Wednesday, March 29, 2017

March 28, 2017 Uploads

GuuzakaTube 03.28.17

March 28, 2017 Uploads

Can you believe that we're already a quarter way through 2017? I know. Time surely flies! And the fact that the clock jumped an hour ahead for many of us three weeks ago, has likely added to that fast feeling. The weather has also finally gotten a little better for those of us in southern Ontario, but is by no means warm yet! Anyways! Let's discuss those three places I just uploaded.

Robert Samuel McLaughlin Collegiate and Vocational Institute. According to word, that's 7 words and 60 characters. Wow, definitely quite a mouthful alright! So, did you know that I sort of almost ended up not filming this school, nor the neighbouring places I filmed around it? Yeah! Want to know why? Because of the rain! That day, it was raining quite a bit, but not terribly heavily. I was thinking, “Guess I won't be going out today” Until when I looked at the hourly forecast, I noticed that the rain was scheduled to stop in the early afternoon. Now as we all know (or should know!) is the fact that sometimes these weather forecasts can be so unpredictable, but this time, this one held true to its forecast and stopped raining. When I saw that the rain had seized and that it wasn't scheduled to come back, I went out to visit the Stevenson & Rossland area in Oshawa to film this place, and neighbouring Adelaide. “How did you like RS?” You might ask. Well, from the commentary that I made on the video, you can tell that I found it to be a big, hilly place. It was also pretty cloudy, which made the video look a little duller than it should. This and the combination of my voice may(?) have made it sound like I wasn't too thrilled, but I found it to be an alright place to film. The centre hill area was pretty chill. You've seen it in the video, so you know what's next: Adelaide! And still, I haven't bothered researching the two yet. I know. How lazy and slack of me!


This school! It seems to be a relatively small school, judging from the amount of time it took to walk around it. It could be one those places where it's larger than it looks on the inside. Who knows. All I know is that it was a bit of a pain to navigate, thanks to a fence on one of the sides. While annoying for me, it's honestly there for the safety of the kids, because you don't want kids falling and breaking some part of them on the concrete, so it was necessary. Well, I guess they could have solved that steep area by turning it into a slope, or even better, stairs! Why didn't they do that? I don't know... I'm not the architecture or engineer here, but it doesn't take the knowledge of either of those two titles to realize that stairs would have worked out better for that spot. Even though it sounds like I'm making a big deal here, I honestly don't care as much as I sound like do. The place was somewhat small and it doesn't take long to get from one point to another. So! What did I think of this school? I'll be honest: not very interesting. Not horrendously boring either, but Newcastle Public School and Military Trail were much more interesting than this.

Whew! I honestly don't have much to say about this place! It was not a terribly exciting place to walk around and discuss, and like Adelaide, was annoying to navigate. Ouch! You're thinking that I must have hated this place, but truth is, I don't. Why did I film it? Because I passed it on my way when I was heading up to Stevenson and Rossland to film RS and Adelaide McLaughlin, so I decided to come back to it when I was finished with those two. I was honestly kind of nervous about how my irritating, old smartphone would do something dumb like reboot and or shutoff, and surely it did. Thankfully, it did this before I actually started filming the school, and stopped with the foolishness after holding down the power button and volume rocker for 10 seconds (soft reset). After that, there were no more troubles for the day. It helped that it wasn't terribly cold either, because if it were, no amount of resetting would have saved it. Anyway! While Woodcrest wasn't terribly fun, it had a nice chill area.


Didn't expect to come home with three outdoor videos that day, but I did and was surprised about the results. So what's next for my channel? Like usual, you can expect to see an outdoor video or two, next week. I'll also get started on a commentary video this week, so I can publish it next week along with the outdoor adventures. Gaming? So far, no issues, but I do not plan to record a gaming session for next week. Now about those outros and intros: if you've seen the latest videos, you'll undeniably notice the new intros. If you happen to be in the interesting criteria of being a viewer who has been watching for a while, and has a longer than average attention span, you'll notice that the outros have gone from annotated CTAs, plain narrative Call-to-Actions, CTAs with fipple flute drones or songs, to now synthesized keyboard instruments. Ah, quite the metamorphosis, eh? Why am I bringing this up? Because it has proven to be ridiculous amounts of fun! Seriously. March 14, 2017 was the day I decided to fit some batteries into an ancient (10-15 years old???), but functional keyboard and – boy oh boy! The day I did that, was the day I got creative with these variable intros and outros. The ending of the long-chat Samsung Galaxy Note 7 commentary video, was where I first experimented with this and loved the results! And now it is time to stop chatting here and get some other things done!

