth inner lining. So, you can make these shelves whatever shape you want them, which is ideal. And that's how a camera bag works. But if you just want a regular rucksack and you don't want all your stuff to get crushed when you pile everything in, this is absolutely I hate using this word. I never use this word. It's game changing. I think this could be my game changer keeper rucksack. Before I get too giddy, let me take you through the unboxing and I'll just show you completely every feature that I love about this bag. This is how the HP Creator backpack arrives. And oh my goodness, I think this is going to be my ultimate rucksack. I don't want to pre-empt this, but I've got a really, really good feeling about this. This is what it looks like all around. Let's just open it up because I think that is where it excels. Oh, it just looks bright. It looks really inviting and it's customizable. Inside we have an area for your 16.1 inch laptop, but also crucially, it has two pouches, which is one of the things on my list because I do uh morning pages every day on my yellow pad, and I can really see my laptop fitting in there and there. I'll pack it later. so you can see what it's like full. There have been some really odd comments on the John Lewis website, which is where I bought mine, saying that it's not usable as a rucksack. And it's absolute nonsense because these these shelves I don't want to move the shelves because I do actually like the layout. But just to demonstrate, they're attached by Velcro. You can completely configure this to whatever shape you want. But I really like how they've done it here. even though I don't have a camera with a traditional big lens, but you can move these, take them out, and have them whichever way you want to to run the boxes. The Velcro is really nice and wide. If you are looking for a general purpose rucksack, do not be put off by these. And actually, I see these as a feature, and I'll explain that as I go because this is what I've been looking for for about 3 years now. At the top, we have this dangly pouch, and it's on a Carabinier. I can never pronounce it. Carabinier uh hook that latches there. That'll be great for my keys. But in here there's a waterproof jacket for the rucksack. It sits in the bag and it's got a little dongle that it hangs on. Let's open it up and make this completely waterproof. And the case stays attached. So that's good. I won't lose it. It opens up like this. It's elasticated. So I think it just goes over like this. Oh, that's really handy. That would be really handy on the bike, but again, no high viz. No high viz. Now, the rucksack and my precious technical contents are going to be completely waterproof, completely dry, whatever the British weather or any other place I go to throws at it. There's a really cool stretchy elasticated fabric for putting in knickknacks in there. I'm really attracted to the colour. It is really bright. Orange isn't really my thing, but this just looks really jolly when you open it. And you can see instantly what is in here. I'll just do this strap up here. Let's give you a tour of the outside. The zips look fairly They look fairly rugged. These zipper clips are actually anti- theft clips. Look, I can uh clip them into each other. So, you can't get a pickpocket just dipping dipping your bag very easily. you'd have to fiddle around with opening the clips, which is a nice touch. Let me show you my old rucksack just to show you what I'm moving on from and why I'm raving about this. I had to fit my own clips to put that anti- theft device in. And the the zips are absolutely destroyed, which is why I'm looking for a new rucksack. The next feature that I absolutely love are the handles. So, there's one handle on the top and one on the side, so you can hold it in either orientation, which is going to be really handy. We also have the straps at the back. This feels like it's elasticated. There's a waist strap there that I can unclip here. There's only a tiny bit of high viz. It's I'm glad that it's catching the light for the camera. So, we've got two tiny bits of high viz, which is probably the only downside with this, which is a really tiny niggle. We have a strap at the back here so you can put it onto a suitcase, you know, an extendable suitcase. The back, it doesn't really come across on camera, but we've got a mesh and foam. This looks really comfortable and really protective, but also really good at dissipating heat and sweat, so you don't get a sweaty back. And there's a zipper pouch in here, which I believe is RFID. Yeah, there we go. Can you see that says RFID? So, every rucksack does not have a silver lining, but this one does. I don't... It's not silver. It's silver coloured. It's supposed to block RFID signals. We have a water bottle. I've got a water bottle over here. I use quite a big half litre water bottle. It's what, 18 oz. If you're not in the UK, that fits so comfortably. And there's also a strap here. So, if you have a tripod, you could just put the tripod in there. Let's open up the zip on the front. Nice orange flash there. And I just wish that there was something on here that was uh high viz. But that would that's obviously a huge design choice, isn't it? They want it to be sleek. My crucial pocket. And I think this is what's guided me through rucksack purchases for the last three rucksacks is being able to access stuff from the side. Look at that. You go straight into the pouch on the inside. So, you could have things that you need quick access to in that area of the adjustable customizable sections. Let's open it up. I'll show you how that works. Open it up. It's like a little trap door here. You can just put whatever you need there. And you could configure these customizable areas to uh to serve this this pouch. So maybe you want to turn it into two shelves. A couple of years ago, I bought my very first camera bag. I've got footage of it here. Absolutely gorgeous, but it's huge. It's enormous. And it really is just a camera bag. It would be really difficult to use this as a general purpose rucksack. The problem with rucksacks is that everything is piled up. It's just everything. It goes into a heap, even without creator material. So without cameras, microphones, batteries, any rucksack is just going to pile everything on top of each other. And I... I don't like that. And it doesn't seem very respectful for the stuff that I put into the rucksack. It is 2 days later. I've... I've taken the rucksack, the backpack on its first trip. Have a look. This is what I've got in here. So, in the in the zip section, I've got pens and earphones, that kind of thing. And then in here, I've managed to get all my clothing for a weekend. Into the top section, I've got my vitamins, uh, supplements there. I've got, uh, battery power pack and accessory for my camera. I've got the DJI Nano. I've got a whole list of videos on that, a whole playlist. I've got two pairs of glasses and my headphones. I've... I've taken out the laptop. Hang on a sec. Jump cut. And I mean, here I've got my my notebook and my laptop. What is interesting about this is on every rucks sack I've ever owned, the laptop has actually been in a pocket at the top here. And it is really strange having the laptop in the front, cuz I didn't think I'd like it, but I've grown to love it because this strap, as well as holding it in, it stops you from being dipped. So, you can't just like put your hand in and and pull it up. You've got to really reach in to disconnect the Velcro to get the laptop out. So, actually, I think that might be a more secure solution overall and more Yeah, just more secure. I think I will leave the the compartments exactly as they arrived out of the box, but I'm really pleased with how much stuff I could get in. I've got so much more room as well, even for my minimal weekend packing. This does feel like a very generous rucksack. So, time to put it on. I think I've got a frozen arm here cuz I've hit that age and I'm doing osteopath work. But you can adjust it really easy. Just flip up this this catch here and that loosens it and then you can get your arm into the other into the other strap. Took me years to work that out there and it it goes on really easily. And then we have the the waist straps. My uh girth is a little uh more generous than out of the box. Perfect. Perfect fit. And then you can tighten the straps. I'm running for the train. I'm running for the shot. If you want, there's also a chest strap here. This one is elasticated as well, so it's got some give in it. So, I don't want to hit the the microphone. And you can loosen and tighten this as well. That is absolutely rock solid. It feels really good. I'm getting I can't tell you how long I've spent trying to find a rucksack where I don't pile everything in, which also doesn't cost more than £100 or $100 to do it at 40. I'm just I still can't believe I found this. But if you are looking for a bag for your gear for your YouTube channel or your, you know, your other Instagram or Tik Tok equipment, this is absolutely something that I think could really work for you. The price is perfect. The size, the weight is perfect. The look is perfect. The only downside with this, I mentioned it during the unboxing. I do like having just a little little bit of colour, little bit of high viz, and I'm going to have to work out a way to destroy the aesthetic beautiful sleek look of this bag somehow. I don't know, maybe I could have like some kind of neon flashing water bottle. If you have any recommendations for high viz flare or clip-on lights, say hi in the comments. I'd really appreciate any any tips there. I've got a link to this bag down in the description below so you can see the latest price. If you've reached this point of the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.


