ASL Season 4 is finally starting on September 10th at 7:00PM KST with StarCraft Remastered.
Until now, AfreecaTV has constantly supported users and streamers who have enjoyed SC BW for the past two years with three consecutive seasons of ASL.
With the new release of SCR, we are pleased to announce ASL Season 4 along with English casters to support our global audience.
However, we would like to inform you that ASL Season 4 will not be streamed on Twitch or YouTube
We understand that our global fans find Twitch to be the most convenient and familiar platform for esports.
Time after time, AfreecaTV has generously invested into the past three seasons of ASL. And despite Twitch being a competitor, AfreecaTV has provided free English casting for ASL.
As you may already know, ASL Season 4 has undergone many financial challenges. From increased prize pools for players to enhanced production value, it has grown since ASL Season 3.
In order to securely maintain ASL, AfreecaTV currently conducts content sales with its sponsors.
Due to this, from the policy of providing ASL for free to Twitch, we have decided to sell media rights of our ASL English content to Twitch and YouTube.
Yet as an agreement could not be reached with Twitch or YouTube for ASL media rights, we could not provide them with ASL content for the start of Season 4.
This is an already established business model for numerous fields of esports and sports.
For our global fans and their love for SC BW and SCR, AfreecaTV is currently preparing its servers, so that users can watch with very little discomfort.
We hope that you will watch ASL S4 on AfreecaTV, as Tasteless and Artosis will continue to cast.
Gotta review the VODs later on, since Afreeca is unwatchable for me, keeps buffering all the time, so unless you prepare some good solution to it, I won't be able to watch
Anyway, I understand your decision although it is not suitable for most of the foreign fans.
On September 08 2017 20:28 739 wrote: RIP ASL cast for me :<
Gotta review the VODs later on, since Afreeca is unwatchable for me, keeps buffering all the time, so unless you prepare some good solution to it, I won't be able to watch
Anyway, I understand your decision although it is not suitable for most of the foreign fans.
They are currently testing a major change to our CDN, which should hopefully alleviate many of the buffering issues.
tried afreeca last season too... hopefully this season, the connection will be more stable. or twitch could just buy the damn license or blizzard should back off of their stupid fee....
Unfortunate, as I think having a high quality stream with a high viewer count on twitch can easily introduce new people to a game. (i.e. the only time I watch CS/Dota2 is when I know a major tournament is going on by twitch having a lot of viewers).
That said, understandable reasoning by afreeca. If (and thats a big if) afreeca can provide a lag free experience to the global audience, I think nobody should have a major issue with this. If not, then that is really unfortunate.
I am looking forward to the increased production value.
It does make sense. Would of course love to watch Afreeca, but it's unwatchable for me as well, and I cba to do all the VLC stuff to get to watch it. Crossing my fingers it'll get sorted out!
I'm in the UK and got really lucky with the ASL channel. Different channels seem to affect my internet differently. I understand your decision and I'll be sure to watch on Afreeca!
afreeca i get it but ur afreeca player is UNWATCHABLE for me ... doesnt matter if from work or at home its buffering to death afreeca is so bad that i would watch re rebroadcasts of it so i hope someone will record it and upload it on youtube ... its the only way i can hope to watch it because afreeca is just unwatchable for lag reasons
also the vod system is tehre even one on afreeca ? there isnt all on english so are broadcasts recorded and watchable later as vod as on twitch or youtube ? because if no ... the times also not fit me for watching it live most of the time
also i always feel afreeca has a lower quality like its not rly 1080p60fps, and the afreeca logo is so big it blocks so much space ...
u want global audience with a service that is basicly unwatchable from most of europe ...
Unfortunately ASL on twitch did a great job displaying BW to an audience who does not usually watch BW, and even perhaps a lot of people who have never watched BW or have no connection at all to the game (SC2 fans for example).
I think us dedicated fans of BW you find here on TL.net will do everything within their power to watch your tournament, so re-streaming ASL to VLC or watching on afreeca wont be an issue for most of us, but I fear it's terrible news for the western bw world and it's potential growth. Having your game being high rank on twitch will naturally make more people check it out, and ASL did a great job of that.
This is horrible news! Afreeca is almost unwatchable for so many of us, the buffering can be a problem even on the best connections. Is there any chance this could be sorted out during the season?
I really, really hope the necessity to charge for streaming ASL wasn't caused by the additional financial costs incurred by the switch to broadcasting SCR. Getting viewers is only going to be more difficult - It's already hard enough to foster a foreign veiwership without ANOTHER hurdle. Having it so visible on twitch brings in new viewers to the scene, rather than us who are already waiting for the new season. Sigh. It seems like the foreign scene is just sprouting out of the ground, but boot after boot is stamped on it.
