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When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.
Because the TL tournaments that are cast from replays are done in a problem-free and efficient manner (so I'm being told) Chill, I think perhaps you're assuming that every tournament runs that smoothly. It doesn't, that's the main reason why there's opposition to tournament replay casting. It causes a lot of downtime on the stream when replays are not supplied promptly, it is a sub-par experience for the viewers. Consider the following hypothetical situation.
Mega Tournament XXL
00:00 Game 1 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 11 minutes
12:00 Game 2 -Player X vs Player Y - takes 27 minutes
40:00 Game 3 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 16 minutes
Casting schedule
00:00-12:00 - No cast
12:00-23:00 - Casting Game 2
23:00-40:00 - Downtime, no cast.
56:00 onwards - Casting Game 2
And that's assuming a 1 minute delay between finishing a game and getting a replay sent to the caster, which may be generous.
You can get around that by delaying the cast significantly but then you run into time issues as well and that's something you have to take into consideration from both a casting and viewing point of view. Let's say Mega Tournament XXL starts at 7pm and ends at around midnight. Let's say the casting is delayed by 1 hour, which might be a reasonable window to ensure a constant stream of replays. So the cast is going on from 8pm to 1am, that's a stretch and can affect the quality of the cast, since the casters will be getting very fatigued by the end of it. It's also unreasonable to expect spectators to stay up that long (obviously timezones are a major factor, but it's still worth considering). This is all assuming there are no other problems that prevent replays from getting to the casters, further delaying the broadcast.
Then there's the issue of spoilers. The longer the delay between the games and the cast, the more likely it is that the result will be spoiled. It's not an inconsiderable factor, sports broadcasting of any sort relies on that drama and excitement that is easily destroyed by spoilers. TL obviously cares about spoilers, as we've seen. I know that some of these replay-cast tournaments have been done with smurf/guest pass accounts, but that's not necessarily practical to do all the time. Spoilers are possible in a tape-delay situation too but they're less likely since the window between game and cast is smaller. Does it have to be? No, but I'm suggesting that a significant window is required for replays in order to ensure minimal downtime and problems, keeping the caster supplied with games to cast rather than having the hypothetical situation above occur.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on why replays are not necessarily ideal.
EDIT : Oh yes, a major issue I completely neglected to mention. As stated by the guy below VVV
Replay casting is impractical for co-casted events. Until Blizzard implement a proper synchronised multi-spectator replay system, you will run into syncing issues where one caster gets ahead or behind another. If you watched the SCReddit finals cast from replays you'd have noticed Sean getting ahead of the stream. Not his fault by any means, but it negatively impacted the viewing experience.
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i think the problem from casting from replays is that when you get 2 ppl dualcasting a replay, it's so hard to keep it sync. It really bothers me when the battle is happening and something hasn't died yet on the stream, but the other caster is just a little bit ahead and he tells us it dies. kills the suspense a little.
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On February 09 2011 02:04 ffz wrote:
i think the problem from casting from replays is that when you get 2 ppl dualcasting a replay, it's so hard to keep it sync. It really bothers me when the battle is happening and something hasn't died yet on the stream, but the other caster is just a little bit ahead and he tells us it dies. kills the suspense a little.
Think I heard something about sync-programs that could be used to fix this issue.
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I was watching last TLOpen some MorroW games. He was on DecemberTV stream answering accordingly to that casters were saying. Then ppl on chat start taking about cheating and MorroW said that he's only listening stream between games. You can belive him or not but I notice after that he was playing some random terran who went for cloack banshees and MorroW build some spore clawers without scouting anything...
Its sad... MorroW isn't my favorited player anymore.
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On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet.
Wait what? Really? A friend of mine is streaming his WoW raids and can adjust the delay as he wants. Though he isnt using any of those streaming websites but his normal rootserver (thus nowwhere possible to sustain more than couple of viewers).
