A couple people said they'd be interested in how I managed to get Film & 40s to work as a real-deal commentary track, playing simultaneously over the movie. While one can typically get a pretty good result with two media players and careful use of the pause button, this method allows one to be able to pause both the movie and the commentary or even skip around in time while still remaining totally in sync. It also ensures the the sync you get is near sample-accurate which is pretty neat as you'll be watching in almost real-time.

The method hinges on using Media Player Classic to play the video file. MPC will load and play audio files in the same location as the video, provided they have the same file name. It plays the audio file over top of the existing audio in a movie so you can hear both tracks at once.

Instead of the method I describe below you can use ffmpeg to cut the mp3 up at approximately the time the guys start their movie (credits to @jetlag for this). You can either find the time codes posted in the comments or listen for the 3-2-1 count during the podcast and mark the time yourself. The syntax is:

ffmpeg -i [podcast filename] -af "atrim=start=[time in seconds]" "[output filename]"

Here are the links to the bits of software you'll need. These are all freeware open-source tools.

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - https://mpc-hc.org/

Audacity - http://www.audacityteam.org/

MKVToolnix - https://www.fosshub.com/MKVToolNix.html (NOTE: Required for the tool below)

gMKVExtract GUI - https://sourceforge.net/projects/gmkvextractgui/

Eac3to - https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125966

Eac3to and more GUI - https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=135095 (NOTE: Place this in the same directory as eac3to.exe)

Step-by-step guide

First open up gMKVExtract, select the audio track and hit Export

Depending on the source the audio might be .dts, .ac3, or even .mp3. If it's .mp3, you're in luck as you can skip right to Audacity.

If you're seeing a .dts file, open up Eac3toGUI. Select Add Source File and add the .dts audio file we created in the previous step, or just drag and drop the file into the window.

Now switch over to the Eac3to Audio tab and under Input Files Or Folder dropdown select the name of the audio file we just loaded. There should really only be the one option.

Over on the left type in a name for the output file (can be anything), under Save As Type select wav (not wavs). Under Downmixing below, check the box for Downmix Multi-Channel to Stereo.

Finally hit Run Command Line and let eac3to go to work

Next we'll need to do some editing in Audacity to match the podcast audio up with the movie audio. Now that we've got a 2-channel Stereo audio file that Audacity will import, this should be easy.

Take a close look at the podcast, we're looking for the 3-2-1 countdown which should look like this. After that mark we have a few seconds of audio from the movie that we can use to line up the two tracks.

The green line is where the actual movie audio begins, the red line is where the guys start their movie. We want to those lines to match up so we'll need to cut away some of the podcast intro. Listen to it now since you won't hear it during the movie.

After cutting back the intro we can see that some of the peaks and valleys are in sync. If you cut out too much you can always add some blank audio back in by clicking an area before where you mean to cut and going to Generate > Silence. This part is probably better demonstrated in the video.

OPTIONAL: Typically the podcast audio will be at a pretty consistent volume while the volume of the movie will go from being very quiet to very loud sometimes making the commentary difficult to make out. You can boost the audio of the podcast by a few db (1db-2db) to compensate. Using the slider underneath the Mute | Solo button, move the arrow a little to the right. You can always turn down the volume of both tracks using the volume control inside the Media Player Classic.

Once that's done and the audio is in sync, remove the movie audio track by hitting the small [ x ] button. File > Export the edited podcast and save it to the same directory as the movie file. Give both files the exact same name. Now play in MPC :)

Video Guide

NOTE: you'll probably need to bump the volume of the podcast audio down while editing in audacity to get a good mix between movie and commentary.

Nearly a year ago today, in attempt to better understand video editing, I edited together the horrific contents of the livestream known as Mario Party 4. The entire stream was about 2 hours and I managed to get it down to 19 minutes.

I've been polishing up my skills and biding my time. I also switched from Lightworks to Sony Vegas Pro. Now I've got something new to share.

