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On February 07 2010 09:05 Carnac wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 08:59 blueblimp wrote:
I think the observing is OK but I find it's pretty jarring when the obs is looking at one thing and the casters at another (and often both of those events are important, so it's not obvious which should be looked at). Sorry if there's an answer in the thread already, but would it be possible to have the obs stream video to the commentators, and then have them re-stream the video? I honestly think this alone would silence most complaints about the observing. I understand that it can be a bit weird at times, when you are really used to see it fully "in sync". But, real slip-ups from either the obs or the casters aside (which can never be 100% avoided), don't you think it actually gives you more info than you could get from a single source? Personally I actually enjoy it when I watch TSL, simply because I don't need to be 100% told what's going on, I know SC well enough myself. Might be different for other people though.
I guess I see commentating as a way to simulate the experience of watching the game stream with the commentator. So that means the ideal commentary, to me, has a mixture of sharing the mood of watching what's happening and providing high-level analysis of what's occurring. For sharing mood, I think it's nice to have the commentators react to the same things I'm reacting to, which is what I'm seeing on the screen. (For example, think of how the Korean commentators go crazy when the observer focuses on a tech building. That doesn't work at all if they aren't watching the same screen.) For high-level analysis, I'm most interested in analysis of what I'm seeing, not things that I can't see, although I can understand why you might prefer it a different way.
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On February 07 2010 09:10 Carnac wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:06 blueblimp wrote:On February 07 2010 09:03 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:On February 07 2010 08:59 blueblimp wrote:
I think the observing is OK but I find it's pretty jarring when the obs is looking at one thing and the casters at another (and often both of those events are important, so it's not obvious which should be looked at). Sorry if there's an answer in the thread already, but would it be possible to have the obs stream video to the commentators, and then have them re-stream the video? I honestly think this alone would silence most complaints about the observing.
Edit: I should add that I think the observer generally misses fewer events than the commentators do, so I think this would help out the commentary as well. It would seriously detract from the quality of the video and the commentating the fact that the commentators are free to look around at their own volition means they can catch things the obs doesnt and the other way around. I personally wouldn't mind lower video quality. Most of us here are used to watching re-streamed starcraft video, from watching live pro games, so I'd guess that many people wouldn't mind. As far as the the commentators catching things the obs doesn't, I think this is rare enough that it isn't a big deal. The commentators are still free to look at the minimap and request the obs to view certain places (like they do already). The delay with someone encoding the game view, sending it to the casters and them requesting adjustments makes it impossible on the internet.
Good point. I forgot about that.
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On February 07 2010 09:18 Scooge wrote:
The obs today was horrible and ruined the broadcast for me. From showing 2 zealots and a dragoon attacking a defended expansion instead of a huge attack on the other side of the map to missing recalls, to not showing tech. It's endless.
The problem isn't watching the game beforehand, it's that these obs are not good players. It's very easy to observe well when you know important aspects of a build / matchup. You know to show new gateways being added because you understand the timing of the build and how crucial it is, or you click on units to show upgrades, show tech decisions at critical time, yada yada. It syncs with the commentators because they're good players and will be discussing these things at around the same time.
Maybe we're spoiled because 80% of this site is about Korean pro-gaming and they do a much better job, but I don't think it's too much to ask. You could argue the observer is a lot more important than the commentators and TSL went to great effort to get good commentators so why wasn't the same effort put into securing decent observers?
Read the thread pretty much all of that is covered in the last 5 pages
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On February 07 2010 09:18 Scooge wrote:
The obs today was horrible and ruined the broadcast for me. From showing 2 zealots and a dragoon attacking a defended expansion instead of a huge attack on the other side of the map to missing recalls, to not showing tech. It's endless.
The problem isn't watching the game beforehand, it's that these obs are not good players. It's very easy to observe well when you know important aspects of a build / matchup. You know to show new gateways being added because you understand the timing of the build and how crucial it is, or you click on units to show upgrades, show tech decisions at critical time, yada yada. It syncs with the commentators because they're good players and will be discussing these things at around the same time.
Maybe we're spoiled because 80% of this site is about Korean pro-gaming and they do a much better job, but I don't think it's too much to ask. You could argue the observer is a lot more important than the commentators and TSL went to great effort to get good commentators so why wasn't the same effort put into securing decent observers?
THough i wouldnt say it ruined the broacast, its been happening since the begining. I know i'm not the only one who notices this. With competent observers it wouldnt be neccesary to prewatch anyway.
