Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00All right, here we are in the studio.
00:22It is almost done.
00:24It's built and we have decorated it and there was furniture and there was a Pete and a James,
00:29but it's a work in progress.
00:30But I thought I'd give you guys a bit of a tour, show you what's going on, how I work.
00:35Firstly, this is my brother Pete.
00:37You may have seen him before.
00:38Hi there.
00:39So you're a producer.
00:40I am, yeah.
00:41Like I write your scripts and stuff, you'll film them, I edit it.
00:43He also makes me tea and cleans up, so yeah.
00:45Senior janitor, Barbster360.
00:48That's me.
00:49Hello.
00:50I'm behind the camera.
00:51James is an incredibly professional cameraman and editor and videographer and...
00:55No pressure.
00:56Yeah, so if there's any flaws in this video, you can blame him.
00:59Blame him for that.
01:00And if there's any editing issues, it might be Pete.
01:02Nothing's ever my fault.
01:03But yeah, this is definitely an upgrade from where we were with, what, Dad's dining room?
01:06Yeah, when you started out, it was just living at Dad's house, working out of his dining
01:11room.
01:12Trying to avoid his floral curtains and my mum's cushions.
01:14Oh my God, yeah, yeah.
01:15But then you got an upgrade.
01:17To his bedroom.
01:18To his?
01:19Yeah.
01:20He moved out of his master bedroom, his main bedroom, and let us film in there.
01:22We still use it as a studio, actually.
01:24Yeah, if you watch anything of your older stuff, it's all filmed in there.
01:26I think it's disguised quite well, actually.
01:28A lot of credit for the whole tech chap goes to our dad, actually, Chris.
01:32So I don't think we've ever properly said thank you to him for that.
01:34But yeah, he's been the most supportive person in the entire world.
01:37But now we're here.
01:39We have our own space, which is good.
01:41And it took, what, four months to make?
01:46So tomorrow morning, work starts to completely transform us into a new studio slash office
01:53thing.
01:54Doors are coming off, windows are going in, a new door at the back, flooring, acoustic
01:59panelling, vaulting the entire ceiling.
02:01So all this is going to be gone.
02:02It's going to take about two months, but I'm very excited.
02:05I had a great company called HomeArch who came in and did all this.
02:09I would love to say I made this myself.
02:11James is actually a fantastic home builder.
02:14And wait, why didn't you do this for me?
02:16You could have done this for me.
02:17I could have, you didn't ask me.
02:18I didn't ask you.
02:19You were building your own home at the same time.
02:21Well, I take credit for it.
02:22Deal, deal.
02:23Yeah, HomeArch will be happy with that.
02:26So HomeArch came in and they gutted it.
02:29Everything was taken out.
02:30It's really opened up the space.
02:31We've got these lovely windows in now.
02:33Kept these beams, which are absolutely beautiful.
02:36They really add a bit of sort of character to the place, because that's one of the problems.
02:39Like you can make a studio, you can rent a unit, you can, you know, anyone can do that.
02:45But it can all look a bit basic and a bit office-y.
02:48And that's something we wanted to avoid.
02:50Still a work in progress.
02:51Obviously, we could try and make this our own.
02:53There's a lot we want to put on the wall.
02:55What do you think?
02:55Maybe a massive, the Tech Chat neon sign like PC Centric has or something.
03:00What do you reckon?
03:01Maybe.
03:01What do you guys think?
03:02If you've got any thoughts, actually, or any feedback or suggestions about how we can make this space a bit better and a bit more personal,
03:08then, you know, let me know in the comments below.
03:09But very proud of this nice brick wall.
03:12Real bricks, not just your crappy laminate stuff.
03:15That took a lot of time and money.
03:17You've got the Tech Chat blue wall, which you may recognize from the old studio.
03:20We had that color matched because they don't actually sell the same paint anymore.
03:23Acoustics aren't too bad now.
03:25When they finished the actual construction, it was so echoey in here.
03:29Ridiculously echoey.
03:30I even paid extra for some fancy underfloor and wall insulation, which was like acoustic insulation.
03:36Didn't make any difference at all.
03:38So what has helped and is hiding behind Pete, actually, we've got these fantastic acoustic panels.
03:43I'll leave a link in the description below.
03:45And they've made such a difference.
03:46So generally, this is my setup now.
03:50So I'll talk, not at Pete.
03:51Pete wouldn't be there sometimes.
03:52And we'll have the camera there.
