I suggested this elsewhere before, is it possible for the cameraman (or cameramen) to stream video to a director who then chooses the video stream to play, which the commentator is then commentating whilst viewing. This would allow for instant replays etc. by simple video manipulation rather than relying on in game tools. My initial thought is that there could be some serious lag or quality problems with this, but greater minds than mine would be able to better answer that.

Could also introduce some Big Plays style stuff to half time and post match show times.

Competitive TF2 is still growing (slowly) and it's a good thing.

I have noticed one particular issue though; public players don't really like 6v6 maps. I have a clear example in mind. I remember a couple years ago I was playing with Warpy on the Lost Continent servers. They had a huge/strong community with a couple servers that were quite popular. The server was full, we had good games and we were about to switch maps. Warpy asked me to chose the map. I was excited, I said, "Hey! Let's play Badlands! I love it, everybody loves it!". It took 5 minutes and the server was empty. It felt weird at first, I couldn't exactly grasp what happened. I was convinced that Badlands was the best map and it would keep the server full. Fast forward to a couple days later, same scenario, same results... Rince, repeat.

It took me a while to realise that 5CP maps aren't good for public servers. I might be wrong but I think it's due to how quick the state of a round can turn.

I think that as long as public players won't play the same maps as competitive players the scene won't see a faster growth.

5CP maps are horribly balanced in pubs and the meta of 6es is a very warped version of the standard game.

There is no continuity from pub to comp, there is only a very tenuous pub>HL>6es link but it's not something as straightforward as, say, a MOBA.

I honestly don't think there is anything lacking with the casting. We have some really good commentators and as long as the camera man has a bit of comp experience they'll know usually where the action is going to be happening.

Plus asking more of the casters is, I don't think, appropriate. It already takes a lot of dedication and hardware/internet to cast, it's not a job any one can pick up and do. And to ask multiple cameramen to be on at the same time and have, well, basically a producer doing a live mix of the different streams to enable playbacks is just not likely to happen.

If you guys want something like that then the only workable alternative is post-produced casts. People watch the STVs, post the ticks of important plays and POVs, a cameraman goes and records it, uploads it, and a caster talks over it, it gets mixed together and posted up. That way you spread the workload, the quality is consistent and anyone can really do it as it doesn't require streaming, just the ability to record in HD.

TF2 is not as boring or stalematey as a lot of FPS', in fact, I think it's probably only second to the Quake arena genre of really fast paced action. I've watched competitive CS and COD, and it's sooooo boring, the action happens in 5 seconds and everything else is just a lot of smoke, flashbangs and people slow walking around corners.

>the meta of 6es is a very warped version of the standard game.

Actually, many would say that the "standard" game is a warped version of the generalist/specialist meta that 6s is founded in.

EDIT: Remember, pubs right now aren't the foundation of the game, 2007 TF2 is.

You don't need a producer and multiple views. You do need instant replays: one other cameraman following the action in freeview.

I have some ideas regarding replay but I think the biggest problem we have is getting that second cameraman, it's hard enough getting one at all. afaik huhy and I are the only cameraman for tftv Europe and VTV is pretty much completely depending on animal

p.s: someone asked for pointers from truktruk etc. don't expect them to come to you, just go out and ask them! we are also in the quakenet IRC #tftv

Instant replays for the high ranked matches (invite) would be amazing? One person singlehandedly wins them a very close mid? Replay that shit while the scouts cap and people respawn.

I think it would be possible to do the replay idea by putting the power in the hands of the caster for the current size of production teams (ie 2 people),.. but they would be getting the video from the streamer, not connecting to the STV themselves. It is relatively easy to find video technology that will allow book marking and replay type things as an extension. My question was more around quality, lag/timing etc.

Picture in picture? That'd be pretty cool if it's somehow possible - fight on the flank happening while there's an uber fight, both being very critical to the victory of either side.

Talking about production for casts at this point is pretty much moot. Online production values can't really get that much better. Maybe like some decent group/bracket graphics, but that's it.

Everything beyond that realistically needs a studio or an live event to pull off. Sure you can achieve some of it through some horrible hacks, but it requires so much effort that it's not sustainable to have people doing it several times a week totally for free for what is, relatively speaking, very small viewership.

The last couple of weeks I've been experimenting with some pretty crazy gear for doing i49 (if TFTV is the main org ofc). I'm pretty much working out a whole new production system that's actually better than what MLG, etc are using (infact from what I can tell, it's bassically the same as what Dreamhack are using). It's a system called CasparCG, this is what SVT, BBC and a bunch of other broadcast channels use for all their generated graphics and so on. With it, I can give us some really awesome looking stuff, automatically generated brackets, live game stats (think Sizzling stats live system but prettier and on-stream). Comedian's chasing up the audio side of things, but we're going to have professional grade audio either way.

On top of that, I'm going to have interviews and content planned and most of the elements already created before I even arrive at the event, so we'll pretty much be live with on-site content from first thing Friday morning.