Oh well. I hope this doesn't seem like I'm blaming you guys, Afreeca have done great job organising ASL over the last few seasons, so I'm definitely not upset with them over this decision. You guys have done nothing but try to rekinde the BW scene and I have nothing but admiration for you for all your hard work. You are a business though, and you have to recover costs somehow.
On September 08 2017 21:39 Liquid`Ret wrote: I will gladly watch your stream on Afreeca.
Unfortunately ASL on twitch did a great job displaying BW to an audience who does not usually watch BW, and even perhaps a lot of people who have never watched BW or have no connection at all to the game (SC2 fans for example).
I think us dedicated fans of BW you find here on TL.net will do everything within their power to watch your tournament, so re-streaming ASL to VLC or watching on afreeca wont be an issue for most of us, but I fear it's terrible news for the western bw world and it's potential growth. Having your game being high rank on twitch will naturally make more people check it out, and ASL did a great job of that.
In other words it is in Blizzard's interest that the game gets promoted on twitch? More people might be attracted to BW and buy SC:R?
But some other people wrote earlier that blizzard is making it hard by applying fees or idk what
Very understandable business decission, but as you can see many of us foreigners have problems watching on Afreeca directly. Hopefully your attempts on fixing those problems are successful and people will be able to watch without a problem. For myself, it is no difference, because I never had any issue watching Afreeca Streams (altough I never could stream myself on Afreeca ).
bad news, many of us can't watch Afreeca, because the lag is so bad. Hopefully it will be fixed if ASL is Afreeca exclusive. As to Blizzard: i never cared about em and their broadcasting/ esport interests. I couldn't care less what they feel is the best platform for streaming SC:R
Starcraft went to 3rd place in Twitch #viewers during the Remastered event. Who knows how many people it brought to the game. I understand the decision but... as for foreigners, I'm afraid very few people who are new to the game would watch
I am trying to determine if Afreeca will ignore the foreign scene for ASL4. From a business perspective, it seems they are committed to their revenue streams and can't bend for Twitch/YouTube. But then, I feel like the foreign scene contributes a significant amount of the total population of eyes on BW. Even if we compose 20%, that still is limiting exposure. Maybe it is just super simple and they will stick to their best interest. Maybe we can work things out by ASL5.
On another note, will anyone restream via YouTube?
When you say preparing your servers does this mean foreigners can watch afreeca without lag now? Because today its impossible for many of us to watch afreeca; it just doesn't load or is extremely laggy.
If the streaming of ASL is a lag free experience for the foreigners I think nobody will have problems with it being on afreeca. But this is a very important issue, it has to be lag free with good quality.
When it comes to you not wanting to share viewers with twitch it is understandable. But very sad for the growing of the e-sports outside Korea, because like Ret said it exposes brood war to an audience that normally doesn't watch or even know it exists. Also, if your biggest streamers were also streaming on twitch, SC:R would be high on the list of games, and even more people would notice and watch our game. It could be the top 5-10 streamed game in the world with 20-30k viewers.
So, if you guys have enough ymoney to feed your families, please reconsider and let it be streamed on twitch - for the love and future of our game. If you need money to survive I understand you can't share viewers with twitch though.
I'm disappointed by this news as well. Up until a few days ago, FlashFTW and I were planning on streaming ASL4 (with permission) on Twitch, and we were told that we could only stream on Afreeca. As much as Afreeca plays a huge role in Korea and with how much they've committed into this tournament, not securing a license to stream on Twitch or YouTube is a huge blow to the ASL for foreign fans, especially at a time when involvement in SC:BW is at a relative high for newer players.
FlashFTW and I will still be streaming the ENG2 channel again on Afreeca, and we hope you'll still watch and enjoy the games. Hopefully all of this patches up by next season so we can get a more global audience watching....
On September 08 2017 22:06 Demurity wrote: I am trying to determine if Afreeca will ignore the foreign scene for ASL4. From a business perspective, it seems they are committed to their revenue streams and can't bend for Twitch/YouTube. But then, I feel like the foreign scene contributes a significant amount of the total population of eyes on BW. Even if we compose 20%, that still is limiting exposure. Maybe it is just super simple and they will stick to their best interest. Maybe we can work things out by ASL5.
On another note, will anyone restream via YouTube?
Only people who want to get banned from YouTube :D
EDIT: If you have trouble watching Afreeca, I suggest visiting this thread. Pheer also put together a portable version that you can just download and start up. Everyone's computer is a bit different and may experience slightly different problems, but if you can get this working, it's really easy to watch BW through VLC player.
On September 08 2017 21:39 Liquid`Ret wrote: I will gladly watch your stream on Afreeca.
Unfortunately ASL on twitch did a great job displaying BW to an audience who does not usually watch BW, and even perhaps a lot of people who have never watched BW or have no connection at all to the game (SC2 fans for example).
