Look at how pretty this video is!
But it didn’t used to be like this.
Like most youtubers, I didn’t start out with the highest quality stuff.
I had a rubbishy little microphone,
I didn’t know how to use it well and had some free recording software,
usually a trial version of some program to capture in-game content.
Youtube didn’t help either.
I don’t think there were even quality options at first, just… Youtube,
which was 240p by today’s standards.
That’s 320x240 pixels!
It wasn’t until March of 2008 that they upped the quality to 480.
But not to 480p- we’re talking 480x360!
But finally things were starting to look like videos instead of just like…
…bootleg VHS recordings!
During this period I also upgraded my microphones and computers and
generally the whole thing became a lot more acceptable, production-wise.
But the big leap came in November of 2008,
when Youtube first started supporting 720p.
HD video! I never thought the day would come.
It was the future!
Lonely Island’s Jizz In My Pants video was the first video I remember to support it-
I watched it soooooo many times.
Without hesitation I jumped up to 1280x720 quality with my videos,
which I stuck with for 3 years!
This was a huge leap.
I suddenly regretted crushing my earlier content down to lower qualities,
just to make uploading a bit easier.
I remembered that quality mattered and that Youtube must have kept
original copies of videos on their servers to be able to upgrade them later on.
I kept this in mind and have aimed for high quality videos ever since,
knowing that the passage of time would be unkind to any shortcuts I attempted.
During this time, STUPID 3kliksphilip became known for mapping
as he surpassed 10,000 subscribers.
Most of my Source SDK tutorials were uploaded in this 720p quality,
though as the years went on my video and audio editing standards increased.
Even though Youtube began supporting full 1080p resolution,
I stuck with the lower one.
Because most people watching my content didn’t have the monitor
or internet bandwidth for the higher setting.
And because my computer couldn’t handle it very well either.
In fact, it wasn’t until 2012 that I jumped to 1920x1080.
I treated myself to a top-of-the-line i7 and Geforce 670 computer,
a great investment with hindsight since it’s been
powering my content almost ever since…
…until DinoPC got me a new PC earlier this year,
which allowed me to up to 4K but-
-more on that later!
Late in 2013 Nvidia released SHADOWPLAY.
And there was much rejoicing.
I could now capture whatever was on my screen with almost 0 slowdown!
No more FRAPS / Hypercam combo! Shadowplay is a miracle program,
recording anything on-screen with no extra slowdown.
You really have no idea how horrible it was to record stuff before this.
For content creators, finding a perfect recording program was like finding the Holy Grail.
I tested this new program on a Max Payne kill compilation series.
Shadowplay had a weird bug that made stuff unresponsive at the time,
occasionally you’ll hear weird beeps and boops in the videos.
Fortunately, this was soon fixed.
Oh look, there’s my original Glock. *BANG*
It also took me this long to discover the disable resampling option in Sony Vegas,
which finally removed those horrible ghostly images
whenever there was movement on-screen from where it would
try merging several video frames into one.
And failing.
After collaborating with Tommyttk and seeing how
awesome his microphone sounded and smelt,
I finally shelled out on a Samson Meteor microphone of my own.
I have always been proud of how much quality I could get out of crappy microphones.
Using this one felt like cheating!
I used this new one from the second Splinter Cell video onwards
over on the Cubicle Brother’s channel.
It’s pretty cool to compare the first and second video in the series,
I had to completely relearn everything for a new microphone.
I also jumped to a more powerful video codec
that made blacks blacker and everything a lot crisper.
It also supported 60 frames a second.
I was vocal and proud of uploading in 60p,
insisting that Youtube would upgrade these videos to 60 FPS
once they rolled out support for it,
just like they had with 720p all those years prior.
Oh, HOW EVERYBODY LAUGHED AT ME!
(Argh)
And yet, my Crazy Knife Dude video was updated
when Youtube’s 60 FPS support rolled out 2 months later!
But Youtube had another trick up its sleeve:
EVEN HIGHER RESOLUTIONS.
4K is still something that most people don’t have,
and even if you do you probably have very little 4K content to watch on it.
But Youtube was supporting this resolution WAYYYY back in 2010!
I couldn’t view, capture or upload in this resolution at the time.
I don’t think many people could.
But I began dabbling with 4K videos in 2015,
uploading my first in June of that year.
But Youtube still didn’t appear to fully support it,
since if I uploaded in 4K 60 FPS then the video would only play in HD.
I had to upload a 30 FPS 4K video separately
and then stuck to HD format for later videos,
since I figured more people would appreciate 60 FPS than 4K.
But sometime soon after that they began allowing both
and it appears it’s finally been enabled on that original 4K recording of mine as well.
*Ponders existence and gets camera shy*
And at that time they also started supporting 8K,
once again slipping ahead of me and everybody else.
Well done, Youtube. God, this video’s hard.
In just a decade,
Youtube has transformed the way we view videos online
from blurry little poo pics to crisp, clear ultra-HD epics!
All of this, available to everyone, for free.
It’s just… wow.
What’s next for videos?
I think I know- it’s probably the whole 360 degree VR thing
that Youtube… already supports.
But right now, I see this as a separate path from pure 2D quality.
There are just so many downsides,
even if it were fully supported and if everybody had 3D goggles.
People could look the wrong way and miss something awesome.
Like this.
*BANG*
Or the camera could move unexpectedly and make everybody throw up!
We were born too late to explore the world.
Too early to explore the Universe.
But just in time to see the rise of online videos.
And I dunno… I think that’s probably more interesting.
Right guys?...
*DIES*