We've come a long way...#Helpful Post

hank you for joining me as I thought

but yep that's me ten years ago videos

like this we're filmed on a Sony

Handycam that actually belonged to my

boss at NCI X's son so we're using the

cameras onboard audio an entry-level

photography light that we borrowed and

instead of taking screen capture

we just we zoomed in on the screen and

yes that is that is actually electrical

tape stuck to the front of the screen

nowadays we put a lot more technology

talent and time into our videos and I

like to think that it really shows so

thanks to being H photo for sponsoring

this video

we're will be doing a 10-year challenge

not with facebook profile pics but

rather with the production quality in

our videos that continues to change as

our channel ages and I have got to admit

I actually got really nostalgic going

through all this stuff and I'm not the

only one Brandon can I get a holla

that's not a holla B&H; photo is the

largest non chain electronics retailer

in the US

serving amateur and professional

photographers and videographers since

1973 with fair pricing and a fantastic

shopping experience both online and

in-store B&H; has been our go-to gear

store for over six years now check them

out at the link in the video description

or learn more about our experiences with

B&H; at the end of the video the early

days were pretty rough like put this one

where we accidentally filmed an entire

video without audio and then instead of

reshooting it because I didn't have time

I just dubbed the voice-over at my desk

wow what is that

that's the transmitter the infrared

transmitter then there's this video that

has audio but with unbearable background

noise because the camera and its

on-board microphone was so close to the

computer hardware we were trying to film

so there's a few buttons down at the

the board you've got your OC Genie it's

so funny for me to hear people hearken

back to the good old days when Linus

tech tips was better back when he was at

NCI X I mean can you guys even imagine

if I uploaded this video today why does

he Vaughn get a probably cut off at the

end of the clip that's the actual end of

the video like we didn't edit that just

now and sadly the quality of Linus tech

tips basically didn't change for a solid

year

LT T's first real hardware purchase was

a canon powershot sx1 is which was

decidedly consumer-grade but definitely

an upgrade over the original sony camera

because that one recorded to tape so to

ingest our footage we actually had to

connect the camera to a PC over firewire

or actually a Mac to be more specific

and then capture the footage off of it

so yes my friends that thing was from

the era when faster than real-time

footage capture was a feature what a

pain-in-the-butt the SX 1 is actually

recorded 1080p 30fps video fully

digitally 2 SD cards and had a pretty

wicked optical zoom but there were

actually some ways that it was worse it

didn't support any form of external

audio so we couldn't even use that

stupid gray Twinkie microphone mind you

at that point

the goal was not great production values

online as tech tips which was supposed

to be our vlog channel anyway because

remember when I worked at NCIX we were

actually working on to video series

concurrently NCIX tech tips was believe

it or not the higher production value

one with editing some graphics and a

little bit of preparation on my part the

problem was that we couldn't make those

videos fast enough to meet the demand

from all of our partners so as a

compromise and it was actually my boss's

idea even though it ended up biting him

in the butt when I ended up splitting

later we created Linus tech tips which

was still owned by NCIX at that time and

the videos still went on the NCIX

website but the company name was no

longer in the title of the channel so

the idea was to give me a

bit more leeway to be edgier and not

worry as much about quality which

quickly turned into what I called the

one take policy where we would just keep

recording through stumbles with the goal

of shooting as many as six to eight

videos in a single session that would

last just one to two hours you know what

I like I like things that are called

special edition you can see there's some

more black stickers these are to prevent

people from taking it apart never take

apart a hard drive thank you for

checking out my blog on the WD black and

that was really how things were for a

long while

that is until we upgraded to a well okay

looking back it's kind of cute to me

that I was so excited about this but to

a Canon x8n that I pre-ordered thanks to

our increased NCIX tech tips budget back

in 2011 actually you know what no in

fairness this was a big upgrade because

even though it was a fixed lens camera

so barely even above a consumer

camcorder unlike the old Sony one which

used a proprietary interface for

external audio sources really limiting

our upgrade options the x8n had XLR

which meant that we could finally use

professional external mics like the

Sennheiser II W 110 g3 later that year

