For fellow Canadians, you may be looking for ways to save on the cost of gas. Chevron has a rewards program called Journie and they offer discounts and a points system. In addition Chevron has good quality gas designated as “Top Tier” that is recommended by car brands like Kia for their hybrids.
If you’d like a one time 2 cents per litre discount on gas through the Chevron Gas referral program, feel free to use my referral code to save 2¢/L on your next fill-up at Chevron when you sign up for Journie Rewards here:
Hi everyone, this is Geoff from geoffmobile.com. Hope you’re having a fantastic day!
I know with all the world events going on right now, the cost of gas is on everyone’s mind. If you have a gasoline-powered vehicle, you may be wondering how you can save some money.
Well, good news for Canadians! If you are in Canada and you have a Chevron gas station nearby, you may not know this, but Chevron has a rewards program called Journie. They offer discounts and a point system. In addition, I like Chevron because it has good quality gas, which is designated as “Top Tier” — a standard recommended by car brands like Kia for their hybrids.
If you’d like a one-time 2 cents per liter discount on gas through the Chevron Journie program, feel free to use my referral code in the video description below. You’ll save 2 cents a liter on your next fill-up at Chevron when you sign up for the Journie Rewards app. They also give you various discounts after you achieve certain milestones or earn points.
Another way you can save money is by linking your Air Canada Aeroplan number to your Journie account — they will then give you an extra 75 points, which you can redeem for gas discounts.
Please check out the Journie app via the link below and let me know how it goes. If you sign up and get your discount, I hope that helps you save a bit of money during this difficult time. Thank you very much — don’t forget to subscribe, and have a great day!
How to get 8K VR 180 videos to upload and render on YouTube properly as 8K, with Shotcut latest version – got it working, don’t forget to inject the VR 180 metadata!
Hi everyone, hope you’re doing great. This is Geoff from geoffmobile.com. Today I’m going to do a quick post for anyone out there who is a YouTube creator wondering: how do I get YouTube to recognize a video as 8K resolution when you upload it?
A bit of background first. If you are making videos on YouTube, you may have a fancy camera that can record in 8K, or you may want to upscale a video to 8K to preserve the quality. If you’re making VR180 videos — a certain kind of 360° or VR format — your camera may be shooting in 5.7K, but YouTube only offers 4K or 8K. So if you upload a 5.7K video, it’s going to be downgraded to 4K.
Instead, you may want to upscale it to 8K to render the full quality that you actually shot with your camera. That’s exactly why I want to make 8K videos on YouTube. I’ll upscale my 5.7K footage and render it out as 8K, then upload it to YouTube and have it recognized properly as 8K in the YouTube player. This looks a lot better on virtual reality headsets like the Quest 3, or on computers with high-end monitors, where you really want to take advantage of that 8K resolution.
So here’s the trick I found, which I’ve validated myself with my own videos.
If you have a VR180 video — a special kind of 3D/VR video — these videos have a 2:1 aspect ratio, meaning the width is two times the size of the height. The specific resolution you need to upload is:
8640 × 4320
Any good video editor should be able to export at this resolution. I recently contributed to an open source video editor called Shotcut, which now supports exporting at exactly 8640 × 4320. (I have a separate tutorial showing how to make VR180 videos in Shotcut.) If you use any lower resolution, YouTube may not recognize your video as 8K.
One more tip: even if you upload at the correct resolution, you may find that after two days it still hasn’t appeared as 8K. The only solution I’ve found is to delete the video from YouTube entirely and re-upload it at 8640 × 4320. This happened to me with a personal video of my son’s piano recital — the first upload wasn’t recognized as 8K, but after deleting and re-uploading, it was. When I go to that video in YouTube and choose the quality setting, it now lets me select 4320p, which is the 8K option.
A note on upscaling in Shotcut: you don’t need a separate upscaling step. Simply set your project’s target resolution to 8640 × 4320 and Shotcut will automatically upscale your footage as part of the export process. If your video editor doesn’t support this resolution, you can also use a tool like FFmpeg to upscale your video before uploading.