Thursday, March 23, 2017

March 21-22 2017 Uploads

GuuzakaTube                                                                        Wednesday, March 22, 2017

March 21-22 2017 Uploads

Wow, wow, wow, WOW! Do you know how many videos I've recorded for this week's batch? 10. That's right. 10! That's a new record from the last time I've uploaded so many videos! When was that? Remember the entry for the 2016 Boxing Day Uploads? Yeah, that was 9 videos and now here I have 10. So if it wasn't obvious enough from the gaming commentaries I made on the videos, the reason behind this massive upload is the fact that 8 out of 10 of these videos are gaming videos. Yep, I've been saying for several entries now, that gaming videos aren't priorities for me. Why? Because I wanted to focus more on the outdoor videos and commentaries. But then suddenly, last Sunday, I've decided to play and record at least one segment of the most space-consuming games on my phone to make space for the BlackBerry 10.3.3.1463 update, before I delete them. For that reason, it probably would've been more accurate to title this entry The Great Sunday Gaming Marathon rather than the current “March 21-22 2017 Uploads”. Well, I would've done just that if it weren't for the two outdoors videos that I filmed earlier. Speaking of those, I'm satisfied and glad I was able to film those locations, so let's dive in now and discuss this lengthy list of everything uploaded between the dates stated in the title!

Ah, Sinclair! Why hast thou been so problematic to film?! 1St time, endless reboots. 2Nd time, too awkward due to the excessive crowds and outings. 3Rd time, well, there were some outings, but I didn't let that stop me because I was tired of coming up to this place and having something “stop me” from filming. Well, truth be told, nobody acted up or anything, but as explained on camera, discretion is a very important thing to exercise while filming areas with lots of people, especially when you consider that this area was a disctrict board, high school and daycare facility in one. Kind of crazy when you think about that, but that's what also made it such an interesting, satisfying place to film. “GuuzakaTube, you sound so queer about this” some of you might say, “People make videos in even busier environments than what you've been in, and they nor they people around them don't really care as long as you use common sense” True. Can't argue with that fact. Whatever. Now that all this awkward talk is out of the way, let's actually discuss this building itself. Now as you can imagine, with it housing three institutions under one roof, it must be stupidly huge right? Well, it's big alright, but not mighty huge. It was snowing that day, which contributed to the natural cinematic effect you see in the video. Whether you consider that a plus or not, I personally found it a little annoying, but was just glad that it wasn't wet snow. Unsatisfying Sinclair Video. Ha! Now I finally have a normal, proper video of this school. You want to know what else is close to this area that I've originally wanted to film on the day I first attempted to film this school? Hebron Christian Reformed Church. That's right. I kept quiet about the exact name of this place, but no longer! Read below if you're interested in hearing what I have to say about it, or you can skip to one of the games that interest you the most, if you could care less about Hebron.