It would probably require TFTV and VTV working together like grown-ups.

probably not possible in a live cast, but would be a great feature for a post-produced one

btw, I'd like it to go on record that we contacted VTV and asked them if they wanted to sit down and have a chat, make some agreements, etc (at least in terms of Euro coverage), and they point blank refused because, to paraphrase, "there is no point".

/q

Skyride you'd be the person that may know this then ,.. can you use something like VidBlaster and stream into this from say Huhy's stream output, mix audio (commentary) over it and then stream out of that for the Live stream.

The modules available for VidBlaster home can be set up in such a way that instant replay is possible. Other smarter people may well be able see the further implications of this as well.

I was actually testing out VidBlaster a few weeks ago, and it does seem pretty cool. However it has a couple of other drawbacks that make it impractical to use for the whole vision mixing system. If I can get a hold of a couple of extra capture cards and an extra PC I can probably work it into the i49 setup. For online it's possible but falls under that "horrible hacks that aren't practical long term" category.

@Lucky

I guess it comes down to the question of...what do you think a replay is going to achieve?

Yes it can provide some half time analysis...go over some team play I guess? Replays of the points...but this isn't football, we cant follow one person and follow his exact movement up to the point / capture etc.

Maybe it can show some kills? Again, only if we were in eyes with that person at that exact point.

In my opinion it's not a realistic target to aim for. I don't see how having replays is going to increase the competitive scene which is what we primarily want here.

I don't know if it will increase the scene, but it would certainly make things more enjoyable to watch. Some midfights can be very hectic, and you can often times here one of the casters who happens to be on a demo for instance while the stream cam is on a scout, carrying on about the double pipe kill and how amazing it was. That moment is missed by the viewer, unless you have a replay, or a demo review done by someone else at a later time, or you download the demo yourself and watch it. The last two options I seriously doubt the average viewer will do.

A replay would be great for this to explain why the mid went the way it did. It wasn't because of the scout the stream was viewing....it was probably because of that crazy ass demo. Not to mention a replay with some analysis would probably allow for some content while there is a pause or a lull in game play. It's certainly worth pursuing if it can be done without too much issue.

I think we honestly need more opinions from public players. All of us competitive players have ideas as to why they have no interest in competitive TF2, but we are competitive gamers. Last time I had a chat with a friend of mine who plays TF2 about watching the competitive game, he simply turned around to me and said, "Why would I want to watch someone else playing a computer game, when I could be playing it myself?".

Mid - High level competitive gamers from other games aren't going to move over to TF2, because of the lack of prize tournaments, and because they are like, 5 years behind the best players, meaning they would need at least a couple of years playing time to catch up.

Public players are partially our market for growth, as TF2 does have a LOT of them. We just need to make them see that playing in a 6 vs 6 game can be more fun than playing in a public server. My opinion on that is that it's pretty hard to do, considering how locked down 6 vs 6 is with classes and unlocks, but that's not the point of this post. If we can make them realise the same love for competitive TF2 as we all have, then bingo, our scene becomes huge.

Match times are one of the bigger issues at the moment, especially in Europe. All teams play at the same time. Our biggest audience is competitive TF2 players. All of which are playing the game when the big matches are being played. If we forced the top end... covered teams to play at a different time, or on a set day, and even forbid other official matches to be played on that day, you would get so many more spectators on the streams, because current competitive gamers would be available to watch the 'pros' in action.

The other issue of course is that we have a massive competitive scene, but a very tiny 'pro skill' scene. We need lower skilled teams to get better to make the top end of the scene more competitive and therefore more exciting. Way down in the lower divisions, it's ridiculously competitive, it's just pretty crap up the top.

A lot of pubbers move into lobbies, and just stop there. I know guys with 500+ lobbies who never played a match of UGC or ETF2L. Maybe if tf2lobby made people aware of UGC, they'd move into it. I played in lobbies for ages, and after a couple seasons of ETF2L (even low div.) I found lobbies so much less fun. Now, after starting 6s I find HL less fun. But lobbies are a genuinely decent way of getting into competitive, but surprisingly few people actually make the step past lobbies.

I wanted to get into comp tf2 for a long time (got really mad playing pubs all the time since it made me want to tear my hair out).Then I heard about tf2lobby from a friend. Some guy making a team made a cheesy "recruitment" lobby and I joined it. Basically long story short that's how I started playing ugc, noticed hl was a shit format, then moved onto 6s. If tf2lobby advertised ugc/etf2l/esea/cevo/whatever more players would join teams or atleast be aware that leagues for this game are a thing.

Semantics, what we play is not what 99% of what everyone else plays, until this changes you will only get people into comp tf2 by word of mouth and, well, basically peer pressure from friends. There's no natural progression.

we should market ourselves out to things like the team liquid forums, they still support broodwar even though i haven't seen a broodwar stream in the top streams EVER. Although they are more of a strategy forum but i think i'm talking about more of an outreaching to larger communities like that.