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Shorts Feedback! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-15 20:05:54
Edited:
2023-02-15 20:19:54
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hello, Matt here!

SO, this will be a bit of a rambly post in which we're looking for FEEDBACK. If you've listed to this Patreon Podcast, you might know that we're planning on experimenting with shorts going forward. We're basically taking the format of this specific Nerd³ Quick video and applying it to a vertical format.

Our current idea (subject to change) is that We want to do 3-4 'short' videos a month (Alongside a few normal Plays videos). These will exist in two forms:

The first being a standard 16:9 'Nerd³ Quick' video once a month that's 3-4 minutes long on the main YouTube channel that will be all the shorts together as one video consisting of 3-4 game recommendations. As I said, it'll basically be identical in format to this specific Nerd³ Quick video. That video would go up before any of the vertical shorts, and would also be the video that'd go up here on Patreon for all of you early.

The second form will be as actual separate 'Nerd³ Shorts' vertical videos. I've made an official Nerd³ TikTok and Instagram for them, and we'll very likely make a new YouTube channel just for the shorts too.

The thinking is that we get to experiment with a new format and platforms for those who like that, while still letting people who don't like it, enjoy it in a format they do. We are very open to feedback about all this in the comments here. We already changed a lot of our ideas after the feedback we got on the original podcast post.

---

The thing we're looking for more specific feedback on is how the subtitles in the videos should actually be formatted. We've got the edit pretty solid, but baked in subtitles seem to be quite important for a lot of people. SO I've made several different versions of one of the shorts Daniel recorded and I'd peoples feedback and preference on which they prefer of each. These aren't the final versions of the video by the way, I just want to know the prefered subtitle format before I tighten it up!

These are the vertical ones (For TikTok, Instagram, YT Shorts):

No Subtitles: https://youtube.com/shorts/jZNHBZj0rUQ

Word by Word Subtitles: https://youtube.com/shorts/_dhZTZHt3iY

Line by Line Subtitles: https://youtube.com/shorts/S7CbvmI0uHc

These are the 16:9 ones (For the main channel, which would be a section in a longer video of 3-4 games):

No Subtitles: https://youtu.be/rAdNuKIpBBk(They could be turned on with YouTube CC)

Word by Word Subtitles: https://youtu.be/D2cTRwSG8YI

Low Line by Line Subtitles: https://youtu.be/OruT1MkU4rw

High Line by Line Subtitles: https://youtu.be/AbIsZhk6G-4

---

I'd love to know what your preferences are for each format, and any thoughts you have on these plans and ideas generally! Sorry for the rambliness of this post, Daniel is the writer, not I.

- Matt

EDIT: I made a poll post for the vertical subtitle preferences, should really have baked that poll into this post originally, oh well: https://www.patreon.com/posts/78743506)

Comments

Adam Dodman

Definitely line by line for the shorts, but I think they should be lower on the screen to be slightly less in your face. The "some words on screen" of the no subtitles is also nice - maybe use it for emphasis? As for the 16:9 ones, I vote no subtitles - thats pretty much the perfect usecase for Youtubes built in CC options.

Arlo

For the vertical, I like the word by word, it really suits Daniels energy. Having whole lines appear just didnt feel right. Tho some people pointed out that their may be accesiblity concerns with that. For landscape, I think keeping it subtitle free is best, as Sam pointed out you can just use youtube's own subtitle options.

Sophie Wyllie

So for 16:9 I like line by line. For the proper vertical shorts, word by word

Disko

When it comes to subtitles, word-by-word is real fun as it brings emphasis to Dan's lines... but at some points the subtitles change too quickly to process (especially during jokes that involve speaking a lot of words in a short span of time - at that point, processing the words spoken becomes more prominent than processing the joke being portrayed with those words). While line-by-line is more accessible, I think there's a sweet spot between the two. Mostly line-by-line, but making use of word-by-word occasionally to emphasise the comedy/emphasis placed on certain sentances. There's a good example in the line-by-line version when Dan repeats "Etc, Etc". Obviously, working towards that sweet spot would take more work than just doing the whole thing line-by-line, but I think it'd keep the videos accessible subtitle-wise, while still preserving the comedic edge of HOW those subtitles are being used.

Miggys

Personally, I don't like shorts or vertical format. I know I'm a minority when I say this but I prefer longer videos. I prefer normal 10-15 minute Plays videos. I also dearly miss different series like the Completes, Loves, Hates, Tests, FW and so on. I know some of those series are very old but God how I miss them.

