Spring in Madeira continues: The Balcões and a hike to Faial!

Well, that was fast this time, eh? I told you that the new strategy with the video length of 20 minutes will work. And just as I mentioned earlier, I have to "put the pedal to the metal" a bit to complete this series for "specific reasons". Also, I have just missed to meet my "promise" to upload new videos if the most recent video has reached 50 views. When uploading the video, the previous one had 54 views. But what can I do, if you are so quick? ;)

The Plot
As promised, you will see the Balcões finally in this video. We start where we left off the last time: The entrance to the Balcões. And yes, I was a little annoyed by the very loud French tourists and their crying baby ;). It was much louder than it sounds in the video. Well, anyway the panoramic view from the Balcões was filmed extensively. For some, perhaps a bit too extensively. As I mention in the video, the view was impressive but not so overwhelming as I remembered it from the photos and videos on the Internet. But, and this I mention also, maybe I simply saw another lookout point. The one on the pictures and videos had the typical wooden railing. The Balcões have, as you can see in the video, a simple green metal railing. The time on the Balcões was definitely nice and it was a unique experience. After the extensive stay we actually did not know what to do next, because it was still early in the day. So we went back to Ribeiro Frio first and refreshed ourselves with a Cortado (coffee with Madeira wine). Here we took the bold decision to hike further to Faial and go from there back to Funchal by bus. Just FYI: The distance from Ribeiro Frio to Faial is almost half the distance from the south to the north coast. After a nice hike, two additional Coral Tonica and 2 Poncha we arrived in Faial in the early evening and caught, once again, the bus back to Funchal just in time.

The Soundtrack
...is this time, with one exception, from the current alionsonny album "Continuity". The exception to this is the pre-release version of a new alionsonny track.

What's next?
I had already announced that I still have A one-hour bus ride for you, and that comes as the next part. It will show the bus ride from Faial to Monte.

And now have lots of fun with the new video!

Something new to play with : Youtube Infocards!

Well, that was a nice surprise when I went to the antique annotation editor of Youtube today, which in my opinion by the way, needs a major overhaul. In fact I had forgotten to "fill the annotations in the outro of the recent video with life". Well, fortunately, just 26 people watched the video so far and yet nobody complained ;). Well, and now there was this notice, which said that so-called information cards are available from now on. WTF? I had no clue what it was all about first and went on a Google recherche. Then my old skull had figured out what it is and what it is good for. Anyone who wants to know more, can read all about it on the official documentation page.
 

The infocards are behind this little icon. A left mouse click and they are shown.

My impression? My Opinion? Caveat: The implementation could in my opinion be improved a bit. Especially that one can not freely determine the vertical order of the information cards. In the screenshots shown below you can see that I added an infocard for the playlist of the "Frühling auf Madeira" series (to which this Video belongs) and for a link to the alionsonny album "Reggae?". So far I have not found a way to change the vertical order. But maybe this is in the next update ;). The editor for the infocards is definitely much more intuitive and useful than the uglyness, called the annotation editor.

Here you see 2 infocards: One is of type Playlist and links to the videos playlist and one is of type Merchandise and links to the music album. In total you can put 5 infocards in a single video.

The benefits of this new feature? Well, there will be for sure different opinions about this, but I think it's a nice way, for example, to link to the corresponding playlist from which a video is. Any Youtuber, who wanted to accomplish this before, had to use annotations, which most of the time received mixed response from the audience. I also find the option beautiful, to have the possibility to add merchandising links with minimal effort and minimal impact on the viewer experience, such as the link to the music album. And all that using just that small (i) that even disappears if you do not move the mouse cursor across the video window.

Conclusion: I think this is great! For me it is a welcome opportunity to achieve such things without flooding the video window with annotations. In my opinion, this feature is the best thing the Youtube developers have managed to get done in a long time. Keep it up!

Spring in Madeira - Day 9 Part 1 is here!