First things first. I am SO GLAD to be using Vegas. I didn't really know how bad I had it with Lightworks until I made the switch. Sony Vegas has multi-track editing which allows me to layer video and static image on top of each other, a feature Lightworks sorely missed. Vegas has an amazing 'snap-to-anything' functionality which allowed me to easily drag around clips while keeping everything in sync. I could really go on about all the things I love about Vegas compared to Lightworks. It allowed me to dramatically streamline the process for making one of these.

Having all these new tools allowed me to alter my process. In my previous edits I was marking areas of a large video and then cutting out everything in between. It was kind of a brutalist approach and it made making changes to the clips later very difficult. Vegas allows you to create subclips from a larger piece of footage, I could roll through the entire video looking for good bits, select them and then save them as a subclip without altering the original video. I built a library of small moments that I could edit together later, and in retrospect this probably saved me tens of hours.

Even though I hadn't used an editing suit of this caliber before I was able to mostly stumble my way through. it really helps that all the items in the toolbar have descriptive explanations on their tooltips. I think my time playing around with audio editing software helped too as I quickly warmed up to using envelopes to control events. I even spent some time with Adobe Flash in a past life, which prepared me to fooling around with keyframes in the effects settings.

Personally I am very happy with the way this turned out. I put a lot more focus into really trying to select only the good scenes and then trying to whittle away anything I though was extraneous. I had a few ideas about the types of things I wanted on screen and the program allowed me to do them quickly and simply. More importantly it allowed me to really experiment with different techniques without worrying if I was going to mess up the rest of my work in the process. Doing this was a great learning experience and now that I'm more comfortable with Vegas I'm thinking about doing a lot more with it.

Probably be some dumb Anime Music Videos and some more Giant Bomb edits.

I edited together 22 minutes of the 4+ hour Mario Party 4 livestream. This is my second time doing one of these and I'm still new using Lightworks, so if there are some rough moments, bear with me. I skipped Mario Party 3 as I didn't think that stream was as entertaining as the second. However after watcing the Mario Party 4 stream, I decided to have another go at this.

I always try to do a short write up of my process making these edits so I can try to record what I've learned and share what my goals were.

For this video I wanted to keep it short and focus less on providing context for the state of the game -because the game part is mayhem- and more on the couch moments. Trying to visually keep track of the board state meant providing clips of the game that aren't necessarily funny and add needlessly to the length of the video. I didn't include every good either moment because I still want to incentivize people to pick up a premium subscription if they enjoy this short recap.

As for the actual editing process, this one came together in about 4-5 hours. Thats about the time it took to watch the video in real time and mark cue points, cut out everything between and do a second pass adjusting the start/end times of each clip.

Timing is one thing I really tried to pay attention to. I was listening to the audio to try to time most of the cuts and add some space around them where appropriate. Having a bunch of rapid fire riffs is great sometimes but since all of the moments are in chronological order, sometimes there are more quiet moments that break up those runs and I felt like I needed slow down the pace of the video in spots.

Pacing is something I want to work on in future edits. I feel like one the best ways to achieve better pacing would be to start grouping the clips by theme to create mini stories (i.e. all the times 'a game of skill' is referenced). However doing that means moving all the clips out of chronological order which is something I've been debating with myself. It would be harder for the viewer to keep track of the game but it would link all the relevant riffs together. As much as mario party is already a clusterfuck to keep track of, jumbling the clips around would make it even more inscrutable. I may experiment with some nonlinear edits in my next video.

I've also been thinking about adding some graphics. There were a few times where I felt like it might be entertaining to add some text or a cutaway of someone's face during some of the more trying moments. I'm not entirely sure how Lightworks handles stuff like that quite yet. I futzed around with some graphics in the GB Extra Life edit I did and it was not the smoothest experience.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoy the video. I feel like there's been a slight improvement in my understanding of Lightworks and of video editing in general. As you can see I've really gravitated towards the theory end of editing and it gives me an appreciation for the work that Drew and Jason put in to the live streams.

Hey, it's me again. I'm the guy who did that other video.

So this time I downloaded all 12 parts (22 hrs, or 18GB) of Giant Bomb / Iron Galaxy's 22 hour Extra Life live stream and decided "why not try to make another dumb internet video with this. That won't be too much harder, right?"

