How does it look unprofessional?

It looks unprofessional at least to me, because casters usually don't tinker with the options in many other games. The biggest culprit of this viewmodel problem is extelevision.

Idk if this is a shitpost but I'm gonna reply anyway and say default viewmodel fov is shit and takes up the whole fucking screen

You should be more interested in the gameplay on display than the viewmodels to begin with though, plus most comp TF2 players don't use viewmodels to begin with, they are probably just there on streams to make sense of which weapons are being used etc to public players/viewers who don't follow comp TF2 closely.

don't watch streams. tada all your problems solved, that was easy

It's unprofessional because of the graphical glitches and general distortion caused by viewmodel_fov 90.

The default viewmodel_fov is 54, which is huge but also meant to be paired with fov_desired 75. The equivalent viewmodel_fov for fov_desired 90 is 64.8; a lot of players use 70, which is a close-enough approximation. Graphical glitches do still occur, but they are significantly lessened with ~70 viewmodel_fov.

Casting is obviously different from playing the game, especially if you are an organization focused on making high-quality productions like TeamfortressTV. These productions should have a strong emphasis on aesthetic appeal, and to that end we have some AMAZING quality assets in use, e.g. the TF.TV HUD, overlays, plugins, etc. Which is why I'm upset when all that professional, high-quality content is tarnished by elongated/broken/missing arms--stuff an outsider would probably see as an amateur mistake. You might not think this matters, but in the production industry, quality control is a top priority, because a single "mistake" can make the entire production seem unprofessional.

Imagine a movie where one of the actors wore a green mask to all the green-screen shots, and the production studio chose not to CGI over it, and so in the final movie, he was just without a face. That would be unacceptable; people would be FIRED. TeamFortressTV isn't a "professional" production studio, but we are making a similar mistake by allowing these errors in our productions. Even real, professional studios sometimes mess up, but they try to avoid them as much as possible. I don't see a valid reason not to apply the same principle to our own productions.

It is a personal preference. Lock this thread please.

Most competitive players play with fov_desired 90 is the thing. We play with it for so long as it's quite useful/helpful in noticing our surroundings, as it may also let the viewer know and see what the players(implying they have 90) are seeing. If there's a glitch/bug due to some commands or the source engine, then generally it should be fixed by the TF2 team.
EDIT: Oh shoot I'm sorry, it's nearly 4AM and haven't had sleep, I was thinking the OP was complaining about fov_desired.

This isn't a fair comparison because using a high viewmodel fov isn't an "error". The streamer isn't forgetting to turn their viewmodel_fov down. It's intentional because it lets you see more of the game and players are used to it. Using your example, a fair comparison would be if the production studio put CGI over the face with a monster face but you personally think that it should be a person face. Sure you might disagree, but a decision was made purposefully about what to put there.

Let's clear things up. If the teamfortress.tv broadcast did have a non-standard viewmodel FOV (which it did seem to based on posted screenshots, but I didn't watch the live broadcast), it was indeed an unintentional mistake, in which case we apologize. We do try to standardize our graphics settings, but it's sometimes difficult for us to keep our production crew in sync and occasionally configs do conflict to produce undesirable results like this.

We do not use and are not planning to use transparent viewmodels at any point in the near future.

Great point. But this is a choice that we know causes errors. So let's say the fictional movie studio simply chose to use a broken face mesh over a working but maybe less interesting face mesh. It would still be "wrong," and there would still be consequences for the studio.

And to clarify, my argument is only directed towards casting organizations, specifically TeamFortressTV. Individual casters/streamers obviously can use whatever settings they feel like; there's no expectation of quality.

I think the issue is that the "standard" viewmodel_fov of 90 or so is exactly what causes the problems I and the OP are trying to address. You should consider changing your standard to somewhere around 70. I know TeamFortressTV casts have used ~70 viewmodel_fov from time to time. This is also more-or-less the standard for "good" frag movies, and TeamFortressTV's Top 10s (eXtelevision's Top 10s seem to use viewmodel_fov 54).

70 viewmodel_fov looks like ass. All the people who spend money and time supporting this game agree. There is no reason to change it to attract some people who will watch 1 or 2 casts. It's the same situation as something like Arena Respawn where sure it appeals to casuals but it is overall far worse than what the hardcore players already like.

I didn't make it clear - I was referring to viewmodel_fov 54 as the standard.

I think the OP's point is that we might as well go for having the game look nice rather than having it set up to give you the most frames/be the most aware of your surroundings. His argument is that there's no reason to use fov_desired 90, because we're simply the audience, and we're not having to react to things. Same way that we don't care about the broadcaster's game having more than the fps of the stream, so if they can handle dx9 and get 61 frames, we'll be happy.

It's just like how we don't complain about not having streams at 144fps, and for the longest time we didn't complain about streams at 30fps. As long as the actual players in the game are having an enjoyable experience, the audience is having an enjoyable experience watching them.

I think "all" might be a bit of a generalization.

I think 70 viewmodel fov and 90 player fov is a good balance and average settings used by people in the community. I wouldn't mind seeing them use transparent view models, as less of the view is blocked.

I agree with OP on this. It's distracting and just doesn't look very good when the viewmodels are at a high enough FOV that you start seeing the weird artifacts, like seeing through the untextured parts of them, or floating arms, etc. Default viewmodel FOV shuold be fine for casts, I think transparent viewmodels would be kinda weird.

Agree with the viewmodel fov, however I do not agree with transparent weapon models. We want the game to look as recognisable as possible, especially if newer players are going to watch.

I honestly think that consistency is key, overall. Sometimes the streams just look 'too' different to what they should (hud, settings, whatever). I know it's hard to have consistent, reliable cameramen that have good pcs/net, but in the long run, consistency is no doubt the key thing we should be striving for. Anything that can affect consistency should be addressed (when possible), to minimise the effect it has on the stream.

On the consistency note: I like the jerseys but I'm not sure how I feel about having 'custom skins' on. They look real neat, but it may be confusing for some newbies "zomg dat looks neat how I get dat". It's something that can probably be cleared up with a simple answer or as part of an FAQ, but just something to think about.

Keep doing what you're doing ladies & gents