I think us dedicated fans of BW you find here on TL.net will do everything within their power to watch your tournament, so re-streaming ASL to VLC or watching on afreeca wont be an issue for most of us, but I fear it's terrible news for the western bw world and it's potential growth. Having your game being high rank on twitch will naturally make more people check it out, and ASL did a great job of that.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Well said. I also usually watched ASL live thru the twitch app and VOD's thru YouTube on my Xbox, and there is no Afreeca app on there. Will have to settle for watching on my tablet.
It's quite a blow to foreigner bw. High viewer numbers on twitch is not only a way to draw the attention / interest of new players but show tournament organizers there is some viewership to gain with bw events. I'm disappointed the different parties couldn't work this out, especially with this being the first major sc:r tournament.
On September 08 2017 21:39 Liquid`Ret wrote: I will gladly watch your stream on Afreeca.
Unfortunately ASL on twitch did a great job displaying BW to an audience who does not usually watch BW, and even perhaps a lot of people who have never watched BW or have no connection at all to the game (SC2 fans for example).
I think us dedicated fans of BW you find here on TL.net will do everything within their power to watch your tournament, so re-streaming ASL to VLC or watching on afreeca wont be an issue for most of us, but I fear it's terrible news for the western bw world and it's potential growth. Having your game being high rank on twitch will naturally make more people check it out, and ASL did a great job of that.
Well said.
The changes will hopefully work out, if Afreeca goes with a major global CDN, it could fix a lot of previous lag issues for other viewers.
Losing a major advertising (i.e. promoting BW) opportunity via Twitch is a shame though, especially considering this will be the biggest prize pool in BW history? Hopefully some agreement can be reached for ASL5 and beyond.
As long as there is a link on TL and the stream works, I honestly don't care on which platform it is. I am not a big BW viewer, but I have watched GSL on Afreeca.tv before and never encountered worse quality than with Twitch, it was even sometimes better.
This a terrible news, please reconsider this decision. The foreign BW scene desperatly needs ASL to be on Twitch in order to have the chance of growing.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
I'm just incredibly grateful they are investing in English casting and hope that it works out on getting it to Twitch/youtube eventually. Gonna feel like 2009 again real soon and I am real happy about that.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
Probably because every viewer that isn't on afreeca is less ad revenue for them and increased ad revenue for twitch. So I'd guess they want to get some of their projected money back that would lose to twitch, hence selling the media rights.
all they need to do is to improve their streaming infrastructures, to improve the user experience. in this way, we won't feel uncomfortable of switching to afreeca.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
twitch earns revenue by running ads and ip flows. so the viewers loss is a loss of revenue for afreeca.
On September 09 2017 01:38 raymix1 wrote: all they need to do is to improve their streaming infrastructures, to improve the user experience. in this way, we won't feel uncomfortable of switching to afreeca.
Yeah I still don't understand why it is so laggy / buggy for us outside korea to watch anything on Afreeca?
I'd be very happy to watch Afreeca if it wasn't laggy......... All those korean top bw players streaming on Afreeca that we are missing on as well, not just ASL
I think it's a miscalculation, but it's your tournament :X Exclusive afreecatv isn't exactly going to make foreigners start using Afreeca for anything other than this tournament. There's no other content for us on there, and no motivation to try to get integrated into it. YouTube and Twitch are competitors in some sense, but they serve a totally different market that you cannot really reach with Afreeca. I guess you are concerned with losing Korean users to YouTube, but you can't really gain non-Korean users until you make things convenient for us.
The nerdiest among us who used to use Afreeca's software remember getting locked out when Afreeca suddenly decided to block foreign IPs and require Korean id to make an account. When we represented a tiny part of the user base taking barely any resources because the barrier to entry with language was already very high.
I am glad Afreeca supports StarCraft, but it's not really the first time they protect their interests in a way that screws up their relations with foreigners. Afreeca can be really petty.
Pretty disappointing, going to be unable to watch much of it live through work so hope Afreeca's VOD system (if they have one) is stable enough to work well
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
Twitch and Blizzard actually inked a deal recently wherein, presumably, Twitch paid Blizzard [x] dollars for exclusive rights to most of Blizzard's key esports titles. Brood War/Remastered is not on that list unfortunately.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
Twitch and Blizzard actually inked a deal recently wherein, presumably, Twitch paid Blizzard [x] dollars for exclusive rights to most of Blizzard's key esports titles. Brood War/Remastered is not on that list unfortunately.
Considering the content afreeca provides for SC:Remastered compared to what everyone else is doing I don't think that it is unfortunate remastered is not on that list. Of course it would be nice if remastered got some sort of events mentioned in the article, but the exclusivity would probably be pretty bad for remastered considering its player base outside of korea.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
Twitch often buys rights to events and pro organizations.