Also, i definately wouldn't put blame on the commentators in this regard as they do not control what comes on screen for us. They have to pay attention to eachother an often go off on tangents about the game. They have been generally doing an aweosme job, and have gotten just about everything. My only suggestion to them would be to watch the minimap as much as you can, and to try to be more objective sometimes, ie Idra vs Nony, or claiming someone has lost before they surrender.
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Braavos36374 Posts
On February 07 2010 09:18 Scooge wrote:
The obs today was horrible and ruined the broadcast for me. From showing 2 zealots and a dragoon attacking a defended expansion instead of a huge attack on the other side of the map to missing recalls, to not showing tech. It's endless.
It's not "endless," because its the same obs for the other broadcasts. Are you saying the others were ruined too?
The problem isn't watching the game beforehand, it's that these obs are not good players. It's very easy to observe well when you know important aspects of a build / matchup. You know to show new gateways being added because you understand the timing of the build and how crucial it is, or you click on units to show upgrades, show tech decisions at critical time, yada yada. It syncs with the commentators because they're good players and will be discussing these things at around the same time.
This is simply not true. You are exaggerating. The only reason the JF-Terran obs missed things was because the matches were not pre-watched due to a snowstorm power outage. To say that these errors occurred because the obs "aren't good at Starcraft" is incredibly shortsighted. It's very easy to know all these things yet not do it perfectly in the heat of the moment.
Do you really think missing a recall or a large battle is because the obs didn't have a fundamental understanding of Starcraft? That he is just so bad, D---- player who doesn't understand that 150 v 150 pop armies or a gigantic recall is important? Obviously the obs just missed it on the minimap. This is not an game understanding issue.
In fact, the obs did a great job of showing important strategical things whenever the obs mentioend them or even beforehand, like 3 gates or double forge during Kabal's builds, or gas steals, proxy buildings, manner pylons, or JF re-pyloning his 2 proxy gates (and the SCV scouting them) in the JF-Terran series even though he never pre-watched them. The obs showed many things the casters missed. The only failing was the missed recall and battle in Game 1, and as I've said a million times, will not happen with good pre-watching prep.
Maybe we're spoiled because 80% of this site is about Korean pro-gaming and they do a much better job, but I don't think it's too much to ask. You could argue the observer is a lot more important than the commentators and TSL went to great effort to get good commentators so why wasn't the same effort put into securing decent observers?
I don't think you understand how difficult a job it is observing. We can't just "go out and find a professional observer" because those don't exist. Korean obs ONLY OBS. Our obs has to do pre-testing, hours of video prep, sound checks, and knowledge how to run wirecast and be free every day of broadcast. If you think we can just go find a person to do this you are sorely mistaken, it requires a large amount of dedication, trust, experience, and training to make this work.
Without a central physical studio there's only so many ways we can feasibly broadcast a tournament over the internet. It's such a highly specialized job that I'd argue Intrigue and Carnac are the best and most experienced people at this in the entire world right now. So your suggestion that we just "go find someone better" is impossible.
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Braavos36374 Posts
Attritive has been banned for the following PM exchange with me:
Attritive PM to me: At least you're not short on excuses and whining!
My PM to Attritive: My post there was clearly a sarcastic response to pioneer8 saying "just be like the Korean broadcasts" which is obviously just an impossible wish. I never whined and made excuses. Obviously we can't perfectly recreate a pro Korean broadcast when we don't have everyone in the same studio, we aren't in the same physical location as the players, and we don't have the same resources (salary, experience, etc).
That was why I made that post -- pioneer8 asking for a Korean broadcast is the same as asking for any of these other unattainable things at the time.
I don't know how you interpret that as making excuses or whining, because I did none of those. Of course we aim at making it as professional as possible, but we can only do so much. Maybe TSL6 will be as good as a Korean broadcast. But stating "why not like Korean broadcast" like pioneer8 did in that thread is what prompted my response.
I don't appreciate this PM from you because it not only misinterprets my response but is generally condescending and insulting.
Attritive PM to me: I was trying to be condescending and insulting. You were whining and making excuses, however "sarcastic" you want to call it. The way you and your fellow admins handle this site disgusts me. You're a bunch of children and it made me feel nice to make fun of you.
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Interesting. You guys should stop watching and wait for reps ya?
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Zurich15325 Posts
On February 07 2010 09:42 SayaSP wrote:
Interesting. You guys should stop watching and wait for reps ya?
No reps sorry. What they can do however is rewatch the MSL finals instead of our amateur event.
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Braavos36374 Posts
On February 07 2010 09:29 pioneer8 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:18 Scooge wrote:
The obs today was horrible and ruined the broadcast for me. From showing 2 zealots and a dragoon attacking a defended expansion instead of a huge attack on the other side of the map to missing recalls, to not showing tech. It's endless.