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IPAD: How to SCREEN RECORD!


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IPAD: How to SCREEN RECORD!



Can't find the screen record button on your iPad after the latest update? Apple has moved things around and the screen recorder is now found in the new "Add a Control" menu. In this real-time tutorial, I show you the instructions for how to activate the screen recorder, the secret long-press trick to turn on your microphone, and where your finished videos are saved in the Photos app. Whether you’re on an iPad Pro, iPad Air, or iPad Mini, this is the quickest way to start recording your screen for YouTube Shorts, TikTok, or Instagram Reels.

IPAD: How to SCREEN RECORD!



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

How do you record the screen of your Apple iPad? Maybe you're sharing a funny Tik Tok or Instagram reel or recording a tutorial for YouTube shorts. Apple makes screen recording simple, but the iPad's built-in screen recorder can be slightly hidden. If you can't find it, don't worry. We'll activate this together. Here's my iPad on screen now so you can follow along. First, swipe down from the top right hand corner. This opens the control center with all its quick toggles for switching things on and off. Look for a button with a circle and a dot in it. That's the screen record button. If it isn't there, keep watching. Here's a pro tip. If you long press on this button, so hold it down for a few seconds, you can turn your microphone on or off if you want to be heard during the screen recording. These options here are for other apps to send the recording to when it's finished. If the screen record button isn't here, long press anywhere on a blank part of the screen. Then press on this option at the bottom here. Add a control. Click on that. And on this screen, there's a bar, search controls. Here we'll type in screen recording. And that brings up the screen recorder icon. Just tap on the icon and that adds the screen recorder button to your control panel. And now it's active. We can just press it or long press the button to start the screen recording. It gives us a 3second countdown. And then we know it's recording because there's a red recording icon at the top of the screen. To stop the recording, just tap on the red icon in the top bar and then it saves the video to photos in your camera roll on your iPad. Congratulations, you can now record anything on your iPad screen. If this video is helping, thanks for hitting the thumbs up button. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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How to TURN OFF Google Spoken Results: 3 Sneaky Settings You MUST Check


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Monday, 5 January 2026

FAST Screen Record on iPhone (iOS Hidden Setting!)