On September 09 2017 05:49 NickHotS wrote: I have to imagine this will be remedied before/during the season, Blizzard won't let this happen.
You appear to have a lot of faith in Blizzard, who asks Afreeca to pay them money to host a tournament to pay twitch money to pay afreeca for their licensing rights.
This is unfortunate and short sighted news. SC:R's first major tournament should be as accessible to everyone as possible and twitch/youtube are king outside Korea. I understand the business decision, but grow the audience before moving it to a platform that will stunt growth.
On September 09 2017 00:34 PVJ wrote: I hope twitch will buy in sooner or later.
Until then, I'll watch it on Afreeca. Even now before the mentioned CDN change I have little to no issues watching any number of Afreeca streams on medium quality.
Thanks for all your hard work you're putting into BW.
but buy hmm what ? twitch is a free service to stream,is up to afreeca to stream their tournament there.Why will twitch pay afreeca to they stream in their own twitch channel (the GSL one) their tournament and give the twitch community viewers .ok thats a f*cking chaos hope someone understand what im trying to say. I can see blizzard interested in paying Afreeca to stream on twitch,that makes sense.
Twitch often buys rights to events and pro organizations.
yes for dota and league and some other top games,but for remastered ? i guess twitch should be like ok... Afreeca owns the gsl channel so they get ad revenue from it right ?i dont think this decisión is helping afreeca,but right now blizzard and afreeca are just testing who can do worse.
This is unfortunate and disappointing but I suppose understandable. Perhaps something can be worked out for all the viewers who cannot watch at Afreeca currently due to buffer/lag issues.
I was seeking to look into doing English translation/commentary (more translation side) for this tourney but decided to back off when I heard originally that there were dedicated English casters on Twitch.
I'll contact Afreeca and Twitch directly regarding some Q&As for options since the situation changed.
On September 09 2017 06:42 QuickStriker wrote: This is unfortunate and disappointing but I suppose understandable. Perhaps something can be worked out for all the viewers who cannot watch at Afreeca currently due to buffer/lag issues.
I was seeking to look into doing English translation/commentary (more translation side) for this tourney but decided to back off when I heard originally that there were dedicated English casters on Twitch.
I'll contact Afreeca and Twitch directly regarding some Q&As for options since the situation changed.
Ping me too. Maybe we can do some sort of tri-cast for the ENG2 stream.
This is really terrible news. Twitch reaches a huge playerbase who would not ordinarily tune in, but may become interested in Brood War as a result of the stream being high up in the directory. There is nothing good about this corporate nonsense, and is only depriving the tournament of views.
Very understandable position, and there actually is a lot more content on afreeca I'd like to watch on a more regular bases, but 95% of the time it is a buffering shit show. Here is to hoping the changes to the infrastructure work out
On September 09 2017 06:55 Aylear wrote: This is really terrible news. Twitch reaches a huge playerbase who would not ordinarily tune in, but may become interested in Brood War as a result of the stream being high up in the directory. There is nothing good about this corporate nonsense, and is only depriving the tournament of views.
This was my reaction too. This was by far the best time to get lots of new foreign eyes on Brood War. Won't happen if it's only on afreeca.
On September 09 2017 06:42 QuickStriker wrote: This is unfortunate and disappointing but I suppose understandable. Perhaps something can be worked out for all the viewers who cannot watch at Afreeca currently due to buffer/lag issues.
I was seeking to look into doing English translation/commentary (more translation side) for this tourney but decided to back off when I heard originally that there were dedicated English casters on Twitch.
I'll contact Afreeca and Twitch directly regarding some Q&As for options since the situation changed.
Ping me too. Maybe we can do some sort of tri-cast for the ENG2 stream.
Sure, let's talk on PMs or somewhere for any arrangements. I've been busy with work past week but when I get the chance, we can brainstorm together!
seems like there is no afreecatv app for android tv. It's seems also you cannot stream afreeca content from computer to smartv-tv/android tv. Twitch and Youtube are also great for that you can just watch it on big tv screen without a computer.
Is there no way to watch afreeca on android tv ?
Looks like BW is really indeed back in 2007, we ll get low quality of restream of afreeca for the few than can get it on livestream
I feel like this will be a big blow to the growth of foreign fans and scene. There will be a lack of accessibility for new viewers whose interest has been piqued with the release of remastered, who would watch it on twitch when they see a tournament on for curiosity.
Wow, terrible decision. I really thought this tournament was going to ride the remaster hype and get some good viewing numbers on twitch.
Why not prove to twitch that you can actually get some good numbers first and then start pushing your weight around for ASL 5? Why stunt the potential growth outside of Korea like this while the foreign interest hasn't been this high in over a decade???
Sigh....well hopefully negotiations will continue and maybe the 2nd half of the tournament will get on twitch...
On September 09 2017 05:49 NickHotS wrote: I have to imagine this will be remedied before/during the season, Blizzard won't let this happen.