03:53I've got the Aputure light there.
03:55That's the C300D2.
03:58Got another one over here.
03:59That's the older C120D2.
04:02Actually, I've got the big umbrella as well.
04:04The big dome for that in here.
04:05I've got my little locker.
04:07This is where if Pete or James have done anything wrong,
04:10I have to put them in here for a few hours so they learn their lesson.
04:13But a bit of storage in there.
04:14But I didn't actually have room, despite this new space, room for this whole dome to go up here as well.
04:19In fact, I'm going to show you something really horrible.
04:22Do you want to see the worst thing about this whole setup?
04:24Ignore my horrible shadows.
04:27Look what I'm covering with this acoustic panel.
04:29Don't judge me.
04:36But that's fine, because that, that...
04:41Oh no.
04:45That goes there.
04:46Smoke and mirrors.
04:48Nothing is as it seems.
04:49I have collected a few bits and pieces over the years.
04:52A Keanu Reeves cyberpunk doll figure.
04:56It's not a toy.
04:56I never take this out of the box.
04:58One day, it'll be worth something.
05:00Maybe in 2077.
05:02Actually, look at this though.
05:04My brother Pete bought this for me for my birthday recently.
05:07Turboman doll.
05:08I'm trying to find a Turboman doll.
05:10If you've not seen Jingle All The Way, then this will be really weird.
05:13It'll still be weird even if you have.
05:14I want to talk about this.
05:15Standing desks.
05:17So obviously, standing desks aren't new to most people,
05:21but they are to me, and they're the best thing ever.
05:23So this was actually sent over from the guys over at Flexispot.
05:27It is a Sano desk.
05:28It's actually the biggest top they make.
05:32I think it's 70 by 160 or something.
05:35I basically wanted to replicate a nice wide desk
05:38where I can do product shots, but also film on.
05:40And obviously, being a standing desk, you can adjust it.
05:46You can also pre-program a couple of heights to it,
05:49so you can just come in in the morning.
05:51And if I'm going to do some standing work or, you know,
05:54present, make my videos like this,
05:56I can bring it up to a certain level if I want to sit down.
06:01New desk.
06:03It's very cool, actually.
06:04Lovely bit of kit.
06:05Really, really solid.
06:06Weighs an absolute ton.
06:08Took me maybe 20 minutes to put it together or something,
06:11but it's just really added to that sort of flexibility of how we work
06:14because with that desk, I have found I'm a lot more productive.
06:17So generally what I do, now I've got these new MacBooks as well.
06:20I was normally just sort of restricted to this PC setup
06:23where I've got my desktop,
06:24but now with the new MacBook Pro 16s and 14s,
06:28you can get the 100% performance off battery.
06:30I don't have to plug it in.
06:32It's just a nice sort of break away from sitting at a desk,
06:35which is really nice.
06:36So I will leave a link to this in the description below.
06:39If you want to check out the Flexispot desk,
06:40you can actually get loads of different colors on the top.
06:43Black, brown, white, woods.
06:45You can also get matching legs,
06:47little under cable runners as well.
06:50So you can really customize it to how you like.
06:52Definitely recommend it.
06:52It really does make a difference just to how energetic you feel, you know?
06:56You don't have to be sat down all the time.
06:57But if you do want to sit down, got a couple of options.
07:00And actually, I want to tell you about them because what have we got?
07:02One, two, three, four, five chairs in here for a maximum of three people,
07:06which doesn't really make a lot of sense.
07:08But if you were wondering,
07:10what does Tom, the tech chap, sit on all day?
07:12One of those big questions.
07:14This guy first, probably.
07:15We've got this Hammermiller chair.
07:16A little bit pricey.
07:18Very pricey.
07:19But it is so comfortable and also looks pretty good as well.
07:23They teamed up with Logitech.
07:24So it is the Hammermiller Logitech Embody gaming chair.
07:29I don't know what really makes it gaming,
07:30except it has this like cyberpunk-y blue color to it.
07:33It does look pretty cool.
07:34Incredibly comfortable and also very, very adjustable
07:39in sort of every which way you'd want.
07:41So definitely recommend these.
07:44Again, I'll leave a link below if you fancy it.
07:46If they are a little bit too pricey though, get one of these guys.
07:48This is a Noble chair from my good friend Steven Levitt,
07:52who basically made them what they are today.
07:54Noble chairs, I've had these for years.
07:56My black leather one over there.
07:58And this guy is the Noble chairs icon.