Trying to record your iPhone screen for a YouTube Short, Instagram Reel or TikTok but can't find the button? Here's how you customize your Control Center in iOS: the screen recorder is hidden behind the "Add a Control" menu. In this real-time guide, I show you exactly how to activate the screen recorder, how to use the long-press trick to turn on your microphone, and where your videos are automatically saved. Whether you're on a new iPhone 16 or an older model updated to the latest Apple software, this is the quickest way to start capturing your screen with audio today.

FAST Screen Record on iPhone (iOS Hidden Setting!)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

How do you record the screen of your Apple iPhone? Maybe you're sharing a funny TikTok or Instagram reel or recording a tutorial for YouTube shorts. Apple makes screen recording simple, but the iPhone's built-in screen recorder is slightly hidden. If you can't find it, don't worry. We'll activate this together. Here's my iPhone on screen so you can follow along. First, swipe down from the top right hand corner. This opens the control center with all its quick toggles for switching things on and off. Look for a button with a circle and a dot in it. That's the screen record button. Here's a pro tip. If you long press on this button, so hold it down for a few seconds, you can turn your microphone on or off if you want to be heard during the screen recording. If the button isn't there, long press anywhere on a blank part of the screen, then press on this option at the bottom here, "add a control". Click on that and on this screen there's a bar, search controls. Here we'll type screen recording and that brings up the screen recorder icon. Just tap on the icon and that adds the screen recorder to your control panel. And now it's active. We can just press it or long press the button to start screen recording. It gives us this 3 second countdown. And then we know it's recording because there's a red recording dot and a bar at the top of the screen. To stop the recording, just tap that bar and then it saves the video to photos in your camera roll on your phone. Congratulations, you can now record anything on your iPhone screen. If this video is helping, thanks for hitting the thumbs up button. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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How to link DJI MIC MINI to DJI POCKET 3 camera...


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Friday, 19 December 2025

How to link DJI MIC MINI to DJI POCKET 3 camera...



How to Connect DJI Mic Mini wireless microphone to DJI Pocket 3 camera (Full Guide To Pair)

Is the DJI MIC MINI the best microphone for your YouTube videos? BUY HERE! (commissions earned)
DJI Osmo Nano Camera
DJI Pocket 3 camera:
Chromlives Camera Handle Hand Grip:
DJI Osmo Nano Tempered glass protective screen


How to link DJI MIC MINI to DJI POCKET 3 camera...



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
to pair the DJI Mic Mini with the DJI Pocket 3 camera. Going to turn on the Pocket 3 and then I'm going to swipe down to bring up the settings menu and then I'm going to go into settings. Our first option on the menu here is wireless mic. So I'll click on that and you see there are two ports available, TX1 and TX2. TX stands for transmitter one and transmitter 2. So you can choose which TX number you want to put it on. I'll put it on TX1. And I have a message here saying power on DJI Osmo Audio and pair. Back on the DJI Mic Mini, can you see there's like a chain icon on this button here? That's the link button above the power button. I'm going to hold down the link button for 3 seconds. And I don't know if you can see that, but it's flashing alternately blue and green. And then it's finally ended on a solid blue color here. And if I hold up the Pocket 3, we can see that DJI Osmo Audio connected. So the microphone is now connected with the Pocket 3. I'll hit confirm. And you can see that it's taken this slot, the TX1 slot. If you scroll down, you have all these other options where you can control the microphone transmitter from the Pocket 3 camera. So if I hit the LED button, toggle that off. It's turned the LED light off. So, if you want to turn the light off on your DJI Mic Mini, because it's distracting sometimes, especially if you're in the dark, and we can turn it on and off just by pressing the switch on and off. I'll leave it back on. Now, if you want to disconnect or unpair the DJI Mic Mini from the Pocket 3, maybe you want to connect it to something else or you want a different microphone to be connected to the Pocket 3. I'll click on the TX1 button, and we have two options. We have disconnect and reconnect. If I hit reconnect, I get this warning message. Connecting to another transmitter will disconnect transmitter 2. So the reconnect button means you can change this microphone to say another microphone, which could be another mic mini or my DJI Mic 2. But to unpair it and disconnect it, I'm just going to hit the disconnect button on the left hand side here. And it gives a warning. Transmitter one will no longer be connected automatically. So, I'll hit confirm. And you can see that the microphone is disconnected. And if I click the button to swing the camera around, this is how the DJI Mic Mini sounds on the DJI Pocket 3 camera. What do you think? Is this How's this sounding to you? I'll I'll do a little comparison with the DJI Mic Mini and the onboard microphone with the DJI Pocket 3. So, this is how the DJI Mic Mini sounds on the Pocket 3. And this is how the onboard microphone, the built-in microphone on the DJI Pocket 3 camera sounds. You should be able to hear quite a difference between the internal microphone on the Pocket 3 when compared with Thank you for some drilling the background. When compared with the DJI Mic Mini wireless microphone, I'm I'm just trying to give you as much as many sounds as possible. I'm trying to talk as much as possible so you can hear that difference between this, which is the DJI Mic Mini, and the built-in internal microphone. that's uh that's actually inside the Pocket 3 camera. There's quite a difference, isn't there? Something I wasn't expecting was quite how small this thing is. I mean, obviously it's called Mini for a reason. But it is so easy to drop it, at least with my other DJI microphones. They have a bit of heft to them, a bit of size. This, I mean, I mean, you could just lose it down the side of the sofa or somewhere. I'm really glad that I have the carry pouch. I I could really easily lose this, I think.