The problem isn't watching the game beforehand, it's that these obs are not good players. It's very easy to observe well when you know important aspects of a build / matchup. You know to show new gateways being added because you understand the timing of the build and how crucial it is, or you click on units to show upgrades, show tech decisions at critical time, yada yada. It syncs with the commentators because they're good players and will be discussing these things at around the same time.
Maybe we're spoiled because 80% of this site is about Korean pro-gaming and they do a much better job, but I don't think it's too much to ask. You could argue the observer is a lot more important than the commentators and TSL went to great effort to get good commentators so why wasn't the same effort put into securing decent observers?
Though i wouldnt say it ruined the broacast, its been happening since the begining. I know i'm not the only one who notices this. With competent observers it wouldnt be neccesary to prewatch anyway.
I believe our observers are not incompetent, but we can just disagree. You already retracted your exaggerated statement earlier, and you have communicated your other opinions to us. Thank you.
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On February 07 2010 09:35 Hot_Bid wrote:
Without a central physical studio there's only so many ways we can feasibly broadcast a tournament over the internet. It's such a highly specialized job that I'd argue Intrigue and Carnac are the best and most experienced people at this in the entire world right now. So your suggestion that we just "go find someone better" is impossible.
I would argue that that is not true. Thinking of the neccessities to stream the games with commentary over them, it doesnt seem very complicated. The commentators need only ventrilo, and a chat room. On the visual aspect you have the "production" screens and fancy effects, and the game stream itself. A dedicated observer streaming the game feed is certainly feasible, and the delay between the main stream (the final product being streamed to the audience) and the observer's stream would be minimal, an definately managable, with sufficient testing and troubleshooting to tweak out the delay.
It's definately not imossible, and proabably wouldnt be that hard. I'm sure there would be dozens of highly adequate observers that would volunteer to do it.
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WTF if Attritive and pioneer are not trolls i would not want to find the hole on earth were they creep out of. This cant be real.
I like the stereothing btw, hearing one thing and seeing another, this way i get more information.
Concerning the prewatching issue, i found carnac's prewatched games very well observed the last weeks, not doing so would be incredible stupid obviously.
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On February 07 2010 09:43 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:42 SayaSP wrote:
Interesting. You guys should stop watching and wait for reps ya? No reps sorry. What they can do however is rewatch the MSL finals instead of our amateur event.
Why you gotta ruin it zatic
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i don't think people realize how difficult it is to observe a presentable game. it's one thing to watch a replay by yourself when you're looking purely for information to improve your game. it's another to watch a game to make it presentable, entertaining, and not give everyone a seizure by clicking everywhere while still trying to catch all the important stuff.
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Personally, I love the observers. =/
They do a great job given that it's simply volunteer service.
Also, I remember watching one game where there was a great vulture drop somewhere that the casters missed, but the observers had perfect view.  They do a good job imo, lol. I just love TSL in general though. ^_^ so great.
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Braavos36374 Posts
On February 07 2010 09:50 pioneer8 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:35 Hot_Bid wrote:
Without a central physical studio there's only so many ways we can feasibly broadcast a tournament over the internet. It's such a highly specialized job that I'd argue Intrigue and Carnac are the best and most experienced people at this in the entire world right now. So your suggestion that we just "go find someone better" is impossible. I would argue that that is not true. Thinking of the neccessities to stream the games with commentary over them, it doesnt seem very complicated. The commentators need only ventrilo, and a chat room. On the visual aspect you have the "production" screens and fancy effects, and the game stream itself. A dedicated observer streaming the game feed is certainly feasible, and the delay between the main stream (the final product being streamed to the audience) and the observer's stream would be minimal, an definately managable, with sufficient testing and troubleshooting to tweak out the delay. It's definately not imossible, and proabably wouldnt be that hard. I'm sure there would be dozens of highly adequate observers that would volunteer to do it.
I think we can all agree that an observer setup like the way the Koreans have it is ideal. However, we have discussed and explored the option of having this, and you are incorrect to say "it doesn't seem very complicated," because there are technical issues that are not so easily solved. Maybe this is possible for TSL4 or TSL5, but at our current capabilities it's just not possible.
