The Couple's Table
The Couple’s Table is a weekly livestream podcast hosted by Heather Ramirez and Tom Buck. Join us, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall podcast and stuff!
The Couple's Table
EPISODE 150 EXTRAVAGANZA!
GEAR OF THE WEEK (Amazon)
Remote Control for Lights https://geni.us/j9xX
Sony ZV-E10 https://geni.us/BEDvUzs
Join us as we celebrate the 150th episode of "The Couple's Table" by dissecting the quirks and joys of live streaming, from audio hiccups to ever-evolving equipment. We're excited to introduce our furry co-host, Finley, who has found a new favorite spot in Tom's office chair. Plus, don't miss our new "Gear of the Week" segment, where we showcase a game-changing remote-controlled power outlet setup designed to simplify your video production life.
Curious about how the Sony ZV-E10 stacks up against the high-end Sony FX3? We offer a deep dive into the world of camera comparisons, discussing everything from sensor sizes to image quality. You’ll hear why the ZV-E10, paired with the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens, is a fantastic option for those wanting studio-quality video without the hefty price tag. We'll also touch on the practicalities and considerations of upgrading your camera setup, shedding light on features like AI framing and the importance of good lighting.
But that's not all—this episode is packed with personal anecdotes and valuable tips for content creators. We share our journey from the early days of our podcast, highlighting the evolution of our setup and workflow. From the significance of understanding your needs when selecting gear to the fun and challenges of live streaming, we cover it all. Plus, get a sneak peek into our adventures in Final Fantasy XIV and our plans for future gaming streams. Tune in for an engaging, informative, and celebratory episode that promises to inspire and entertain!
🟣 CONNECT WITH HEATHER —
My Vlog Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherjustcreate
My Tutorial Channel: http://www.youtube.com/heatherramirez
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/heatherjustcreate
Website: http://www.heatherjustcreate.com
🟣 CONNECT WITH TOM —
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/tombuck
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sodarntom
hello and welcome. My name is tom and I'm heather and you're sitting at the couple's table the couple's table is a live stream podcast here on the channel. Join us for better or worse for richer or poorer in sickness and in health. For episode 150.
Speaker 2:For episode 150 oh I don't have the air horns on here here.
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, wait, wait, let's go. Tom is going to check the audio really quick, because this is how we check the audio.
Speaker 2:Hey, I think that works. Yay awesome, because it doesn't matter if you do a live stream and you don't change anything from stream to stream. Sometimes stuff can still not be consistent, exactly Because of me. We tend to change things between every stream also, so it compounds potential issues. But I think things are good. Things are good.
Speaker 1:I think so here we are actually let me listen as you talk okay, so he's gonna listen while I talk. Here's one thing that's different. Uh, we have tom's chair in here, because if you can't tell, I'm going to lift my microphone really quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:This is technically Tom's chair, but Finley has accosted the chair because it's his favorite chair and he really wants to be in that chair all the time.
Speaker 2:So we just brought it in here and here he is. Yeah, this is yeah. I thought it was like something special about my office that made him so comfortable no, it's the chair it's the chair look at him, he's so cute he's. He's never in here, like the whole time we do the show, because he always ends up in my office yeah, he goes to top, not because he doesn't want to be in here.
Speaker 1:Ikea office chair baby anyway, let's check in really quick. Oh no, coffee in the house. Nice thumbnail, you too. Audio hotline is here. Hello, hello and sean grogan in the house, hey grogy well, it is episode 150, tom crazy 150 episodes. We've done 150. That's a lot.
Speaker 2:That's a lot. It's almost 200.
Speaker 1:No, it's not, but it's a lot. Melanie is here. Happy Friday. Don is here. Smart dog, he is a very smart dog. Who's Joe?
Speaker 2:What's up, Joe?
Speaker 1:Hi Heather and Tom, new subscriber from Florida who is new to both of your channels, first time catching live stream congrats on 150 episodes. I showed you a comment from joe yesterday yes, tom screenshotted that one said nice things about heather's channel well, both of us, oh yeah, and that was really nice. So thank you, yeah, yeah so what's up?
Speaker 2:what are we doing to start off? Well, we have a segment do we yes, we do segue to a segment. It is.
Speaker 1:We are going to be doing the gear of the week, where tom and I talk about one piece of gear that we think is cool yeah, and I, uh, I may have gone a little bit extra.
Speaker 2:He went extra, so I went uh easy actually.
Speaker 1:Can you give me the remote? I've mentioned this before, but when tom and I redesigned my office, we well, he put a lot of my video lights on a remote. So basically there's like this is a three button one, so there's three box things that you put in an outlet and then you plug the video light into that and then it connects to one of these numbers and then basically, instead of going around and pushing power off and on, you could just use the remote so I can turn off my I believe these are my video lights boom and then turn them back on or the lights behind us in the background. We turn those off and turn them back on with the push of a button, and it's just awesome.
Speaker 2:So, uh, tom has a link to the one that you used, but you, yours has more channels yeah, so this one that you have, this is actually from home depot and it was for christmas lights, so it yeah, um, so it's kind of cool. The box is like big and heavy duty. Each little box has two outlets, which is really nice, but there's only three of them.
Speaker 2:The one I have, each box only has one outlet, but there's five of them you have five channels, yeah, um and you're using yours for video lights, which is what I use a lot of mine for, but obviously it could be anything. A lot of av gear like, for example, the black magic a10 mini. They don't have power buttons and so it's just kind of on all the time until you unplug it you unplug it either from the wall or from the device itself.
Speaker 2:So, like, whenever I'm using my ATEM, I always have it running through one of these, so that way I can just turn it on and off without having to mess with anything. So it's not just, it's anything that plugs in, and you know, sometimes people have also talked about like smart plugs and things that can hook into like smart home devices and you can be voice command, which is also awesome, uh, but there's something to be said for, like, it's just a button of a button.
Speaker 1:It's like as close to mechanical as anything. Yeah, uh, so there's a link in the description for the one that tom has the five channel one yeah, this was the home depot special, like six years ago. So yeah, it's hard to find that exact one but that is, they're all kind of year of the week, okay I'm jumping in you went to a place, tom went to a place I went to a little place.
Speaker 2:Um, actually, sony loaned me a camera. Sony loaned you a camera.
Speaker 2:Uh, and it's not a new camera it is not a new camera, so it's not like, hey, it's the biggest, latest and greatest, but they loaned me the sony zve 10 got it, which has been out for two and a half years I think at this point maybe three years, um, and actually it looks probably a little bit bigger than it is. The camera itself is very small. I think a lot of people watching this probably have a zve 10. I don't have one, but I recommend it a lot. They've used them and they're great. Um, I'd love to get one of my own, maybe even a couple of our own one day, because this is an awesome studio camera, it's an awesome camera period, but it's also a really great studio camera because, uh, well, actually I have an example oh so, um, sony loaned me the camera and then bnh loaned this lens, which is the sigma 16 millimeter f 1.4 lens.
Speaker 2:That's the one you would put on it, so that's the one I would write it comes. It comes with's the one I would write. It comes with a lens a 16 to 50 millimeter lens which is like a good all-purpose lens. It's going to immediately look better than any webcam. But if you want to take things to the next step, I have some sample footage. The reason for it we're not necessarily only looking at quality, but there's a couple things I want to point out here. This was a little comparison I edited together this morning.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to roll the tape.
Speaker 2:Tape. So this is the Sony ZV-E10. Actually, if it's paused, could you pause it right there, nope.
Speaker 1:There it goes. It's paused.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Finley's in the background. So basically I just had a tiny tripod on the floor and put this here. But the thing I wanted to look at the reason I used this shot, um was I wanted to look at the background blur and also how wide the shot is. Okay, so there's like the bob's big bob's burgers figurine in the middle, super clear. Finley and my tool chest are in the background. They're blurred out, um, so you have some nice shallow depth of field. This is f1.4. You can press play on the thing right there and it looks great Like. The colors look great, the exposure is good. This is 4k and this right here.
