Marathon Logistics

2010-12-03 08:42:10 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

I'd like to add to austin's list of things that would be nice to have: an easy way to make donation pledges (e.g., if you succeed in pulling off this trick, I'll donate $5), such that the people at the marathon can easily see it (and hence tell the runner, to make the runner sweat bullets over the $5 that's on the line Wink

). I don't know anything about how the taiga static thread would work, though, so perhaps this suggestion is already covered by arkarian's post.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2010-12-03 09:03:01 pm

2010-12-03 09:01:31 pm

gamelogs.org

you can see how it works in this thread. it's just a post, so you can put anything else in there you want, including a paypal donation button.

doesn't seem like donation pledges would be able to fit but do they really need to be written down? seems like that sort of stuff is more fun when it's handled casually, so just the commentators responding to what people say in the chat.

Poxnor

2010-12-03 09:29:46 pm

Moo! Flap! Hug!

It wasn't that it needed to be written down at all. Quite the opposite -- the casual nature is what makes them so fun Smiley

I was more concerned about making sure the people at the marathon (and the runner especially) were aware of any pledges. If the chat is sufficient for that, then awesome!

moooh

2010-12-04 03:15:30 am

Exoray

I see some overlap with the marathon games, consoles and equipment topic around here. I added Cosmo's and Runnerguy's specs there but for any other changes, please drop a post in that topic so that I don't have to hunt these things down from all over the board Smiley

Also, the list is a great place to know whether or not more copies of a certain game is needed.

nate

2010-12-04 12:03:26 pm

sorry for not posting here sooner. just got done with my phd qualifying exams.

i don't think we should use dvd recorders to record the marathon. the problem is not the recorders themselves but getting the footage off afterward. unless someone has experience taking the hard drive out and getting the data off in an easily readable way on the windows side then what i'm going to do is buy two external cases and two 2 tb disks and daisy chain them off this old laptop i have and record the commentary stream to one and the game stream to the other, both with huffyuv (or lagarith if the laptop can handle it), so no loss of quality. then my hardcore laptop will handle the fme/streaming like last time (the signals are split going to the laptops using analog powered splitters just like last year). i've done the calculation and it seems like 2 tb per stream will be enough for the entire marathon. in fact i've already bought the cases, just waiting on prices i like on the disks.

Sir VG

2010-12-04 01:56:55 pm

Fucking Weeaboo

Quote from nate:

sorry for not posting here sooner. just got done with my phd qualifying exams.

i don't think we should use dvd recorders to record the marathon. the problem is not the recorders themselves but getting the footage off afterward. unless someone has experience taking the hard drive out and getting the data off in an easily readable way on the windows side then what i'm going to do is buy two external cases and two 2 tb disks and daisy chain them off this old laptop i have and record the commentary stream to one and the game stream to the other, both with huffyuv (or lagarith if the laptop can handle it), so no loss of quality. then my hardcore laptop will handle the fme/streaming like last time (the signals are split going to the laptops using analog powered splitters just like last year). i've done the calculation and it seems like 2 tb per stream will be enough for the entire marathon. in fact i've already bought the cases, just waiting on prices i like on the disks.

If you didn't get 2TB HDD on Black Friday, you missed out. There were drives by WD and Seagate for $70. I actually snagged some, but haven't got them formatted or anything yet.

[quote="nate"]sorry for not posting here sooner. just got done with my phd qualifying exams.

i don't think we should use dvd recorders to record the marathon. the problem is not the recorders themselves but getting the footage off afterward. unless someone has experience taking the hard drive out and getting the data off in an easily readable way on the windows side then what i'm going to do is buy two external cases and two 2 tb disks and daisy chain them off this old laptop i have and record the commentary stream to one and the game stream to the other, both with huffyuv (or lagarith if the laptop can handle it), so no loss of quality. then my hardcore laptop will handle the fme/streaming like last time (the signals are split going to the laptops using analog powered splitters just like last year). i've done the calculation and it seems like 2 tb per stream will be enough for the entire marathon. in fact i've already bought the cases, just waiting on prices i like on the disks.[/quote]

If you didn't get 2TB HDD on Black Friday, you missed out.  There were drives by WD and Seagate for $70.  I actually snagged some, but haven't got them formatted or anything yet.

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2010-12-04 05:19:21 pm

2010-12-04 02:13:05 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

That's a good point Nate, it did take you forever to get the runs off of the hard drive, and if you were to do that this marathon, you would have to take runs off whatever DVD recorder isn't being used. Still, I'm thinking that a DVD recorder would be a good backup in case if the hard drives run out of space.

Austin: That is a great post for this thread. I'm not 100% sure how we'll handle it, but I guess if we use a static topic like in the taiga forum, then everything could work out.

EDIT: I added stuff to the first post.

UraniumAnchor

2010-12-05 03:22:39 am

Not a walrus

If it's not too much extra work it might not be a bad idea to have the DVD recorder as a backup in case something goes wrong with one of the laptop recordings, much like we had to use the FME recordings when the DVD recorders capped out or something similar.

But if nate can get the disk space that'd be far easier than trying to rip it all off afterwards, by far.