I'm going to tranlsate his post he made about his setup:
+ Show Spoiler +My solution is completely linux based and I dont capture the screen with VLC, but with my videocard which gives me RAW pictures. The setup is pretty simple: The pictures are produced from my "gaming pc" and the graphic cards is connected via DVI to my monitor. The 2nd DVI is being transformed with a passive adapter to HDMI and this goes to my Intensity Pro of my 2nd PC which normally only serves as NAS/router. That pc has 4x 2.6ghz which is enough power to encode the videostream in realtime to H264. (my gaming PC 2x4ghz couldnt handle that). On my linux box i have a small application which only writes the pictures (1920x1080x24fps) from the videocard to a file. Not really a file but a pipe which delivers the data directly to the next program. The following lines of code do this: + Show Spoiler +videoFrame->GetBytes(&frameBytes);
write(videoOutputFile, frameBytes, videoFrame->GetRowBytes() * videoFrame->GetHeight());
The other end of the pipe is connected to mencoder: + Show Spoiler +
MENCDEMUX="-demuxer rawvideo -rawvideo fps=24:w=1920:h=1080:format=uyvy"
MENCMUX="-of rawvideo"
MENCFILTER="-vf scale=1280:720"
X264EncOts="aud:bitrate=1800:keyint=60:ref=2:subme=1"
mencoder pipe1 -o pipe2 $MENCDEMUX -ovc x264 $MENCMUX -x264encopts $X264EncOts $MENCFILTER &
mencoder encodes my stream with the help of x264 to H264 and gives the stream to the next pipe for the server delivery. For this I use netcat and also copy the content of the stream to a local fine for a bossfight video. + Show Spoiler +
cat pipe2 | tee /mnt/riesending/Videos/wow/`date +%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S`.h264 | nc DOMAIN.de 5478 -v
On the server I accept it via netcat and give it via a pipe to vlc: + Show Spoiler +
nc -l -p 5478 -v > pipe
vlc -vvv --intf=dummy file/h264:///home/*****/stream/pipe --h264-fps=24 --sout '#std{access=http,mux=ts,dst=0.0.0.0:8080/wow.ts}'
My flash player doesnt connect to vlc but to a php script + Show Spoiler +<?php header("Content-Type: text/plain"); header("Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate"); // HTTP/1.1 header("Expires: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // Date in the past header("Content-Length: 2000000000"); passthru ("ffmpeg -i http://127.0.0.1:8080/wow.ts -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f flv -") or die ("err"); ?> The script packs the stream into the flv container which the flash player then plays. Directly to vlc wasnt possible and I also had to give him content-length, else the player wouldnt run. The flashplayer now thinks that he plays a file and not a stream, which leads to other problems. The support for real livestreams from flashplayer is restricted to adobes own format (RTMP) and I havnt involved myself with the adobe streaming server itself yet.
I dont know how the streaming for the streaming websites work, but I assume you just follow the "guide" until the "send to server" part, and give the result to you streaming application. The delay can be added in the encoding step.
Well you could even just play the delayed "stream" on the PC and stream this to ustream & co with their normal application. Which means you dont have to work with "their" format they expect.
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On February 09 2011 01:53 italiangymnast wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 01:49 Ipp wrote:On February 09 2011 01:32 Timerly wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
There's a couple of issues with the whole replay idea:
First, exclusive broadcasting rights can easily be violated once you do everything off replays (someone will get hold of them, might even release them before the cast etc.) which is just not possible live because you'd have to be ingame (or restream, which is less of a problem even though it's still bad because you lose viewer numbers as an argument in negotiations).
Second, the "live feeling" is just not there. That's not some stupid made up idea without any rational, that's a result of years of sports broadcasting research. Live will always be more entertaining because for some weird reason our brain understands the difference between what happens parallel to everybody else and what does not (there are pschological implications pointing towards the social interaction being part of it as our brain was never created to observe pre-recorded things but may rationalize it, leaving us with the feeling of a loss in interaction even though it's observed and should be there, don't know if I can word that correctly in english). The best example is the group of people you states that as an argument even without knowing any studies, it's not that it wouldn't matter, eh?
Third, players are unreliable. That's just a simple fact, whenever I tried to get some replays to fill in gaps while casting I had my share of fun with that. Some are nice, reliable, friendly. Some are not. While you could enforce uploads to be able to claim prizes, would you really want to invest the manpower to manage that and put another burden on the players?
Fourth, there's the "live keeps you going" idea. When I'm watching GSL live but have to leave in 5min I will stick around when it's 3:1 because I want to see the end of it and actually might. When the streaming schedule is still +2hrs I just won't, at least as a casual viewer. Remember, we're talking about SC2 as a whole and when (if) it gets adopted by TV schedules will have to be set. You can't one hour of airtime on after game discussion apart from maybe the world cup finale.
Fifth, replay bar. Yes, it's friggin annoying even if it's just a couple pixels on full HD.