Speaker 2:This next shot is actually my Sony FX three and the framing moved a little bit, which I'll talk about in a second, or the subject moved a little bit, but this is my Sony FX3, which is my main camera. This looks like a still image, but it is video and kind of the same thing. Looking at the subject, this is what I use to film all my videos and everything like that. And then I did a little side by side right here. So this is why I think the Sony ZV-E10 plus the Sigma 16 is really cool, and a lot of you probably already know this. In this shot, ignore the fact that the figurine is not framed the same because the cameras are different sizes, so even though I put them on the same tripod, the FX3 was just taller because it's a bigger camera.
Speaker 2:But if you look at the framing it's pretty much identical, like you can see, on the left-hand side you can see sort of the leg of my desk and a little space. On the right hand side you can start to see a little bit of the drum stool in the top top corner. There you can see like not quite the top of the red tool chest. Essentially the framing, like the, the wideness of the shot, is pretty much identical. Now, both of these lenses are F1.4. The FX3 is using the Sony 24, the ZV-E10 is using the Sigma 16 at f1.4. But and they look, for all intents and purposes are the same.
Speaker 2:If you look at the Sony, you can see. If you look at the silver stripes, the handles on my workbench they're more blurry than they're slightly more blurry than the handles on the ZV-E10. So there's a little more background blur there. But the reason for that I don't know how to get back to us. I guess I can just do this one here. There we go. The reason for that is because we are talking about this is a crop sensor camera and this is a full frame camera. I know we're going into gear territory here.
Speaker 1:Wow, the thing is so much bigger yes, so I have a lot.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of things to share here. So first thing, let's be very careful here. Here's my sony fx3. I always hate having the lens off, but you can see the sensor in there the shiny part yeah, camera sensor. How big that is, um boy, do you need help? Dusty's on there. No, I just I want to show this and here is the sony zve 10 a crop sensor camera. You can see how the size of that sensor okay okay yeah, so very, very different full frame crop sensor.
Speaker 2:That's the difference, that's what that means. The full frame sensor is the same size as a 35 millimeter piece of film from, like, the old school days and crop sensor is smaller.
Speaker 2:The crop sensor, even though it's smaller, way bigger than the sensors here, which are like a fraction of the size of, like your pinky nail. Pretty much. So bigger sensor, better image quality, better low light performance, more background blur, all that stuff. The reason that I think this is cool and maybe I can pop this back up is, in this case, even though there's a big difference between these cameras, like in terms of features and things they can do, and usability if you're looking at streaming talking head videos, you know podcast type stuff pretty much identical, I think I think you could.
Speaker 2:You could just say it looks the same. Yeah, um, but check this out. I did some figures. Oh, he did figures I ran some numbers the Sony ZV-E10. Yeah, this camera. There is a Mark II that just came out which is like $1,000 or $1,100 and has some cool features. The original one, though, is actually currently on sale for $600. Oh, it's the least expensive camera I recommend from any manufacturer. It's normally $700 for just the camera, 800 for the lens. It's a hundred bucks off right now, which is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At least at B&H it is, and that's just for the camera. The Sigma lens itself is 450. So that means camera and lens. Currently if you get that sale it's 1050. If you get a full price normally it's $1,150 for this whole setup and you have something that is comparable with this setup here. The reason I think that's cool $1,000 is not no dollars.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:This camera.
Speaker 1:This rig, this camera is $3,900.
Speaker 2:This lens is $1,400. So that's a total of $5,300 for this right here.
Speaker 1:What is that difference?
Speaker 2:That difference is about depending on the sale or not sale, but up to $4,200. I'm not gonna lie. I don't see a $4,200 difference. No, in image quality I don't see a $42 difference. We're using a wider lens. This is 24, this is 16, because those sensors make lenses look different. So this 16 millimeter lens is very equivalent to this 24 millimeter lens. Full frame versus crop image quality wise, in a controlled studio environment, virtually no difference right where you're gonna go out, yeah where you will notice.
Speaker 2:A difference is if you need, if you need other stuff. I mean the build quality, the usability. This has a fan inside of it like I could take it out here. I have in the midst of summer. It will never overheat. There's zero record limits. There's dual memory card slots.
Speaker 1:There's 4k 120 like there's yeah, but if you have a shot like mine, where it's on the tripod, it never moves. It's just here in the studio.
Speaker 2:The prompter has never come off of it, if you want just a good studio camera, talking head stuff, work from home, video streaming, podcasting video calls all that kind of stuff for this, also much smaller setup. You're gonna get basically the exact same image quality. Um that I get out of my five we should try that on here that's the that's one of the reasons I wanted to borrow this oh well, we should do that for the next one, yeah because you've been talking about potentially thinking about the possibility of considering upgrading to 4k it's.
Speaker 2:It's a possibility there's a little nervous about, there's a lot of camera options, but this is one that definitely popped into my mind as being a potential option for you. So, anyway, I'm going to do a bunch of videos about this and well, I'd love to I well, this is just on a personal note.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'd love to upgrade to a setup that I can recommend, because right now I use a canon 60 mark ii, which I don't. I don't think that's the camera we would recommend nowadays no, they still make it.
Speaker 2:It's a great camera, but it's a dslr from seven years ago like yeah there's no. It's a full frame camera, so it looks awesome. It's not 4k. There's no. There is video autofocus, but there's no. You can't use video autofocus while you're streaming yeah, this is a manual focus shot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we have it exactly perfectly lined up with where we sit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you. And if we move around, we don't stay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have to make sure we're on the same plane so anyway, that was wow.
Speaker 2:I don't know 48 minutes later that was my gear of the week segment. But I'm so excited about this little camera because it makes really great image quality so insanely accessible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go, homesick Mac in the house. Hi, everyone, almost missed you. We're glad you're here, gil. Happy Friday everyone. It's an awesome studio camera Coach constant. Is that the old one or the new, updated one?
Speaker 2:That's the old one because there's a lot of hype around the new one, which is cool. The new one seems great, but I asked Sony specifically are you discontinuing the original one? They said no, and that made me even like it more, because now we're seeing it on sale a little bit, it's even a better deal. So what's the 500 difference between the new one?
Speaker 1:um, I think the new one does have a better sensor.
Speaker 2:It does have a different body, so, like some of the controls and things are different. Um, it has which sounds hokey but is actually pretty cool, like ai framing and stuff, so it can okay it's pretty sweet, like it has a lot of the features that that sony's like 3000 and up dollar cameras have, but in a you know 1100 camera it's a very cool update, um, but the original still kicks butt yeah, I mean especially for the use case that is so common that you're talking about yeah, and a cool thing too.
Speaker 2:Like in your case, you would set it up and never move it um. But if you're someone who you know doesn't have multiple cameras or whatever, the cool thing is like it is a camera. That's why what's an advantage of a camera or webcam? It's a camera.
Speaker 1:You could unplug it and then take it out into the world, of course, and the other.
Speaker 2:The other thing I forgot to mention, with this sigma lens um, it's just like my prime lens and that the front doesn't rotate, which? Means it works with the Elgato prompter Because some lenses zoom in and out on the front twist and you can use them with the prompter. But it's a little trickier. This one, you can just hang the prompter right off the lens. It's good to go.
Speaker 1:All right, call me Cubby. Happy 150th. Thanks for being here, morty Hi, and happy 150th. Morty's the one who sent this lens. There you go, mr Camera Junkie in the house, hey, everyone. So is Heather changing to Sony now by Canon? Well, the other thing is like I want to. So the reason why I was even thinking about it at all I don't want to bother with 4K because storage is something like I think that's the biggest change with going from a 1080 to 4k workflow is the storage because of files and then like what I mean? Sure isn't that true? That's not true it's, there's variables.