Did that title make you LOL? I'm sure it did! So as I mentioned above, the same day I first attempted to get Sinclair, was also supposed to be the same day where I was going to film Hebron next, but because the church was open, with people coming in and out and what not, it would have been way too creepy and awkward to go around filming and photographing the building at that time. If you don't know me by now, I prefer to film buildings while the coast is clear, or at least mostly clear of people to avoid misunderstandings. I know, I know. As mentioned above, most people don't care if you're filming casually, but when it comes to scenarios or places like this, it would come off as seriously creepy to film while the place is open, so I'd rather not do that – Anyways! That's enough with the awkward, repetitive ramblings about this, and I shall not mention any more of it for the duration of this write up! This place is located northeast of the Sinclair area, in a lot of its own off Anderson Street, unlike Sinclair which is more correctly located off Taunton between Garden and Anderson. Even though it was cold and snowy, Hebron church was a wonderful place to wander around, film and photograph. And so were the fields! Even better, geese were there to provide even more entertainment! So you're likely wandering why I decided to do an extra segment where I explore the fields and bother some geese, right? Well, the answer was mentioned in the video: I did not quite feel like putting down the camera after filming and photographing the church, so I decided to wander into the nearby fields and mess around there. Turned out to be more fun than I thought, though probably boring to some people, so I decided to be a nice guy and separate the segments through the use of visual slides for those that would only be interested in seeing one part or the other. I encourage you to watch both of course! Now about that question: what do the geese eat when it's so cold outside, and why did they return from their Mexican vacation at the wrong time? LOL! Kind of makes me wonder if they were confused about the stubbornly cold weather or if they even left at all!


Yeah, quite a strange title, isn't it? Well, this is the 1st game I recorded for the Great Sunday Marathon. It is about Mr.Khan, a Pakistani trying to run to Islamabad to accomplish his vision, goals, plans and what not, but the only thing stopping him are the so-called evil containers and trucks. You must help him to dodge them or fire rockets at them. Yeah, make of that as you will, but if you ask me, that does sound questionable. Now despite the game being called container run, I decided to demo level 2 so I could unlock level three, but considering that I was going to delete the game soon anyway and didn't even end up playing level 3, it would have made a lot more sense to demonstrate level 1. That way, you'd be able to see the namesake containers the game is named after. Another thing: make sure you have around 120-150MB of space on your smartphone and a reasonable strong or efficient operating system, or the 3D graphics and frame rates will take a toll on your smartphone. Oh, and the battery life! Watch your battery while you play this energy-guzzling game! It's fairly fun and all, but do be mindful of these things. And finally, I cannot conclude this entry without mentioning the music! I like it! It's so funky and cool! 73% out of 100%.


This game is about as interesting as watching your cat sleep. Ok, ok! So maybe this game is a little better than that, but unfortunately, all you do is catch cats. The heavier your load gets, the slower you move. That right there is the problem: the girl, Unitychan, becomes way too damn slow after the load accumulates to the point that it feels like you're moving slower than a snail. What would make this game more interesting? More space, different cats worth various amounts of points, and levels with different backgrounds maybe. Well, truth be told, I don't usually play games like this, so this game is obviously not targeted to people like me, but it was on my phone, happened to take up a lot of space, so I wanted to record at least one segment before clearing it. So what do I like about this game? The clean, bright graphics, and though cats aren't my favourite animals, I do like them quite a bit, hence why I'd even bother with this game in the 1st place. 40% out of 100%.


I know, I know. Yet another “girly” game. But you know what? It was very interesting, save for my absentminded foolishness that took place in level 2! Gosh that was embarrassing! It was so bad, that I had to put an advisory in the beginning telling people to just skip that part, and spare themselves the misery and time loss. Now I know what you're thinking, “Why couldn't you just edit that out? You took the time to make other edits, so why not just clip that out?” Because I didn't feel like it. There, I said it. Not a good answer, but it's the real answer for that question. This game has very smooth, beautiful graphics and gameplay. Loved that! Unfortunately, it did happen to be my first time playing a slingshot game on a smartphone, so I wasn't too familiar with how to work it, but did figure it out after many facepalms worthy moments. To be honest, it's my first time actually playing a Rovio game to begin with, so that may lead to you wander why I chose this one as my first Angry Birds game instead of the namesake title? The answer: I don't know. Actually wait, I think I do. When I was searching for Angry Birds titles, I wanted to try something other than the namesake title of the series. This one ended up being my first, because I guess I've never heard of Stella at the time, so I must have been like “Huh, this is interesting. Let's see what this angry bird is about” so then I downloaded it. It sat on my phone for a long time. Possibly a year or two, before I decided to give it a go before deleting it along with some of my other heavy games recorded during the Great Sunday Gaming Marathon. I like this game a lot, but found it tough at first. 75% out of 100%.