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How to LOOP YouTube video on MOBILE


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How much YouTube PAYS ME for TWO CHANNELS! 💰



Full transparent look at my YouTube analytics! I share how much I earn per month across my two monetized YouTube channels: this channel plus my "Dad Delivers vlog". 
Breaking down the total figure and deep dive into the stats: RPM (Revenue Per Mille/thousand views), daily earnings, impressions, and subscriber trends. I show you how to use the YouTube Studio Advanced Mode to create video groups to track profit... Plus, I share my "3 S's" of content strategy (Search, Subscriber, Sales).

How much YouTube PAYS ME for TWO CHANNELS! 💰



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello, welcome back to the channel and welcome to Penzance. It's just out in the background there. I'm going to go through all of my YouTube analytics. I'm going to try and show you everything, how much I earn from YouTube every month, how much they pay me, what views I get for that money, and also maybe some of my click-through rates and uh revenue per thousand, RPM as well. I know if you're watching these kind of videos, it's kind of handy sometimes to to see how other channels work, even though we try not to compare. And so, this isn't for comparing or for bragging or for anything. This is just a pure flat airing of what I get every month. I'm hoping that this helps you either judge or gauge how well your channel is going. But mainly, I I want to do this to help you keep going. if you if you're not monetized. It's also a bit of a celebration because I've hit 50,000 subscribers on this channel and I've hit 10,000 subscribers on the Dad Delivers channel. 10,000 subs, it it doesn't seem like a big party time because you don't get a play button. You don't seem to get anything. But I found with both channels that once you hit 10,000 subscribers, that's when potential sponsors seem to get interested and it's when bots try to find you and get in touch with you with all kinds of amazing offers. I pretty much turn well I turn all of them down. I I think a lot of them are fishing, but it it feels like a mark of achievement to hit 10,000 subs because it seems so long. It took me about um 5 years for both channels. I think I launched the Dad Delivers channel in around it was it was 2020. It was during co and I was moving all my dad videos off off of this channel just to make this a bit more niched towards how to do YouTube. So, it's been about 5 years to to hit 10,000 subscribers on the dad vlog. Now, as the sun is setting in the west, and I've got the west behind me, but I had to have the coastline behind me. I couldn't point it the other way, so I'm going to be a bit blown out. And uh I don't know. I don't even know if you can see my face, but here's my face on my YouTube studio desktop. You can get to this on your channel by just going to a browser and typing in studio.youtube.com. If maybe you run your channel as shorts or you run it from your phone, it is really worth taking a look at the the studio site on a browser. If you're ever near a tablet or a laptop or desktop, these are my statistics for the last 28 days. Things tend to get good for me in October for a variety of reasons which I'll I'll go through with you. But you can see on my dad vlog, I have 10,500 subscribers. I'm doing about 7,000 views a day and that's that's going up. So, that's trending upwards. If I show you the last 90 days, how it kind of creeps up around this time of year. I've got all my how-tos on this channel. And what I've managed to do is dovetail summertime videos. So, that's u reviews of some mowers. And then they tail off in around September. And then I get my autumn videos and winter videos, my how-to on how to set a very specific central heating thermostat controller, and my reviews of some dehumidifiers. So, I managed to keep the summer and winter covered, but there's this horrible changeover that happens around March, April, and September, October where the two aren't aren't maxing out. I've got nice big green arrows. You can see on my big tabs here. The views are generally up 7%. For watch time, that's up to 14,000 hours per month. Subscribers, they're up. If you click on that, it shows you in a bit more detail. About um well, 3 months ago, I was, you know, getting between five and 12 subscribers a day. Now that has kind of shot up to 15 uh 22 subscribers a day, which is always good. But I think honestly think it's because of the dehumidifier review. You can see on the right hand side here my top performing videos for views. The dehumidifier one. There's a short on how to clean the USB port on your phone, but it's done way more views than I thought it would. My third top video is there's a really specific record button on the Samsung phone. It's really annoying. It's on the dialer and you can't remove it. So, I've got a how to stop it recording your calls when you accidentally hit it with your ear. If I hit see more, this is this might be helpful actually because it shows all my top views for the last 48 hours. So, the last two days and I find it really annoying to see all the shorts in here because the shorts don't earn me the money. It's the long videos that earn me the money and I want to see which ones of my long videos are doing well in this list. There's a really easy way to do this. If you click up on filter on the top left hand side, pull this down and then we'll click on content type. You can choose which type of video. So for the long form videos, they're just called videos. You can only do one at a time. So I'm going to select videos and apply. And now it's filtered out all my long form videos. And I can see my top performing videos here, which is really helpful actually in in terms of focusing on what videos I want to make next. for the vlog. I did I've got so many capricious fruity fun videos that I want to make and I've actually shot them, but I know that that it's the how-tos that earn the money and I want to earn $100 a day on YouTube. This channel is averaging and I'll show you. So, if I click on the revenue box here, you can see it's really climbing because of these dehumidifier videos. So, it's shot up in the last few days to 36 38 $36 a day, which is absolutely delicious. I remember when both channels were earning that amount combined. Let's let's bring it back to month. In a month, this channel brings in $790 and I'm in the UK. It's about £600 a month. We can