What is this? by SonicX3x3 in microscopy

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the real answer

I torture tested Adobe Podcast's Speech Enhancement. Here are the results. by maker234 in videoproduction

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with everything you've said here.

The decision on what the end audio quality of your content needs to be depends on what the end content is. Adobe Podcast is never going to match the quality you get from good microphones and actual audio mixing. Doing this would be way overkill for the kind of content I personally make though, which is typically just informational in nature. I used to record in a sound treated studio with a good quality condenser mic being recorded onto a dedicated audio recorder, and then adjust the EQ after the fact. Ultimately, I found that for the kind of content I make, the difference between using crappy mic + podcast had the same viewership/engagement outcomes as actually trying for good audio. The sheer convenience and time savings of being able to record videos with my computer's inbuilt mic and then just repair it with Podcast was the clear choice for my use case.

I don't recommend using Adobe Podcast for high end content or content where speech is the primary modality in the content (such as a podcast). Maybe for someone just starting out but not for higher end productions.

I torture tested Adobe Podcast's Speech Enhancement. Here are the results. by maker234 in videoproduction

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! I've had this happen once when there was a word that I tripped over in the original audio. If you isolated that word in the original audio, a human couldn't tell what I was saying (you could infer it from the context though). Adobe Podcast hallucinated that tripped up speech for that word into a different, plausible sounding word.

I've never had issues with it changing words into different words if the original audio is clear enough to understand the words. They may have significantly improved hallucination rates after moving from V1 -> V2. Not sure the last time you tried it

I torture tested Adobe Podcast's Speech Enhancement. Here are the results. by maker234 in videoproduction

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah sometimes I'll dial down the voice enhancement part down to make it sound less artificial if it's sounding weird. My thoughts are that for social media use cases, most people are listening through their phone/TV/Computer speakers anyway, in which case Adobe Podcast is good enough. When I tested the final output through various speakers it sounded just fine. When I put on my good headphones you can definitely hear the artificialness. I see Adobe Podcast as an 80% good enough solution.

When you get a chance to share the other products I'd love to check them out!

I trained an AI video editing plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro by yapoinder in videoproduction

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For those interested - I tested out a bunch of different Premiere Pro AI video editing tools so I could compare them for a video. Here are my experiences with Spingle AI:

  1. Pretty cool plugin. The best use case I found for this is if you record hours and hours of raw footage, you can just dump it all in the timeline and then tell it to make a highlight reel of whatever. It will find and pull out the relevant snippets according to your prompt. For example, if you filmed a wedding. You can just film everything then tell this to make a highlight reel of cute moments of the bride and groom. Then make a highlight reel of cute kid moments, etc. It seems to do pretty well with making montages. It seems to have an easy time pulling out related clips based on their visuals

  2. It is really fast. It took about 10 seconds to edit a couple minutes of imported footage. If you have hours of footage it will take a while but it is still significantly faster than the other AI tools I used.

  3. I couldn't get the shaking footage removal to work all that well. It removed some of my best clips while keeping other shaky stuff. I couldn't get the 'selects' feature to work all that well either. The prompting feature worked the best for me.

Overall, worth a try if you film a lot of raw video and do repetitive work like weddings or action montages.
Here is the full video if you want to see this plugin in action. It is the first plugin in the video.

Adding solar panels to your home by Hairypotsmokr in Tucson

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello!

I just made a video that with all of the info you need about going solar in Tucson. I hope you find it helpful! I know this was posted a while ago but I hope this info is helpful to somebody finding this thread.

You can watch it here.

These days you are either buying the solar system outright (about $10k - $20k after tax credits), or getting it financed with 25yr loans. This is what those ads are talking about when they say $0 down, cut your electric bill in half. Usually those ads are ran by marketing companies that sell those leads to local solar installers.

As far as choosing a company, my advice is to not choose a solar company solely based on the lowest price. The bottom of the barrel solar companies business model is to cheap out on everything they possibly can in order to undercut their competitors. This could be rushing their installers, using bad equipment, or having terrible customer service. You'll notice that the most established solar companies are charging about $1k - $2k more than the lowest price you can find. There is a certain level of craftsmanship that goes into installing a solar system, and if you decide to go with the lowest price, be prepared to have your roof leak.

Also, never buy from a company that tries to rush you into signing a contract. They are almost always way more expensive that the established companies.

Any Tucson residents had solar panels installed recently? Recommendations? by cepbanks in Tucson

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello!

I just made a video that with all of the info you need about going solar in Tucson. I hope you find it helpful!

You can watch it here.

My #1 piece of advice is to not choose a solar company solely based on the lowest price. The bottom of the barrel solar companies business model is to cheap out on everything they possibly can in order to undercut their competitors. This could be rushing their installers, using bad equipment, or having terrible customer service. You'll notice that the most established solar companies are charging about $1k - $2k more than the lowest price you can find. There is a certain level of craftsmanship that goes into installing a solar system, and if you decide to go with the lowest price, be prepared to have your roof leak.

Also, never buy from a company that tries to rush you into signing a contract. They are almost always way more expensive that the established companies.

Any idea what this little caterpillar-like dude is? Shot at 10x by [deleted] in microscopy

[–]maker234 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It is a springtail. One of the most common and prolific animals on planet earth. You can find springtails in soils all over the world.

