Do you know what's in your Top 10 Video list

In @abermans fabulous post “Video killed the photo views stars” I added this comment,

"The Star video leader-boards are great, but what about our other videos that are performing well?

I took the time to find my top 10 videos and you can find the table here. I’ve included links to the videos. Please note: The links only work properly on a computer or Chromebook. On a mobile device the link will take you to the POI gallery, but you will have to look for it under the video tab to find my video. I am sharing the list, not because I think mine are the greatest, but because I wanted you to see what has been working for me. I hope it might give you an idea to try out. They are all after 2023-05-20. I believe they are all shot at 1/2 speed (cinematic pan on the Pixel)"

Not wanting to burden his thread with more detail about my Top 10, I’ve started this new thread. I updated my table again today, I noticed that videos that were number 5&6 both moved up over #4. and a new video debuted at #9 /the still on the right is from that video Mocha Joes.

I invite you all to compile and share a top 10 video list.

@tony_b @TerryPG @Latte @JustJake @EvanMcNeeley @AZ_2021

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@Rednewt74 Thanks for sharing your top 10 videos with links for easy access. It’s nice to see your favourites and how they’ve shifted in rankings. Happy about the idea of everyone sharing their own top 10 lists. I’d love to join in, but I’m a bit busy now, my list might take some time.

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@Rednewt74 Glad to see your top 10 video list, and what a fantastic idea to share it with the community! It’s really insightful to see how different content performs, and your list is a testament to the creativity and effort you put into your videos.

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@PrasadVR ,

I look forward to seeing your list.

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@Mo_TravelleerX ,

Thank you for the positive response. I hope you will share some of your successes as well. One of the best things about Connect is how much we can learn from each other.

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Very nice sheet @Rednewt74 , I may copy it over and give it a go. Shooting video is relatively new for me, so I haven’t really considered the metrics too much. Alternatively, you could run the numbers into the StarTrack on the T100 site. My StarTrack is filled with experiments, so that would have to wait, too. Maybe we could be given access to a few more entry fields … @AdamGT ?

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Why not just have Star Track for each media type @JustJake > photos, vids and 360s each having a capacity of 10 :thinking: Advantage being we have full tracking, comparative analysis including forecasting and the the future tricks to come :sunglasses:

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@JustJake , you are welcome to use it, but it isn’t very elegant or well formatted. Basic, but adequate for me. Please note there are hidden columns for the previous data calcs! I did just add these columns to the November tab,

Additional views needed for 1 mil Number of days 1 mil Date

My star is due to hit it on 01/27/2023, others… sometime in 2033

I love the elegance, charting, and projections of the Top100 image tracker that @AdamGT makes available. I have almost all 10 slots filled, and Adam’s offer? of a tracker for each type of image is appealing. Thank you, Adam, for all the effort you put into the Top100 system. With all your experiment tracking, Jake, I know you’d really benefit from that change. The reality for me is that I don’t usually get level 10 access until the last few days of the month, so I’d have limited access to my data. Also, I couldn’t share it with other guides the way I do now.

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@Rednewt74 , although it’s gotten let’s say a little more time consuming since the introduction of video and 360 spheres, media inclusion which of course everyone cried out for, you should be able to maintain continuity of Level 10 status throughout the month and if my memory is right, I know this was discussed somewhere. Beyond the Star Tracking benefits to each user, there are a number of significant benefits to us doing this on the same platform.

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It’s good to see what trends in videos. I have also found my recent videos have been getting so many more views than my older uploads. Thank you for sharing!

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Thanks for sharing this @Rednewt74 .

A few questions and comments.

Would you care to share the steps you use to find your videos? I would hate to browse back thousands of photos manually. Or maybe you already shared this elsewhere?

It might be relevant to mention in your post that your video links will not work on mobile (desktop only).

Why don’t you add some “Lessons learned” in your post?

In too love to use the slow-mo in my pixel. I noticed that the slow-mo starts only after a few seconds and normal speed resumes some seconds before the end of the video. Do you know how to get the entire video to be slow?

All the best

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen ,

Morten, thank you for reading and taking time to ask questions:

Would you care to share the steps you use to find your videos?

I basically use Mattgatlin’s technique of searching for “0:”

  • I use a desktop, because it shows which items are videos
  • I sort my contributions by views
  • I do a control “F” to pull up a search box and type in “0:” and hit enter

For me I get 10 or 11 matching items, and since I’m only looking for my top ten this is usually sufficient. But the search can only search the part of your contributions gallery that you have showing, so make the window as large as possible. If you happen to have 2 monitors, one above the other, you can drag the contributions gallery window onto the 2nd monitor and it really speeds up the search.