Narmatonia

While the word-by-word subtitles do look more stylish, the line-by-line ones are better for readability, which is the aim of subtitles after all.

TheSolBear

Vertical line by line would be my preference, but for normal 16:9 video I'd like no subtitled baked in (using youtubes own subtitles should be fine)

Well Read Nomad

Frankly, I'd much prefer without subtitles; I don't think the style is quick-cut-frantic enough that they're needed, and it means less to be distracted by. If you're trying to read, listen to Dan, and see the game at the same time, I think something's going to slip. Besides, subtitles aren't really great for comic timing.

Andyface

I think I'd end up watching the shorts on tiktok and would either want line by line or no subtitles there. I kinda find them a bit distracting and end up reading them even with sound on and not watching the actual video. I imagine you've thought of this seeing you've put the subs kinda high centre of the screen which hopefully positions them away from any default ui stuff, I've seen TikToks with embedded subs that are under the description text and that's super annoying to try and read. Clear mode solves that, but kinda annoying to turn on for a specific vid. I'd assume Insta has different locations for ui just to make it harder. Traditional 16:9 videos I'd either want no subtitles or low line by line. Word by word slightly stresses me out 😅

DrunkUkrainian

For 16:9 video, low line by line is best. For vertical video, I abstain as I can't stand vertical video formats. I think word by word would look better, but I absolutely have no clue

Jonas Wahlen

I don't watch short videos in general but I think it's a good idea to have them to attract new people to the channel and I appreciate that you are going to upload them in 16:9 format as an alternative. For the vertical videos, I think word by word subtitles grab the most attention but the attention is going towards the video itself instead of the game, if that makes sense. I would only add subtitles if you mainly want to keep the attention of the viewer. If the focus should be on the actual game presented, I would not use subtitles at all, since they can be quite distracting. For the 16:9 videos, I would avoid subtitles in general. If people want them, they can activate CC subtitles. This also avoids any overlap with translated CC subtitles

Tristan Stubbs

I found the word-by-word subtitles distracted me from the actual bulk of the video, particularly with the speed at which Dan is talking (not a bad thing, I get there’s a lot to fit into such a short timeframe). The line-by-line keeps the attention focused on the gameplay, where it should be. For the 16:9 version I think the subtitles worked better at the top of the screen that the bottom, but I suspect this might need to be decided on separately for each video. I find gameplay in Dome Keeper to be overwhelmingly concentrated towards the bottom of the screen, so the subtitles sort of get in the way if they’re there too. For a game where the action is more evenly distributed then having the lower subtitles might work better.

AntiSocial - Gamer

Personally I prefer word-by-word over line-by-line as my smol dyslexic brain processes it better but knowing how fast Dan sometimes speaks; its probably better off going for the latter. It's probably already been stated and I've probably just forgotten but are the shorts gonna be put up on a separate channel or is it all gonna be on the main?! I'm not a huge fan of shorts but with the current state of the algorithm and the direction that media is going atm its probably for the best.

Harvey Jones

I reckon low line is better for 16:9, but that may just be because I'm used to subtitles always being down there. As for the vertical shorts, I think the word by word has more energy and better implies Dan's inflections, but to me it's a bit "flashy in your face tiktok video" when Dan's talking quickly. I personally prefer the line by line subtitles, but word by word would be more eye-catching I suppose, if harder to read.

Natalie Schmidt

For the vertical format, I prefer line by line. Word by word is slightly hard to follow sometimes, and is more distracting. For 16:9 format, I prefer either no subtitles (using youtube CC) or low line by line.

Greg Rademaekers

As you guys want feedback here is my opinion. first of all the shorts thing is not my style, I like the "normal" videos but for content etc I guess you need to hop on this boat to promote new cool games via a video. 1. to be clear I rather have no subtitles as I find them distracting 2. for the 16:9 videos no subtitles would be best as it is more of a normal video. 3. for the vertical video's I personally prefer without subtitles but I like the little words to make something clear of make a joke or quote land. it gives the video a bit more depth. 4. for accessibility I prefer the line by line to keep it simple and good to read, the word by word is literally what it says. word by word right in your face :) 5. for all the videos, if I need to pick an option with subtitles I prefer the bottom layer one to get them out of the way, if they are displayed in the middle of the screen I find it distraction from the cool gameplay you want to show off. 6. I like how you want the videos to spread out, so shorts for the people who like them and them combined in a video to make a "quick" video. together with all the other planned content you will get a varied mix of content. so that is my opinion, now it is up to you to pick what everyone wants :) good luck you gonna need it haha. oh and don't forget to enjoy your day ( P.S even you who are reading this;)