Remember “Temple Run - Slipping like a total klutz!”? Yeah, not so much this time! I mean, I do slip sometimes, but nowhere near as much as I did the first time! I've improved and even made new high scores as proof of my achievements! If you haven't watched the video yet, then you will see that this is true. So this video makes it my 2nd gameplay video of this game, and also the final. Don't be sad! I might try Temple Run 2 in the future, so that should be a little more positive for those that care. As explained in my entry from long ago, this game is one of most popular endless runners in existence, though I'm not sure which is more popular: Temple Run or Subway Surfers? I'm under the impression that Subway Surfers might be the more popular of the two, though I could be dead wrong. 77% out of 100%.


When you saw those application permissions pop up upon opening the game, that was a sure sign that I haven't even loaded the game before. Nope, not even to check it's animation boot or anything! That's how fresh this experience was. Unfortunately, as you'll know from watching the video, my largely failed screen recordings sabotaged the recording experience, which was very frustrating. I mean, I got to enjoy the game and all, but many moments were lost thanks to the screen recorder's spiteful moments during my time with this game. A similar issue occurred with Three Jumps, but I'll discuss that when its time comes. Recording business aside, how did I find this game? Quite alright, but I have to be frank: it feels like a lesser version of Asphalt 8, and the word “Asphalt” in the title makes it obvious that it was inspired from it. That's not to say it's a bad game by any means, but if you're spoiled from Asphalt 8's bells, whistles, graphics and sheer amount of cars, then you may not like this one very much. Actually, you still might like it if you enjoy racing games, and want to try something similar, but different enough to let you know that it's not a blatant knockoff. There's lots to see, do and discover in this title, but the lost recording segments just had to ruin the mood. Still, this game remains pretty darn good sooooooo ------ 79% out of 100%.


For real though: how could I suck so badly when the difficulty was supposed to be normal?! Do you have any idea how bad that is?! Goodness! This Funkoi game is really hard! Oh, speaking of that, I believe this is my 3rd Funkoi title I've recorded on the channel. I've done two gameplay videos of Tunnel X and one of Kiwi Wonder. Speaking of Kiwi Wonder, I should do another episode with it at some point in the future, now that I have a better microphone. That way we can enjoy its beautiful soundtrack to the fullest! Anyway, Alpha Zero. This game is a shooting, outer space game. Sounds a little cliché, eh? Well, yeah. You're in outer space and you must stop an evil group of spaceships and go on various missions. Yep, cliché indeed, but it's still a well designed game. It's just too bad I couldn't stand a chance against the Varcons, even on the easiest setting. I couldn't even get the 0% on the progression bar to move during the 18 minute session. “Damn, son! You gotta try harder next time!” Is probably what most people would say, and yeah, they're right. Oh well. Was gonna say better luck next time, except that y'all should know by now what's going to happen to all (except EVAC) of the games that I played during this Great Sunday Gaming Marathon. 73% out of 100%.


Yes, three frustrating attempts = around 20 minutes of wasted time! So in other words, I had to spend around 35 minutes to get this game recorded right! Probably should have just restarted my phone sooner to get it working. Shouldn't have to do that in the first place, but if it means better screen recording performance, then it would have been worth it. Anyways! So as the name suggests, Three Jumps is a platform game with black figures that can only make three consecutive jumps before you're out of jumps. Don't run or jump into anything that isn't “safe”. So jump and collect coins that can be used to unlock more characters, and avoid hazards. That's it. No levels or anything deep, advanced or complicated. It's pretty straightforward and functions as a simple time killer it seems. Kind of wish it had QWERTY support, but oh well. 68% out of 100%



