Guides
Make better videos, faster
Short, practical guides to the technical side of creating, the settings, numbers and habits that make a video look and sound professional.
LUFS targets for YouTube, Spotify and podcasts, explained
Streaming apps even out loudness, so a louder master no longer plays louder. Here's what each platform documents, and the numbers worth aiming for.
YouTube chapters: the rules, good titles and why they go missing
A few lines of timestamps make a long video easy to navigate. Here's what YouTube requires, how to title chapters well, and how to fix ones that won't appear.
Going vertical: 9:16 video for Shorts, Reels and TikTok
One 9:16 export can work on all three apps if it's framed for a phone screen and laid out around the buttons. Here's how to get each part right.
Jump cuts without the jumpiness: removing pauses from talking videos
Cutting dead air is the fastest way to make a talking video feel professional. Here's how to decide what to cut, how much breathing room to leave, and how to hide the joins.
Captions people actually read: a practical style guide
Most viewers scroll with the sound off, so your captions are doing half the storytelling. Here's how to size, place, time and style them so they help instead of getting in the way.
Shrink a video without wrecking it: bitrate, resolution and codecs explained
Every compressor throws detail away. The trick is throwing away the detail nobody will miss. Here's how the main settings work, and how to choose them.