What should be considered when creating videos for answers?

Question

I've had some excellent answers where I was able to link to an existing Youtube video for supporting evidence. The upvoting has motivated me to (attempt to) create my own videos to bolster my answers.

I've downloaded xfire and am able to record videos, but before I start linking them, a few questions.

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An answer with only a video (no text) is outright wrong. Explanative text must be added.

Should I link to my video on xfire, or should I create a Youtube account as well and post it there (or something else - upload to arQAde somehow?)?

If a video contains a spoiler, what's the right way to represent that in the answer (just mention that there's spoilers or something else?)?

Is there an ideal resolution I should record in for videos (I have no idea)?

Are there any other considerations I should take into account in order to make the most awesome answers with videos?

Answer 1

I would say that you should upload the video to YouTube, since that will allow you to embed it in your post.

If the video has a spoiler, you could say that it has one as you would do for any piece of content, and you might be able to put it in a spoiler tag >!.

I don't think I can give any advice for the rest.

Answer 2

I like the idea of you taking the time to make your own videos. My only suggestions would be:

• Make sure the information is correct. You can edit a post on StackExchange to add in additional details that you may have forgot to mention the first time around, or fix erroneous information. My suggestion would be to either make your video as exhaustive as possible, or purposely vague so that the text of the answer can fill in the details. This isn't to say that you can't re-record a video and replace your embedded video on your answer though, but that doesn't sound like it'd be particularly appealing.

• Make sure you are clear and well-rehearsed. Informative gaming videos oftentimes suffer from poor wording or misinformation resulting from the video and audio being primarily on-the-fly improvisation. While this is efficient for getting things done quickly, it can severely harm the accuracy of a video (think back to YouTube videos with annotations correcting misinformation).

• Makes sure that the quality is good. Both the video and audio quality should be at least good enough that people won't have any difficulty watching it or be uncomfortable while doing so. I would recommend uploading videos in at least 720p (higher if you can) quality so that people can make out on-screen elements that are important to their question. Also, I recommend that you avoid using a cheap microphone or having the microphone too close to your mouth, as buzzing or sharp "P"s can be uncomfortable to listen to, not to mention sounding unprofessional.

• Don't make us look bad. ;) If you plan to promote Arqade in your videos, please realize that you would then be a face (or voice) of our community. As such, it's in everyone's best interest that you strive for quality. This would also include (in my opinion) making the videos informative enough that a user viewing it would not have to visit the question page to know what is being asked.

Good luck! :)