Speaker 2:It's weird because the 4k files out of, like this camera, other sony cameras are the same size as my 1080 files for my Canon EOS R.
Speaker 1:That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:Because I was using the highest quality 1080 that EOS R could do, which was bigger files and with the Sony, I don't actually have to use the highest quality 4K. I can use slightly more compressed files and still get amazing quality, and they're the same same file size okay, well but they're so we take.
Speaker 1:So I take the recordings of, like the couple stable. You know that three, four gig file is now going to be yeah, I mean it's huge.
Speaker 2:Well, you record through ecam, so it won't be as big as if you're recording natively in the camera, because ecam works a little magic in there too.
Speaker 1:But the other thing is, like you know, obviously, as someone who helps other people with their YouTube channels, I definitely want to use a setup that I can recommend Someone could go out and buy it, yeah. But the reason why I haven't like changed the setup is because I don't need to change the setup. This looks great, you know like.
Speaker 1:It's a testament to what lighting does, because you're set up like composition, lighting design that's a bigger difference than 1080 to 4k I I you know I don't think this is me being stubborn but I like the fact that it's we're using things until they're broken right, like if it's not broke you don't need the newest thing, you don't need the shiniest thing or the most expensive thing. It's like yeah, it's a seven-year-old camera Probably no one else has this setup.
Speaker 2:It's a great camera. I mean, that's the one I took to Iceland and did a bunch of stuff with. It does the HDMI port's a little funky. Sometimes the colors go all acid trippy.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but yeah. So it's like, but I do, you know, if someone were to be like what's, what's your setup? I always say, here's my setup.
Speaker 2:but Well, I mean to be fair, that's the same thing I do, cause I say they say what's your setup and I said, well, it's the Sony FX3 in this lens, I'm like. But if all you want is a talking headshot that looks like this Got it. Just get this, so even cameras. I still recommend it like crazy, yeah, because it is it's a way more practical solution than what, what I actually use for most people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had just you know. So how much was this setup?
Speaker 2:this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, 10, 50 yeah, see so as someone who has a setup. That is great justify 10 50 yeah, like it doesn't, there's no there needs to be.
Speaker 2:If you hit a point where you absolutely want 4k, then you should get this. If you hit a point where you absolutely want 4k, then you should get this. If you hit a point where you absolutely want autofocus although, see, I don't know this is where I need to like, I don't think this camera has it. Some sony cameras have a thing called breathing compensation, so how the lens like pulses in and out when it's autofocusing, they, they fix it. So it doesn't do that. So my camera, even though it's auto focus, okay.
Speaker 1:So first of all, when we went to nab audio hotline we'll know what I'm talking about when audio hotline was filming, so it was the three of us we were hanging out at nab. We're basically like the crew, and whenever tom needed us to record something, it would be either me or audio hotline behind the camera, and when audio hotline was holding the camera he like stood still and when I was holding the camera I was doing like the vlog, so like kind of adding movement, and it was like that wasn't the focus, though that was the image I had the active image stabilization turned on, so it was like that was an autofocus.
Speaker 2:The autofocus is like if we turn on autofocus here, especially the christmas lights in the background, you would kind of see him, like you might even see the edge of the frame kind of pulse in and out a little bit just just as the focus is moving.
Speaker 2:Some sony cameras combined with some lenses can eliminate that I don't think this has that, though unfortunately um, but it's also again, if you're just, if you you know yeah, the beauty, though, is this is a wide lens on a crop sensor camera, so chances are, when we try it on your setup, it could not even be an issue.
Speaker 1:Okay, so stay tuned for the episode 151 of the couple stable, which will be with this. We'll use that.
Speaker 2:And the other cool thing too, which is helpful, is you know lots of cameras have this, but this was one of the first Sony cameras to have product showcase mode, so it can kind of detect.
Speaker 2:Mine has that yeah your zv1, I think, was the first one, um, but what that means is and it's nice with a lens like this it kind of knows when you're holding something up. So for me I'm always like uh, and then like, try to focus it. Yeah, you don't have to do that thing anyway, you can just hold something up. It will know you're holding something up, focus on it till you go, and it's really quick, and right now we can't. If I want to show you this, because we're on manual focus.
Speaker 1:This is why we use ndi on here so because there's no focus so there are advantages like that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I do like that your setup is. I mean, you're using an amazon basics tripod like 30 bucks yo, and it's gotten. Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you how much money that 30 has made I mean the tripod that was taken out of the box, set up, set right there and hasn't really not moved for five years. Yeah, that's cool If you were taking that in and out of cars and breaking it up, tearing it down it would have fallen apart years ago.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't matter, because that's not what you're doing with it Exactly.
Speaker 1:Let's see.
Speaker 2:Morty, I would love to know if the elgato prometer works with that lens.
Speaker 1:I know it's a 24 millimeter equivalent, but you use it with your 24 millimeter. I'm guessing morty asked that before I mentioned it, because it do. Uh, does the zv10 first gen have a 10-bit codec? I don't know what any of this means but, morty is responding. Nope, unfortunately not. I had the original and it's phenomenal, but upgraded to the 6700, yeah, 10-bit, uh, coach, constant. I'd love to hear more about the elgato prompter too. Think about buying one, but I already have the glide one.
Speaker 2:I had the glide one too. They're honestly it's like not, they're both prompters in name, but they're not the same. I mean, if the glide one's working for you and you don't mind the tablet or phone setup, then you're, you're probably good to go. But if, like if, you're not liking whatever app you're using, you're not liking the tablet workflow, the Elgato prompter is, as long as it's always used near a computer, it's not even close.
Speaker 1:Home setback. I have a three foot, which would be a one meter of a distance between my talking head and the nearest item in my backdrop, wondering if the 16 millimeter would do, maybe even going wider. I and the nearest item in my backdrop, wondering if the 16 millimeter would do, maybe even going wider.
Speaker 2:I'm on the Sony a6700. Okay, so three meters between Okay, no one meter, one meter, sorry, three feet One meter between.
Speaker 1:Him and the background.
Speaker 2:Him and the background. I can't use this camera, I can't show you this camera's feed, but I can tell you I'm getting some decent background blur. I mean it looks. Sorry, I'm looking at the wall back there which is about a meter away and I'm using Heather's microphone as the subject and it looks.
Speaker 2:I mean you can kind of see it looks pretty oh yeah, it looks great um, I don't know of a wider I'm there must be like a 14 or 12 or something. But, um, I like the sigma because it it's a great lens and well, I like my 24 and it's the closest thing on a prop gill says I highly recommend the zbe 10, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it yeah, like the a6700 is like a huge upgrade in terms of build quality and all this other stuff, but it's also not twice as expensive, but maybe two-thirds more like friday always.
Speaker 1:I agree with her if it works, don't fix it.
Speaker 2:I see myself staying with the a7 yeah, he's in four four for a very long time because it's like final fantasy x, it's like the four what day did you sign up?
Speaker 1:do you remember the day you? No, because it doesn't tell me you just don't remember final fantasy, yeah no, no, it was so random. It was like last sunday, saturday sunday we're just like we need to talk about that. All right, morty says it's such a crazy value proposition. Mark one, mark two. Jason morris just did a video on 8-bit versus 10, but which was cool to see the difference but also how the youtube impression might affect things. Oh yeah, so 8-bit versus 10-bit is interesting.
Speaker 2:It has to do with color. Um, my eos r was an 8-bit camera. My, my sony's are 10-bit cameras. It doesn't sound like much. It's like two bits. Who cares, you know? Yeah, but what it means is that's 20. Well, amount of color essentially the amount of color in the footage that the sensor and the camera can process is like I forget what the it's in the order of magnitudes of like tens of millions different shades of color that suddenly show up. And so if you ever see those things that happen where, like you have something I don't know, sometimes it's like a solid color or maybe even something like your background here, where it's like a gradient of a color and you notice like banding, yes, um that's essentially because it can't make, it can't fill in the gaps between those shades of color.