get some extra information on the revenue. If you see the tab along the top here, I'll quickly flick through them. So, we have a content tab here and you can see your views. The impressions are how many thumbnails are being offered to potential viewers. So, you know, when you're scrolling through YouTube, you see lots of thumbnails. My thumbnails from all my videos have been served. About 700,000 of them and about 6% of them have been clicked on. I ignore all of this. There's only one metric that I am concentrating on at the moment and that's how many videos I have on the channel. I just want to increase the number of videos on the channel. I've ignored these statistics, the click-through rate in particular, because it is completely out of my control as to how many impressions, how many thumbnails YouTube offers potential viewers, and it's completely out of my control the types of potential viewers they offer it to. They try out on different audiences. This is meaningless to me. To me, this doesn't help me get the next video out. So, I hope you're not getting too caught up in all of this. I think if you are um a baby channel uh but the more videos you make, the better your videos become and the more um data that YouTube has on those viewers. Just more videos is is the only metric that I follow. But that's my rant. I'm sure the gurus would disagree with me. Say hi in the comments below. But I really, you know, these are interesting statistics, but I really don't get caught up in them. I'll scroll down so you can see my audience statistics there. This is the tab we want to look at, the revenue tab. I'll just scroll the cursor over and you can see how much I'm earning per day from Google AdSense this month. Really going up recently, so that's nice. If I scroll down, it actually gives me the money per 1,000 views on YouTube. It's called RPM, revenue per mele. I keep saying this on the channel. The mle means thousand in Latin. It's very pretentious term borrowed from the advertising industry. A very pretentious industry. And I can see from here the not so pretentious amount of $6.52 per 1,000 views. Your RPM might be much higher than mine. And there all kinds of things that affect the RPM, the length of the videos, the type of audience. So if you have a slightly older audience that might actually advertisers might want to reach those people and pay more for them. Longer videos mean that there's a longer watch time per video which means there might be more ad breaks in the video. That tends to to lift the RPM. Uh my videos tend to be quite short because they're how-tos. A lot of them are tutorials. So, I'm trying my best to make longer videos as well, just to increase the money that each one brings in. But those are my top videos. The dehumidifier overview of why we should have a dehumidifier. And then we've got the Samsung call record, how to clean your phone USB ports. I like that one. Now, this this video has been out for ages. This is a really specific video on how to get a pack code for your mobile phone in the UK and it's about 6 years old now and it's still bringing in $23 a month which is lovely and you can see how this month compares with all the other months. So like I said I always get a uptick a surge in the revenue around October time and it it will be like this up until the 24th of December and then my revenue will plummet. I've got to find a way making more videos that might actually survive that that drop on the 24th of December. But I'll just celebrate the fact that it's bringing in $789 this month compared to these other months. There's a stark comparison with videos and shorts here. Obviously, I have far fewer shorts on my channel, but the RPM is so much lower on them anyway. And you can compare it on YouTube Studio. If we go back to the box over here, content performance on the right hand side, that is a filter for the RPM for my long form videos. If I click on the shorts, you can see that I earn $560 a month, but it's 16 per 1,000 views. Naturally, shorts have much higher view count, 50 times less per per 1,000 views. So, my view count would need to be 50 times my long form video view counts to earn the same money. Let me compare this now to the channel you're watching right now because this is my golden performer. I have completely disappeared into the sunset as well, which I kind of like. This is how much I earn per month on YouTube for the channel you're watching right now. $1,284 in the last 28 days. Uh, worryingly, it's dropped quite a lot in terms of views from 12,000 down to 10,000. I've no idea what what is accounting for that. I have about I think 370 videos. The watch time is 8,000 hours. A few years ago, I got really worried because my watch time was dropping to about 300 hours uh per month. And if it falls below 4,000 hours for the last year, you can have your monetization removed. I don't know anyone that's actually happened to, but I really wanted to keep my hours over 4,000 hours for the last 365 days to qualify for Google AdSense. What a difference 3 years has made because I'm now doing 8K a month in terms of hours. The subscribers, another crazy wild ride. I turned off channel memberships. I made a video about turning off YouTube memberships on the channel because I would I was convinced that having a membership button right next to the subscribe button was somehow stopping people from subscribing to my channel. It really hasn't changed anything. And look, I've actually got the lowest number of subscribers on Tuesday this week. That was yesterday. So take my advice on channel memberships with a huge pinch of salt. Along the bottom though, this is what I'm really proud of. Since the 21st of September, I have managed to put out one video every single day on this channel. You can see the gaps here, and I think it's purely from where a video was posted in the evening. And I'm putting out some old um shorts at the moment to tide me over. I'd love to keep this going. This might be worth experimenting with when I do release a video. So, if I go into this video about how to loop a YouTube video, there's a tick box all the way down really buried down in under see more in the details here. It's published to subscribers feed and notify subscribers. I'm experimenting on not annoying subscribers with really specific how-tos by turning off my videos being announced to subscribers. where I've done it. I've found that it really helps the performance of the video because subscribers, if it's a really specific