You appear to have a lot of faith in Blizzard, who asks Afreeca to pay them money to host a tournament to pay twitch money to pay afreeca for their licensing rights.
and Afreeca is asking Twitch and Youtube for licensing rights as well?
Aw man, youtube is the only plattform with 2 hour rewind for every stream, I really enjoyed that feature. However, since the asl qualifiers afreeca has been working quiet well for me, even without vlc. Was a nightmare before. Guess I'll actually have to tune in on time now, but thanks for improving afreeca for global viewers.
Also thank you so much for running a starcraft league, much appreciated <3
this is a good side effect if it will make other afreeca streams better viewing with lower stutters. previously it was difficult to watch most streams for me even with lower than source quality and it's gotten slightly better over time. i'll take that as the half full glass.
i hope you guys will upload your VODs to youtube so we can continue advertising and sharing your games.
I thought Blizzard wanted to grow the game? Shouldn't they help Afreeca cover some of the costs of letting Afreeca incurs so they can stream on Twitch and not have to sell to Twitch?
I would be fine watching on Afreeca (in truth I watch more Afreeca streams than Twitch streams nowadays), but due to the time the games play in the US, I can't watch live. Will there be any VOD access through Afreeca's site or elsewhere after the games are played?
On September 09 2017 12:37 Dromar wrote: I would be fine watching on Afreeca (in truth I watch more Afreeca streams than Twitch streams nowadays), but due to the time the games play in the US, I can't watch live. Will there be any VOD access through Afreeca's site or elsewhere after the games are played?
This. I never watched ASL live only through VOD:s on Twitch.
- Afreeca stream is shit for non-Koreans, you better improve your CDN a lot - Everyone is watching twitch in the west, so showing ASL on twitch introduces the game to tons of new people. Do you really want to limit your non-Korean audience to hardcore fans on teamliquid that knows about afreeca? From a business perspective I thought you wanted more viewers, not less.
Edit: and its freaking 2017, please stop with the flash nonsense. Every other site in the world works with html5 already.
From a business pov it makes 100% sense. Personally I'm not mad because I'll probably still get to watch in the same conditions.
However as has been said, only die hard bw fans will watch your event if it is that way. There's no way the unfamiliar with bw/young twitch user will find your stream via browsing top games/streams and tune in. Or the twitch user who likes tastosis and tunes in just for them. Or the sc2 guy who wants to see what the hype is about. These guys won't go to afreeca because they don't even know afreeca exists and no they don't browse TL. You will lose a ton of potential foreign audience.
A better solution would have been to broadcast for free one more season, get good numbers and then negotiate with twitch/yt.
Thanks anyway for keeping bw alive and continuing to provide an english cast.
On September 09 2017 16:06 RouaF wrote: From a business pov it makes 100% sense. Personally I'm not mad because I'll probably still get to watch in the same conditions.
Here's the thing that puzzles me though - assuming the majority of Koreans watch on Afreeca as opposed to Twitch (my assumption could be waaaaay off on this), this seems to shut out primarily foreign users. Exactly what advertisers on Afreeca are appealing to foreign customers? If it was the other way round and I owned a UK-based fried chicken conglomerate, telecoms/internet provider etc advertising on Twitch, I wouldn't particularly care if Korean users aren't watching my stream on Twitch and are watching on an Afreeca restream because they're not my target audience anyway? Are Afreeca advertisers really that dumb to assume that if the ASL stream gets x% more viewers because foreign users are now watching it'll translate to x% more revenue?
They're missing out on basically the entire market. Business is complicated so in the end it's just unfortunate it didn't work out, but there's no way BOTH Twitch and Afreeca wouldn't be better off with the right agreement.
Unless Afreeca is going for the long con and trying to expand to Western markets, but Twitch is very entrenched.
Just by looking at the player numbers across the servers, it makes perfect sense to only use their own platform to stream the ASL. On the US and European servers play a little more than 5000 people at peak times. On the Korean/Fish and Asia server play more than 30000 people at peak times. Their domestic market is so much bigger than the rest of the world, that there is little point in giving their competition free money. If Afreeca becomes indeed watchable within the next few days/weeks at max resolution without buffering, it is the best opportunity to showcase that to foreigners. If not you have to wonder why they would even keep the English casters.
The Western people use twitch but a) competition never hurts b) it's subjective I know but I like the interface of afreeca a lot more.
I don't think it is shortsighted to try and get a fair share for all the work they put in and if they end up being a good alternative to watch certain games or events that pushes twitch and YT to do more and better I only welcome that.
Have been watching JD's stream tonight with only a couple of minor buffer issues. Hope is increasing but we'll see how it copes with a lot more people accessing the stream tomorrow night.