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On February 07 2010 09:50 pioneer8 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:35 Hot_Bid wrote:
Without a central physical studio there's only so many ways we can feasibly broadcast a tournament over the internet. It's such a highly specialized job that I'd argue Intrigue and Carnac are the best and most experienced people at this in the entire world right now. So your suggestion that we just "go find someone better" is impossible. I would argue that that is not true. Thinking of the neccessities to stream the games with commentary over them, it doesnt seem very complicated. The commentators need only ventrilo, and a chat room. On the visual aspect you have the "production" screens and fancy effects, and the game stream itself. A dedicated observer streaming the game feed is certainly feasible, and the delay between the main stream (the final product being streamed to the audience) and the observer's stream would be minimal, an definately managable, with sufficient testing and troubleshooting to tweak out the delay. It's definately not imossible, and proabably wouldnt be that hard. I'm sure there would be dozens of highly adequate observers that would volunteer to do it.
really tl, get some decent people on it, perhabs if you ask nice in a youtube comment? Clearly incompetent people like the last living wizard on earth or the inventor of the chaoslauncher have no clue what they are doing.
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The obs definitely wasn't as good as previous weeks but that's been explained because he didn't get a chance to pre watch the replay. Seems fair enough to me.
Like a lot of people I'm used to watching english casters working from korean vods where they work from just what is shown to them and the minimap (in poor quality videos mainly), which is no doubt much easier for them. TSL is different because it seems the casters are looking at something different to what the obs is seeing, which makes things more likely to be confused for the viewers because what we see and hear can be out of synch at times. Just takes some getting used to I guess. Especially for less experienced players like myself.
I believe it would be better if the casters could somehow watch the stream from the obs which may make it easier for them to concentrate on talking about what's in front of them and also take pressure off the obs so he isn't keeping an ear open listening out for something the casters have noticed that he hasn't. The obs would also be able to concentrate more on purely looking at the replay. One less thing to multitask when he is already trying to do several different things at once it seems.
Apparently this isn't possible with the setup and that's fine. I don't think the casters are at their best with starting at 4am either but they were the ones who have been chosen to cast the games. They are very good casters but maybe other people could have been considered for this timeslot although no doubt Tasteless and Artosis are the biggest names and it would be very difficult to not want them to do it.
It's difficult to know what to suggest what might improve the situation, although on average I don't think it needs improving or can be that much. This is the way TSL is and probably has to be at the moment. I'm grateful for what we're getting, I love watching "live" streamed Starcraft and e-sports in general. Like the red names have said it obviously doesn't have the budget that Korean pro tourneys have so it's pretty unreasonable to expect it to be the same. Although that doesn't necessarily mean it's not as good.
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damn, quoted instead of editing
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Zurich15325 Posts
On February 07 2010 09:50 pioneer8 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2010 09:35 Hot_Bid wrote:
Without a central physical studio there's only so many ways we can feasibly broadcast a tournament over the internet. It's such a highly specialized job that I'd argue Intrigue and Carnac are the best and most experienced people at this in the entire world right now. So your suggestion that we just "go find someone better" is impossible. I would argue that that is not true. Thinking of the neccessities to stream the games with commentary over them, it doesnt seem very complicated. The commentators need only ventrilo, and a chat room. On the visual aspect you have the "production" screens and fancy effects, and the game stream itself. A dedicated observer streaming the game feed is certainly feasible, and the delay between the main stream (the final product being streamed to the audience) and the observer's stream would be minimal, an definately managable, with sufficient testing and troubleshooting to tweak out the delay. It's definately not imossible, and proabably wouldnt be that hard. I'm sure there would be dozens of highly adequate observers that would volunteer to do it.
OK as HotBid said this is just where we disagree.
If you have a comprehensive and doable solution how we can improve the broadcast please go ahead. Mostly we would need to know how to minimize the stream delay which you find definately managable. How exactly would you manage that?
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First of all, it would comprise of 3 streams. One for the main, finished product feed, one for the observer, and one for the ventrilo. RIght now i assume you only use 2, the ventrilo and the combined observer and production feed, which is technicaly simpler and easier. Very simply, you could have the commentators watch the observer feed, and put a 1-2 second delay on the observer > main feed to compensate for the delay in the observer > commentators on ventrilo > main feed connection. You would obviously have to spend some time tweaking the optimal delay time between the observer > commentators on ventrilo, and the observer > main feed, but it shouldnt be too difficult.
This would cut out the abilitiy for the commentators to view the game themselves, but the observer would be intended to be good enough to keep tabs on the entire game and map himself, and listen to the commentators. Not a difficult thing for the many high ranking, very long time and dedicated fans who would volunteer for sure, especially when your only task is to observe the game gracefully and give the best possible presentation with the commentators to the audience. You would have to ensure that the observer has a good connection, but one with a good connection shouldn't be hard to find.
This method is more similar to the Korean esque live studio, where the commentators follow the lead of the observer, not vica versa.
edit: fixed
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EPT
