This has been brought up before, I'd like to have a go at it but don't get your hopes up.

That's an interesting way to solve the problem casters have with running out of keys for spec player binds.

Possible, yes; just look at any ugly TF2 hack on youtube. Making it look nice and not overly distracting? That's tricky.

Fading out over distance and only showing behind walls, like L4D. I think TF2 supports it, haven't had time to look into it though

Yes & yes. Bad copy paste by me, added.
Doesn't 100% work with PoV demos yet.

This has now been merged with StatusSpec. There will be no future updates.

Also see Spec Tools.

Short for "Advanced Spectator" plugin

Works with SourceTV and demos only. You need to use -insecure, so you cannot use this in a secure server.

Currently, it's only feature is that it enables TF2's built-in glow effect on player models, allowing viewers & casters to know where players are, even behind walls, while not being as intrusive as, for example, a full body material hack would.

Usage

• Copy the advspec folder in the zip below to tf\custom
  You should end up with tf\custom\advspec\addons\advspec.dll
  
• Add '-insecure' to your TF2 launch options, TF2 will auto-load the plugin.
  This will stop you from entering secure servers, however SourceTV servers run insecure, and demos can still be played
  
• Set glow_outline_effect_enable 1, and also replay_rendersetting_renderglow 1 for STV demos, and also advspec_pov_outline_enabled 1 for pov demos.
  
• Play around with advspec_outline_enabled 0/1 and advspec_outline_color commands
  
• To go back to playing on regular servers, simply remove '-insecure' from launch options. TF2 still tries to load the plugin, but will fail because it is unsigned.

Things I want to add, but don't know the feasibility of:
- Override player names; players can use whatever dumb alias they want, AdvSpec will change it to something understandable/respectable for the viewer
- Lots of other stuff suggested here

Download b4.1.1: http://www.mattmcn.com/tf2/advspec_b4.1.1.zip
Source code: http://github.com/MattMcNam/advspec

Special Thanks
TeamFortress.TV, VanillaTV, SalTV, TF2World.ru & BlackOut Gaming TV for testing & providing feedback.

Turn up on time for matches.

Try to have one person from each team on a caster's friends list, so things like 'going live', 'paused because of [reason]' or 'unpausing in 10' can be sent quickly. Some teams are doing this but there are still matches that have casters going 'oh uh we're live again what's happening', let them know beforehand so they can get back on topic and lead into the unpause.

Turn up on time for matches.

This one will be more difficult for teams without sponsors, but I just recently discovered how much content is on the Crack Clan TF2 Hub. STV demos for matches & scrims, and mumble comms for the vast majority of those. Post-produced casts with interesting comms edited in would be pretty great, and I'd really like seeing more teams try to do stuff like this.

Oh and don't forget turn up on time for matches. If a player is going to be late for IRL reasons or similar, no problem, shit happens. Just let the casters know so they can inform viewers and switch to some intermission video for a few minutes. Stop trying to squeeze in scrims 10 minutes before you're meant to be going live.

Slin is right, casts and streams in general have helped the game a ton; help the people running them to put on a good show, and keep them up to date if there are going to be delays or problems.

Edit: Also, don't rip on people for just posting ideas either. It hasn't happened in this thread yet, but I don't want it to start.
Just because someone has an idea that they know they can't do doesn't mean they shouldn't post it. For example, the outlines plugin wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't brought up on Fully Charged; none of those guys knew how it could be done, but they threw the idea out there anyway.

I didn't realise there was an official #tftv channel, I thought there was only #teamfortresstv on Twitch.

Make this channel more noticeable, no need for a chatbox.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/TeamFortressTV

though I'd prefer something other than Steam group chat. Last time I used it, it blinked in the taskbar after every message, I only want that when people say your username like IRC clients

virtual box and vmware fusion will get you nowhere for playing tf2

use boot camp

First time I launched it I had some textures messed up, link, fixed as soon as I restarted

oh god it starts up so fast
and my hud can go in it's own folder, getting fucked by less updates

ty for compatibility update valve

http://static-cdn.jtvnw.net/jtv_user_pictures/chansub-global-emoticon-ac61a7aeb52a49d3-39x27.png

= Lange Face no space

what djc & dash said. OpenPlugin is the only one affected by this to my knowledge

World models in first person view is interesting too, gonna play with it on for a while

For casters using this:

The Steampipe update scheduled for 30th April will break the plugin. I have a fixed version ready which I'll send out closer to the time, in case Valve changes more stuff.
It'll include the custom colours, a performance boost & likely sticky bomb hax. Gonna change to cvars rather than just a toggle command too, to make scripting stuff easier.

sorry for the big bump and for taking so long to update, real life got real :(
in a month or so I'll have much more time to work on this & get the public version out

edit: the update today doesn't affect this plugin. I'm also considering making it public after steampipe so people can use it in demo reviews and such, since it seems pretty stable and will have built-in checks to make sure you are in STV/demos

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/4736

~3 months later

<3 u sean & buds

There's a real nice forest & hill near my house, so I go for walks with music playing