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The SiOnyx Aurora is a camera that can capture images at over 800,000 ISO, which means that moonlight and starlight is sufficient to capture video or photos, even in the middle of the desert, a forest or just your own backyard. But the Aurora can do a lot more than that, as tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ demonstrates with extensive demo footage in this comprehensive video review.
Learn more at https://www.SiOnyx.com/
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0:00
an infrared night-vision camera let's
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check it out Oh Dave Taylor here and I'm
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looking at this this is so cool this is
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the psyonix
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Aurora and it's an infrared night-vision
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camera and video system and as you can
0:21
see it's a pretty modest sized device
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but boy the results that gets are pretty
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startlingly good so let me tell you
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first off water-resistant ip67 so if you
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need to be outside in the forest in the
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rain you can do it
0:35
hi-def color true night-vision but we'll
0:39
talk about specs let's just get right to
0:41
some example footage
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so this first footage is daytime of a
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river as you can see it's just a nice
0:48
video camera but let's switch to
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nighttime so this is a nighttime scene
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at a lake and there are obviously lights
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on the houses on the far edge of the
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lake but you can see it's pretty cool
1:02
the way it captures this let's look at a
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couple of photos too so this first photo
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is actually of it in daytime gain which
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means that it's trying to interpolate
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and actually include color so it's a
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little bit pixelated but then this one
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is just grayscale and you can see is a
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nighttime photo this was basically
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completely dark if I would have tried
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taking a picture of this with my iPhone
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it would have been just a big black
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square so I think that's pretty
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remarkable where this really was fun was
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during Halloween so it was just a little
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while ago and I was probably a little
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bit weird stalkery but I stood outside
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and I actually used the camera to
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capture this footage of some kids
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trick-or-treating across the street from
1:46
me now I think you'll agree that all of
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that footage is pretty remarkable this
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little camera does a really nice job and
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it has a lot of features and
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capabilities one of which is it actually
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creates a Wi-Fi connection of its own so
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when you put it in the right mode and on
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the side here is the dial that gives you
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access to all the different modes but
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when you put it in the right mode it
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becomes basically a Wi-Fi hot
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five and then you connect your phone and
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then you launch the psionics Aurora app
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and let me just step through that real
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quickly as you can see you connect to
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the camera and then the app shows you
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everything that's on the camera and this
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gets a little confusing so these are
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images on the camera and then you can
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transfer them onto the phone but they're
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still in the app on the phone so you
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have a third step that you need to
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transfer them from the app into your
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camera roll if you want to be able to
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share them on Instagram or email them to
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people or whatever so a little bit
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complicated on the app side but totally
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worth it because I think the results you
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get are terrific now let me tell you a
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little bit the app also gives you the
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ability to do remote control camera so
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you can set your camera in just the
3:00
right spot
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and then from the app you can control
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taking photos or starting and stopping
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video footage so if you are a wannabe
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Private Eye or you're trying to catch
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that kid who keeps stealing stuff off
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your porch at night stools like this can
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be really great now let's see it
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features an ultra low light CMOS system
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that's starlight capable and let me give
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you just a couple of specs so the lens
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is a 16 millimeter F one point-four in
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night mode f 2.0 and twilight mode and f
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5.6 in daylight and there's a dial or
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control here on the top that lets you
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change from daytime to Twilight to
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nighttime and I'll tell you that doing
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the right setting makes a world of
3:50
difference when I first got this I was
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doing all the settings wrong takes a
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little while to figure out and I was
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just like boy these aren't very good
3:56
results and then I adjusted the gain and
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I'm like holy cow this is so cool and
4:03
let's see so video or photos it takes
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360 p or 720 p i was shooting at the
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higher resolution at 7.5 15 24 30 or 60
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frames per second 60 frames per second
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is pretty high quality that's better
4:19
than what you're watching right now so
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also has a built-in GPS and compass if
4:24
that's important and it is
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works off of a memory card that you have
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to apply or actually bring your own
