We recently made several updates to our website. We focused on enhancing our website’s performance and introducing new features.
Website performance is important to ensure page load times are as expected. We reduced our overall page sizes and eliminated some plugins that were previously used. We use WordPress software to power our website. Our recent update involved the creation of a custom theme. The custom theme is Bootstrap based, so we can use a wide range of Bootstrap widgets without the need for third-party plugins.
We also improved how we display videos on the website. Our goal was to have videos displayed correctly regardless of the screen size the viewer is using. This is called responsive design.
One new feature we added was the “random video” viewer. This lets you view a random video from us. If you don’t like what you see, refresh or hit “Load new random video”, and a new random video will be displayed. We hope this will help people find videos they like and want to watch.
The random video feature involved creating a custom WordPress plugin that interacts with the YouTube API. It selects all uploaded videos, chooses one at random, and displays it within our embedded player. We have several ideas to improve this, and will continue to work on it moving forward.
How to spot a fake WD SSD
Sometimes an offer seems too good to be true. In most cases, it probably is.
We recently upgraded our network storage server and wanted to install SSD drives to increase read speed. I saw a listing on eBay for WD Blue 1TB SSD drives for £29. My gut told me the item was either fake or would not be received, but in the eBay marketplace place buyers do have protection from unscrupulous sellers. There was a chance the drives were OEM, therefore not for resale, so I decided to give it a try and placed the order.
The IT-savvy amongst you may be wondering why WD Blue for a NAS? Well, our NAS is not an “always on” system and it is only powered up when we need to backup our systems or restore files. Because of this there is no need for NAS-rated drives. The drives are installed on an HP server, so in reality, Enterprise drives should be used. In our scenario, we use RAID for our storage, so even if drives do fail, we can simply replace the defective drive and rebuild the RAID array. We use two drives in RAID 1 for the boot drive and 6 drives in RAID 5 for the storage. It makes sense to keep your operating system and your storage drives separate.
The first red flag was the slow dispatch time. It took the seller 9 days (and a message from me) before the drives were posted. I was then able to track the delivery. The courier did their job well, and the package was delivered 14 days after the purchase.
As soon as I opened the package, I saw the drive in what resembled Western Digital retail packaging. Upon removing the drive from the packaging, it became clear this was not a genuine WD Blue drive.
A genuine WD Blue SSD
The image above shows what a genuine WD Blue SSD should look like. If you look at the drive with the connection ports on the left side, the label should be the correct way up. There should also be a section of grey plastic surrounding the ports. The grey plastic is part of the internal board. We do not recommend ever opening up a genuine SSD because this will void your warranty and may also render your SSD unusable if you damage it. On a genuine Western Digital SSD there will be screws hidden below the sticker. These screws hold the SSD enclosure together.
The Fake WD SSD
The fake drive is visibly different. The grey accent around the connection ports is missing and if the drive is held with the ports facing the left side, the label is upside down. There is also a subtle difference in the shade of blue used on the label.
As we mentioned before, I would not recommend dismantling a genuine SSD. Because I knew this one was fake, I saw no reason not to do a mini tear-down to try and figure out just what I had bought.
This is confirmed by suspicions of it being fake. WD uses SanDisk NAND flash chips for storage. This had one NAND module, and the branding had been rubbed off the chip, so identifying it was not possible. There was however, a part number on the back of the board. It appears this was based on a Real-tech demo board. No doubt, this board has been cloned and mass-produced to be installed in a wide range of counterfeit SSD drives.
Testing
You should never use a drive in your computer if you believe it to be fake, counterfeit or suspicious. You just never know if it will contain a payload that may infect your system. There is also the possibility that a faulty drive could cause damage to your computer.
I decided to test the drive (so you don’t have to) by plugging it into an old system and running a virtual machine (Windows 10) to see if we were really going to get the 1TB as claimed.
I copied some Linux ISO images to another SSD and shared that drive with the virtual machine. I then began copying the ISO images to the “new” SSD.