I’ll include the resolution details below, along with a link to Shotcut and my previous VR180 tutorial. I think VR180 is still a great format for 3D content that people can experience with their headsets — I definitely recommend trying it.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. I’ve had at least one successful upload that worked, so I know it is possible. If it doesn’t work on the first try, just re-upload and it should pick it up. Good luck with your 8K videos!
Enjoy this live, stripped-down performance of Kenny Dorham’s classic jazz standard, “Blue Bossa.” Featuring just vocals and piano, we wanted to capture the raw, intimate energy of a live performance right here in Vancouver.
We hope you enjoy our take on this iconic tune!
Let us know what you think of the arrangement in the comments below, and don’t forget to like and subscribe for more live music.
🎵 Song: Blue Bossa
✍️ Original Composer: Kenny Dorham
🎤 Vocals: Geoff Peters
🎹 Piano: John Peters
Today I’m going to do a very short video about a particular issue with the Kia Niro hybrid cars made by Kia.
We have a 2024 Niro with about 90,000 kilometers on it, and we noticed that the coolant level for the engine coolant—the one on the left side of the hood when you open up the engine—was very low. On the left side there’s a tank with a line that says “min” and a line that says “max.” I noticed the coolant level was actually way below the min. It was actually almost all gone.
If I hadn’t noticed that the coolant was low, it might have all leaked out and we would have been unable to drive anymore. So the question that I had was: where is this coolant going?
Finding the Cause
Searching on Gemini and online, I found one possible cause is that the coolant could be leaking out of what’s called the Exhaust Heat Recovery System (EHRS). This is a place where the coolant actually goes into the catalytic converter area and heat is exchanged with the exhaust air, and then it comes back through into the engine.
It turns out that we took the car to the dealer and this was the problem. There was a coolant leak in the exhaust heat recovery system. Because the car is less than 100,000 km, this repair is covered by warranty.
Key Takeaway: Check Your Fluids Regularly
I guess the key takeaway is: if you see in your engine—like, always open up your engine every week and look at all the different containers of liquids and fluids. If you notice any that are below the min, you should definitely investigate the cause, especially for the coolant, because the coolant should never decrease below the min on its own unless there’s a leak.
The engine does not actually consume coolant. It’s a closed system. The coolant just flows through. So if the coolant is getting really low, that means that there is a leak somewhere. You really need to take it into a Kia authorized service center, like a dealership that has a service department, to have them diagnose where this leak is, because it could be a leak in many different places.
In my case, it was in the exhaust heat recovery system, which is a common issue on older Niros, but it looks like it’s also an issue on the newer generation of Niro hybrids as well. But the leak could also be in, say, your heater core—if you smell some sweet smell coming into your cabin—or it could be in a hose anywhere throughout the engine.
So definitely, if you have a leak or low fluid level, don’t just top it up and think you’re fine. Really have a dealer do an investigation into where it’s leaking, because that can be very important to discover the problem.
Our Repair Experience
In our case, the dealer was able to diagnose the problem successfully and they ordered the parts to fix it. But unfortunately, there was only one of these heat exchangers left in Canada, and it was already taken by a different dealer. So right now, we’re waiting up to 8 weeks for the part to come from Korea.
They would not agree to do a bypass of the EHRS because that was not really the policy of Kia. They don’t ever bypass the EHRS. But if you do have a mechanic you trust who could do the bypass, that’s one way to work around this problem. It may decrease your engine efficiency a little bit by bypassing the EHRS, but if you search on Gemini or Google for “Kia Niro coolant EHRS bypass,” you’ll get a lot of resources and even some YouTube videos on how that can be done. But don’t do it yourself—I recommend having a trusted mechanic do that.
In the meantime, we are driving a courtesy car which is provided for free from the dealer. It’s amazing that they have great service, and obviously since it’s under 100,000 km, it’s covered by warranty, so we’re lucky in this case.
Final Thoughts
The moral of the story is: if you have any kind of vehicle, always go into the engine and just check the visible coolant levels of all the different tanks. Make sure you’re not running low on any of them, because that could indicate a serious issue with your engine or some leak somewhere, and it’s really good to investigate that.
If you have any questions about the Kia Niro hybrids and any low coolant levels or leaks, as well as this exhaust heat recovery system, please let me know in the comments below. Happy to answer your questions. Have a great day and talk to you soon.