I admit it sounds nice to to everything from replays (heck, I'd just cast everything in full HD with extreme details and then upload it, man would that improve the video quality) but there's a reason tennis games are broadcasted live and not off recordings even though these games, too, are not time-based like football...
btw full support for TB
#2 - The "Live" feeling would be killed by a delay too by your explanation. If you cast replays after the game is played it is like having a "fool proof" delay; it is still live by commentators point of view. i disagree - the live feeling is still there with a 10 minute delay. cause you know the even is goingon right now! feels the same.
Well if you add a 10 minute delay, a lot of games are over within 10 minutes. I'm almost positive the gameclock is about 20% faster than RL Time. Even so a successful 4gate ends the game around the 8-9 minute mark in game; therefore at times watching replays will have less delay than a stream delay. What is your definition of live? If you start casting games soon as they end in a BoX series; not to mention it is cheaper because somewhere along the line adding a delay is costing someone more money to do.
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On February 09 2011 02:29 Zocat wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet. Wait what? Really? A friend of mine is streaming his WoW raids and can adjust the delay as he wants. Though he isnt using any of those streaming websites but his normal rootserver (thus nowwhere possible to sustain more than couple of viewers).
Well therein lies the problem, you're describing a complex Linux setup with an expensive capture device (not to mention a pain in the ass to get working, I have 2 Blackmagic products, neither of them actually work) beyond the capabilities of most casters. We're not talking about adjusting a delay slider and clicking go.
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We keep hearing about cheating does go on or it doesn't. That there has been incidents of cheating with big names being caught. What really gets me, is that these cheaters are still lauded upon. Spades as an example. So what happened to being black listed, i think more he is being A-listed.
So this solution of trying to stop cheaters from cheating.It seems it doesn't matter because if they are caught, it gets glossed over.
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- cheating via stream is really easy (who doesn't have old laptop with decent internet connection?) and incredible hard to spot (assuming that cheater has more than 1 brain cell)
- casting via replay is far from perfect solution. As TB showed it messes with casting schedule. If you opt for 1 day delay between tournament and casts you still have some issues.
Website are full of spoilers, VOD names often times contain spoilers (ie finals TLO vs bleb... you can clearly tell who won semis), number of games casted usually spoil game result (2 games casted in bo3 = 2:0 score), vod length is also spoiler.
All in all I'm afraid we will have problems until we implement 10-15 min delay for streamers.
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On February 09 2011 02:36 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2011 02:29 Zocat wrote:On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet. Wait what? Really? A friend of mine is streaming his WoW raids and can adjust the delay as he wants. Though he isnt using any of those streaming websites but his normal rootserver (thus nowwhere possible to sustain more than couple of viewers). Well therein lies the problem, you're describing a complex Linux setup with an expensive capture device (not to mention a pain in the ass to get working, I have 2 Blackmagic products, neither of them actually work) beyond the capabilities of most casters. We're not talking about adjusting a delay slider and clicking go.
Yeah I'm thinking this is the crux of the matter regarding the technological side of things. It's quite possible to delay streams, but you're talking server level changes in an environment with as many users as the big stream sites (Edit: thinking about it more (great, something else to keep me up tonight) client side could work too, the scale of the thing is still pretty big). Those can be painful to open up to everyone while keeping some decent performance going (and it's not really reasonable to expect casters to roll their own while still being able to cater to a larger audience).
In regards to co-casting replays, is this something the announced replay sharing feature is aimed towards? Or will that really just be sharing of the file itself?
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When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.
Ok, so because YOU can't put a number on it, it's not worthy of consideration? Wait, what? Maybe let the guys doing research on the subject for years handle that, thank you.
btw we're talking maybe 5min delay, not 10min+, 5min is more than enough to not make a major difference, every tech will have been shown after 5min and every hidden base should either be scouted or is half empty already, nothing to get all excited about.
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On February 09 2011 03:00 Bleb wrote:
- cheating via stream is really easy (who doesn't have old laptop with decent internet connection?) and incredible hard to spot (assuming that cheater has more than 1 brain cell)
Hell, just having a second monitor does it. And that's incredibly getting more common for people to have.
But yeah, I believe delays are the way to go. I think that, with time, people are going to find that 'sweet spot' where the delay is not to big but enough to prevent people from cheating.
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On February 09 2011 01:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:
When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.
In my opinion you are underestimating the effect of live-casting.
Good tournament coverage in my opinion is 1. a good caster (not boring but fun to listen to) 2. good games (obviously) 3. live.
