Singalong Vid Show 3: Greatest Hits

[corbae]

cinco and I VJ'd this show.

Description: We're getting the band back together! Join us online as we sing our hearts out to some fantastic vids, with an emphasis on feel-good, upbeat tunes. Fandoms and songs spanning several decades will be included, and all vids will be subtitled.

You can watch the show on Conline, though not all vids in that playlist have subtitles available.

Singalong Vid Show 3: Greatest Hits

1. Don't Stop Believin' by purplefringe (Violence, Visual Triggers)


2. 500 Miles by Elipie (Visual triggers)


3. Anything For Love by astolat and Speranza (Visual triggers)


4. A Gorgeous Vid Moment (YMCA) by Llin


5. Whatta Man by sisabet (Visual triggers)


6. Shut Up and Dance by tabularasa


7. Clu-oops! by deirdre_c (Violence)


8. The Tragedy of Loki of Asgard by sisabet (Canonical Major Character Death, Violence, Visual Triggers)


9. I Am Not a Robot by Lola


10. Just a Girl by odessie


11. Tik Tok by misssheenie (Depictions of Police, Holocaust and/or Nazi Imagery, Violence, Visual Triggers)


12. Starships! by bironic (Visual Triggers)

When cinco suggested that we run Singalong Vid Show again this year, I happily agreed. Singalong Vid Show has been a con highlight for me every time we've put it on.

We knew early on that there would be some technical hurdles to overcome, but I don't think either of us realized how much testing and duct tape would go into the show. As you've probably noticed if you've used Zoom or other video call meetings, the delay between when someone says something and when you hear it can get pretty bad.

We eventually decided that, given it was impossible to eliminate all latency, Zoom was our best option to share audio. Its algorithms are supposed to be great and it also performed best in our testing. Tutorials from choir companies taught us how to let everyone speak at once, which was a big missing piece.

That was our audio covered. We couldn't stream the videos in Zoom, though, because then we'd be introducing more latency into the equation. It would also be a bigger bandwidth strain for everyone, especially the person who was streaming locally and sharing their Zoom screen.

I'd been using Watch2Gether to stream Nirvana in Fire with friends and it had been working really well. You could add videos to your playlist with just a YouTube or Vimeo link, which was perfect for us. Unfortunately, each viewer needed to click into the settings for each vid and turn on captions when it started playing. That, plus some vids that were missing subtitles on YT or Vimeo, led us to the next and final solution: Combine all the vids into one, combine and re-time the subtitles, and use the new monster vid for our show. Huge thanks to the Vidding Discord for providing tips on how to do that!

With that, we had a show. Did we sing in time? No. Did we sing in tune? I probably didn't. Was it joyous and amazing and exactly what I needed? Absolutely it was.