Man oh man, this game was good! Really good! Smooth gameplay, wonderful graphics, arcade, retro, thoughtfully designed – Ah! It was just awesome! Since the game is about a pink cube that must grab all the coloured dots and escape without being caught, I'm wondering if “EVAC” is short for “Evacuate”? Who knows. All I know is that I had a lot of fun with this colourful game, hence why the video is nearly 30 minutes long. Now mind you, because there are some serious cheapskates out there, this game does cost you $1.99 in the BlackBerry App World. Trust me: it's worth the money. If you like ad-free, quality games, then it comes with a price. Developers do deserve some pay for their hard work, and if you don't want a “Freemium” or ad-supported game, then you must be willing to cough up a tiny price. Now what's interesting is that it looks like it's “FREE” on Google Play, but according to those that played it, you have to pay after you reach a certain level. Ha, interesting. Some people also say that it's similar to Pac-Man, and yes, I agree. It has a similar feel to it, since you do go around a maze collecting things, but with more flexibility. Another thing to note is that this game happens to have QWERTY/Physical Keyboard support, which is great news for those of you with a BlackBerry Q5, Q10, Classic, Porsche 9,883 or Passport. That on-screen controller was a tedious pain to use on my BlackBerry Q10, so I was so happy to quickly discover that I didn't have to use it. Yes! Hexage, you've made a stellar game! 91% out of 100%.




Congratulations if you've made it this far and actually read all of the entries! Kudos to you! Claim your prize, the iPhone 7 Plus (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition with 256GB by saying “finished!” out loud. Kidding. You didn't actually fall for that, did you? My oh my! You desperate loser! Alright, enough false promising and time to get on with the point. You're probably quite anxious about what I'm about to come clean about, right? Well, worry not. It's nothing big or scary. It's just the real reason why I truly haven't bothered to make much gaming videos lately: it's because I wasn't sure whether I could monetize them or not. There, I said it. I've finally come ultra clean, open and honest about it. You see, back in 2016 I wasn't a YouTube partner. That year, I was more focused on building up the channel's content and perfecting my art, which still is faaaaaaarrrrrrrrr from perfect, but way better than back then! There were many videos done just for fun, without caring about whether I'd monetize them or not, hence why some even have copyrighted music on them. Of course, there were also many that were intended to monetized as well: the outdoor videos and commentaries! Shortly after 2017 started, I decided to become a YouTube partner so I could get a little money off of this YouTube side job. Success! The application went well and it didn't take long to get my account approved and linked, since it was in excellent standing. But then, I realized that I had to start focusing more so on “safe” videos, that I know for 100% certainty won't be an issue to monetize. By that I mean no legal issues, copyright, etc., you get the idea. Gaming videos became rare until up to this point, where I decided that I would do a “Great Marathon” one day where I'd clear the most spacious games on my phone. The Sunday that fell on March 19, happened to be a great day, so I got it done then. While it was very fun to spend that weekend day playing so many games, I thought “Gee, this is going to be a ton of work when editing, uploading and writing about it. I'd really like to get something more out of this” So what happened next? What did I do? You can probably already guess, but when the videos were finished uploading I finally decided to take another look at what the stance is on monetizing mobile games for smartphones. Other games from companies like Nintendo, Microsoft and what not, are crystal clear on their policies, but when I attempted to research mobile gaming in the past, I never found a clear direct answer. Yesterday, I took another look at it and here's what I have summarize: Your best bet is to always check the game developer's website if you're uncertain. Most mobile game developers, don't actually seem to mind people monetizing their gameplays. However, you must not claim the game as yours, don’t sell or license the content you create to third parties, do not copy or take any assets from their content and distribute them separately (like characters, voices, music, images), do not include obscene, offensive, racist, defamatory, pornographic, homophobic and hateful material in your video, and you must respect the privacy of others. So! Sounds kind of like common sense, but not everyone would necessarily know some of this or be aware of certain things. That said, you still have to be careful because some games like say Asphalt 8 for instance, may have copyrighted music in it. Be VERY careful about things like that, because it can sometimes be easy to forget things like this and then BOOM! A strike! Be weary of copyrighted material that could be present in games you're interested in putting YouTube ads on. Music can easily be muted if that's present. Again, if you're not sure, check the game developers website. That is the safest way to determine what you should do, if you're in doubt. Now with all this said, I have went ahead and monetized those games above. So far, so good. I'll keep an eye out for them and see how it ultimately goes. Now I don't mean to sound as though I only do YouTube strictly for money, but you know what? I am a YouTube partner and it can be rather time consuming sometimes, so for that reason, it's important to get a profit out of my labour, even if it's small. It just makes it more worth a while to make videos when you get some money off of them. So for what's next, I'll likely have an outdoors video for next week, like usual. I was going to do a commentary pertaining to automotive, but all the editing and typing I had to this week prohibited it. As for gaming, more videos may come in the future if it plays out well. I'm quite positive that it will. It would be nice to keep my niche of outdoor things, commentaries and games, because after all, I am GuuzakaTube, and even while my videos were branded under ATA1201058, it was something I used to do, and would like to continue to do for the foreseeable future. 

