Lately, I have spent a lot more time on youtube.com than I have in the previous months.
With the start of the Starcraft 2 Beta more and more youtube channels rise up, and I thought that I might share my thoughts about a few of these - I will only highlight these with commentaries - since I personally prefer them over repetitious gameplay and litte excitement.
HDStarcraft is a user committed to show pro games as well as highlighting thoughts on his own games. His videos are generally the best to follow, the Starcraft terminiolgy giving way more and more to SC 2 names.
He was the first to provide videos with 1080p resolution (at least in my serach), which looks great on my new laptop - it being a widescreen.
His commentaries are very insightful and respectful to the other players. The strategy never falls short, as he constantly weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the units.
The audio quality of the recordings is very good, his speach is clear and generally grammatically correct.
HuskyStarcraft is a friend of his, together they occasionally cast games together with a mixed commentary of both. I guess that they intent to get close to Blizzards own battlereports - but they sadly cannot reach that standart.
While HD only casts games (in either players-camera view, or in the everyone-view) Husky also uploads videos with unit comparisms. When you want to know who wins a battle between a ton of Zerglings and Zealots, or Mutalisks and Phoenixes you definetly gotta check his channel out.
Husky also has stronger roots (in my eyes) than HD in the original Starcraft and the Starcraft broodwar scene. He also submits new videos (every once in a while) of Broodwar-games in the same format than he casts his Starcraft 2 Beta games. He now also casts in 1080p.
His commentaries are not always as neutral to the level of skill of the players. His commentaries are very insightful none the less, and it appears to me that he also uploads more games than the others. The audio quality is nearly as good as the one of HDStarcraft.
SC2GGRise is a very emotional commentator who laughs and screams and ocassionally also uses the Starcraft 2 beta plays for general ramblings and every day stuff.
Due to the constant change in the sound level the videos are not as easy to follow... The audio quality is noticebly worse than either HD or Husky.
Since Rise gets soo caught up in the games he occasionally also forgets what he wanted to point out... They are more entertaining that way... but also less serios than the above casters.
Rise does not cast games of his own - he has no Beta key... so he only does commentaries - but at least always of high level games. The maximum resolution on his videos is 720p.
BlizShouter is a user who mostly casts his own games - his ingame name is Crota, thus I will refer to him by that name as well. He does a lot of life shoutcasts, thus being very exited when doing the commentaries.
In his videos it is also very clear how he makes them, since you can hear his kittchen-aralm-clock when the 10 minutes are over of each chunk of a game.
Due to his mostly life commantaries (which are the same on youtube as on his root-site) he does not use the helpful drop-down-overview feature of Starcraft 2 - in which you can see e.g. resource production, APM, or unit numbers. This makes his videos less informative. He sometimes also jumps in the videos to a prior moment of the game - if this is more or less helpful is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Crota is very content with his own performance, and so his comments are sometimes a bit one sided and lack a bit of respect. Lately some games are lagging around the 2 or 3 minute mark. The audio quality is the worse than the one of the others, his speech is often mumbled.
He appears to be younger than the other casters, with HD and Husky having been to college for a few years, and Rise sounding like a man in his 30s or 40s.
Crota, just like Husky, has a very strong background. However in his case it's the Warcraft 3 pro scene. His videos often still have 360p but occasionally also offer 720p.
Hegemon54 has the deepest voice of the commentators in this post. His commentary also seems more relaxed and a bit slower compared to those of his colleages. He just recently started to do commentaries, so his videos lack a bit a certain formality. I am sure that that will pick up with his growing experience. He is very friendly and respectful (due to the monotone commentary) to the participating players which eases the listening experience. Currently he highlights a lot of details on units, such as range or damage vs. certain targets. If he does that too often however, than it is harder to follow the game.
The audio quality of the microphone is good but his speech is a bit mumbled and his speechflow is not constant, the music level however is a tad too high, and can thus get in the way of the game-flow. He also offers 1080p now.
I hope that this was helpful... here are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft
http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft
http://www.youtube.com/user/SC2GGRise
http://www.youtube.com/user/BlizShouter
http://www.youtube.com/user/Hegemon54
Last I would like to highlight a recent video by HDStarcraft, in which he offers a beta key!
So check out his announcement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ouhicxngA
This post clearly is only shows my subjective opinion, and shall only give you a general guideline and a few starting channels if you want to follow more Starcraft 2 Beta games - as I do very very much. If you take offense, feel free to comment - I judge and thus can stand to be judged as well.