PJ Cheyne-Miller

As others have said, line by line would probably work best for the vertical videos as it doesn't distract as much from the gameplay and using youtube's captions for the 16:9 would be best. But as someone who uses YouTube's subtitles a lot, please don't trust the auto-generated ones. They're complete ass for anyone that doesn't have an accent from the Northeast-US speaking clearly in a quiet room. I don't know how difficult it is to do so, but Tomska and Tom Scott (especially on the the Tom Scott Plus channel i.e. this video: youtu.be/rK2locyo-Pc) do an amazing job with timing and placement of the captioning system, as well as colour coding. If that's more hassle than it's worth, baked in captions that stay out of the way of the action would be better than the auto-generated ones.

Alex Sutherland

For 16:9 I prefer no subtitles with the usual built in subtitles there for people who require them. For vertical video line by line subtitles are preferred if they are necessary for accessibility/engagement purposes. Individual words fly by, especially at the speed Dan speaks in these and it stops me seeing the gameplay at all. That might just be a me problem though and I could learn to live with it. I do agree with others that word by word suits the style better.

Dolthra

I agree with an above comment that word by word works best, but the speed of delivery makes some lines feel like they might be served by the words lingering for a little bit longer, and some- I guess multiword nouns- feel like they should be combined. On the former, "your mining tool is piddly, etc. etc." feels like it could benefit from both the slowdown and the extra emphasis of the whole line being on screen at once (though maybe appearing word by word? Idk at this point I'm just suggesting even more work). The latter is with terms like "goth rave" and "tar pit", where the first word is modifying the former, and it may help for accessibility to show both words simultaneously as opposed to flashing them on the screen separately. Those are just my thoughts, though.

Ethan PT7

For the vertical, I found the line by line more preferable. The word by word does match Dan's cadence and voice well but thought that it's a bit of a distraction from the game footage. For the 16:9, I prefer no subtitles. 16:9 (normal YouTube video) is probably how I'll watch these anyway because I haven't cared for the YouTube shorts videos in general ever since they launched on YouTube.

Hisham Kirma

I'd also suggest having shorts for clips or highlights of normal videos, like a funny moment in a plays video or a moment from the podcats.

Ross Truscott

100% line by line subtitles on the shorts, thats just how tiktok etc works, its going to grab people far better, word by word i think is good if dans really going fast and its going to be like a center point, it adds a nice amount of action, but I do prefer how line by line reads, its just a more intelligible for me. I would prefer the subtitles not to be baked into the 16:9 video though, theyre just different formats, I do think the shorts look really good though

Dave Miller

So, weirdly, I like what you might call, "Accumulating word-by-word" where the words are displayed one at a time, but you end up with the line-by-line look, before clearing and moving on to the next line. You get the snappy attention-grabbing of the word-by-word, but give someone a chance to catch up if they missed a word, without the whole, "No! You missed something? Screw you, watch the video over and over again until you've managed to read every single word as it shows up! Muahahaha, monetization or something!" I agree though with others that 16:9 should really just stick with the normal closed captioning.

Ben Smith

To join the consensus, 16:9 doesn’t feel right with baked in subtitles, even if it’s more or less the same content!

Great Saxtonian

Low line by line is definitely my preference, though on 16:9 honestly if I wanted subtitles I’d just enable YouTube’s CCs. I think the best example for this format I can think of is VTuber clips, they’ve managed to nail down a format for these short 1 minute bites and have almost developed a formula for how they should be assembled, and which words deserved emphasis.

Ben Chilcott

For the 16:9s the captions are there for people who want them, which will include translations. For those people, it can be a bit weird having 2 sets of subtitles so I don’t think the baked in ones are necessary. Line by line on the shorts makes the most sense.

Ben Anderson

16:9 should never have subtitles. Shorts kinda need subtitles even though I don't like it just because that's how shorts are

Ben Chilcott

As for the dedicated shorts channel, is there much point to this anymore? I think YouTube have made some changes which separate regular, live, and short videos on the channel so they don’t get in the way.

Luke Cordell

I think the shorts should be word by word, and the long form should be via YT CC only.

Jed Lath

Having a separate shorts channel probably isn't necessary now that YouTube have separated them off from regular videos, usually it's the shorts that get me interested and then I check the main videos. As for the subtitles, word by word works well for the more hyperactive vertical ones while the 16:9 probably works better with them at the bottom of the screen.