Why I decided to jump from a 3 hour video featuring one game to 22 hour livestream featuring like, every game, is beyond even me. I actually tuned in for parts of the stream when it happened live, but couldn't stick around for everything. I really liked what I saw so I figured taking on this project would give me a good excuse to watch it all plus I'd have something to show for it at the end.

It was a real test of my patience, As I watched Patrick, Dave, Steve and co. fight to stay awake, I found myself sharing in their ordeal a little. There were definitely times where I'd reach what I thought was a good stopping point for the session only to zoom out and discover I'd maybe only got 1/18th of the way through.

Shit.

Large parts of the stream weren't usable mainly due to it being footage of dudes passively playing games without much commentary. Any content will do on a 24 hour livestream (as long as it's not horror games) but that isn't the case when you're trying to edit together something engaging. However, Dave could almost always be counted on to drop some hot sound bites and whenever Spelunky or Velvet Sundown was booted up, you knew some shit was about to go down.

In the end I ended up cutting out more than 75% of the footage in a first pass just to get it to a 'reasonable' length and then doing another pass to make sure I got all the moments I wanted. The final version is still over an hour long, but the nice thing about taking an hour out of 22 is that there is pretty much zero filler. It's all the hot moments with none of the 3am blank stares.

The part I'm most proud of is by far the Spelunky segments. Damn that game makes for good video. Especially when you involve 3 other knuckleheads and a shitload of bombs. There is so much goddamn spelunky happening that I had to resort to doing a supercut of every explosion just to try and fit most of it in.

Anyways, I decided to start an actual Youtube Channel now that I'm sure I'll continue to do at least one or two of these types of video a month. It's called Beautiful Axe, it's got a hot logo and everything. Future videos from me will be uploaded there instead of my personal channel. I had said that I was going to try an do all the Extra Life streams but considering how much effort this one took, I may do some shorter videos in between to try to change things up a bit.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN HOUR TO KILL

Watch it on Youtube, expand the description for the video, there you will find a full index of every segment I edited together along with a handy timestamp so you can skip straight the part you want to see. Here are some choice moments: Dave Lang's Giant Bomb Tier Chart / #AllAboutTheMoms, "Danny O'Boyle", Samurai Gunn Flawless Victory, Spelunky 99 Bombs Supercut

IF YOU DO HAVE AN HOUR TO KILL

Duder, you're the best. Seriously you won't be disappointed. It's all hot content.

So I decided to learn video editing in my spare time. My background is primarily in graphic and web design but I've always been interested in video production so I thought it might be cool to experiment with some Giant Bomb videos.

Since Windows doesn't come packaged with a decent video editing program like iMovie, I started looking for a good freeware video editing suite. I wanted something where I could drop a file or files on a timeline and make some very basic linear cuts.

I came across Lightworks which seemed like a decent free suite with a relatively straightforward interface. After spending 15-20 hours doing some very basic linear editing, I'd say that it's a pretty good option.

The Mario Party 2 premium video was a joy to edit. So many great moments. I wasn't really trying to form any sort of narrative, just cut together what I thought were the best bits. The original video is 3 hours long and I managed to cut it down to about 19 minutes.

My first pass was alright. I spent most of my time scrubbing around to find where a 'bit' started and ended and then cutting out everything around until I was left with consecutive goofs. This means I had the entire 3 hour video sitting on the timeline and I was making my edits when and where I saw them, which I'm positive is the wrong way to go about things. The term 'destructive editing' comes to mind but I was more concerned with finishing this project quickly and figured I could learn how to do it 'the right way' later. Here's my timeline for that project:

In the end I was pretty pleased with how the video turned out. I realize now that if I wanted to go back and re-edit this video, it would be very time-consuming due to the way I just haphazardly sliced out parts of footage in one massive edit. I didn't mess with any of the effects and most of the clips were edited in the order they appeared (save for one or two bits).

Feeling satisfied and perhaps a little overconfident I decided that my next project should be editing together the best bits of the 96 hour extra life livestreams. I finished the Iron Galaxy portion, but I'm planning on writing a separate blog for that.

You can watch the Mario Party video below. If you guys have any hot editing tips I'd love to hear them.