we would make our first hire Luke who by

the way grossly misrepresented his

experience in both camera operation and

video editing yeah you heard me Luke

start with welcome for our guest

camera operator who is also interviewing

for the tech tips assistant job and we

also reached a hundred thousand

subscribers this was after three years

of videos that quite honestly like I

can't even bear to go back and watch now

like those of you who have been with us

since then you guys are hardcore like

just amazing that stuff sucked a year

after that in October 2012 we finally

got our first piece of real professional

caliber gear at $8,000 the sony fs7

hundred would be our companies which

hadn't officially started yet most

expensive equipment purchased for years

to come

by the end of 2012 we had moved into the

era of Lynas media group being a thing

and - using his garage as a studio which

actually worked great because we could

open the garage door to give us some

natural light because we still didn't

have enough lights and we rented the

whole thing into a state that I mean we

thought looked kind of cool and techy

including the original tech wiki set

which believe it or not was not an

actual green-screen but rather real

white walls that were supposed to look

kind of like I was inside one of those

infinite white Apple commercials but

actually looked more like I was standing

in front of an ugly piece of drywall

overall though even in spite of some

stumbles this was when our videos began

to look like not complete sports garbage

for the first time we had two Kino Flo

diva lights plus whatever cheapies we

could borrow from NCIX when we weren't

back there doing contract work we had a

lav mic of our own and we had our fs700

still shooting at 1080p equipped with a

new shoulder stock and a counterweight

that seemed like a great idea for

balancing the rig but in reality was

just brutally heavy to carry around

anytime we'd actually need it like our

first year at CES where we made over 50

videos with just three full-time

employees speaking of employees this is

actually the first video that our fourth

employee brandon ever shot look at that

it's like the guy was destined for

greatness isn't it you got some nice

bokeh in the background there and

everything I mean not that we paid for

the privilege even though we had a

decent camera by this point it would be

over a year before we bought any extra

lenses for it I actually never told Edie

or Brandon to bring their personal

lenses to work but like they refused to

use the KITT one and I refused to buy

anymore

so everyone's a winner right anyway when

we finally bought a couple of Sigma

lenses we didn't really get a quality

boost because they were the same ones

that we had already been borrowing for

some time now around the time that

Brandon showed up coincidence

we also released our first video with

dedicated b-roll footage and it's

actually frankly kind of amazing that we

continued with the concept considering

how bad these shots are a nine site I

mean I thought at that time then it was

just a waste of time I was like well

come on you already have the hosts there

you've already got the camera there

you've already got the product if you

want to see it closer just move your

butt over closer to the thing and then

just like step back when I'm ready to

address the camera like what do you need

to come back later for but we did and it

was around this time that we also made

our first PC build guide ever on Linus

tech tips this was actually a supposed

to be a statement piece for us it was

the first time that we were gonna try to

meet or even exceed the production

values of the NCIX tech tips that we had

left behind with my old employer and we

spent a lot of time on the intro the

graphics the lighting setup and we even

tried to get like as much depth to the

shot as possible by pulling the table

out from the shelves behind me and then

positioning Brandon literally cheeks to

the wall at the other end of the garage

one of the most amazing things about

this video to me which ended up doing

50,000 views in the first day which was

like a huge deal for us at that time is

that I was still doing all of these

videos unscripted with at most bullet

point notes open on a nearby laptop or

scrawled on a nearby piece of paper that

changed when we switched sets yet again

to the infamous Langley House and

Brandon won another battle with me this

is where the teleprompter makes its

first appearance allowing me to read my

notes while looking directly into the

lens that is at least once we started

shooting our a roll on a tripod because

Brandon refused to try to hold the

camera with the teleprompter hanging off

the front of it what a lightweight

oddly enough the kitchen set that we

moved over to shortly after that became

so beloved by our fans that even though

we were only actually in the Langley

house for just over a year here we are

today years into our current studio and

we

we'll have people kind of harkening back

to the good old days in the kitchen

anyway by this point our budget started