Speaker 2:If you're using 10-bit, there's so much more color data that now you're gonna have a smooth thing. It's a very. It's something I didn't notice until I started cutting between the eos r and the sony a7s3 when I got it, um, and it took me like six months of cutting back and forth before I really was like now I need to get a second sony, um. So it's not. It wasn't like instantly I noticed it, but over time like wow I like this.
Speaker 1:Ernesto, hi tom and he.
Speaker 2:Happy Friday 150 episodes on Amazon Basics Tripod so fun fact, I think we started the couples table in your room oh yeah, actually we started in the kitchen, so the first one was on like a I don't know, a Joby Gorilla Pot or something yeah because, that was yeah, we don't even have episode.
Speaker 1:Wow, we have like hella missing.
Speaker 2:Go to podcasts maybe sorry, I think um, we didn't relist them right, um, yeah, so it started in our kitchen oh, here, yeah, oh yeah, double, oh couples table, oh one.
Speaker 1:It was down at the bottom there okay, let me see if I can share. Can we screen share oh?
Speaker 2:that's not the first. That's the first couples table. I guess zero is the wedding reception episode.
Speaker 1:Oh okay, so here's, this.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is there we go and we're using the Yeti. Wow, because the Yeti is what we used on the one in the kitchen. It was just easier to get two people june 9th 2020 just over four years ago. Um, so we had been married for, oh my goodness, not even a month, not even a month. We had finley, that guy, back there for not even a month. Um, yeah, and when we?
Speaker 2:so first one we did was at the kitchen counter on the day we got married yeah then we were like, oh, we should make it, we should do a regular podcast one month of marriage.
Speaker 1:How goes it this?
Speaker 2:episode two yeah see, now we're in your room and now we have two mics, so we quickly updated that um, just a glass of wine in the frame, oh boy that looks great, though there's the eos r kicking butt um.
Speaker 1:That's your 2020 haircut that's my.
Speaker 2:I gave myself that haircut, which doesn't look that different than the haircut I have right now losing everything to become our true selves.
Speaker 1:Gosh, how, how dramatic.
Speaker 2:That is very dramatic. But yeah, we started in my room and I was still oh look, it's the old Coke Zero cans. When they were, they were black instead of red. We started in my room and I was still teaching at the time too, so I'm trying to think of the timeframe here. Yeah, so we would do this like after work, and sometimes we did it on thursdays look at our fourth episode.
Speaker 1:Are we having kids?
Speaker 2:a lot of times I would have to come home from work because, even though it was a pandemic, I was still work teaching online from my classroom. So I would come home from work and we dive in at like 4 pm. I think is when we did it, and it was in my studio because I had more stuff yeah and I was running it on my computer and I was starting to get so like coming in from work doing this jumping in.
Speaker 1:I was getting so overwhelmed with like running the tech things you're like.
Speaker 2:Let's do it in my office.
Speaker 1:For some reason, tom thought that he had to be in charge I don't know and then I was like I got this.
Speaker 2:It was like you run ecamm you change the things, you monitor stuff.
Speaker 1:I'll show up but yeah, that was the. Thing because tom was getting so stressed out. Um, and I think, especially back then, you've come a long way when it comes to live streams. You put a lot of pressure on yourself back then where everything had to be perfect and um this time I was like, let me do the production. Just sit, okay, just sit and talk, and that's why we um I'm just checking an audio.
Speaker 1:I want to be perfect oh boy, okay, uh, let's see homesick back. Thank you for testing it, tom appreciate it. I was thinking of 11 millimeter on a crop sensor, also because I like to grab my whole guitar as well what was the question?
Speaker 2:homesick mac right here I was thinking of 11 millimeter crop sensor because I was like, grab the whole. Yeah, um, if your 11 millimeter has good autofocus and I can't remember if using the prompter not in your current setup, um, but if the front doesn't rotate like my 50 millimeter lens, I posted a story and it's actually my gear highlight on my Instagram page. Um, but, like the other day, I was using my 50 millimeter lens with the prompter the Sony 51.8, which does the front of it turns when it focuses and stuff, so you can't put the prompter on it. So I put the prompter on its own little tripod, like in front of my camera and kind of like, and I'll kiss and like, push them together and it worked. But I wouldn't want to do that all the time. It's a pain.
Speaker 1:MCJ says once you see it, you can't unsee it 10 bit, mike. Hello everybody. Happy Friday y'all. Coach Constance, you have the honeymoon, gory going on so sweet. Well, actually back then it was more of puppy insomnia.
Speaker 2:Exhaustion yeah, but we were happy to be married. We were so excited.
Speaker 1:We got Finley two days after we got married and he was 10 weeks old.
Speaker 2:Eight Eight weeks old.
Speaker 1:Oy Juice, how much time did you dedicate to pre-livestream today? Versus when you started.
Speaker 2:Well, I came in here eight minutes before the stream started.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, so to be fair, when we first started it was a lot. I think it was at least weighing on us that day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was still working, so I was working, so I was at work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you were thinking about it, yeah, and we were at the point, obviously, where a lot of things were changing. Yeah, we were running things to the roadcaster. Everything was just more complicated than it had to be. Then, um, we a couple people took a break too for a long time.
Speaker 2:That was more recent though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, then we got to the point where because it was in my room literally turn everything on, boom. Let's go Recently, recently, since we've been trying to level things up. There's a few days that go into. Okay, let's try to figure out what we're going to be talking about. We're doing the gear of the week segment now and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So and went like more other segments too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, like tom had to make that video to show you. Uh, so it's taking more time now, but in terms of like, if we needed to do a show, just sit and push, go live yeah, I mean heather, a big thing with heather's setup is like turnkey, like yeah, and that's.
Speaker 1:That is what I'm trying to do with my desk in my room also, we have to shout out all the audio podcast folks who listen to us every week. Uh, we've got the audio, so the audio workflow has been passed on to me Because I am not good at it. So I promise I will not miss a week.
Speaker 2:We are up to date.
Speaker 1:We're up to date and, yeah, I'm going to do it right after the show. So the other thing that got plugged into our Couples Table workflow is we're're gonna go to handles and get some ice cream after the stream, but we're not gonna do that until I finish the audio right upload, so see it all fits in. Yeah, uh, let's see. My a7 IV will probably be my main talking head camera for a while yeah, that's a good one, and I see people talking about live streams.
Speaker 2:Like mike says he spends an hour on streaming and stuff. If I'm doing like a regular stream, depending on what it is, it could be more, could be less like a couple of tables pretty quick.
Speaker 1:But because my setup never changed, the setup is this like what mike is tom using today.
Speaker 2:And then the rest of the setup is like what we're talking about yeah, um, in my room, though, what I'm trying to do, my desk, I'm trying to kind of copy your setup and have that be, which is?
Speaker 1:where I would.
Speaker 2:That's where I would want this is at my desk, where then it never moves, because currently I have that, except I don't have a permanent camera over there so I do have to set put up a camera, set it up, put the prompter on it and stuff, um.
Speaker 2:But I, once I get that figured out, then my desk which not isn't like my favorite angle or anything, but it's a great work desk and then it is just like turn on the camera, go live, yeah everything. There's already a mic there, there's already everything else. And then if I want to do something extra, if I want to set up multiple angles and all that, then I have the whole other like rest of my office to build out a thing yeah, so you have one stationary, yeah yeah, and that's actually awesome uh, bronson's got to be over an hour of prep oh my god does bronson.
Speaker 1:Do a regular live stream nothing about him is regular coach constant, are you doing writing networks anymore? I'm getting a dead page. When I go to the site, I'm getting a unsupported protocol page. They really got lots of new features. Plenty of peeps would pay, so we uh sunsetted sunset sunset, our mighty network um.