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 Uploads

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                   3/15/17

Wednesday, March 15, 2017 Uploads

Ah, another boring entry where I ramble about my latest videos and complain about things. Ok, who are we kidding?! I am thrilled to finally get that commentary video done after having it in the making for two weeks! So without further rambling here, I will proceed to chatting about Samsung Galaxy Note 7 & Note 8: Commentary and Discussion and Morningside Park: 2017 Winter Visit. Let's go, go, goooooooo!

Ok so you must be wondering “What is so exciting and special about this lengthy Note 7 video of yours?” Well, if you've been reading the past couple of entries, you'll know that I've been complaining about how I've been wanting to get in front of the microphone to chat and make a commentary video. Of course, my reasons were always things like how I couldn't get around to it, how I've been so slack and tardy, etc., etc., you get the idea. When “construction” of this video first started, I was hoping to get it done within the week. It didn't happen, so I became concerned about when I would finish it. If you read the description, you'll know when the construction started and when it finished. Two weeks. Would it have jeopardized the quality if I did finish it within a week? The answer to that question is surprisingly no. As mentioned numerous times, consistency and excessive procrastination were the driving reasons behind the slow down. Anyways! It's here and I'm glad it is. I put some good time into it and I personally love how everything turned out. Well, with the exception of one thing: the outro song! What exactly is that song? For the very few that have heard the original fromRandom Evening Morningside Stroll - DEER SURPRISE!!!” it is a remix of this acoustic song. The song I used before going with this final version was also a remix, but with a different feel to it for lack of a better word. For some reason, I just didn't like it, so I resorted to using the same notes, but on a different instrument (synth). Ok, so now that this is out of the way, you may be wondering what inspired me to make this video in the first place. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was a smartphone that received critical reception, so when it burned down to cinders (pun intended) and had everyone talking about it, I decided that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 would be a great subject to add to my list of future subjects to discuss. Mind you, I do not necessarily chase subjects that everyone is talking about, but because I love smartphones, this one proved to be an attractive topic hence why I even decided to put extra labour into it by drawing up the slides. “So how well do you expect the video to perform?” may be another question you'd probably ask me, and believe it or not, I actually asked myself the very same thing. The answer? Not sure… I did expect it to perform a little better than some of my other commentaries, but won't keep my hopes up too high. That said, part of me is saying that this video could even exceed some of the others, since it's about a smartphone that was so popular, and is still talked about sometimes even though it's 2017. The hilarious(?)/crazy(?)/interesting(?)/cute(?)/wild(?)/informative(?) slides might also make it more appealing and different from other related videos on YouTube. We'll see. Oh yes! I should also mention that I've never actually got to get a hands-on with this phone, because it was pulled from the shelves by the time I went out to see it.


It was very cold. It made my annoying nose run a lot. That's all I have to say for this entry ------------- KIDDING! Ha ha haaaaaaa! Alright, so as you'll learn from watching this video, this place surprisingly turned out to be more nostalgic than I thought, once I actually arrived in the area with the green themed playground. At first, I had no idea that I've been to this ground, until I saw that and remembered that I went here back in Grade 9. Or was it Grade 10? No, it was Grade 9. Ah, the sweet Grade 9 days…. I initially expected the trail I took to be short, but I soon discovered that there were lots to be seen, hence the nearly 30-minute video length. Visit this place. It's interesting. Probably not during a very cold day, but even then, that didn't stop other people aside from myself, from exploring it. Oh and did you know that this video was a “place holder”? Now you know! There was another place that I had originally wanted film that day, but chose this place instead, in hopes that the weather will be a little better when the time comes to film another outdoors video!