Thanks for the informative news, and I hope it won't lag to much for me. I usually have buffer issues, and have to watch afreeca on high(which is not that good quality). Let's hope your new buffering solutions will have a positive effect.
Too bad that it won't bring in as many new people as it would if it were on Twitch, having Starcraft on number 3 or something on Twitch would automatically make a lot of new people check it out.
Anyway, will watch with great joy and can't wait to watch the first big tournament of Starcraft: Remastered!
well, this is how market forces work. it's encouraging to see that they're giving twitch/yt good competition, as KR is rightfully e-sports capital of the world, and they deserve to grow their game streaming business without leaking huge 3rd party profits.
afreeca has been generous in offering asl via twitch/yt in the past for free, so huge thanks for that! they need serious work on their technology though, not just on server side but also client/browser side. i'm definitely tuning in, i hope this all works out. gl hf
Is the backbone of Korean internet navigation and networks still reliant on ActiceX? A lot of users I see are starting to use Chrome, although it does seem the browser is one of those that is fairly compatible with many websites.
I like AfreecaTV. I've always preferred the broadcast over at their home site, and I, myself, will probably end up streaming there at some point.
AfreecaTV has a lot of good ideas, and I thought it was pretty funny how Twitch pretty much ripped off Afreeca's ideas with their Bits style streamer support.
Hmm.... I wonder if personal restreams (not live but delayed VOD since ASL is 3 AM for me and I got work on weekdays) are still allowed on Twitch. Let's say if I were to stream 9-10 PM using Korean VODs instead of doing it live at 3 AM to provide English translation, would I still be ok?
I mean from what I heard, there's going to be 2 English live cast on Afreeca for ASL that's happening at 3 AM or whenever the tourney starts so I'm not taking away from any of that since I gotta sleep for weekday work. A lot of people and I got work, life, or whatever so if I were to do any sort of casting, I rather do it much postponed/delayed time on Twitch, that way people who want to watch Korean VODs with English translations can do so anytime.
But once again, this goes back to my previous thread, what would be legality of this?
Yeah, I dunno QuickStriker. There was a long tradition of English people restreaming Broodwar stuff. But this isn't Broodwar of the olden times anymore. This is Broodwar HD. I doubt the old arrangement will keep going on.
On September 10 2017 03:40 Arkaim wrote: Yeah, I dunno QuickStriker. There was a long tradition of English people restreaming Broodwar stuff. But this isn't Broodwar of the olden times anymore. This is Broodwar HD. I doubt the old arrangement will keep going on.
Sayle used to do this all the time back in the days.
Not sure how a 20 years old game (even if it's the HD version) can prevent what fans want to do.
Also, anyone in legal, how long does it have to be for fair use/copyright/trademark expires before it's public domain for something like casting SC BW?
just to put the info out there, i am on some premium tier fiber-optic here on the west coast US + Show Spoiler +
...and i can NEVER watch a stream on Afreeca. I love Broodwar but always have to find a twitch stream.
I always can watch for about 3 minutes before it starts chronically buffering the the point where it is a slideshow. This is just by watching either embedded or afreeca site streams in Mozilla.
Thanks for making the ASL, I just really want to be able to see this on Afreeca so I am sharing my experience.
Afreeca was always very petty when it came to competition. Many popular korean streamers moved platforms to twitch etc because afreeca gave them bans for dual streaming on YT and twitch
I have also not been able to watch Afreeca streams for a long time. Than, someone on TL.net suggested to go to Afreeca page and switch quality from source to high. This worked for me.
On September 10 2017 03:44 QuickStriker wrote: Also, anyone in legal, how long does it have to be for fair use/copyright/trademark expires before it's public domain for something like casting SC BW?
StarCraft being a public domain has nothing to do with legality of re-streaming broadcasts. The rights to StarCraft belong to Blizzard, and Afreeca is paying for the rights to use the game for their tournament (which is a whole separate discussion). You're talking about ASL, which is different entity from StarCraft. Even if the game is public domain, the broadcast that uses the public domain is copyrighted by the people who produce the event and unless you have permission to do so, you are, technically, stealing content from someone else.
It's like saying you want to re-broadcast NBA and claiming that you have the right to do so because Basketball is public domain.
Also, this isn't 2011 anymore. We have official English broadcasts for these events, which means the companies actually do care about distribution of their media overseas (regardless of which platform it is being streamed on).
On September 10 2017 04:18 RCCar wrote: Afreeca was always very petty when it came to competition. Many popular korean streamers moved platforms to twitch etc because afreeca gave them bans for dual streaming on YT and twitch
How's this any pettier than what twitch does? If you have a contract with twitch you're not allowed to stream on other services. Doesn't sound too different.
Afreeca streams are still impossible to watch for me. I've tried to watch Bisu this morning and it's freezing every 2 seconds. I've to use the vlc+streamlink method. Good luck with the viwers for the ASL if 99% of them are lagging.