At first, I was surprised. It was copying approximately 5GB of files from SSD to SSD and I was getting around 500 MB/s. This is not blisteringly quick, but it is certainly not slow. We also need to take into account the fact that this was all being run on a virtual machine, so that may have been a factor.
When this copy finished, I simply copied again. I renamed the file (added (1) to the end) and the process started over. Again, it was fairly fast and completed as expected.
I then selected all within the new SSD and ran a copy/paste to duplicate everything that was on the drive. Again, this process finished, but it was a little slower (around 200-300 MB/s).
I then selected the largest ISO file (around 3 gig) and pasted it again, this time the transfer rate dropped to around 20 MB/s and kept pausing and restarting. I browsed to the folder on the fake SSD and right clicked > properties and it was 31.8 GB. This leads me to believe the fake WD Blue 1 TB SSD is actually a generic 32GB SSD.
Windows says it’s 1 TB
Very often, people who buy these devices will believe it is a genuine 1 TB SSD because within Windows (My Computer) will indeed show up as a 1 TB drive. This is because the “scammers” will edit the firmware on the drive so it will report incorrect disk capacity. Because of this, Windows will treat it as a 1 TB drive.
The big problem with this is that when the drive is actually full, Windows will not know this. It will just keep allowing files to be saved to the drive. This means that when you fill the disk, you will begin overwriting existing files. You will not know this has happened until you try and access your files. Recent documents may work perfectly, but older files will be overwritten. They MAY still show up within Windows Explorer (making you think they are present), but you will not be able to open the files.
If it Sounds to Good to be True…
If it seems too good to be true, it almost always is. I would recommend only buying SSDs from a reputable source. In this case, I was fairly certain the drives would be fake, but I was curious to see what I would receive. If you do receive a suspect drive, I hope this blog post will help you identify it. I would recommend against trying to use it. It may work, but you do not have any idea of the quality of the device or how long it is likely to last.
You will also not have a manufacturer’s warranty. I am currently in the process of getting a refund on the drives, and I will update this post if there is anything more to be added.
UPDATE: eBay issued a full refund to cover the cost of the drives plus shipping.
Too much fake content on YouTube
Over recent years, there has been a huge influx of fake content within the paranormal niche. There have also been a lot of channels that were primarily involved in urban exploring that have switched over to the paranormal and are creating staged content simply for views.
There are many great channels within the paranormal scene that do believe in the subject and are trying to be true paranormal investigators. It can be interesting to watch them as they carry out an honest investigation. I like the fact that they do not try and create a fake scene simply to prove the existence of the paranormal; they try to honestly document what is happening.
It is fair to say that most of the true channels do not find anything that provides proof that the paranormal is a real thing, yet some channels seem to come across a ghost every time they pick up a camera.
Some of these channels present their content as fiction and purely for the purpose of providing entertainment. There are, however, channels that attempt to present their content as real when it is clearly fake.
Many of the fake channels generate way more views than genuine channels within the paranormal niche. The main reason will be that viewers do find this content entertaining, even though most will be fully aware that what they are watching is entirely faked and staged simply to create a video.
This does, however, pose a huge problem for genuine channels within the paranormal space. They will not be able to provide content that is nearly as entertaining as the fake channels. The channels producing the fake paranormal content will make it very hard for any genuine content to compete. If people are exposed to fake content that the creator claims is real, then it sets the bar very high with the audience. They will be used to the exciting content that the fakers are able to put out, and genuine investigatory content will seem very boring in comparison.
There are also similar issues within the Urbex niche, but not nearly to the same extent as within the paranormal category.
Aerial Images edited in the post-war era.
Military editing aerial images
After WWII, the UK RAF (Royal Air Force) began a project of photographing much of the UK from the air. These photographs were mainly for use by the military, but would later be released to the general public.
When viewing some of these aerial photographs, it becomes clear that they have been altered. There are items that would have been classed as sensitive that have been omitted from the imagery.
It is important to note that when these edits were made, it was nowhere as simple as it is today. Today, we have software that can edit images and manipulate them in pretty much any way we want. With these old photos, the edits would need to be made directly to the negatives. This would involve a great deal of skill from the editor and would also be very time-consuming.