Speaker 1:And the reason being is because I think the thing that we didn't realize well, I don't know. One of the things I didn't realize is like when you start a community, it's kind of just goes on forever Um, where I think what I think like doing something with a set timeline, you know whether it's like three months or six months or something, it's just something that I could wrap my head around, versus it's just never ending thing for the next 10 years or something like that. Um. And then also, when we went to nab this year, we kind of wanted to do a different type of community um, so we were going to launch that and kind of like merge and combine. We kind of never did and I can't really explain why I don't know, things change yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It just sort of depends, things change, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean I think like we will. So if you want to do some kind of community, the place to do that is tom's membership. He has a patreon he's got you could do patreon or you could do youtube memberships and then you also have the av well, both of those get you access to my old school phpbb message board yeah uh, which is full of awesome peeps yeah, it's full of, but it's also like it's it's really not that busy.
Speaker 2:There's no algorithms you could I think you can get notifications. People reply to your post, but it's literally like the expectation is not immediate thing. I think that's that's the thing too, when you have a commute, it's ongoing and it's like. It's sort of like constant and immediate yeah, the message board is like there's zero expectation.
Speaker 2:That is not what it's designed for at all for anybody. It's like you can check it once, I mean every couple of days like yeah, just like. Oh, what's happening over here? Cool forum you can easily. You can literally get caught up and be done with it and move on. Um, and that is very intentional, because I do. I want it to be a thing that goes on for a long time.
Speaker 2:It's been over a year now, yeah, um, and I also do want it to be a thing that goes on for a long time it's been over a year now, yeah, um, and I also do want it to be a a cool database because it's searchable and it's all threaded and you know, it's old school message boards, which I enjoy a lot yeah um, and so I like that quite a bit and it is a really fun place to hang out and but it's very, very like low-key and not crazy busy and stuff.
Speaker 1:Uh, did I hear a diss on the Rodecaster Pro, no longer using.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. Heather has no interest in having one. I have three.
Speaker 1:I will line in the sand. I never want a Rodecaster. That's a personal choice from someone who just wants everything super simple. 95% of the time I'm in here, I use the one microphone at the same volume level for my voice only, so I never have to tinker with anything. Um, and that's. That's just my philosophy overall, with everything, which is why the tripod hasn't moved in years. The camera hasn't moved in years. As soon as the prompter went on there, I just don't move it, I don't move the lights. I I come in here, I push these buttons and I push record or go live and that's it. That is very different from the way that Tom does it he rebuilds his setup every single time.
Speaker 1:But that, like you know, there's no right or wrong. But that's why I like that we have such different approaches, because it really is about your preferences. You know the kind of content that you're creating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I really like. I like you know the kind of content that you're creating. Um, yeah, because I really liked.
Speaker 1:I like you know, okay, what's this video going to be about what makes sense, like yours is so visual, so that makes sense, yeah, and but does it make sense like?
Speaker 2:would it make sense to shoot into the direction where you see like a computer setup in the background? Does it make sense to shoot, like when I do microphone views and headphone things or whatever? I kind of include more of the guitars and the audio stuff in the back in the background?
Speaker 1:ben is chewing a bone against the desk leg. So if you hear, actually, I'll show you ready um, so I try to figure that out.
Speaker 2:I try to like should I be sitting? Should I be standing? I'm trying to get this over here and there we go, nope, nope oh, you gotta lock the scene oh. No, it's not locked, nope, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I'll fix it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right. We had to do something over here last time. It was weird.
Speaker 1:I still have to delete Ecamm and reinstall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember what I was talking about. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:You set up every shot intentionally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, depending on what each video needs. Yeah, like, and do I need an overhead? Do I not need overhead? That that can be kind of a pain.
Speaker 1:But the thing with your channel is that you you use a like, you show a lot of physical products and for me, like, okay, a lot of my videos are talking head or screen shares, like I'm talking about how to do something in canva or I'm streaming a video game or something like that you don't hold, I don't yeah it's all conceptual, it's all digital.
Speaker 1:It's not something I could be like. Here's this. So you know, having a second angle is not something that I need. All of my production stuff is like digital yeah, you're way more digital cam overlays and yeah, stuff like that. Uh, jose, what is your top three favorite parts of your equipment?
Speaker 1:I'm curious about this for you uh, my top three favorite parts of my equipment. Well, okay, I love how everything is. I don't. I love that there's no setup or teardown, that that, like I think, having done YouTube for eight years in all kinds of rooms and setups and different environments and stuff like that, a big barrier to entry for me was having to set up every single time. Entry for me was having to set up every single time. Uh, and then also, you know, is is dealing with recording at different times of the day when the sun is your main light source. Uh, it's so nice in here because I can do a stream at night or I can do a video in the middle of the day and you would not be able to tell on camera, aside from, probably, my energy levels, but like you shouldn't visually see anything different. So, uh, no setup and no teardown. Um, three favorite parts of my equipment.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the other one, the other ones would be, um, I was thinking like pieces of equipment, but I like that, that like all the equipment comes together to create that setup that you just discussed yeah, uh, I also actually I don't know if this is true, but I do like that things are not the newest and tiniest thing.
Speaker 1:Like I, you know, like my amazon Basics tripod. I just, in a world where gear is leveling up every three months, I like that I can say it goes to show it's not about having the newest thing. Oftentimes what I have found, that it's not the one piece of gear that's gonna change everything or stopping you. Yeah, there are things like, of course, if you're recording on this and then you get a camera, yeah, huge level up. But I think that you know.
Speaker 2:I've just like there's a law of diminishing returns for sure.
Speaker 1:Like I've been guilty of this, where it's like you feel like you need that one thing and it's going to change everything, and it's like you, you know, sometimes I feel like it's more of an excuse than anything, um, and then let's see, I think also I don't know if you would agree with this, but I feel like we're at the point where our, our setups are so customized for our needs yeah, you can't copy and paste, I mean even between us, like we can't copy and paste my setup to you, your to me, but also that's a good example of when people say oh, what do you have?
Speaker 2:Let me just load up my B&H cart with all your stuff.
Speaker 1:Do not do that.
Speaker 2:Don't do that Bits by bits. Let your needs what I always tell people, despite the fact that I know people say, oh, you cost me a lot of money, I like gear, I like talking about gear, but I always tell people start with what you have and then upgrade as your specific needs become apparent, because we're going to have totally different needs for different things. And you know, like even in here, heather's using the Vocaster 2 as her audio interface, if we didn't do this show and I didn't record any I would not be using that you would not be using that.
Speaker 2:You don't need two inputs. The Streamer X would be a way better option, because that's going to handle your audio and your video in one small cool looking thing.
Speaker 1:I forgot to mention this, but one thing that. I did do this week is I upgraded my tools page on my website. So if you go to heatherjustcreatecom slash tools page on my website, so if you go to heatherjustcreatecom slash tools, I have a list of every single piece of gear in my studio cameras, tripods, all my streaming stuff, uh, even the desk that I use, green screens, the lighting, the, all the decorative stuff that I've added recently, the cable management very up to date and then all the software that I use the nazi walks on there I did put the nazi walks on there, uh.
Speaker 1:So if you're ever curious about the stuff that I use, it's at heatherjustcreatecom slash tools. I think there's a link in the description also um is awesome, that's.
Speaker 2:those kinds of tool pages look simple. They're're not simple to put together, especially if you're doing what Heather did and what I've done on mine too, which is like you have an actual description for each item that explains why you use it and how you use it. It's not just like here's a bunch of stuff and you figure out how you use it, but it's like this is why I use this lens, this is why I use this tripod.
Speaker 1:This is why blah, blah, blah um, and and yours is written very like, personably, and uh, well, I want to catch up with the comments, but I also want to know what your favorite three parts of your equipment are I'm just gonna list three things.