08:01This is actually really interesting.
08:01It's a brand new fabric-y one.
08:03So unlike the leather ones, which I found got a bit sticky sometimes
08:07when I'm sort of sat here all day and my back gets a bit sweaty.
08:10This is actually really nice.
08:11We'll see how it lasts over time.
08:13But yeah, not too expensive actually.
08:15And the fabric is really nice.
08:17Again, nice and adjustable.
08:19It means after a hard day of YouTubing,
08:22I can just, you know, take a step back and enjoy.
08:29This is how, this is usually the setup when I'm leaning back
08:32and everyone else is working.
08:33Furniture in here is all a bit slapdash.
08:36I'm not an interior designer.
08:38You'll be surprised to hear.
08:39Various things I've bought from Dunelm and Made.com
08:42and Amazon and Ikea.
08:44It's all, as I say, a work in progress.
08:46I had actually this nice little desk made from a guy over at Etsy.
08:49And one of the things I really wanted to do with this space
08:51was keep it modular and keep it sort of flexible.
08:53So you can sort of shoot from almost any angle,
08:56which is what we wanted, not just this is the set,
08:59this is where we can shoot.
09:00And so being able to sort of drag desks a little bit,
09:03hopefully don't scratch the floor doing that.
09:05And actually being able to just shoot upwards
09:06and have a bit of sort of verticality to the space.
09:09And also because we've left the ceiling white,
09:12we can actually use it as a bit of a bounce.
09:13So we've got this aperture pointing upwards
09:16as my glorious assistant,
09:17my glamorous assistant turns it around
09:20and actually gives us a very scary dragon shadow
09:22going on there from this MSI little dragon.
09:25This is the best thing ever.
09:27It's a chunky little MSI dragon this.
09:30I don't know what I'm gonna do with it,
09:31but it looks quite good there.
09:33Actually, while I'm here, this is kind of nice.
09:35I met my wife, Sarah, through YouTube.
09:37She got in touch and was asking some tech advice
09:40about a phone, still got the original Galaxy S9 Plus
09:43that she was asking me questions about.
09:45That was very cool.
09:46So yeah, if nothing else, I met my wife through YouTube.
09:50Yeah, just a little behind the scenes on me there.
09:53Where were we?
09:54Let's talk about other things that aren't me.
09:56One thing I have sort of figured out
09:57as I've been trying to improve these videos over time,
09:59which hopefully, fingers crossed,
10:02you've been able to see the progress,
10:04is having a big old reflector thing.
10:06So maybe that's made it better.
10:09But actually, just being able to bounce lights off this,
10:11or more importantly, when we're shooting B-roll,
10:15stick it in front of windows or overhead,
10:18it removes the reflection
10:19so you don't get those horrible reflections.
10:22So a bit ugly and nowhere to store it.
10:24And I think you can collapse it down,
10:26but I've not figured it out.
10:30We'll come back to that later.
10:31We'll leave that like that.
10:32That looks good there.
10:33So this is, well, what is this?
10:35It is my new vertical camera mount.
10:38And it's the best thing since sliced bread.
10:41I actually got some advice from my friend,
10:43Andy Ruffell at e-Technics,
10:46who bought something very similar to this
10:47because I can mount my camera on the end of this pole.
10:50So what I can do is get this sort of overhead my desk
10:54so I can get some nice sort of vertical shots.
10:56And with this little ball head mount on here,
10:59I get flexibility with the camera.
11:00So it's actually just being able to shoot upside down,
11:04left to right, vertical shots.
11:06This is such a good bit of kit.
11:08You can spend tons of money on cameras and lighting,
11:10but being able to have the flexibility
11:12of shooting with something like this.
11:14Bit slap dash.
11:15As you can see, we're still figuring everything out.
11:18And I almost poked myself in the eye
11:19with this the other day.
11:20But again, I'll leave a link below if you fancy
11:22checking one of these out.
11:23So this is the usual setup
11:25that you might be familiar with if you watch my videos.
11:27We've got the backdrop there,
11:28that nice sort of bokeh background.
11:31And actually having that depth of field,
11:32I think really adds to the sort of quality of the video.
11:34And for video, as I say, we are actually using these guys,
11:37Sony A7S3s, that is secure.
11:41Sony A7S3s.
11:42We often have a monitor on top as well
11:44so we can see what we're doing.
11:45Bunch of Sony lenses.
11:46Most recent one I bought actually was this guy.