I know it sounds ridiculous maybe from the players point of view, but if i know the game which i see has taken place a longer time ago and this is just a replay i do not get as excited as i'd be if the game was live. This is even the case when the replay is casted as if it was live with excitement in the voice of the caster. I know in my head that no matter what happens or how cool the players moves are it won't change the final outcome and i can cheer for a player as much as i want, it has already happened..S o why be excited?! I could just visit a replay site and get the game from there or just visit the players profiles.
I know there are other people feeling this way too. Some seconds stream delay are acceptable however, because for the caster it's live too and he does not know the outcome of the game unlike when a replay is casted.
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On February 09 2011 02:17 MrKozi wrote:
I was watching last TLOpen some MorroW games. He was on DecemberTV stream answering accordingly to that casters were saying. Then ppl on chat start taking about cheating and MorroW said that he's only listening stream between games. You can belive him or not but I notice after that he was playing some random terran who went for cloack banshees and MorroW build some spore clawers without scouting anything...
Its sad... MorroW isn't my favorited player anymore.
What do players do when they know they're better than their opponent? Make sure they don't lose to random shit. Anticipating banshees isn't that hard.
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On February 09 2011 03:24 Timerly wrote:Show nested quote +When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration. Ok, so because YOU can't put a number on it, it's not worthy of consideration? Wait, what? Maybe let the guys doing research on the subject for years handle that, thank you.
What research? Why even mention it if you aren't going to link it?
You can't use subjective, personal feelings in a debate like this. One person's 'it ruins the live experience' is anothers 'I see no actual difference'.
btw we're talking maybe 5min delay, not 10min+, 5min is more than enough to not make a major difference, every tech will have been shown after 5min and every hidden base should either be scouted or is half empty already, nothing to get all excited about.
I don't think you've been reading what I've said up to this point.
In my opinion you are underestimating the effect of live-casting.
I am not underestimating it, I am a massive supporter of it, but I dislike bringing it into the argument when it's impossible to quantify it's importance or lack thereof. You can't even estimate the effect of live-casting, let alone under or overestimate it.
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On February 09 2011 02:41 Justanx wrote:
We keep hearing about cheating does go on or it doesn't. That there has been incidents of cheating with big names being caught. What really gets me, is that these cheaters are still lauded upon. Spades as an example. So what happened to being black listed, i think more he is being A-listed.
So this solution of trying to stop cheaters from cheating.It seems it doesn't matter because if they are caught, it gets glossed over.
Everyone deserves a second chance. Spades is in Korea right now competing in Live Tournaments where cheating is next to impossible. Please avoid saying things that can ruin a players reputation; when naming people in negative ways think, is it really necessary? Anyone here should know that big names have cheated in the past. I'm positive everyone here has done something in the past that they regret doing.
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Online tournament with livestream is very easily cheated. Player A can ask another person watch livestream and tell him most of whatever play B is doing. Stick with Lan tournament. Or non livestream Tournament.
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Calgary25986 Posts
On February 09 2011 01:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:
When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.
Because the TL tournaments that are cast from replays are done in a problem-free and efficient manner (so I'm being told) Chill, I think perhaps you're assuming that every tournament runs that smoothly. It doesn't, that's the main reason why there's opposition to tournament replay casting. It causes a lot of downtime on the stream when replays are not supplied promptly, it is a sub-par experience for the viewers. Consider the following hypothetical situation.
Mega Tournament XXL
00:00 Game 1 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 11 minutes
12:00 Game 2 -Player X vs Player Y - takes 27 minutes
40:00 Game 3 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 16 minutes
Casting schedule
00:00-12:00 - No cast
12:00-23:00 - Casting Game 2
23:00-40:00 - Downtime, no cast.
56:00 onwards - Casting Game 2
And that's assuming a 1 minute delay between finishing a game and getting a replay sent to the caster, which may be generous.
You can get around that by delaying the cast significantly but then you run into time issues as well and that's something you have to take into consideration from both a casting and viewing point of view. Let's say Mega Tournament XXL starts at 7pm and ends at around midnight. Let's say the casting is delayed by 1 hour, which might be a reasonable window to ensure a constant stream of replays. So the cast is going on from 8pm to 1am, that's a stretch and can affect the quality of the cast, since the casters will be getting very fatigued by the end of it. It's also unreasonable to expect spectators to stay up that long (obviously timezones are a major factor, but it's still worth considering). This is all assuming there are no other problems that prevent replays from getting to the casters, further delaying the broadcast.