Rakuen

2010-12-05 09:44:58 am

Weegee Time

Pretty much every X4 run I've ever done is 100%, it's only like a minute longer or something, isn't it? Well, with X it might be a little longer than that, but whatever. I'd say just do 100% and let the donations decide X or Zero, it's way easier to manage.

mikwuyma

Edit history:

mikwuyma: 2010-12-06 09:22:14 pm

2010-12-06 09:16:37 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

UraniumAnchor: It wouldn't be too much work, at least not on my end because I already have a DVD recorder with a Hard Drive. Like I said, it's probably a good idea as a backup.

Rakuen: Yeah, that's probably the best idea. I'm also most familiar with 100%. I took it off the list and modified the schedule so that it only mentions the character is based on donation.

nate

2010-12-07 09:10:00 pm

agree with running another out to mike's dvd recorder.

Mystery

2010-12-08 04:54:26 pm

Quote from mikwuyma:

I was thinking of splitting up the race into two streams, two game screens per stream. Any thoughts about that?

...

BTW, no matter what, we will have at least two stream screens because fitting 3 and 4-way races on one screen is painful.

I'd like to see 4 games on one screen. Definitely more interesting that way. Consoles do it, so why not?
I can see it being a problem for people with small screens, though.

And although it's pretty much settled, I prefer separate streams for commentary and game sound too.

Rakuen

2010-12-08 09:49:01 pm

Weegee Time

Well actually, how would the races be broadcast? Would all of the screen captures be routed into one computer that will mux them all together? Or would you use multiple PCs with cohosting? I ask because having to cohost a stream takes up processing power and memory for the viewers (unless they've somehow changed it recently), and cohosting 5 streams in one window is REALLY intensive for some people's computers.

I remember some friends of mine were playing with it once, and when we got up to 5 cohosts some people's browsers outright crashed. XD

Either way, maybe we should remove the commentator camera for the 4 person race. Watching 4 views at once is already pretty cluttered before you put 5th view with a bunch of people in it.

mikwuyma

2010-12-08 10:09:55 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Rakuen: In that case, we should just use two windows with two screens each and ditch the commentator cam.

nate

Edit history:

nate: 2010-12-09 05:43:44 pm

2010-12-09 05:43:10 pm

what's the difference between two screens and four if both the screens and the video frame are 4:3?

Quote from Rakuen:

Would all of the screen captures be routed into one computer that will mux them all together?

yeah, i'm planning on using webcammax.

mikwuyma

2010-12-09 08:38:39 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Nate, do you still have the license, or should I get one?

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2010-12-09 10:11:05 pm

2010-12-09 09:27:01 pm

Weegee Time

Quote from nate:

what's the difference between two screens and four if both the screens and the video frame are 4:3?

Quote from Rakuen:

Would all of the screen captures be routed into one computer that will mux them all together?

yeah, i'm planning on using webcammax.

There's no difference at all if you've got only one output going to Ustream by using Webcammax.

It's when you've got four different outputs that it can become a problem. At least when we were messing with it, we figured out a cohosted stream is literally another stream. So with one cohost, each viewer is loading two streams, with two they're loading three, and so on. Incidentally, this is where the volume bug comes from: since it's literally another stream window without volume controls, it's not necessarily linked to the main stream's volume. Some people's computers can't handle processing a large number of streams. Splitting it to two and two would allow them to at least be able to watch one channel. Again, this only applies to using Ustream's cohosting feature.

Edit: I got smart and made a crappy diagram to illustrate what I'm saying.

[quote="nate"]what's the difference between two screens and four if both the screens and the video frame are 4:3?

[quote="Rakuen"]Would all of the screen captures be routed into one computer that will mux them all together?[/quote]
yeah, i'm planning on using webcammax.[/quote]
There's no difference at all if you've got only one output going to Ustream by using Webcammax.

It's when you've got four different outputs that it can become a problem.  At least when we were messing with it, we figured out a cohosted stream is literally [i]another[/i] stream.  So with one cohost, each viewer is loading two streams, with two they're loading three, and so on.  Incidentally, this is where the volume bug comes from: since it's literally another stream window without volume controls, it's not necessarily linked to the main stream's volume.  Some people's computers can't handle processing a large number of streams.  Splitting it to two and two would allow them to at least be able to watch one channel.  Again, this only applies to using Ustream's cohosting feature.

Edit: I got smart and made a crappy diagram to illustrate what I'm saying.

[spoiler][img]http://i52.tinypic.com/15hmjb.png[/img][/spoiler]

mikwuyma

2010-12-10 01:31:44 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Rakuen, at most we'll be co-hosting one person. The 4-person Zelda race will be done by people who are all at the center.

Rakuen

Edit history:

Rakuen: 2010-12-10 09:03:38 am

2010-12-10 09:01:44 am

Weegee Time

Awesome! Sounds good then. Smiley

nate

2010-12-13 02:40:25 am

oh sorry, i have the license already.

UraniumAnchor

2010-12-13 09:42:35 am

Not a walrus

nate, what OS does the system that you were planning on muxing the races on have? I seem to remember my capture device doesn't have drivers available for everything, but that may have changed since I last looked.

nate

2010-12-13 10:58:07 am

xp sp 3.