11:48It's the Sony 24-105, so we can zoom in a little bit.
11:51For audio, a Rode Lavalier mic
11:54plugged into a Tascam recorder in my pocket every time.
11:58So not necessarily the most professional setup,
12:01but it works for me.
12:01And I take the micro SD out here, SD out here,
12:03and edit it together on my PC.
12:05So in this guy, my pride and joy,
12:09if I get my Duff beer cup out the way,
12:11this has got an RTX 3090.
12:13We've got an AMD R9 5950X, 64 gigs of RAM.
12:18It's a bit of a beast.
12:19But I have to be honest, aside from gaming,
12:22over the last few weeks,
12:23I've just been plugging in my MacBook Pro, which is crazy.
12:28I mean, this is still very expensive
12:30and actually not that much less than this was,
12:33to be honest, although GPU prices are still crazy.
12:35But I can just plug in my Thunderbolt port,
12:38which also charges it, of course,
12:40and I can just edit straight off the Mac.
12:42It's really, really nice.
12:43And I don't have to make proxies,
12:44even though we shoot in 4K, 10-bit, H.264,
12:47which is a horrible codec,
12:48but it's just buttery smooth on this.
12:51So if you are a video editor,
12:53I highly, highly recommend getting a MacBook Pro 14 or 16.
12:57But of course, no setup would be complete
12:59without a good bit of Philips Hue.
13:00So I've got the light strip behind my desk.
13:03I am gonna put a gradient strip on behind the TV soon,
13:06and also I've got a few of the bits and pieces coming.
13:09So definitely recommend Philips Hue.
13:11They are kind of expensive,
13:12but you can just kind of add to it over time.
13:14And it's kind of fun if I black out all the blinds
13:16and then put the lights to green or red or blue or something,
13:18it gives you a really nice kind of atmosphere.
13:20And then in this corner, we have the living room.
13:23It's actually pretty useful to be able to test TVs.
13:26So actually, I didn't wall mount this.
13:28Another one behind you there on the floor.
13:30Storage is still a bit of an issue in here.
13:32But this is a really nice little chill area
13:35for playing some games.
13:36We've got this SkyGlass TV.
13:38This is a 65-inch SkyGlass.
13:40Definitely an interesting proposition,
13:41not sure it's for everyone,
13:42but I did a review of this recently.
13:44PS5, got the Series X in there, I think, actually.
13:48And recently I've been playing a bit of Vanguard,
13:50also Forza Horizon 5.
13:51That looks insane on this.
13:53And while actually the sound quality
13:54on the SkyGlass is very good,
13:57I do have a Sonos Arc down here as well.
13:58Normally that would go up here,
13:59but just, well, didn't work for this setup.
14:02But hopefully we'll be doing more TV reviews
14:05and TV versus videos on the TechJab channel
14:07because I can more easily get them in and out of here.
14:10It looks a bit more professional
14:11and yeah, they're just fun to do.
14:12So stay tuned for more of those.
14:14We are the Borg.
14:15Resistance is futile.
14:16Obviously having some good testing equipment helps.
14:18This is a laser thermometer.
14:20We've got a lux meter for measuring lux,
14:22brightness on things.
14:24Also color accuracy on monitors and screens.
14:26So hopefully, you know, I do my research for my videos
14:28and we do a lot of testing,
14:30but altogether, I mean,
14:31this is one of the most sort of proudest moments of my life
14:35getting this 1 million subscriber plaque.
14:38I love what I do.
14:39I am extremely privileged and lucky
14:40to be able to be a YouTuber creator person for a living,
14:45but it is a full-time job.
14:46I work many long hours and many long days.
14:48We all do, James included, and Pete as well, of course,
14:51but it's a labor of love.
14:52And hopefully this space will just give us
14:55a bit more room, literally, to improve our game,
14:59to be more creative and improve the quality of things.
15:02So do stick around.
15:03Hopefully you'll see some improvements
15:05going forward as well.
15:06And if you've got any suggestions
15:07about what we can do with this space,
15:09let me know in the comments below.
15:11If you haven't already subscribed as well,
15:12although I guess if you've watched this entire video,
15:14chances are you already have,
15:15but a cheeky like and subscribe
15:16will be very much appreciated.
15:18And stay tuned for a whole lot more on the Tech Chat.
15:21Thanks for watching.
15:22All right, James, back to work.
15:24Now for this waffling.
15:27No, seriously, James, back to work.