Well, I won't be complaining about how I haven't been able to get a commentary video done this week, because I did it – YES! I also got a long outdoor video done, so I'm glad and disappointed about that. Why the disappointment? Because many parts of it were so damn shaky! Ugh! And as explained last week, attempting to stabilize it would have resulted in reduced sharpness and would have created some awful “illusions”! My recent Farrow Avenue (Newcastle) video is an example of a video that suffered pretty badly from reduced quality, while Valley Farm Forest Ravine: Following The Path Straight to Grand Valley is an example that suffers from not one, but BOTH! Ouch! Anyways, so what's next? Any gaming videos this week? Likely not, but an outdoors video is almost guaranteed for next week. As for commentaries, I'll cautiously say that I'd like to get another one done for next week. “What's your next crazy commentary video going to be about this time?” you'll probably ask. Should I even drop a hint, or should I keep it a secret? Fine, it's going to be about a person – kidding! Though I do have plans to do one a person somewhat soon, the upcoming commentary won't be on a person. Stay tuned to find out what I'll chat about next!

Saturday, March 11, 2017

March 09, 2017 Uploads

GuuzakaTube 3.11.17

March 09, 2017 Uploads

Alright, so this entry is “late” as it should have been done by the 10th at latest. Why wasn't it done? Heh, heh, heh... Tardiness, procrastination, slackness, and the list goes on. For a while, I've done a great job at typing the entry while the videos were uploading, with there even being the odd occasion where I'd type the entry before even uploading. Let's get back to that! While I'd really rather not type this right now, I hate the feeling of doing last week's “homework” in a new week, so I'm getting this done today so I focus clearer for next week. Now, let's discuss the following: Nighttime Traffic on Highway of Heroes @ Thickson Road, Newcastle Public School, and Farrow Avenue (Newcastle).

Remember the Highway Life video? Yeah, that video was done last summer in 2016. I wanted to get another highway video done, this time at night! The purpose of the video was to do a comparison between 1080p and 720p @ 60 frames per second, but I unfortunately didn't get around to doing that in this video, so you'll just have to make do with the 1080p only. Either way, the video turned out “noisy” or rather grainy and blurry in other words, so nobody's likely going to want to watch it. Even if they did, they probably wouldn't bother watching the whole 12 minutes! Or would you? Maybe if you were really bored? Anyways, I believe I used Night Mode + HDR + 1080p for this video. As already mentioned, it looks like the 8MP BlackBerry camera did not cope well with the darkness, fast moving subjects, and all those lights. Still, it has not, and will not stop me from shooting the occasional night video. The fact that Daylight saving time 2017 in Ontario will begin at 2:00 AM on Sunday, March 12, means that nighttime will arrive much later. That may likely put me off, since I don't like to leave the house at late hours, but still won't completely stop me from filming night videos. I've tried to look into what kind of sensor it is, but unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a clear source for what the BlackBerry Q10 or Z10 uses. What is it?! Is it an ISOCELL? A Sony Exmor? Carl Zeiss? Wish I knew! Oh well... Maybe I'll find out someday. If I don't, not a big deal because I'm not going to be using this camera forever, that's for sure.



Ah, Newcastle. Have I ever been to this place? No, can't recall ever coming here, though of course, it's possible that I may have been there when I was much younger. If I haven't, then great! It was truly an all-new adventure! Either way, one thing's certain is that it was my first time filming in Newcastle, as you will learn from watching the video. The title and entry makes it clear as daylight that I chose to visit Newcastle Public School for my first video out here, but why? Why did I choose Newcastle Public School as the first subject to film? Well, Newcastle is a small town with not a ton to see or do within the urban area, and because I've been filming schools quite a lot lately, I figured that I'd check out one of their schools and make it my first video of this town. And so I did. Unfortunately, it just had to be biting cold that day, which took away some of my joy, but whatever. It was a really cool place to wander around, and had a lot to see. In fact, I'd even say that it was more interesting than Military Trail Public School, thanks to all the parks, fields and those xylophones! I would have loved to have spent more time hammering out tunes on those xlyophones, but the combination of a running nose, and biting cold weather, made it difficult to film and look down for extended periods of time. Gosh winter! Are you going to end soon?! Even today, as I write this entry, it was freakin' -12°C! During the March 6-10 period, it was comparatively mild, until Friday settled in, and then the weekend decided to go even lower! Wow! This is not what March is supposed to feel like in this part of the country! Come on! Warm up! Alright, onto discussing the next place I filmed in Newcastle. Because the entry is late, no photos have been uploaded to Instagram during the March 6-10 period, but they'll come after I proofread this, upload it, and then Tweet the videos along with it.