We can only assume that these locations would have been considered sensitive and potentially useful for any adversary nation. In the post-WWII era, the world was far from being stable. It would make sense to hide military locations from aerial images that were going to be made available.
The image above is a screenshot of the Side-by-side maps on the National Library of Scotland mapping website. The image on the right is a modern-day satellite image. The image on the left is an aerial photograph taken by the RAF prior to 1950.
The location of this is the Bandeath Munitions Depot, located on the east coast of Scotland. This location was constructed prior to WWI and was in active use during WWI and WWII.
As you can see, the buildings and structures have been removed from the publicly available aerial images.
As urban explorers, we travel to locations of interest and create videos of them. Whilst each video is different, we use the same processes and techniques.
Our camera
Our main footage is shot on a Nikon D5500 DSLR camera. This camera does not support 4K filming, and this is one area where we are planning to upgrade in the near future. We also use mobile phones for filming (Pixel 6a), and these do allow shooting in 4K, but mobile phones have their limitations and drawbacks.
Mobile phones are designed to be as small as possible. This is fantastic for letting you get as many features into your device as possible, but there is no replacement for larger sensors. Most phones do a good job of making the most of the situation, but having a camera with a larger sensor will allow you to capture way more light and get a better result.
Our Drone
We currently use a Parrot Anafi drone for all our aerial footage. We have owned this drone for several years and have not had any issues or problems with it. The Anafi films in 4K and allows you to record in LOG format. The advantage of using LOG files is that more information and detail are saved in the files. This gives you more control over the final footage as you edit it.
Accessories
In our camera bag, we take a wide range of accessories that are used for filming…
Tripod and adaptors
Lens blower
LED lighting panels and batteries
Lens cleaning cloths
Dust masks
Wired camera shutter release
Nikor 18-55 mm
Sigma 17-70 mm
Sigma 70-300 mm
File Storage
Whenever you are involved in the creation of media or any form of multimedia production, you will very quickly build up a large number of files. All these files need to be stored somewhere safe and secure. You should never simply rely on your PC to be able to safely store your video files. If you have a serious problem, such as a disk drive failure, you could lose all your data.
In our case, we use a NAS (Network Attached Storage) server as a backup for our files.
When we come back from filming, one of the first things we do is download all our footage from our devices (cameras, phones and drone) to our main workstation. We then synchronise our workstation to our NAS. This means we now have the files stored on the devices, our workstation and the NAS. This is generally all the redundancy we need, but we also have a cloud storage server where we backup any files we feel are important enough to receive an additional level of safety.
Our NAS server is an HP ML150 G9 system. It runs Ubuntu Server and has 7 x 1TB disk drives installed. We use a system called RAID to provide an additional safety net to our storage system. If any one of the drives were to fail, we can swap the disk for a new one and rebuild the array without losing data.
Video Editing
Video editing is the process of compiling your clips into a completed video. We use two separate pieces of software for our editing. Our main videos are edited using Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. For YouTube Shorts, we use Kdenlive.
Davinci Resolve is a professional-grade editing suite with incredible tools for all your editing needs. Kdenlive is a much simpler tool to use and will run on much leaner hardware. Our shorts are edited on a simple laptop, so Kdenlive is a useful tool to be able to piece together a quick YouTube short.
We also make use of some additional software within our workflow. For any 3D work, we use Blender. For image editing we use Darktable and Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Darktable is an opensource raw file editor. Gimp is another piece of opensource software that is an incredible image editing tool.
Free and Opensource
Creating videos can be an expensive activity. We have tried to keep our costs as low as possible. When it comes to hardware and devices such as cameras and drones, there really is no alternative but to pay. Software is a very different story though, all of the software we use is either free or opensource. We currently use the free version of Davinci Resolve. This is provided by Blackmagic Design and has very few limitations compared to the studio (paid) version.