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basically but it is non-trivial to
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figure out how to install it I highly
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recommend you go to this psyonix website
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and watch their video because you
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basically take pieces of this apart and
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it's almost like one of those Chinese
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sliding puzzles you'll see when you've
4:47
tried to do that it is doable it took me
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a couple of minutes to try to figure it
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out and I'm like oh that's where it's
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all hidden cool so you can do it and
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then you never really have to mess with
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it again because of that easy Wi-Fi
4:59
connectivity you can just go ahead and
5:02
go and you know get all the images and
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stuff directly it also charges via micro
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USB which see down here and I haven't
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tried it but my guess is that also would
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give you the ability to transfer data
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through that connection and finally has
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a rechargeable battery and the battery
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gives you two hours of recording time on
5:22
a charge so that's pretty nice now
5:24
before we wrap up let me just give you
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just a little bit more of a tour of
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things because on the top there's the
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button that gives you the ability to
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start and stop video or to take
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photographs and then there's all these
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controls for doing the on-screen menu
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there's nothing folds out or anything so
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you spend a lot of time doing this and
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it gets really weird at night because
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this is bright and so when you're doing
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this at night and you're monitoring what
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you're recording you then take it away
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from your eye and of course your eyes
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are like wah-wah because it's a little
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distracting
6:02
let's see otherwise there is a manual
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focus I find that if I just leave a
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focus left on infinity it seems to
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always do the right thing and then on
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the side is really the main control
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which is on/off with you can go to
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camera or video mode they have a slow
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repetitive photo like blanking on what
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the word is so it goes and then there is
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a mode that lets you access all of the
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data on the card so like I said you can
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access it via the cable so that's pretty
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easy the whole thing is really
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remarkably light comes with this
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carrying strap pretty handy also
6:39
comes with a data transfer cable and it
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comes with this sort of soft fabric case
6:44
but here's the one thing that really
6:46
surprised me there's no lens cap I
6:48
really don't understand why there's not
6:50
some sort of a lens cap that you can
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leave on whether or not it's leashed to
6:54
the unit or you just put it in your
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pocket it does make me a little anxious
6:57
just toting it around with the lens and
7:00
there's there's not even any bezel on it
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the lens glass is right there on the top
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surface and I feel like this is just
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gonna get damaged even if it's just
7:08
hanging around my neck so not sure why
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they didn't include one but really
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honestly that's probably my only
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complaint now I will make an observation
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as you saw in the daytime video footage
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it's really hard to have this be stable
7:23
without a tripod if you're doing video
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because holding it this way you have to
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look through the camera the whole time
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and it's really hard to be super stable
7:32
in this configuration versus like a
7:35
camera that you might be able to hold
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like this or hold with both hands or
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something so this might be just my error
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but I found this a little tricky to
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manage in terms of getting really stable
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shots but it does have a standard screw
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mount on the bottom so it would be very
7:51
easy for you to use a tripod and get
7:53
really nice stable images so there's
7:56
that now before I tell you the price let
7:58
me go ahead and ask if you can subscribe
7:59
to my channel I really appreciate when
8:02
you do and hey leave a comment or
8:04
something give me some feedback do you
8:05
have an infrared night-vision camera do
8:08
you want one if you had something like
8:10
this what would you use it for so I find
8:12
this really fun but I'm not really sure
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what my use case is I don't really go
8:16
around late at night trying to take
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videos it sounds a little bit creepy
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actually although of course there's tons
8:22
of valid uses if you're a hunter outdoor
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person whatever could be really fun to
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catch that darn raccoon in your garbage
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can for example so with that this is the
8:33
psyonix Aurora IR night-vision camera
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and it is seven hundred and $99 at
8:39
psionics comm I say if you have a use
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case for something like this this is a
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phenomenally cool device and it does
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remarkably well in almost zero light
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which is quite fun if you're used to
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using like your
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smartphone and saying oh this is
8:55
horrible it just doesn't work because
8:57
it's dark this will work regardless of
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the lighting situation unless I suppose
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you're deep into a cave and there's
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literally zero light in which case this
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probably isn't going to work either
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otherwise I think I'm going back to it
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so that means I will catch you in my
9:12
next video
9:16
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