how-to, subscribers are sort of interested in it. They might click on it, but they won't watch it as long as someone who is actually searching for that video. So, I think all YouTube videos fall into three camps. I call them the three S's. Other YouTube gurus break it down this way. I've not seen anyone break it down with the alliteration with the S. I think they're either for subscribers or your video is for search. If I have a video that answers a really specific question, I really don't think that general subscribers will be as interested as people doing a search, a Google search or YouTube search. So, I tend to not announce those videos to subscribers. other videos where I'm just like this video where I'm going through general stuff on YouTube. I want all my subscribers to know that I'm making this video. So, I would check this box here for those. Sales videos are thing things where if you're plugging something, maybe your your service or something that's not really to do with YouTube, uh that's the third category of of video. Let's go back to my money money. I I'll quickly flick through the other tabs. See, I find this tab, the content tab, really annoying. If I click on videos, I get 1 million impressions and I've got a clickthrough rate of 7.3%. That's nice. I have no idea how my 360 videos are doing that, so it's interesting, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. These are my subscribers, monthly audience. get the little explanation there which is the estimated total number of viewers in the last 28 days. And on the revenue tab, I have a video here. I made uh a whole video about this 2.6 million views. And in its lifetime, it's brought me 14 grand. I mean, I've I've worked on TV shows where I've not earned 14 grand to get that from a 9-minute video is something that brings me joy. You can see in the last 48 hours, it's brought in about 2,800 views. If I click on revenue, you can see it's bringing in about $10 to $15 a day, which is lovely. Let's go back to the channel revenue. Scroll down. And overall with those 370 odd videos, that's bringing in $5.76 a month. Let me choose another video, which is how to delete a Tik Tok video. In 246 days, I've earned $420. The RPM, if I click on the revenue tab for this, is $2.76. So, this video is earning half the money per thousand views as my Google Photos video. The reason for this is because it's a 2minut video. So, it's about a quarter of the length of my Google Photos video and Tik Tok has a much younger audience. If I click on audience, this might prove me wrong. Hang on, let's check. Yeah, it's generally younger than my other video, which again tends to bring down the the RPM. I'm going to show something to you now for how to compare a bunch of videos because I've always been worried about doing this. I always found it a bit complicated and I didn't really want to pry that much into the very specifics in here. But this is a fun exercise to do if you if you want to try this out. If you want to try and compare a specific batch of videos, up on the top right hand corner here, can you see this advanced mode button? I'm going to click on that and it brings up this advanced page. I can actually add videos to to a little group so I can see how that group of videos is doing. So, if I click on my face here under controls and it has all my latest videos here, there's a tab here called groups. So, if I click on groups, I've grouped together a bunch of videos where I've reviewed and made some how-to videos for the DJI Osmo Nano camera. Now, this camera cost me £260 and with the accessories is about £300, which is about roughly £400. So, I want to make $400 from my videos to make a profit on buying this camera. I've uh I've actually grouped together all the videos here. And I can see at a glance that every time I make a a Nano a DJI Nano video, I add it to this group. And there are 22 videos here. And it's got all the details in one place, which is actually really useful. But what's really even more useful, if I click on the left hand side here and make this last 90 days, I call it lifetime. This is how much all my DJI Nano videos have earned. And I can see at a glance, top right hand corner here, it's $104. They've had together 28,000 views. So, this is great. I'm about uh quarter of the way to making the money back on how much this camera cost to make these videos about the camera. Uh it's really helpful. So, if you wanted to make a group, here's how you do it. It's really easy. If you click under controls and we'll bring up this pull down menu, it brings up this window and I'm going to click on create new group. And then you just tick on the videos you want to add to the group. And you just tick the videos. And you can see they're appearing in the right hand column here. And once you've selected all the videos that you want to put in your group, I'm going to click on save. And it's untitled. So we can edit this group. So if I click on edit group, I can actually give it a title here and put on newer nano videos. You call it anything you like. then hit save. Now when I click on this group, it gives me all the stats for those 14 videos. So these 14 videos have earned me $23 since they've been released for lifetime of those videos. I'll pull this down to the last 28 days. And these 14 videos have earned me $2384 in the last month. So that's quite a a useful a useful tool. Something YouTube Studio doesn't seem to do is combine all your different channels. So, if you have more than one channel monetized, frustratingly, it doesn't add them up. So, I've got to add them up manually. $1,284 plus $789. How much is that? $2,73 a month is what I earn roughly for the last 28 days at time of recording. It fluctuates all the time. To convert that to British pounds, I just multiply that by.74 and it comes out at 1534. Is this useful? If you if you've reached this point of the video, thank you. I don't think I've ever made a video this long before. Uh, but I wanted to show you everything on both channels. Is it useful? Say hi in the comments if you've reached this point of the of the video. Also, if you have any specific questions or specific things you want to look at, ask me in the comments. It'd be lovely to hear from you. And if you have reached this point of the video, thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really truly does help me to keep these videos going. So, thank you. And right here are all the other YouTube creator videos I have on my channel. Thanks for watching.