Then there's the issue of spoilers. The longer the delay between the games and the cast, the more likely it is that the result will be spoiled. It's not an inconsiderable factor, sports broadcasting of any sort relies on that drama and excitement that is easily destroyed by spoilers. TL obviously cares about spoilers, as we've seen. I know that some of these replay-cast tournaments have been done with smurf/guest pass accounts, but that's not necessarily practical to do all the time. Spoilers are possible in a tape-delay situation too but they're less likely since the window between game and cast is smaller. Does it have to be? No, but I'm suggesting that a significant window is required for replays in order to ensure minimal downtime and problems, keeping the caster supplied with games to cast rather than having the hypothetical situation above occur.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on why replays are not necessarily ideal.
EDIT : Oh yes, a major issue I completely neglected to mention. As stated by the guy below VVV
Replay casting is impractical for co-casted events. Until Blizzard implement a proper synchronised multi-spectator replay system, you will run into syncing issues where one caster gets ahead or behind another. If you watched the SCReddit finals cast from replays you'd have noticed Sean getting ahead of the stream. Not his fault by any means, but it negatively impacted the viewing experience.
Yea, I agree with all your points and basically it's just a shitty situation for everyone.
I don't know if you're familiar with the SC1 TSLs, but they were cast from replays for a variety of reasons. When we were having the internal discussion about it, I was the biggest advocate of 'live or nothing'.
I think for TL, we try to put the integrity of the game above all else. So if running a fair league means the viewer has a marginally worse experience, I would think TL would do it. Whether that's the proper way to run an event or not is a discussion in itself. The issue of lag being present in a casted game is also a big deal for top players which affects the integrity of the game.
Before TSL2 I would have been on board with "People will never cheat" too, but that event really opened my eyes. Famous, top tier players who were already all but qualified were caught cheating. After that I realized that if there's a possibility for someone to cheat, we have to assume they will take it.
There's improvements being made on both sides (live and from replays)... if there's a practical and reliable way to delay a stream, then that will always be the standard. R1CH has developed a small program that lets everyone know if they are synced in their replay or not, and it helps keep casters synced together.
I don't really have a point with this post... I guess I just hope people can see everyone's views on the live vs replays issue and see it's not a simple choice where one is clearly superior to the other.
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8751 Posts
On February 09 2011 00:30 Aberu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2011 01:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
but in any tournament that matters, no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating. Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010 I think that explains that! You have some bold opinions for how little you know. Meh, TotalBiscuit is pretty well known, but more for WoW. I think what he's saying is that the good players, in the good big tournaments, are not the kind of people that would usually cheat. He's wrong because it has happened before. Of course he is mistaken, but to attack him for when he joined the forum as some sort of way to discredit what he said; isn't that aimed in the wrong direction? How about just pointing out the logical fallacy of what he said, like how he made a blanket statement with no room for variables whatsoever. To me, elitism on message boards about how long you have been around just bothers me, no matter how important you are, you can still look pretty bad trying to show it off. On the topic, there is hardly anything that would stop that happening, but a good tournament will do the new system of only allowing people to cast the replays, and obs were only tournament organizers. I like that new method, and I think it's quite effective.
What does being well known or knowing a lot about WoW have to do with the issue? There are tons of famous people that have no idea whether good SC players who can get results without cheating will cheat when given the opportunity. Narrowing famous people down to people who also know a lot about WoW doesn't help. Join date on TL implies that he was ignorant of all the evidence this community has accumulated that contradicts his judgment and it turned out to be true. He didn't know how ridiculous he sounded to any TL veteran. It'd be like some new politician rising up in America questioning why flight security is so high, saying "terrorists wouldn't target planes or use them as weapons."
I could have posted a timeline like
Prior to March 20, 2010: reports of good sc players cheating are on TL
March 20, 2010: totalbiscuit joins TL
Conclusion: totalbiscuit doesn't know that good sc players cheat.
I think that argument was fairly obvious. How you got to message board elitism based on join date is beyond me.
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All I"m saying Ipp, its fine and good.
Then why are we talking about stopping cheating. If it really has no bearing on if a player does it or not. What is the penalty if a player is caught cheating. They talk about being black listed. If there are no repercussions, what is to stop one from even trying it. I am just trying to understand this thread about cheating. The onus should be on all of the integral parts of the tournament. (caster, player, tournament admins).
Yes, I believe everyone deserves a second chance, (god knows I've had my share). I only bring it up because this whole thread is about cheating.
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