I’ve been asked a few times why my videos are so short. I always kept them short because I feel people on YouTube are there for quick doses of entertainment, not feature length films. But because so many of you had requested longer episodes I created one that is 25 minutes long. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and really didn’t take that much longer to edit than my normal 3-5 minute videos. It was nice not having to cut anything out.
The problem came when I tried to upload it. The status bar appeared and estimated the upload would be finished in 1000 minutes. Okay so I just chill for 16 hours while YouTube hogs 100% of my upload bandwidth. I started the upload at night, went for a ride the next morning and when I returned my computer was off. There had been a power outage, and the battery in my HP Envy went bad long ago. When I rebooted I found that the file had made it to 96% complete before the power went off.
Thankfully YouTube has resumable uploads for problems like mine. I tired to start the upload again, but nothing was happening. When the last 4% of the file hadn’t finished after 4 hours of hoping I gave up and deleted the video from my list.
Once again starting the upload before I went to bed. Fast forward 1000 minutes later the upload completes. I click on the URL to make sure everything worked and I’m greeted with the message, “The user has deleted this video.”
Which means I get to start all over again. It took 4 tires at 1000 minutes each before I actually got the video successfully upload. I’m still waiting for it to finish processing before I make it public, but this will likely be the last time I post a HD video that’s longer than 10 minutes. Until Panama runs a fiber optic line to my house, and holding my breath for that would be suicide.
I decided to start a 2nd youtube channel for some of the random stuff I film that has nothing to do with motorcycles. I want to keep halfthrottle on the subject of motorcycles, and altthrottle open for anything I happen to film and still want to share with the world. There are a few videos there already so go have a look if you want.
This is my 200th YouTube video. I have over 8 hours of content on youtube, I wish there was a way to calculate how many miles I’ve traveled, and hours I spent filming and editing to get to this point.
Thanks everyone for watching, laughing, and cheering me on. I can’t wait to get out there and make 200 more.
OverlanderTV Interview
My highest viewed video is the Honest Harley Davidson Commercial. Any day now it will break the 500,000 mark. It has been my biggest viral success, but the video didn’t just accidentally go viral. I suspected I had something special on my hands with this video, so I did my best to make it go viral. Check out my interview with Mark of OverlanderTV to see how I made it happen.
Yesterday 808yewtube emailed me to ask a favor. She had been out vlogging but messed up the audio settings on her Drift Stealth and was left with a silent video. So she wondered if I would record something she could use as the audio track.
I said yes and watched the video a few times while recording myself improvising some different stuff. Sort of glad I stopped when I did, as it just kept getting weirder. I think my favorite bit is when she sees the person in pink shoes at the lookout and becomes jealous of her hair. I was watching the video in a small window while recording and mistook the woman for a man with long hair. I laughed pretty hard when I realized this later. And thinking that 808youtube was somehow jealous of a woman who was so unnatractive she was mistaken for a man cracked me up.
I warned 808, “You are about to learn why there was a standing order when I was in the Army to never let SGT Grassley write a report for you, or about you.”
I collaborated with YouTuber M3anMachin3 to do the voice over on his trailer for an upcoming challenge he is doing. Check it out.
How To Customize Your YouTube Channel
I finally got the motivation to create some custom stuff for my Youtube channel. It was a little frustrating, but I’m pretty happy with the new look. Anyone can upload a custom background image to their channel. For those that are Partners you can also add a custom banner image, and side image that shows up further down on the left side of the page.
I found a simple vector image with some rays on it on this website: http://www.vectorportal.com/. Then added some photos of my own. Your background image should be 2000x1500. You can make the image repeat all the way down the page, but I think it looks better to feather the bottom out into blackness. You can see a good example of this on Rhett and Links channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/RhettandLink. I would only use the repeat if the image is a pattern of some sort and you can’t see where one image starts and the other ends.
If you are a partner the banner image and sidebar image are pretty cool. You can actually create an image map to go along with the .jpg you upload. This means your image can have a facebook, twitter, a subscribe button. Or even a custom button to a playlist, anything you can link to. The image map will make the buttons or icons function. I had no idea how to make an image map, but found this website that worked great even for a dummy like me: http://www.mobilefish.com/services/image_map/image_map.php#output_data. Might take a bit to figure it out, but it isn’t to difficult.
To create the background image for my channel I used After Effects, then exported a single frame of the composition as a .jpg. The banner was exported as a .png to preserve the transparency in the file. I’m sure using Photoshop would be easier for most people, but I really really suck at Photoshop so I stuck with what comfortable with.
I think it’s pretty cool to be able to customize your channel, and if you haven’t done it give it a try. I’ll try to help if you have any questions, and remember; with enough profanity you can accomplish anything.
Uploading videos to YouTube is easy. Getting people to watch, or even realize you exist on such a content rich site is difficult.
Which is why cross promotion is so important. So I want to say thanks to 808yewtube for giving me a shout out a recent video. She sent over 20 new subscribers my way the day she posted, and I’m sure more will roll in as more of her fans watch the video.
Be sure and check out here channel. She is a motovlogger riding around Hawaii. Hawaii and Panama are pretty similar, only here we have potholes that can swallow a motorcycle whole.
Which is why cross promotion is so important. So I want to say thanks to 