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How to screen record on Android... (Samsung S24 built-in recorder tutorial)


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How to screen record on Android... (Samsung S24 built-in recorder tutorial)



Want to record a video clip of your phone screen for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reel, tutorial or Shorts? Complete guide on how to screen record on Android using the built-in feature (Samsung Galaxy S24). I show you the easiest way to start using the Quick Settings panel and how to choose the right audio settings (No Sound, Media, or Media + Mic). Plus deep-dive into the powerful floating toolbar, showing you how to pause the recording, use the front-facing camera for reaction videos, and draw/highlight directly on the screen. I also show where to find your final screen recordings in the Gallery and how to change the advanced settings like video quality.

How to screen record on Android... (Samsung S24 built-in recorder tutorial)



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
How do you record the screen on an Android phone? Sometimes we need to show someone exactly what's happening on our phone and screen record video clips for our Tik Tok, Instagram reels, or YouTube videos. I'm doing this on my Samsung Galaxy S24 with a feature that's built into this device. Or if you can't find this on your Android phone, there's a screen recorder app linked in the description below. The easiest way to start is through your quick settings panel. Swipe down from the very top right hand corner of your screen. Or if it doesn't look like this, try swiping down from the middle once, then a second time to fully expand the quick settings panel. Look for the icon that says screen recorder. Yours might be on a second page of icons, so swipe left if it looks different on your phone. Here's the screen recorder icon. If you can't see it, click on the pen icon at the top, then edit to reveal all the possible buttons and look for screen recorder there. When I tap on the screen recorder icon, it brings up this menu. We can choose what sound it will capture while recording the screen. either no sound, media, which is the sound the phone is playing, like music or game sounds, or media and mic to record your phone's microphone at the same time. There's also an option to show taps and touches. I'll turn this on to show you what it does, but basically it highlights where your finger comes into contact with the screen while it's recording. I'll press start recording and we see this 3-second countdown to get ready and recording begins. In the top right hand corner, we have this small floating toolbar. This is our control center and this doesn't appear in the screen recording. You can long press on this control center bar to drag it around the screen to have any position you like. There's a pause button here so we can pause the recording without ending it. The pen icon lets us draw or highlights things on the screen while recording. And if I tap on the color, we can change the color and the thickness of the pen. Now we can write or draw whatever we like on the screen. And there's an undo button, too, to clear things up. The person icon here lets me activate my front-facing camera. Now I can record my beautiful face in this small circle and I can drag the circle to wherever I want on the screen. This is perfect for gaming streams or quick reaction videos. If I want to minimize the control panel, click on this small triangle here. And now it just shows the timing of the recording. Swipe left on this to open up the panel again. When we're done, simply tap the stop button, which looks like a square. I'll show you where this recording goes, but first, let me show you the settings you can change. Go into your phone's settings and then advanced features, then screenshots and screen recordings. Scroll down to the recordings section and we can set the default for the audio. Choose the video quality. Set the size of the camera circle and choose which folder to save the screen recordings. This is the folder to go to if you want to transfer the videos to a computer. To find your screen recordings, just open up your gallery app. The video is right there in your main album and it's also in the album called screen recordings. From here, we can edit it, share it, or delete the file. The recordings also appear in Google Photos, which also has an album for screenshots and recordings. Congratulations, we can now record our Android phone screens. If this video is helping, thanks for hitting the thumbs up button. And right here are all my other essential Android phone tips and tricks.