If I don’t get a match or if I want to look further, I drag the slider on the right side of the contributions window (see

screenshot to the right (PC) or below (phone)) to the bottom of the window 2 or 3 times. (You may have to do more than that). Then I click in the search box again and repeat the search. At this point, usually, as I go click through the new list the number of matches keeps increasing; otherwise I drag the slider a few more times.

It might be relevant to mention in your post that your video links will not work on mobile (desktop only).

Thank you for the suggestion. I have added a note,

Why don’t you add some “Lessons learned” in your post?

Ah, great question. So far I am not sure I’ve learned any lessons, except to be persistent and try various methods. I’ve had a few things that looked like the beginning of a pattern, but nothing consistent has appeared.

I too love to use the slow-mo in my pixel. I noticed that the slow-mo starts only after a few seconds and normal speed resumes some seconds before the end of the video. Do you know how to get the entire video to be slow?

Yes, I’ve noticed that the beginning and end of slow-mo videos are not slowed down. In the screenshot (right (PC) or below (phone)) you

can see that when playing the video back, just above the timeline there is a row of small dots with two small white 90° triangles spaced apart.

The dots between the triangles are more spaced out than the ones before or after the 2 triangles, indicating the slow-mo section of the video.

You can drag the triangles to each end and the entire video will then play in slow motion. I did this, closed Photos and when I reopened it and the triangles were where I left them. I did not test whether this would affect video when uploading to Maps. Please let me know what happens when you try it.

Notes on slow-mo vs “cinematic pan”:

The Pixel 6, 6,a, 7, and 8 have this feature. The 7 pro and the 8 have a “cinematic pan” mode, which slows the entire video to half speed. It does not record audio in this mode unlike when in the slow-motion setting. My guess is that the cinematic pan mode is just switching the camera to record at 60 fps, which when played back at 30 fps appears as slow-motion. When I used my Pixel 6a in slow-mo mode, I thought the images looked grainy and of a lower resolution than when shooting at normal speed. I don’t know if this was a software issue or just the difference between shooting 4k and 1080p

The Pixel 6 will shoot 1080p or 4k at 30 fps. At 60 fps (a manual setting or available through a 3rd party camera app) it will only shoot at 1080p. I never compared the quality of Pixel 6 video shot in slow-mo vs at 60 fps, but it is an interesting thought.

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Brilliant answers, @Rednewt74

Thanks a million.

Search for “0:” and order by views is a gem. Regarding the need for huge screens, I want to share an older experience. Googel Maps loads images from the servers in batches of 20. To provoke the loading of the next batch we need to scroll to the bottom of the list. It will then be loaded into RAM. You can do this several times by holding down the PageDown key for some time. This will allow you to search the set of images downloaded into the RAM. You may need to first click at the top of the photo contribution list. So this about using a larger or two screens is not really necessary. Try it out. PS: This tip is also for desktops only.

Also thanks for your tips on Slowmotion. I have a Pixel 7a phone where panoramic is called Slowmotion. YES, your advice to avoid the changes in speed worked. Brilliant. Thanks again.

Cheers

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen ,

I’m glad to be of help. Your tip about "To provoke the loading of the next batch we need to scroll to the bottom of the list. It will then be loaded into RAM. You can do this several times by holding down the PageDown key for some time. This will allow you to search the set of images downloaded into the RAM. "

is terrific. I’d tried various ways to do this but didn’t try this.

I suggest you add this tip to @MattGatlin 's post on searching

I can’t remember if Matt created a separate post on the topic. I hope others see this tip.

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@Rednewt74

Feel free to share the trick as you please.

Let me add one more detail. Sometimes when scrolling down to the bottom of one batch of 20 images, there can be problems getting the next one loaded. In that case, you just need to scroll up a bit and then down again. I often use my mouse wheel for this. This might only be a problem when scrolling down in search results.

Cheers

Morten

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Wow this is amazing @Rednewt74 .

Sorry for my delayed response as for some reason I didn’t get the notification. :sparkling_heart:

Loved the detailed analysis as well as the short caption you included on your table of how it was filmed. Super helpful as always friend. :couple_with_heart_woman_man:

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@MortenCopenhagen and @Rednewt74 I also use the 0: search after sorting from highest to lowest views, but in my case it’s only 34 videos out of a total 567 contributions. There really needs to be a better way for LGs who have many thousands of photos with hundreds of videos interspersed between them.

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I noticed a video as the second image at https://maps.app.goo.gl/aD3BNznTrUmQT8cw6

It works well at attracting attention. And is relatively cheap to make.

Maybe we should test if such simple and cheap videos are preferred by the video selection AI.

Cheers

Morten

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@MortenCopenhagen that seems to be a video created and uploaded by the business owner for promotional purposes. Not the sort of thing a regular LG would create, I think.

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I know, @tony_b

But one of Alfreds videos are quite like it. And maybe some LGs would consider this as a side hustle!

Just thinking aloud.

Cheers

Morten

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