On September 10 2017 17:57 lgn! wrote: Afreeca streams are still impossible to watch for me. I've tried to watch Bisu this morning and it's freezing every 2 seconds. I've to use the vlc+streamlink method. Good luck with the viwers for the ASL if 99% of them are lagging.
The afreeca broodwar streams you see for the koreans like bisu etc are on afreeca.com( which is the korean afreeca, so can be slow for international viewers). Afreeca's ASL eng cast in on afreecatv.com which is there international site. I cannot watch the korean streams, but I have not had a problem watching on the afreecatv.com. During the last ASL I found my connection to actually be better to the afreecatv.com than to the twitch stream. No need for the vlc stuff or anything for the int site.
Also if you get the adobe msg in korean, click the cog in the bottom right and change from flash to html as was previously mentioned in this thread. Had me confused for a while.
Edit: Oh, my bad. I didnt realise they redirected. I saw it linked to play.afreeca.com from here
On September 09 2017 20:39 byj wrote: Does this mean I will have to DL the afreeca app to watch ASL in decent quality?
Has anyone had any luck with this app? I tried installing it and it seems to be doing something but wtf is it I dont know as it doesnt seem to work properly
On September 10 2017 17:57 lgn! wrote: Afreeca streams are still impossible to watch for me. I've tried to watch Bisu this morning and it's freezing every 2 seconds. I've to use the vlc+streamlink method. Good luck with the viwers for the ASL if 99% of them are lagging.
The afreeca broodwar streams you see for the koreans like bisu etc are on afreeca.com( which is the korean afreeca, so can be slow for international viewers). Afreeca's ASL eng cast in on afreecatv.com which is there international site. I cannot watch the korean streams, but I have not had a problem watching on the afreecatv.com. During the last ASL I found my connection to actually be better to the afreecatv.com than to the twitch stream. No need for the vlc stuff or anything for the int site.
Also if you get the adobe msg in korean, click the cog in the bottom right and change from flash to html as was previously mentioned in this thread. Had me confused for a while.
Stream is working great for me in source quality,. There's an HTML 5 setting if you click the gear icon at the bottom of the stream, you can select between flash and html5 players. I have 1MBps down on my connection in my small village in UK and have experienced no buffering/stuttering or quality loss.
Afreeca really have stepped up their streaming game and it's like watching it on twitch, smooth as silk and great quality. Thanks Afreeca tech team for stepping up the service when the community's preferred service couldn't be used.
On September 10 2017 19:48 CrymeaTerran wrote: Stream is working bad for me, every 5 sec it buffers regardsless if i switch to html or view it on flash .... feelsbad
Do you guys watched on Afreeca recently? For me its possible to watch 70% lagfree and 20% are watchable. One year ago none of their stream were for me possible to watch. Maybe you just remember like me
To OP: I totally understand this decision and glad they doing effort for the minority of viewers, the foreigners. The quality seems to increase time by time. Thx and good job Afreeca.tv!
On September 10 2017 20:50 Suikakuju wrote: I still cant watch Afreeca without lag.
I am a sad panda now.
:< ... well, at least I could watch ASL on source, and usually every other stream even on medium did buffer all the time. So whatever they did worked for some of us.
Trying to watch the VoD, and it's lagging like crazy. Does anyone have a solution? Guess I'll wait for youtube VoDs... I'd ask in the Group A thread but I don't want spoilers :\.
Same, it plays about 5-10 seconds then stops for 1-3 as it loads the next chunk. Leaving it paused doesn't do anything to help it either. It took a while to even find the vod http://vod.afreecatv.com/PLAYER/STATION/25742638, and there's no quality options. Afreeca's vods worked ages ago during season 1-2 but season 3 vods had the same issue so I moved to twitch (never watched the LIVE streams, just vods).
I will say that I had the stream open on another computer the whole time while I was casting and it didnt seem like there were too many issues. One issue I did run into was that once per hour the stream would end up buffering and you'd have to refresh to get the stream back. But refreshing takes like 10 seconds at most and it was pretty smooth all things considered. Once again, definitely give it a try, you guys wont be disappointed.
On September 10 2017 21:34 fooby wrote: Same, it plays about 5-10 seconds then stops for 1-3 as it loads the next chunk. Leaving it paused doesn't do anything to help it either. It took a while to even find the vod http://vod.afreecatv.com/PLAYER/STATION/25742638, and there's no quality options. Afreeca's vods worked ages ago during season 1-2 but season 3 vods had the same issue so I moved to twitch (never watched the LIVE streams, just vods).
I am having this problem. VOD buffering too frequently for it to be watchable... sadface.
Also what is the message asking me to install a software to play HD content? No rival platform asks this..
edit: And the VOD uploaded tp ASL youtube is 360p what what whaaaat.