The 2nd video I filmed in Newcastle. So, as you can tell from the title and what not, you obviously know that I filmed a road that goes by the name Farrow, but why exactly did I decide to film such a random, rustic road? When I was looking at the map of Newcastle for a location(s) to film, I saw a few potential spots that would be ideal to film. This was one of them, since it wasn't too hard to find, and the fact that it was going to be random, quiet and rustic, made it more appealing for a secondary video from Newcastle to go with the idea of doing a school, then a road video. I was going to talk about the audio, but there's no point since there's an “ATA1201058-like” excuses slide to give you the scoop. Instead, I'll go into more details about the abrupt ending. There's an explanation for that too, but it served as an important reminder to myself to stop filming once you've recorded around 25 minutes worth of videos, when the temperatures are very cold. By that, I'm talking like maybe -8°C and lower. Before, it used to be hard to get close to 30 minutes of footage outdoors in biting temperatures, until I discovered that attaching a portable charger prolongs it. Brilliant! Right? Unfortunately, as I've learned that day and today, is that the phone still shuts off after a certain point, even with the charger attached! What?! WHY?! I don't know if it's something phones are supposed to do, regardless of whether there's a charger attached or not. Maybe it was the type of power bank? Maybe it was the phone? Maybe Canada is just too damn cold! Who knows! The only way to find out for sure is to test various types of smartphones, with various types of powerbanks on days of around -8°C, but heh. That will surely require a lot of $$$$$$$. Cash aside, I'd love to see how the iPhone 7 Plus, Nokia Lumia 950 XL, BlackBerry Passport, LG V20 and Google Pixel XL fare outdoors, with and without power banks. Oh ho ho ho ho hooooooooooo! Anyways, I've complained about shut offs for long enough, so now I'll complain about the video's sharpness: why did it have to turn out so bad, all because I enabled stabilization in the editing software? You see, based on what I've seen in a fair bit of my 2016 videos, that is the very reason why I haven't bothered to stabilize my videos within Movie Maker: it degrades the quality a little too much! Sometimes it'd degrade it so badly, that I'd go back, turn it off, and republish a video before settling on a goodcopy. Yeah, I know. I'm sure 4K videos probably wouldn't suffer that – ok! This has gone from being about Farrow Avenue to Avenue of Complaints, so I'll just continue with this below. Aside from the finger biting cold and shut offs, Farrow Avenue was a nice, quiet road to wander down and film. I would have done more additional coverage on it, had the camera not die after 13 minutes. Thankfully, it happened when I was almost near the end.



Alright, so as I was fussing about from above, I believed that it is only 1080p or lower videos, that suffer most from the WM stabilization, obviously because the resolution is simply lower. The shakier and lower the resolution, the more your video suffers. That said, most phones that do have 4K, also have their own, proper, built-in OIS, so they wouldn't even need stabilization support from any video editing software. There are some phones out there with 4K and no optical image stabilization, but probably not very many. So! The outdoor videos have been coming, so where's the commentary video I've been talking about for like the past two or three entries? Still in the works... Sigh... I've got the audio and what not, done for it, so I can safely say that it should be on the channel the coming week. Not Monday, but likely Tuesday-Thursday. I've also filmed an outdoor video, so that will be uploaded along with it, but my priority will be finishing the commentary first, before I start editing it. Gaming videos? Meh, as you'll know from reading more recent entries, they're not a priority, but that doesn't mean that I've stopped. Maybe when I can become more consistent and organized with other things, then they'll come, but there's certainly no rush here.