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Ask HN: How do you watch technical videos?

13 points by seds ↗ HN
Do you watch on your computer and try things out meanwhile? Or do you watch on your phone while in bed or when you want to pass some time? Do you also make notes?

I find it a bit difficult to actually stop and watch a full technical video while trying things out. Any tips?

5 comments

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craftyguy
I (very) rarely watch technical videos because:

> I find it a bit difficult to actually stop and watch a full technical video while trying things out.

Scoundreller
What do you mean by technical? Live-programming?

I’ve watch car/Home howto videos. Usually I watch them beforehand to determine if I can do the job casually.

Then get the parts/tools, coordinate timing, and get the job done while having the video nearby.

The constant rewinding is a pain as an afternoon job is condensed into 30 minutes of video.

bakoo
I'm a bit clumsy when it comes to mechanics, so to avoid silly mistakes I usually watch bike repair and tuning videos before and/or during doing maintenance.

As for programming tutorials, I usually vary the playback speed up to 1.5x during parts that resonate well with me, and go back to 1x and pause and rewind as needed when trying out code during the more difficult parts.

batina
I play them at 1.5x or 2.0x of normal speed and pause them to take notes when needed. Then, when I get to use that code in real life I just re-watch parts that are related to my task.
rayalez
90% of technical videos I watch are udemy courses.

Usually I play videos at 1.25-1.5 speed. I just watch the lecture, pause, switch into the editor to follow instructions and write down some code, switch back to paused player(that has the code I need) if I forget what I need, sometimes rewind if I've missed something. Then I resume watching.