It's 360p because it was just uploaded, that quality always goes up first because it's a smaller file. if you give it some time it will be higher quality.
edit: And the VOD uploaded tp ASL youtube is 360p what what whaaaat.
That'd frankly be better than the non-source live stream which I needed to switch to in the losers match because the source stream buffered too much, even the high quality looked awful
I will say that I had the stream open on another computer the whole time while I was casting and it didnt seem like there were too many issues. One issue I did run into was that once per hour the stream would end up buffering and you'd have to refresh to get the stream back. But refreshing takes like 10 seconds at most and it was pretty smooth all things considered. Once again, definitely give it a try, you guys wont be disappointed.
I can confirm the vod on afreeca is a no-go for me or my friends.
Ok, I had noticed this on players streams and had forgotten. You gotta pause the video as soon as it starts running, before it lags. If you pause it there, then it seems it starts downloading the data in advance and you can play it fine afterwards. Not sure for how long, But I paused it for ~10 minutes just to be sure and it worked fine afterwards.
Remember to pause it as soon as it starts playing. If you wait a bit you may think you did it, but in reality you paused after it already was buffering, then it doesn't change anything.
I will say that I had the stream open on another computer the whole time while I was casting and it didnt seem like there were too many issues. One issue I did run into was that once per hour the stream would end up buffering and you'd have to refresh to get the stream back. But refreshing takes like 10 seconds at most and it was pretty smooth all things considered. Once again, definitely give it a try, you guys wont be disappointed.
I can confirm the vod on afreeca is a no-go for me or my friends.
Totally unwatchable here too, and as an added bonus there's no quality selector, so you either need to be able to play some 2880p VOD smoothly or enjoy buffering literally every two or three seconds because the player's sophistication stops at "download current chunk, play current chunk."
I wish AfreecaTV would turn off the "Real-time lighting" setting and the custom Nexus/Hatchery/CC skins. All the streamers that I've seen on AfreecaTV have real-time lighting turned off because the setting reduces visual acuity and makes it less familiar from the original.
If I can't even see what's going on in the screen then this is going to be another declining disaster like StarCraft 2.
On September 12 2017 02:27 Lazare1969 wrote: I wish AfreecaTV would turn off the "Real-time lighting" setting and the custom Nexus/Hatchery/CC skins. All the streamers that I've seen on AfreecaTV have real-time lighting turned off because the setting reduces visual acuity and makes it less familiar from the original.
If I can't even see what's going on in the screen then this is going to be another declining disaster like StarCraft 2.
I agree, especially zealots looks bad with real time lighting.
Reposting here in the hopes that Afreeca can answer my question: Are you going to upload the Korean VODs of the ASL somewhere to Youtube? While the streams on Afreeca are lagfree with lower resolution setting, you cannot lower the quality of the VODs so they buffer a lot.
US West with a mediocre internet connection and no lag on High resolution tho, on source it sometimes lag. Im happy, lets go broodwar, lets go AfreecaTV!!!
On September 20 2017 14:31 THE Sliggy wrote: The lighting isn't my favourite thing but I don't mind it all that much.
The pre-order Nexus skin is an entirely different story – new graphics look fantastic but that thing is a complete eyesore.
Yeah preorder skins look like they do not belong to starcraft universe! They look way too different from all the other buildings.
No lag on source, good for you, where you located at? Terran CC skin is awesome, Zerg's is alright, that Nexus skin tho, big no no. Dynamic lighting is a cool feature.
Thanks for the English VODs. I have had success watching the stream without any buffering using the AfreecaTV Android App. However trying to watch from the site or from the embedded clients (flash/html5) here on teamliquid buffers constantly.
On September 26 2017 19:14 yenta wrote: Thanks for the English VODs. I have had success watching the stream without any buffering using the AfreecaTV Android App. However trying to watch from the site or from the embedded clients (flash/html5) here on teamliquid buffers constantly.
Change the quality from "Source" to "High" and buffering problems should disappear.
On September 26 2017 19:14 yenta wrote: Thanks for the English VODs. I have had success watching the stream without any buffering using the AfreecaTV Android App. However trying to watch from the site or from the embedded clients (flash/html5) here on teamliquid buffers constantly.
Change the quality from "Source" to "High" and buffering problems should disappear.
Thanks, this evened things out
Side question: Do the tl.net embeds have the source option?
On September 26 2017 19:14 yenta wrote: Thanks for the English VODs. I have had success watching the stream without any buffering using the AfreecaTV Android App. However trying to watch from the site or from the embedded clients (flash/html5) here on teamliquid buffers constantly.
Change the quality from "Source" to "High" and buffering problems should disappear.
since their fix its not even loading and because on afreeca u can only change it while its playing (not while buffering not before) i cant change even to html5 or anything
EPT
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