Speaker 2:The elgato prompter is like the biggest one in the past year for me, like that has been the biggest game changer. I can't say enough good things about that. I love a lot of my gear so obviously, like my roadcaster is special to me, my fx3 is my main camera. How could I not love that a thing that has been popping up though lately, this microphone right here? Yeah, road nt1, you have signature like many colors I well, I have four black ones in this blue one no, three black ones in the blue one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think I've seen them with different the road nt1 was my very first condenser mic, the older one from some number of years ago. I never used a condenser mic before. I I think I've seen them with different winds is just like a sort of simplified version, slightly updated, but they come in different colors. They have purple and red and green and blue and all these cool colors. Um, and I got the blue one, of course, and I just I just bought it. It's not like a sponsored thing or anything, um, and I really love it and it's funny because it's. I literally do have the same microphone in black and I use this one a lot because it's blue, because it's blue, but it goes.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have the custom colorware mv7 right here and having a piece of gear that you're excited about like. I use this microphone more and I want to use it more. I mean because I'm excited about it and, honestly, just I like the way it sounds, it's a great mic but because it's blue, like I like it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I painted my wall purple yeah, so I don't know this is.
Speaker 2:It's a fun like it makes audio more fun to me uh, hope, sigmac.
Speaker 1:My guitar building live streams had a week of preps, an hour here and there, but surely five to six hours for practicing the content, then graphics etc.
Speaker 2:Not bragging, just different sort of live yeah, that's like teaching a class, like prepping for exactly. Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 1:You're basically putting together a curriculum and then performing live. I want a coffee. I'm interested in creators forum where the participants are more experienced than myself, a place where we can exchange experiences. The forum I'm in is mostly beginners, so I find that I am unable to leave my cues answered because they tend to be a little bit more advanced. I think that's a little bit.
Speaker 2:That's that middle area that we were talking about a lot yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of why it's one of the reasons why we kind of sunset it just create more because we found that a lot of people who were joining not that we don't, obviously not that we don't want to help people I'm a YouTube coach. I've got the YouTube huddle up. Tom's channel is all level up your audio video but in terms of a community, especially coming back from NAB, we really wanted to create a space where we felt it was like you know, the people in it are in this creator middle class that we've I've talked about many times. We've talked about many times people who are not necessarily where it's full time but at least it's generating income, are not necessarily where it's full-time but at least it's generating income.
Speaker 1:Um, I put in a couple years, right, you know, just so. It's more of like a colleague versus a mentor mentee situation.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, yeah, that's a hard thing, and and also like there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 1:We have that, we have that.
Speaker 2:But sometimes too, when there's a, when there's a group of beginners, it can be hard to figure out who, who is committed and who it's the shiny new object of the month. Yes, and both are fine. But if you're, if you move past that phase, it can be yeah, you can feel a little bit stuck.
Speaker 1:So yeah, audio hotline preps a bit, a little bit, mark Redder. How do you, how do your energy levels wait? How do you keep your energy levels up during hour-long live streams? What is the recipe for an hour-long extravaganza?
Speaker 2:um, I don't know I mean when you get into it on a live stream, the time flies yeah, uh, I think well, so what we've found?
Speaker 1:well, okay, I'll speak for myself. I have found that an hour is like a really good amount of time for a live stream I feel like anything less is like it doesn't just make a video. I think like anything more, um, you know, unless it's like, uh, you're playing a video game or something that requires I'm very guilty of 90 minutes to 120 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you're answering, but you have like 200 people in the comments, so that's different. But I feel like, uh, unless you have like a see, so for your streams, it's, it makes sense because you, you literally have a never-ending stream of comments that will keep the conversation going. So if you can keep the conversation going for longer than that, yeah, uh, where it's me and you. The thing with the couples table is like we're talking about this, whether the camera is on or off a lot of the times, so an hour is kind of like cool. You know, this is like this. This is the conversation where we want to hear other people's perspectives and you know it's a community, uh, a community thing, versus like we were just talking about this at the kitchen table so different podcast.
Speaker 1:The kitchen table how would you answer that? How do you keep up your live streams?
Speaker 2:because how do I keep up? Wait what? You used to not like live streaming well, so the reason that I it's not that I didn't like live streaming, like I liked streaming. What I didn't like was the pressure I was putting on myself to never have a mistake, especially because my channel is like hey, a lot of it is.
Speaker 1:Let me teach you how to do stuff that's the thing with tom, yes, and so it's like his is his channel is all about. Let me, let me teach you how to do audio video production, and I think you were so like.
Speaker 2:I have to have good, perfect audio video mechanic can't have a broken car like that kind of exactly, which is why, a couple of years ago, I was very conscious of making sure that nothing in any about thing or whatever says that you're an expert or I'm an expert or whatever.
Speaker 2:Regardless of what my actual experience is, I want to approach it all from an enthusiast perspective, which I think takes off a lot of pressure. Um, also then just realizing going back to this just came with experience. But going back to this just came with experience. But going back to my, my classroom teaching experience admitting to my students I didn't know how to do something or make a mistake, was fine and it was often like a really good teachable moment to figure it out or to show them how to problem solve or whatever it's. The same thing on a live stream, like if every stream I do is absolutely perfect, that's actually maybe not as as helpful, at least in my niche of like if something goes wrong and someone sees how I fix it and they're like oh, when that thing happens on my stream.
Speaker 2:I don't know what to do to fix it because problems happen all the time. So accepting the problems and just kind of rolling with the punches, I think I've gotten a lot better at yes definitely.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that that like always worried me was it's like you know, you have a lot of my streams are q a things, because if I have a specific topic that I like I want to deliver a like a topic about something, yeah, I get thrown off or whatever I can get like. I feel like it's hard to make sure that everything I'm saying is in the right context when it's unedited and when it's live. Yes, so a that everything I'm saying is in the right context when it's unedited and when it's live. Yes, so a more conversational question answer stream means now you're just doing tons of little snippets, essentially like little segments.
Speaker 2:Each question is its own thing and that's a lot easier and more manageable, because I'm not trying to like navigate this huge ship while other like people are constantly coming and going and people are jumping in at the wrong moment. Um it takes practice it takes practice and and to this day I mean, it still happens. It happens in literally every stream. There will be, you know, every once in a while, a couple comments that like really rub me the wrong way, or you know something, or it kind of throws me off my game, or maybe even I answer them in a way that I'm not happy with how I answered, or even if I feel bad.
Speaker 2:Sometimes if it's like you know, if someone's being a bit of a butt and I like I'm a little too snarky to them, I spend the next five minutes on the stream while talking. We're worrying like should. You have said that yeah and that those are things you don't have to deal with when you're doing pre-recorded stuff, because you'd all get edited out.
Speaker 1:Um so that, and like you don't have anyone, well, there's nobody else there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no, yeah but then I've even taken it further and I've streamed me recording videos. But the streaming is fun, it's navigating, all that stuff.
Speaker 1:That was hard for me and it just, it just takes practice and like personal reflection yeah, uh, audio hotline says I'm gonna put what tom just said about me in my bio. Uh, mr camera junkie, every setup is as unique as you are consistent, ash. Oh, so good to see you. Better late than never. Can't miss out on episode 150 extra. Uh, I'm doing the same right now. Website. I ethically stole tom's ethic statement and re wrote it yes, that's what it's for uh, let's see, as a blue enthusiast, I understand bluethusiasm uh, ash is gonna change channels.
Speaker 1:Andre's here. Hi everyone, turning in from stockholm um an hour hurts my eyes. If it wasn't for my eyes, I'd be golden oh, that's a good point, just the physical fatigue yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2:When I used to do final fantasy streams, I was so white yeah, you would just crash oh my gosh straight to nap but it's funny though, because there's other other streams we've both done, including the couples table, where it's like afterwards, you're like, yeah, hyper, let's go hyper. I'm like amps yeah so it varies depending on what you're doing, but that was hard the final fantasy one.
Speaker 2:You're trying to play a game which is complicated by itself. You're also then entertaining an audience and you're also managing the technical workflow all this one person while also then trying to be, you know, on camera and charming and, you know, affable and all these things.