to increase so we invested more in

lighting we bought a cheap piece of

green screen cloth that was so thin we

had to fold it three times over to

prevent light leakage from the window

behind even with the blinds closed and

we got our first slider that we used to

get shots like this one this is also

around the time that we made our first

purpose-made thumbnail image instead of

just using a still from the video and

also when we made a pretty significant

shift into actually writing full scripts

word for word or nearly instead of just

doing vlogs so you guys see that eye

contact on making with the camera there

that's because the video is scripted

ultimately we made this move as part of

a change in direction towards reviews

rather than unboxings and as a way to

both improve the information density of

our videos and to leverage our larger

production team without causing

inefficiencies so it was more work for

me up front to create the scripts but it

made the shoots much easier and less

time-consuming because retakes were

simple and editing was also faster

because there was just less garbage

footage for at that time Tarun to sift

through in September of 2014 we

celebrated 1 million subscribers with

our seven member production team and

over the following year we built out our

kit with fancier things like diffusers

which are especially important when

you're using a jib which was another new

toy that we use for top-down shots like

these in 2015 we moved finally to the

studio that we're in now in retrospect

that seems like so few people to occupy

this big of a space we continued to

build on our kit with all sorts of

random stuff closing out the year with

our purchase of two sony a7s twos which

became our b-roll and running gun show

coverage cameras pushing our pork N and

XA cameras to purely channel Superfund

duty our IP in 2016 we bought our first

big kid lights our to re sky panels

which are super bright

not to mention RGB something our channel

was definitely severely lacking and then

we kicked off 27

by getting a bunch of new gear to make

our lives easier at shows like CES

including our much more reliable Elektra

Sonic's wireless mic packs a variety of

pods of various sorts and a couple of

knockoff easy rigs which we only just

replaced like last week with the real

deal because they're like $5,000 each

honestly though worth every penny

because these things have changed our

lives and they allowed us to finally

achieve my goal of handheld filming with

a teleprompter

anyway shortly after we got back from

CES our new cameras arrived from red

which while painful for the bank account

and actually for our workflows at the

time cuz like 8k footage there was

definitely a workstation upgrade in

there somewhere they also gave us kind

of a sense of relief because at that

point we had reached the top there was

nowhere else to go with our gear I mean

people shoot Hollywood movies on these

things and yeah who did I think I was

kidding

Brandon always wants more stuff so last

year after we changed over our set from

something more SETI to something that I

think feels quite a bit more natural we

picked up a DJI Ronin 2 gimbal which

allows us to take smooth walking shots

like this one and then right before CES

2019 we bought a handful of Canon c2

hundreds to replace our poor a7 s 2s

that are both in various states of

disrepair and all of these things aside

from the fact that we're just geeks and

we love new toys to play with are

essentially being purchased for the sole

purpose of you guys being able to see

and hear me in greater and greater

definition something that over the past

10 years has surely become less

appealing which I guess brings us

perfectly into how B and H figures into

all of this the vast majority of those

purchases have actually been through B

and H going all the way back to our

original fs700 and even though I've only

been to their New York store once on a

day that it happened to be closed boy

they've been very good to us over the

years with fair pricing great customer

service we've actually had to return a

fear a few things for assortment of

reasons excellent delivery time

especially after their Canadian shipping

got more competitive a few years back

and generally great selections so it is

no BS for me to say that it was pretty

cool to have them reach out to sponsor

this video because to me that's yet

another indication of just how far we've

come

going from it's just even six years ago

not being able to get an appointment at

a trade show to be shown around

someone's booth to being taken seriously

by the real players in the production

space so thanks to being H for

sponsoring this video and thanks to you

guys for watching if you disliked it

well you know what to do but if you

liked it hit like get subscribed or

maybe consider checking out where to buy

the stuff we featured at the link in the

video description

probably the newer stuff not the older

stuff so much also link down there is

our merch store which has cool shirts

like this one and our community forum

which you should totally join