This part is already one that is a little shorter than the announced 20 minutes. This starts good. You will agree that the timing for the cut at the end of the part is an absolutely perfect choice.

The Plot
A little later than planned on the day we start a hike from Ribeiro Frio to the world famous lookout point Balcões. To my greatest surprise and joy, this time I met Ribeiro Frio in bright sunshine. I was far more used the opposite in Ribeiro Frio, for example, on day 3, day 7 and day 8 of my trip in 2012. There was an accordingly immense tourism going on, and so I sometimes had a few problems to navigate my world famous shaky camera through the masses. However, there are wonderful views of nature, a little surprise in the form of an unexpectedly strong Poncha and accordingly much nonsense. You will not see the Balcões in this part, because I viciously placed the end-of-part cut right on the entrance to the Balcões. This is certainly not a highlight of the AlionLive entertainment, but you can not always top yourself ;). Again about the cliffhanger at the end: It was just the right place for the cut. If you watch the second part (probably with extra length), you will realize that an end-of-part cut wouldn't fit anywhere else. Nasty, but necessary.

The Soundtrack
...comes this time once more from older to ancient alionsonny albums. The titles have a strange resemblance. I do not know how this could happen. Why old music again? Because the new is not finished yet. I do not want to use the pre-release versions of the albums in progress again. Therefore I use older material. But soon, for a certain, very special, *giggle* episode, I'll present the new Willma Poppen album, maybe in full length.

What's Next
Of course you'll see the Balcões in the next part and, due to the nice weather, also spectacular views of it. Then we simply hike down to Faial... because we can. The next episode is, as already indicated, probably a little longer than 20 minutes.">

But now have fun with this video:

Dear viewers, we have to change something ;)

Day 9 - Somewhere between Ribeiro Frio and Faial

Where are the videos? Some time ago, I announced (eg on Facebook) that I will restrict the time I work on new videos in favor of completing a music album. This means I've been actually working 100% on the music and 0% on videos. Due to some complaints and the wonderful growth in viewers, I decided to change a few things. This will make it possible for me to more or less regularly deliver new videos and still have plenty of time for making music and other things. In addition, it solves a small problem that I have with certain self-imposed time limits ... but this is nothing of interest for you ;).

Day 10 - On our way to the Pico Ruivo Tunnel

Situation
The series "Spring in Madeira" is, as you may have noticed, not yet finished. A little over 6 hours of uncut video material lingers still around on my hard drive. These are the last 7 days of the trip, including the very short departure day. The length of material per day varies from 40 minutes to just over an hour. Additionally, I have half an hour of material from a little trip with Malina to Lüneburg.

Day 11 - "Fear & Loathing in Camara de Lobos" - The party part!

Changes
To edit a video block of 40 to 50 minutes as a whole requires a lot of time. That's why I decided, to limit the video length, at least for the remainder of the current series, to about 20 minutes. No, I do not do this because of the small advertising revenue, but for the following reasons:

1. A 20-minute video is, from the amount of work involved, easier to handle than a video block. I can work on a video to the end, without "rendering myself unavailable" for other things for a long time.
2. I can provide you with new videos more regularly. Of cause you have to wait longer for a really long video with many cuts and subtitles than for a a shorter one.
3. I got to know, that most viewers seem to prefer short videos. Not everyone always has time to watch a one hour video.

20 minutes is an approximate value. It all depends on whether I can place thematically cut on any location on the time line. So sometimes it may be probably 15 or 30 minutes. Such things as bus rides will be, however, still be uploaded in one piece. There's not much to cut and edit in those at all ;). Oh yes ... I even have one more one-hour bus ride for you :D.
 

Day 12 - On the Eira do Serrado

What's next?
Since the work on the current music album is quite advanced, I can now invest a little time in the videos. The Madeira series has the highest priority and should soon be completed because new adventures are already waiting ;). So I'm going to cut the first of two 20-minute parts for Day 9. So, there will be soon new stuff to watch.

Day 13 - Having a good time with good friends