Speaker 1:It's like that is well, that draining a lot of status bars people were joining me in the game from layers and layers of interaction like they would influence what was happening in the game by saying stuff like hey, let's meet over here in this location or whatever. So it's like I have to. It's just it was yeah, no wonder you're tired.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's see bailey's here. Hey, hey, everyone hope you're tired.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's see Bailey's here. Hey, hey, everyone, hope you're doing well, it's good to see you, Otokoffy says. I think it helps to actually be enthusiastic about the topic. Did two hour live streams today. Two hour long live streams today. And Tom's right. It's not too difficult, but you have to be into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're into it. The time flies.
Speaker 1:Time flies. I tortured Bronson with a three hour live stream when he stands for the entire time Still so sorry bro.
Speaker 2:You know, it's a way to burn those calories. He does a lot of standing, yeah, which is I've been standing a lot more too on my streams Because I have a standing desk now.
Speaker 1:I didn't even put that together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice, because then you don't feel like you've been sitting. I could always like hand crank my desk down?
Speaker 1:There's no way. No, oh my gosh. Three of our rooms here, hello, hello, yeah, three hours standing, that's commitment. I feel like my legs would just, I would just fall. There's no way, for some reason, when Tom says his channel is to teach you how to do stuff, my head says out loud teach me how to Dougie. It's no big deal, mike, I'm used standing all day um. How are you guys enjoying final fantasy 14?
Speaker 2:asking the real questions yeah, so I started playing that last week. I've never played an mmo before you've never played, I never played an rpg until last december and I've never played a final fantasy game and I've never played an mmo, and it is great. Level 30 what am I? 36? Level 36 baby tom loves it I even bought this.
Speaker 1:This was my other potential gear thing about an mmo mouse I honestly I didn't think that you were gonna like it as much as you do.
Speaker 2:I don't know why um, I didn't a year. I mean, I never would have. You played the whole thing for ages and I was like it was fun to watch you play fun to watch the videos. I was like I'm never, it's not for me, I don't even understand. There's so many numbers, it's confusing. What are you doing? Like I got nothing on this? Um, but yeah, I, it's all the ramirez fault because your brother gave me the analog pocket for christmas last oh wow, it was a joy, which is a little like retro gaming handheld thing and I played chrono trigger.
Speaker 2:That was your favorite. Stay tuned for tombook 3, the gaming channel and then I dove into, uh, earth bound, so I played like all these old school rpgs which are really fun, and then I understood like how an RPG works. And then we dove into like some of the Yakuza games on the PS5, starting with like a dragon, which is very RPG. There is an RPG.
Speaker 1:It's turn-based yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then kind of the other ones, and then I liked that so much I ended up finding a book series that I'm reading called Jake's Magical Market, which is so good. It's a trilogy. It's awesome. Yeah, it's all just written by like independent author, but it's basically like a literary RPG which I didn't know what this was.
Speaker 2:I'm just reading it and I'm almost done with the last book and I love the series so much. It's so incredibly good and heather started reading it, so I was like you should. You should read this. It's a book, but it's all I've never.
Speaker 1:I almost dove into literary rpgs. I've heard of them before and so when you were like raving about this, I was like let me see what this is about yeah, and then someone who's played like every rpg. Let me see this. What's this, this about? And 25% into this book. I was like this is just Final Fantasy XIV, this is just Final Fantasy XIV. I mean the main character in the book. I mean I think this is how all of them go. But you know, it's like an RPG, but there's a story, right yeah.
Speaker 2:He's nobody.
Speaker 1:He becomes. You know he has to figure it out. He gets, but he gets like cards, which anyone who's played an rpg here totally gets this right. It's like your pokemon cards or whatever. It's like you get a card and it does an action it does, an ability you know, it tells you exactly what it does and the cost or the cooldown or whatever. And I was just like this is just final, like if you like this and if you want more of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can be the one doing these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could be you. You could be the main character.
Speaker 2:So I think that was so playing the older games. Let me understand, like what an RPG is and how it works, which was very confusing. I just didn't understand, like turn-based, like what do you mean? And it just seemed so. It kind of of seemed like it seemed confusing and boring at the same time because I just didn't, I really didn't understand it, and so that broke it down and then also showed me like wow, that format lets you fold in like crazy stories yes, like even the old games chrono trigger earthbound.
Speaker 2:That's why I play them mother three, the stories that get thrown in there are incredible and that's why I play games man, yeah, but then the the idea of like playing online and how big final fantasy 14 is, it just felt very overwhelming. But I really love the book series so much that that was kind of the bridge between like okay, so this is, this is what's happening and how it works, and it made it so accessible when then I, you know, logged in and made my character and stuff and yeah, so I did all that.
Speaker 1:So, if you're interested, uh, we're definitely gonna do some streams. I don't know when, but we'll start that's all just for fun.
Speaker 2:We I mean you want to stream on your gaming channel you heard it here first yeah it'd be on heather display.
Speaker 1:We don't need to make it complicated, no, but anyway so we're we're enjoying it. Uh, consistent ash says. My issue is after. I have to stay up for like three hours because I swear the lights turn on my mind on for too long. It's racing after a street like this is you after the couple table I I just want to go like jump around. I'm so excited, but after my gaming streams, oh, I was just like taken out even when we have like hockey games late at night.
Speaker 2:Winding down at night is a hard thing. It's a problem for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as if my mind isn't already too stimulated. Jawad, hello, love watching, listening to you guys all the way from Morocco. Yay, I always do standing If I sit. I'm about to nap, says Mr Carpenter. Did I know that? Did I know it? I'm about to nap, says mr camera. Did I know that? Did I?
Speaker 2:know, yeah, he's always standing. Okay, I think I did know that you can. I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell because the framing is the same, but when people are standing, the way that they can kind of lean and move it does give a different feel to how somebody just looks on camera uh, is the mouse better than the apple trackpad?
Speaker 1:so?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry I'm gonna dive into bonus gear of the week here at the end because I I could talk about this more he. He has had it for less than 24 hours, okay, I picked it up at 2 pm yeah no 1 pm yesterday yeah, so 24 hours with the uh razor naga v2 pro uh, which is very funny because there's a whole race of people in jake's magic market called the naga and they are not good, and so I had to like they're also in a.
Speaker 2:I mean, I chrono trigger, oh yeah, well, I mean, yeah, they're snake-like people yeah um, but so the whole thing is, I'm using my macbook and, and I've been using, I was using the trackpad, which was fine. You use your mouse here the logitech mx master keys, which is a nice mouse, and when you were using a different one and I was using my apple magic mouse, which is fine, I don't remember why I bought this one you had a mouse that died.
Speaker 2:I forget what you were using before, but you had one that died but I didn't get this for gaming, I just got it for like work yeah yeah, um, and so I was like, oh cool, and I had seen it's so funny because I had seen these and I was like, why would anyone need those? Like there's no need for a mouse that does that. I can turn on, but the it has I don't know if you can see it has 12 buttons on the side and listen how clicky they are.
Speaker 1:Oh, listen to those switches. It's so good the couple couple stable ASMR yeah.
Speaker 2:And I've always just used the magic mouse. Oh, no, it's not even the same yeah it's the same thing, like we're you know so I have this program to do all my final fantasy stuff, which is nice. I don't have to like figure out the keyboard like I can just do this, which is great. But what's also very cool about this, which I didn't know until I got it, is I'm a guy who likes magnets. Let me turn it off so I don't break anything here you're like clicking all.
Speaker 1:There's a side it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the side panel with the button just snaps off, and it comes with these other plates. One has just two clickies and one has six buttons and it's just magnets that snap on right there, and now I have a totally different mouse configuration, which then I was like, wait a minute, this doesn't have to just be games.
Speaker 1:Gaming mouse yeah.