With the start of the Starcraft 2 Beta more and more youtube channels rise up, and I thought that I might share my thoughts about a few of these - I will only highlight these with commentaries - since I personally prefer them over repetitious gameplay and litte excitement.
HDStarcraft is a user committed to show pro games as well as highlighting thoughts on his own games. His videos are generally the best to follow, the Starcraft terminiolgy giving way more and more to SC 2 names.
He was the first to provide videos with 1080p resolution (at least in my serach), which looks great on my new laptop - it being a widescreen.
His commentaries are very insightful and respectful to the other players. The strategy never falls short, as he constantly weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the units.
The audio quality of the recordings is very good, his speach is clear and generally grammatically correct.
HuskyStarcraft is a friend of his, together they occasionally cast games together with a mixed commentary of both. I guess that they intent to get close to Blizzards own battlereports - but they sadly cannot reach that standart.
While HD only casts games (in either players-camera view, or in the everyone-view) Husky also uploads videos with unit comparisms. When you want to know who wins a battle between a ton of Zerglings and Zealots, or Mutalisks and Phoenixes you definetly gotta check his channel out.
Husky also has stronger roots (in my eyes) than HD in the original Starcraft and the Starcraft broodwar scene. He also submits new videos (every once in a while) of Broodwar-games in the same format than he casts his Starcraft 2 Beta games. He now also casts in 1080p.
His commentaries are not always as neutral to the level of skill of the players. His commentaries are very insightful none the less, and it appears to me that he also uploads more games than the others. The audio quality is nearly as good as the one of HDStarcraft.
SC2GGRise is a very emotional commentator who laughs and screams and ocassionally also uses the Starcraft 2 beta plays for general ramblings and every day stuff.
Due to the constant change in the sound level the videos are not as easy to follow... The audio quality is noticebly worse than either HD or Husky.
Since Rise gets soo caught up in the games he occasionally also forgets what he wanted to point out... They are more entertaining that way... but also less serios than the above casters.
Rise does not cast games of his own - he has no Beta key... so he only does commentaries - but at least always of high level games. The maximum resolution on his videos is 720p.
BlizShouter is a user who mostly casts his own games - his ingame name is Crota, thus I will refer to him by that name as well. He does a lot of life shoutcasts, thus being very exited when doing the commentaries.
In his videos it is also very clear how he makes them, since you can hear his kittchen-aralm-clock when the 10 minutes are over of each chunk of a game.
Due to his mostly life commantaries (which are the same on youtube as on his root-site) he does not use the helpful drop-down-overview feature of Starcraft 2 - in which you can see e.g. resource production, APM, or unit numbers. This makes his videos less informative. He sometimes also jumps in the videos to a prior moment of the game - if this is more or less helpful is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Crota is very content with his own performance, and so his comments are sometimes a bit one sided and lack a bit of respect. Lately some games are lagging around the 2 or 3 minute mark. The audio quality is the worse than the one of the others, his speech is often mumbled.
He appears to be younger than the other casters, with HD and Husky having been to college for a few years, and Rise sounding like a man in his 30s or 40s.
Crota, just like Husky, has a very strong background. However in his case it's the Warcraft 3 pro scene. His videos often still have 360p but occasionally also offer 720p.
Hegemon54 has the deepest voice of the commentators in this post. His commentary also seems more relaxed and a bit slower compared to those of his colleages. He just recently started to do commentaries, so his videos lack a bit a certain formality. I am sure that that will pick up with his growing experience. He is very friendly and respectful (due to the monotone commentary) to the participating players which eases the listening experience. Currently he highlights a lot of details on units, such as range or damage vs. certain targets. If he does that too often however, than it is harder to follow the game.
The audio quality of the microphone is good but his speech is a bit mumbled and his speechflow is not constant, the music level however is a tad too high, and can thus get in the way of the game-flow. He also offers 1080p now.
I hope that this was helpful... here are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft
http://www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft
http://www.youtube.com/user/SC2GGRise
http://www.youtube.com/user/BlizShouter
http://www.youtube.com/user/Hegemon54
Last I would like to highlight a recent video by HDStarcraft, in which he offers a beta key!
So check out his announcement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ouhicxngA
This post clearly is only shows my subjective opinion, and shall only give you a general guideline and a few starting channels if you want to follow more Starcraft 2 Beta games - as I do very very much. If you take offense, feel free to comment - I judge and thus can stand to be judged as well.
