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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

What should I do with my 300 video reviews? Request for advice (3 Viewers)

binomania

Well-known member
Excuse me for posting in this area. If there is a better sector for the administrators, please let me know. I would also need your advice. The few readers who know my website - www.binomania.it, know that I have been doing reviews of binoculars and other instruments since 2006. However, a few years ago I decided, at the request of some readers, to open a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@opticsreviews .
In these years I have created about 300 videos, over 100 only about binoculars and 30 about spotting scopes, and so I come to the question.
My channel has about 6000 subscribers, but in reality it is many more because more than 85% of the visitors do not subscribe, perhaps because they watch the video directly from the pages of binomania.it.
Already this is a problem for me, because it would be enough for all the readers who see my videos to subscribe to increase the ranking on Youtube. But I was born a "blogger" and not a youtuber and this is fortunately for me, who loves to write, the price to pay. Obviously, being an Italian channel, I have about 75% of my nation's visitors, but I get requests every day to open an English-language channel from many optics enthusiasts from around the world.

I cannot do this for two main reasons: my pronunciation would be very very bad :) and I work almost 12 hours a day writing articles, managing my 4 websites and preparing videos, I would not have time to create videos in English as well. Many people don't know this, but to create a video there is a lot of work behind it: article writing, photography creation, video lineup decision, video shot with two systems: mirrorless + insta360X, video editing and more.Since I also deal with astronomical telescopes, trailcamer, thermal viewers and more, I always have a lot of work.

For that reason I would have two options:
1) Creation of English language subtitles. Actually, I have already done this with a few videos, but the work is time-consuming because you have to download the Italian subtitles generated by YouTube and then correct them and only then have them translated by deep professional (whose subscription I pay for). In this case, I would rely on an external collaborator who would have to be paid. But the expense is not high. Actually it is possible for people to use youtube's translation system, you choose the subtitle and then ask youtube to translate it, but nobody does that and I understand that the translation is bad

2) Using AI. I have already tried to make demos, both with lip editing and with mere voice editing. You can find them here. The problem is that this has a higher cost, in the sense that i am talking about 2 euros per minute.
https://www.binomania.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/demo-inglese-salimbeni.mp4 lip-less
With lip http://www.binomania.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/prova-ia-inglese.mp4

As understandable whether I decide to put all the subtitles in the videos or whether I decide to use AI to create my videos with English audio, this will have a cost to me that would necessarily eat into the income I have with binomania premium subscribers. I do in fact charge a semi-annual or annual fee to read binomania without Google advertising, as well as provide consulting service and discounting by companies I want to do this to my readers.
You can see what this is all about here: Diventa un utente Premium, navigazione senza pubblicità e altri vantaggi -


Since my plans for 2024 extend to astronomy, I'm just trying to figure out if it might be worthwhile at present to have my sport optics videos read or heard abroad. The binomania.it website already has a machine translation system, and I see that there are definitely more foreign readers than those who visit my YouTube channel.
In addition, I also found that the average range of my readers is between 45 and 65 years old, and these people still like to read a lot, in fact I have about 65000 visitors a month on binomania who also prefer to see photos and read articles. In short, the Youtube channel is only a part of my work here in Italy and I am trying to figure out whether to provide a better service to non-Italian friends. Thank you all for any suggestions you can give me!
Kind Regards from Italy
Piergiovanni
 
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Hi Piergiovanni,

Maybe find a retired English teacher in Italy to make subtitles or even provide English voice at a reasonable cost.

But I suppose Spanish might also be required.

As to astronomy, in Britain there are fluent French speakers in the national astro societies, but I am not sure if there are Italian speakers.
There are some Belgian Flemish speakers.

A bilingual local school child might be useful also for pocket money if this is allowed.

My language skills are minimal, but I have a friend who speaks forty languages and is a top linguistics professor, who has taught about eleven linguistics professors.
He is semi retired but translated scientific books from nine languages into English.
He speaks ancient Icelandic, German, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, Veps, Latin, and numerous other strange tongues.
A genius.
But he charges professional rates.