It is very likely that Davinci Resolve is made available as a free version to get creators involved in the Blackmagic ecosystem. Blackmagic manufactures and sells a wide range of cameras and hardware developed for media creation.
The other software that we use is released as opensource. This means that the software is produced by volunteers who are interested in making great software. Generally, within the opensource community, different people will contribute to specific areas of a project. The entire piece of software will then be released freely for anyone to use. You are also allowed to modify the software to better suit your needs.
As well as using opensource software for our creation tools, we also use an opensource operating system. We currently use Kubuntu Linux as the operating system on our computers.
The key is to find the right set of tools for your specific needs. What works for us may not work for you, and vice versa. Experiment with various tools until you find the right solution for you. Don’t be afraid of change and embrace technology.
Is it still worth uploading videos to Odysee
Odysee is an alternative video platform similar to YouTube. It does not have as many users, so you can’t expect your videos to get anywhere near the same number of views so, is it worth it?
We would say yes, it is because you can set up your Odysee account to automatically grab your new videos from YouTube and sync them with your Odysee channel. This means you only need to upload your videos to YouTube, and they will automatically be uploaded to Odysee with no additional effort required.
With a smaller user base on Odysee, it’s fairly certain you will receive fewer views, but with next to no effort required, it is additional exposure for your content.
Will views on Odysee be counted as views/watch time on YouTube?
No, when you place content on Odysee, it is hosted on an entirely different platform. Views on Odysee will not count towards your views on YouTube. This means that any watch time you generate on Odysee will not count towards your total watch time on YouTube.
It is possible you may gain some extra subscribers, though. If users find your content on Odysee and like it, they may look you up on YouTube and subscribe to you there.
What is LBC?
LBC (LBRY Credits) are a cryptocurrency that is used on the Odysee (formerly LBRY) platform. You can earn LBC for carrying out various tasks on Odysee. LBC used to hold a not insignificant value, but in recent times its value has fallen. Its value may grow in the future.
You can earn LBC for creating an account, publishing content, watching content and various other activities. The reason for the collapse in the value of LBC was due to a dispute between Odysee and the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).
Odysee/LBRY lost their case against the SEC, and since then, LBC has been almost worthless.
How do you sync your YouTube channel to Odysee?
Odysee has made it simple to sync your YouTube channel with Odysee. You can set up your Odysee account to update each time you upload content to YouTube. You simply upload to YouTube, and the new content will soon become available on Odysee.
The initial synchronisation can take some time (weeks), but once you are synced up, new content is generally available on the Odysee platform within an hour of uploading to YouTube.
The first thing you need to do is create an account on Odysee. By using this link. Register as a new user, and once your account has been set up and verified, you can now “Sync your YouTube channel”.
Once logged in you should click the upload icon at the top of the screen. This will present you with a dropdown. Select “Sync YouTube Channel”
From there, you will have the ability to provide Odysee with your YouTube channel details.
It is important to note that Sync is only available for channels with more than 1000 subscribers on YouTube (watch time does not matter).
If you have less than 1000 subscribers, the sync will not complete. In this case, you can simply create a new channel on Odysee and upload your content there.
Summary
Odysee is certainly a very interesting platform, and I will be very interested to see if they can gain a larger audience base. Right now, YouTube is still very much the king of online video, but who knows what the future holds? It makes sense for your content to be made available on alternative platforms.
If you are already on Odysee, we would very much appreciate a follow!
2025 Update: FilmMusic.io is no longer the same service it was when this article was written. It is now used to host the owner’s music. You can however, still download and use the music within your videos under creative commons license...
From time to time, YouTube creators will receive an email from the YouTube team telling them one of their videos has been restricted or removed. In many cases, the creator will know what has happened and will accept the email. If for example, your work includes copyright material that you are not licensed to use, then you shouldn’t be using it.
YouTube Video Removal Notification Email
Sometimes, though, YouTube does get it wrong, and its reasons for restricting or removing content are false. In these cases, you can appeal the decision and in most cases, you can expect to win.