Justin Milo

I'm not sure that a separate channel just for Shorts is nessisary. although I'm not super experienced with the back end of youtube.

Conor Moran

I liked line-by-line personally, but as others said maybe a mix is the best option depending on pace? What works on this particular video may not on another due to text covering where the game places elements on the screen, speed of the delivery to match the tone of the game, etc. So while I understand you want to acheive a "brand consistency", and I appreciate it probably takes longer to edit in different styles, I would think take it case-by-case is the way to play!

Kay Parker-Hunt

Strong preference for line by line, I tried the word by word subs but several times missed a word and by the time I realised, the subtitles had moved on so I couldn't catch up

Ties van Asseldonk

I hate baked in subtitles, but as far as I know it's the best way to make the video's accessible on a platform like TikTok. But YouTube has built-in subtitles (even with colours and formatting if you have fancy software and use the right settings) but even just using the basic plain-text subtitling tool YouTube provides would be 10000% better than subtitles baked into the video in my opinion.

Pascal Farful

I think the 16:9 version works best with the build-in enableable subtitles, and the Shorts/TikTok/Instagram version works best with Option 3

Alyssa Gordon

as much as itd clog up the main channel it'd be the better reach wise having the shorts on it

Martin Fry

Please keep the shorts on there own channel, not every you tube app allows you to filter them out. Personally can’t stand vertical videos, that may be because I am old thou.

Logan Hesseling

On vertical: I feel the subtitles should be lower in the frame. Probably 30-40% up the screen. That's the format most shorts I've seen run. I'm not big on word by word subtitles, but they add punch to the rhythm of Dan's voice. Would ideally mix it up based on how Dan reads the line, but I think marrying the audible rhythm to the visuals is the most important part to keeping viewer engagement. On horizontal: This is for the olds (myself included). Don't run baked in subs, we can turn on youtube's built-in subs if we want. Side note: Just put them on the main channel (unless you're running an experiment). They're silo'd off into their own section, so people shouldn't see them clog the feed and youtube's algorithm loves them.

Jonathan Rowe

I think word by word matches Dan's energy perfectly. I would have it in just the vertical form though, and have line by line (bottom) on the 16:9 videos, because they are less in the way.

Novill044

I prefer No Subtitles on the Shorts; the Word-by-Word is too distracting and the Line-by-Line takes up too much space - maybe if it was smaller or at the top of the video. With the 16:9 videos the Low Line-by-Line works much better. I think I prefer the Low Line-by-Line on a 16:9 format to the Shorts with No Subtitles but they're my preferred two.

Gary McCoy

I usually don't watch YouTube shorts, but line by line subtitles generally seem to work better.

Tailmartian

On the video that combines all shorts together for that month I'd actually prefer to have no subtitles. When I watch a video like that I'll be sitting down for it and taking my time to watch it with my headphones on so I can fully concentrate on the video. I'm not really interested in the separate shorts anyway. On YouTube I never watch those and on Instagram it's a thing I stumble upon if I'm mindlessly scrolling through it again. Then the line by line subtitles are useful because I use Instagram with the sound of.

Emma Goodall

I think the line by line subtitles and the low line by line subtitles is better for reading personally but the word by word fits Dan's style of the videos. I am looking forward to what Dan recommends in the short videos!

Zyon Aytkyn

I think line by line definitely works best for the vertical videos because when using my phone I tend to have the sound off which I'm sure is the case for a lot of people. When I have the sound off I tend to be more likely to watch a video that has subtitles than one that doesn't but I think the word by word is way too fast. As for the 16:9 videos I would much prefer no subtitles as I will be most likely watching it at home so the need for subtitles won't be there and it will give more focus on the gameplay.

Jack Stratton

Line by line for the vertical videos, and on the 16:9 videos I'd rather just use YouTube CC like I usually do. The word by word makes me just stare at the text and not see the actual game

Mike Jones

I would do line by line, with the words appearing as they're said, but with a fade in effect, if that's not too complicated.

Al bob

I prefer the "no subtitles". But I do like how some words are edited in for effect.

George Farren

I think line-by-line is best for the vertical shorts format. With the 16:9, I would either go with the low line-by-line or no subs, and use the captions feature so people can choose to turn it off (but actually put the captions in manually, rather than let it auto generate)

Josh Wright

I think a mix of the two, line by line but maybe have the odd phrase emphasised word by word, maybe larger or a different colour

Brian

I personally dislike having subtitles, so I'd appreciate the ability to turn them off in the youtube format