Regards,
B.
 
Actually it is possible for people to use youtube's translation system, you choose the subtitle and then ask youtube to translate it, but nobody does that and I understand that the translation is bad
Not at all. I've looked at a video of yours before, and just watched part of another as an experiment. Google translation into English subtitles came up automatically and is really quite good, with only a few odd glitches ("the movements are without any play, inpunctual?...") -- just a bit awkward at times but completely understandable overall even regarding technical terms. I doubt that any improvement on this could be worth the cost or effort.

Moreover, for whatever it's worth, I'd really rather read a blog, it's much more efficient. (I generally play narrated videos at 1.5x speed because speech is sooo sloooow!) Most things that require illustration are well served by simple photos, at least in the domain of optics reviews. I wouldn't have urged you to make videos myself, and while it's possible that some people may be more likely to look for them, Google/YouTube do already make yours quite easy to watch.
 
Hi Piergiovanni,
I have always loved your binocular and scope reviews when you were writing them and have read every one of them!
I never warmed to video reviews (yours or others‘) and would therefore encourage you to go back to writing reviews (which are then easy to translate).
But I may be the only one with this request …
Best, Canip
 
Not at all. I've looked at a video of yours before, and just watched part of another as an experiment. Google translation into English subtitles came up automatically and is really quite good, with only a few odd glitches ("the movements are without any play, inpunctual?...") -- just a bit awkward at times but completely understandable overall even regarding technical terms. I doubt that any improvement on this could be worth the cost or effort.

Moreover, for whatever it's worth, I'd really rather read a blog, it's much more efficient. (I generally play narrated videos at 1.5x speed because speech is sooo sloooow!) Most things that require illustration are well served by simple photos, at least in the domain of optics reviews. I wouldn't have urged you to make videos myself, and while it's possible that some people may be more likely to look for them, Google/YouTube do already make yours quite easy to watch.
Hi Thanks, let's say that the request to produce videos arose both from younger readers and from the "competition" here in Italy, more than anything it was born out of needs to show the performance of camera traps and thermal viewers and their real quality and then I also transferred it to binoculars and telescopes. Thank you very much for your comment!
 
Hi Piergiovanni,
I have always loved your binocular and scope reviews when you were writing them and have read every one of them!
I never warmed to video reviews (yours or others‘) and would therefore encourage you to go back to writing reviews (which are then easy to translate).
But I may be the only one with this request …
Best, Canip
Dear Canip, i also like your reviews! Thanks for the comments. in practice when I prepare the video, I also write the review, so you will always find both the complete article and a summary, via the video. Regarding the possibility of using students or external collaborators, it is possible, thanks for the suggestion. I was more interested in knowing whether it could be more useful to create better subtitles than those created by YouTube or whether to invest time and money in creating audio in English. Thank you
 
Hi Piergiovanni,

Maybe find a retired English teacher in Italy to make subtitles or even provide English voice at a reasonable cost.

But I suppose Spanish might also be required.

As to astronomy, in Britain there are fluent French speakers in the national astro societies, but I am not sure if there are Italian speakers.
There are some Belgian Flemish speakers.

A bilingual local school child might be useful also for pocket money if this is allowed.

My language skills are minimal, but I have a friend who speaks forty languages and is a top linguistics professor, who has taught about eleven linguistics professors.
He is semi retired but translated scientific books from nine languages into English.
He speaks ancient Icelandic, German, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, Veps, Latin, and numerous other strange tongues.
A genius.
But he charges professional rates.

Regards,
B.
Dear Binastro, thank you very much for your precious advice!
 
...more than anything it was born out of needs to show the performance of camera traps and thermal viewers...
Yes, even to me a video can be more useful in these cases; in fact it was a thermal monocular review that I just chose for testing subtitles. Otherwise, say for a binocular, do you have a sense of what it is exactly that some (especially younger) viewers are looking for in videos, or why they prefer them? Making them must involve much more work for you.
 

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