A couple of days ago, I received such an email informing me that a video had been removed because I included a link to a web page involved in “spam, deceptive practices and scams”. The link in question was to a well-known website that allows musicians to share their work with other creators.
Filmmusic.io is a website that allows musicians to create an account and upload their work onto the platform. Creators can then browse and search for suitable music for use in their projects. The work is generally released under a Creative Commons licence. This means video creators (like us) can freely use the music as long as we give full credit to the artist.
Creative Commons
We include the credit at the end of our videos and also in the YouTube description. It was the link to the Creative Commons licence page on FilmMusic’s website that YouTube did not like.
When I received the email from YouTube, the first thing I did was head over to their website to appeal the removal. To my surprise, the video was not removed. When I went into Creator Studio, there was no mention of a removal. I then went to FilmMusic.io with the intention of alerting the owner to the potential issue. I was pleasantly surprised to see he was already fully aware and had set up a section on his website to highlight the issue…
Sascha Ende is the owner of the FilmMusic.io website, and he has done an incredible job with it. We have been using his service for years and view it as an incredible resource. I believe in Creative Commons, and as an amateur photographer, I release my photographs on Pixabay under a similar license.
I cannot create music, but if I could, I would upload it to FilmMusic.io
Corporations need to stop relying on algorithms to the extent they currently do. Errors like this can do incredible harm to innocent parties. This had the potential to cause serious harm to FilmMusic.io
Upon reading the comments, I was happy to see most people were understanding and “got” what was happening. In reality, it should never have happened.
Welcome to our new website
We have recently upgraded our website. We have been able to retain all of our old content and blog posts.
The new website will allow us to more easily manage our web presence. Up until this new point, we were running a custom-built content management system. It had become apparent over the past year or so that it was time to upgrade to something easier to use and manage.
We have opted to go with WordPress as our content management system. We have also chosen to use two distinct types of content. Or explores section where we write about and share video links to all of our explores and a blog section where we introduce some non-explore related content into the mix. This could be anything from articles to rants.
We have a lot of ideas for additional things we would like to do with this website moving forward. We will continue to keep it regularly updated with content.
Photoscans of a possible grave site
Photogrammetry is a method of using photographs to measure and analyse objects or landscapes. It involves taking multiple photographs of an object or scene from different angles and then using specialised software to analyse the photographs and create a 3D model or map of the object or landscape.
This technique is often used in fields such as surveying, architecture, and archaeology to create accurate, high-resolution 3D models or maps. It can also be used in film and video game production to create realistic 3D environments.
In this case, the object we wished to scan was within a large body of water, and it’s usually not visible or accessible due to the water level. During a period of low water, we were able to access the location and generate our 3d model. This model allows us to study the site even when it is lost below the water of the Loch where it lies.
Hidden WWII watchpoint
The Royal Observer Corps (ROC) was a British civil defence organisation that was responsible for the identification and reporting of aircraft movements during the end stages of WWII and into the Cold War.
It was formed in 1925 and was disbanded in 1995. The ROC consisted of volunteers who were trained to identify and report aircraft movements in the event of an attack on the United Kingdom. They were equipped with binoculars and other equipment to help them carry out their duties.
The ROC played a crucial role in the early warning system for the UK during the Cold War by identifying aircraft within UK airspace as friend or foe.
Laterally, the role of the ROC was changed from aircraft observation to Nuclear monitoring. An ROC bunker was a type of underground shelter that was used by the ROC during the Cold War. These bunkers were typically located in remote areas and were designed to withstand a nuclear attack. They were built with thick concrete walls to protect the occupants from radioactive fallout.
Very often, you will find the ROC bunker and the former aircraft observation post very close to each other. This is because the ROC already had the volunteers in the area, and the site would generally have been suitable for both types of monitoring.
The aircraft monitoring post was usually a concrete structure with a shelter and an open observation area. These were called Orlit Posts. There was also an elevated version of this type of post where the structure stood on concrete stilts. These were called Orlit B posts.
There are instances where the ROC would make use of an existing structure and construct the observation area on top of it. This may be one such case…