Speaker 2:I can use Final Cut shortcuts. I can use Ecamm shortcuts. Like you.
Speaker 1:have six things here Each of these could be an Ecamm thing. They could just program to be whatever. Yeah, it's like a stream deck on your thumb.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that is kind of awesome.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited about it. It was very hard, though, because the thing I learned, though very hard though, because the thing I learned, though, is that the mac does not really support many mice, much less mmo mice, so you have to kind of do like a few workarounds to get them to work, and I, that was a little I feel like that's gonna be journey.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's gonna be a future video there yeah, I was actually one.
Speaker 2:I figured it out and it's like not complicated but good lord, you have to synthesize 28 different videos to try to figure out the info you need to just like how do I make the buttons do what I want them to do? Yeah, you could do it in five minutes. It could be a five minute video, but I don't know if that's like too unrelated to my channel uh, let's see.
Speaker 1:Andre says earthbound is awesome.
Speaker 2:You should try undertale, if you haven't already so many layers oh yeah, I did start it on the switch, but then I don't know, we play the yakuza or something in the pews just left campus happy friday happy weekend.
Speaker 1:Homesick mac is thank you for today. Gotta get some sleep prior to a distant gig tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Make money, get more gear, cheers have a great gig and a safe travel yes, and there we go time to clear the table well, uh, I'm just gonna put this out there okay, because everyone who, everyone who watches the Couple Table is pretty dope, everyone's dopes. Okay, wow, putting words in my mouth, because we always talk about the things that we're excited about. If you want to play Final Fantasy XIV, you could actually play the first three expansions and the base game. Wait, the base game and the first heaven's ward, stormblood, and the two expansions for free.
Speaker 2:Wait, all of that is free.
Speaker 1:I know it's only an ad right now I thought only a realm of war was free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know the heaven's ward is free, stormblood is free.
Speaker 1:That's like sorry, it sounds like an ad.
Speaker 2:That's like 70 hours of gaming or more if any, so sean is watching, if any.
Speaker 1:Like final fantasy 14 person saw you right now. This is the meme is like did you know that? You can get this. This is for free, like the free trial, blah, blah, blah, um, but I'm serious though. Uh, if you want to give it a try, someone who has never been a gamer in the sense of the word that I would use it loves it. And it can work on Mac and it can work on Mac if you have a Mac.
Speaker 2:There's an official Mac client. There's an unofficial one too, which is good.
Speaker 1:I had some graphic issues with it, but you can play for free.
Speaker 2:You can play for free for a lot of hours and we can play in game and have the best time ever.
Speaker 1:So, uh, join us, it's a super fun game it is, it is fun uh, let's see kathy's here. Team replay tom text me that mouse link oh, we'll do. It's so good, it's so, it's good are the buttons like a mouse stream deck?
Speaker 2:Yes, they don't have little screens, but this one specifically has optical switches, so it's very I'll pay to see Tom play Elden Ring or Skyrim. Oh Lord.
Speaker 1:I can tell you right now it's not your type of game. Both of those, Either of those.
Speaker 2:I'm digging Final Fantasy and I know. I'm not even to the good parts, yet it I'm digging Final Fantasy and I know I'm not even to the good parts yet.
Speaker 1:It's a vibe, you know it's like. I feel like those are too fantasy, slash, medieval for your you know your type.
Speaker 2:I could see that.
Speaker 1:Sean is confirming.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is, I'll just on the game now Download. Hop on, yeah.
Speaker 1:Gil, if you end up playing, if anyone here starts playing Final Fantasy XIV, please send us a message so we can Feel, feel the button. Congrats on 150. That sounds fun. Final Fantasy XIV. Mr Camera Junkie, join us.
Speaker 2:All right, there we go. Finley has been in the chair the whole time, by the way. Oh, there he is been mature the whole time. Oh, by the way, there he is.
Speaker 1:All right, let's take care of this audio version and then go get some ice cream. Yeah. So for all of you who listen to the audio podcast, look what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna. I'm going to publish the audio version for tomorrow morning. Nice, should we do saturdays? Sure what ifs yeah, ha, uh, let's see, it's not paper or silver, perhaps a wire. What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:oh, the, the 150.
Speaker 1:Like you have a silver anniversary or oh, been playing 14 for about eight years now. That is wow, downloading it tonight.
Speaker 2:Gail, let's go yeah, gil is an rpg guy. Zen just got here. Hey everyone, happy friday.
Speaker 1:Uh well, we are going to log off, but it was good, not because zen, just yeah, kathy says I'm no gamer. Miss pac-man was my game of choice in the day. Miss pac-man was awesome. We played a pac-man at uh, dave and busters, that's like as big as a pool table and you can have like 10 people all around and it's a giant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, games like those kinds of games arcade games have gotten so insane. Yeah, it's crazy. Uh, do you have a twitch channel so we can watch you on final fantasy? I don't, but I have a youtube channel. It's called Heather, just Play.
Speaker 2:And you can see a lot of Final Fantasy gameplay. Are your live streams still public, your old ones, mm-hmm. Yeah okay, those are good streams.
Speaker 1:The last computer game I played was Rollercoaster Tycoon Nice. Oh my God, my brother was like so sad.
Speaker 2:He was the tycoon he was the Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Speaker 1:I think one of these days tom and I will do a couple's table from the roller coaster. Oh, we'll probably, I don't know. We'll do like a gaming couple's table. That'd be fun. Yeah, just log in.
Speaker 2:We show you his character that he made it took me like three hours to figure out a name. Oh my gosh, so you have to name your character now I'm realizing it's not as big of a deal as I thought it was.
Speaker 1:He oh my goodness, he was asking chat gpt. He, like you know, you had like one theme here. You went down that rabbit hole. You had another theme here, you went down that route.
Speaker 2:It was like naming a dog which I'm glad the name I came with was one I I fully came up with. But because you and everybody's like, oh, my character, my character, I've spent so much years. I know there's other people who are like you, know they're jokes.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, sean's been playing his character for eight years. Like you, kind of want a name that you like you know, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:And then you were like oh, but you're in all the cut scenes and your name is in all the dialogue and all the junkie asking for that uh, I'll give you my affiliate link, don't?
Speaker 1:worry, I played with space invaders. I love how this turned into a gaming live show. Yeah, awesome, all right talk, so I keep. No one else can probably tell, but I can because I'm your wife. Tom is getting antsy because we're going to handles ice cream after this and he's starting to score but uh, yeah, handles ice cream. I think we've talked about it Shout out sponsor us. Do you know what flavor you're getting?
Speaker 2:Mud Pie. I'm going to try something new today.
Speaker 1:It's coffee based, though. Are you cool with that?
Speaker 2:We'll have to try and see. It's Oreo coffee and chocolate. Normally I'm a brownie dough boy, which is great and I love it.
Speaker 1:But I want to, to you know, I need to venture out of my realm. Yeah, so the flavor I get is called oh dough and it's vanilla base with oreo and cookie dough. Yeah, so good, it's all so good, all right. So here's ice cream. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Here we go guys all right uh, thank you for 150 fun, super fun episode streams, hangouts. It's the couple of things we look forward to every single week. We're fun, we're fun, we're excited to make it more fun and level things up. And you know, it's really cool that we have this place to talk about content creation and life stuff and business stuff with other people who kind of just get it so thank you for being around the whole time and stay tuned for next week, when we will be using we are going to stream with this, we're going to actually be moving your camera yes, I'm very nervous.
Speaker 1:I'm very nervous. But you know what, if I like it, maybe we get it maybe we get it, maybe we get it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So uh see how that levels things up. What if it's Maybe we get it, maybe we get it, maybe we get it. Yeah, so see how that levels things up. What if it's totally different?
Speaker 1:Anyway, we'll see, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody go get your ice cream.
Speaker 1:We can't do a side-by-side. No, we can do screenshots and compare, yeah we'll figure it out, all right, cool, all right. We will see you next week.