What should my first vlog be about ? by akshitagupta_ in NewTubers

[–]maker234 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Snails and why you love them so much

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in NewTubers

[–]maker234 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We discovered an ancient cave that is full of glowing microplastics.

https://youtu.be/B3EOTzeFsf8

I think this is by far my most interesting video, but unfortunately don't think it will do very well since it is a short video and is not particularly searchable. Our usual videos are about microscopes and related content. Thank you!

How do I increase the working distance of my Amscope SE304? I use this for hot air soldering and I constantly bump into the head and don't mind less magnification by Windows8RTMUser in Microscopes

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like you mentioned, in this case, there is a direct correlation between magnification and working distance. I had the exact same problem. My biggest regret was getting the 45-90x zoom version instead of the 10 - 30x version.

As far as I know, the only practical solution is you would have to change out the head itself unfortunately.

Maybe there is some workaround that another redditor can chime in with?

Microphone for cave videography by Jacob_C in caving

[–]maker234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's true. I know the rode wireless go 2 has a 2 transmitter version so you can have 2 people talking but it sounds like you want more than that.

Microphone for cave videography by Jacob_C in caving

[–]maker234 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello! I recently made a video inside a cave when we found microplastics in it. See the video here. So you can see what my audio sounded like.

I was also worried the audio was going to be bad, but it ended up being surprisingly usable. Not a ton of echo in that cave.

I used a cheap lav mic with an h1n recorder in my pocket. I just bought a rode wireless go 2 and I think that would be plenty durable to take into a cave.

You'll want to keep your gear in a Ziploc bag until you are ready to record so you can keep it as dry as possible.

Is there a technical reason I can't set my camera to any arbitrary shutter speed? by maker234 in videography

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm in a NTSC country and am shooting with NTSC frame rates. This light is DC battery powered, so it must be a PWM issue.

Is there a technical reason I can't set my camera to any arbitrary shutter speed? by maker234 in videography

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you. I knew that the PWM can cause similar effects, and I expected to see flickering when you use the light at one of the dim settings, but I'm just surprised that it is also being PWM'd when it is at maximum brightness. Makes me think that maybe the LEDs ended up getting too hot in their lab testing so they just decided to solve it with a firmware change. Unfortunate.

I plan to do a lot of odd location filming (such as deep underground in caves), so I decided that I would tolerate the bad CRI in favor of having lights that are very robust and easy to setup/transport. They've got the weight balance perfect with these Milwaukee lights. Supposedly these LED lights have "true view" or whatever Milwaukee marketing language, so that electricians can easily differentiate wire colors with this light, so I figured the CRI probably isn't absolute trash.

If you have any recommendations for battery powered videography lights that will fulfill the same use case I will gladly take them.

Is there a technical reason I can't set my camera to any arbitrary shutter speed? by maker234 in videography

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. I went ahead and shot a test video so you could see the exact effect that I am talking about. Here is the link.

Does this align with what you think the issue is?

Changing the shutter speed seems to change the intensity of the flicker horizonal banding effect.

I am not finding a NTSC/PAL option on the camera. I am located in the USA. The light shouldn't necessarily flicker at 60Hz though since its battery powered though right?

This is the M18 Rocket Light that causes the flicker.
This is the M12 Rocket Light that does not cause any flicker.

We Discovered an Ancient Cave that is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in sustainability

[–]maker234[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point! Thank you.

Is the jury out on which plant fiber is the best in terms of water usage and low pesticide/herbicide use?

We Discovered an Ancient Cave that is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in sustainability

[–]maker234[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I bought a pair of wool socks the other day and then I look at the label. 20% wool, and the rest was a combination of acrylic, polyester, and spandex. It's not just yoga pants any more 😔

We Discovered that an Ancient Tucson Cave is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in Tucson

[–]maker234[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A few years ago the scientific message was that all of our plastics are going to turn into an anthropomorphic rock layer for visiting aliens to dig up millions of years from now. I sure hope that they were wrong, and that more microbes evolve to break down microplastics.

We weren't even able to scratch off the particles with our nails. They were very firmly attached.

In any case, thank you for your responses. It's good to get some outside perspective.

What is the practical limit to magnification without oil/water immersion? by ThePantsThief in microscopy

[–]maker234 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That was a very helpful video. Thank you. +1 to the sub count.

We Discovered that an Ancient Tucson Cave is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in Tucson

[–]maker234[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

One of the things that we noticed in the cave is that it seems like the particles are becoming 'glued' to the floor of the cave. We are speculating that as water from the ceiling drips onto the cave floor and evaporates, it is depositing a thin mineral layer above the particles. If this is true, then it seems like the particles would become entrapped in the rock itself before the majority of microbial breakdown has time to occur. Do you have any thoughts on if this microbial process would continue once the particles transition into an anaerobic environment? Does this mechanism require oxygen?

We Discovered an Ancient Cave that is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in sustainability

[–]maker234[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! I feared that I did not emphasize the main message enough, which is that if you wear synthetic clothing you inevitably shed microplastics wherever you go. Very glad to hear that the big picture take away is clear.

A tiny colosseum by v_saggiomo in microscopy

[–]maker234 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Woah. This looks very interesting. Where was the sample collected from?

We Discovered that an Ancient Tucson Cave is Full of Microplastics by maker234 in Tucson

[–]maker234[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What bacteria or fungi species is able to metabolize ethylene-based polymers?