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Sony ZV-1 Battery Change Guide: How to replace Camera Battery in Seconds


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Sunday, 26 October 2025

Why I'm STOPPING my YouTube Memberships



Sharing exactly why I am turning off YouTube Memberships on my channel, and walking you through the entire disable process in real time! This video is essential if you are monetized, interested in recurring income, or considering YouTube memberships. I have 3 big problems with the feature, focusing on the split call-to-action (Subscribe vs Join button), hiding my best videos behind a paywall, and poor user experience of member-only videos in your feed. Full step-by-step tutorial on how to safely disable memberships and why I choose subscriber growth over recurring membership income. Is this a good move? 

Why I'm STOPPING my YouTube Memberships



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
I am turning off my YouTube memberships on my channel, but I'm also sharing with you why I'm ending YouTube memberships. And I'm doing that in real time so you can follow along. Because if you're not monetized and interested in how you can earn money here on YouTube, or maybe you have memberships and are thinking about this too, for many creators, memberships work brilliantly. It's a way to make a paid exclusive community with reliable recurring income. For me, memberships are a great space to make less formal and quick to make videos, the more experimental stuff, but there's just something that's not working for me. There are many problems that I have with the membership feature, and this is why I'm turning it off now. So, the first problem and probably the biggest right now, if you look at my channel page or videos where you'd usually see the single subscribe button, I was shocked that instead you see a big fat join button. For me, this is a split call to action, which means a new viewer is being asked to do more than one thing. I think my number one priority right now is hitting 100,000 subscribers. It's purely a vanity metric, I know, but it's important to me. The join button, no matter how great the perks are, and we'll get on to that problem in a minute, the join button, I think, pulls focus from what I want the viewer to do and from growing my free subscriber base. And it turns out that is quite important to me. The second problem is hiding my best work behind a pay wall. The whole purpose of this channel, my whole reason for doing it is to encourage as many people as possible, you to make more videos here on YouTube. When I turned YouTube memberships on, I suddenly realized that all the videos I'm making for members only are all videos I actually want as many people as possible to see. By making the videos exclusive, I'm stopping them from doing the work that I want them to do out in the world. I don't want my videos hidden. I think I want them out there helping people. Which brings us on to problem number three, which is how members only videos are presented in viewers feeds. My members only videos and posts appear in your YouTube feed. You might see a great thumbnail if I've, you know, managed to put some effort into it and you click on it and then you're hit with a pay to see screen. For me, I think that's a frustrating user experience. Even worse, that's one impression, one thumbnail that could have been used instead to promote the videos that I want to be seen. All of this works really well for other creators, but having to build up a whole library of videos that no one's watching in the hope that one day it might equal what I would have earned with Google AdSense is a big ask for me. I'm already working for nothing on this. So then to do that again from scratch with no upside for potentially a lot of work, it it just felt like one push too far. I know, I get it. You've got to speculate to accumulate, but I can only make so many videos per month. To then make even more videos or make fewer that instantly pay so I can make the members only videos, it's just too much for me. Your experience may vary and you may have a channel with hundreds of people wanting to pay you directly every month. I just don't think my channel is there yet. Which means let's turn off the YouTube memberships right now. I'm in YouTube studio on a desktop and we are going to click on the earn tab on the left hand side here. These are all the features that I have switched on for my monetized channel. If I click on memberships, and this has been enabled for about five or 6 months now, you can see the hundreds of dollars I'm earning from the thousands of members I've managed to attract to my channel. I did have lots of videos and posts up. I've been slowly removing them from the from the memberships. To end YouTube memberships for your channel, at time of recording, the option is slightly hidden. I'll put a link to the YouTube help article in the description for the latest guidance. All we have to do is click on these three dots next to your memberships offer. Then click on disable channel memberships. This brings up a warning. If you do, you will lose all of your members and any future revenue that you might receive from channel memberships. This action can't be undone. I will tick the box to say I understand and want to turn off memberships for all my fans, all my thousands of fans there. Then we will click on the turn off button. Oh, it's thinking about it. There you go. So, it's reset itself to the splash page that we had before we started memberships. Grow your community and earn monthly. And if you want to restart memberships, I think yeah, you could just go through the process again. I have a video down in the description that walks you through the entire memberships setup process. YouTube will automatically refund members for their last month's payment if their billing cycle isn't complete. I'm really excited about this because it means I can finally release these hidden videos and get those views and watch time and revenue, but it also helps me feel okay about doing more experimental quick turnaround videos in future. Are YouTube memberships something that work for you? Let me know down in the comments below or to just say hi and thank you for hitting the thumbs up button or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going and means far more to me than a monthly subscription. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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YouTube Shorts: How to LINK to other videos... get FREE extra views!


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