SDA becoming less relevant?

Manocheese

2013-02-22 01:09:58 pm

Yes, a cucco riding the ground.

Quote from Carcinogen:

As a matter of fact, why don't I see anything about Anri-Chan on the FAQ or anywhere on the main site?

Under "How do I record my run?" in the FAQ, there's this information:

Quote:

If you wish, you can also try to encode your run by yourself. Please read the Knowledge Base for detailed instructions on how to do it.

The first link in the table of contents on the KB is "Do everything for me! Automated encoding with Anri-chan." In my opinion, Anri-chan doesn't require any further promotion on the site; it's already easy to find. There will always be people who complain about it, like the guy in the roundtable discussion thread who complained that the KB and Strategy Wiki are hard to find, even though they're linked at the top of the front page. I don't think we can help people who are willing to put in exactly zero effort.

blarg

2013-02-22 05:40:06 pm

Quote from Kiyura:

Personally, I think speeddemosarchive.com updates should be about Speed Demos Archive.

But saying anything not currently on sda should never be added to sda because it is not on sda is what put it in the position of people saying it is becoming less relevant and hasn't changed in 10 years (outside of the marathons which get news posts and spots on the feature page despite not directly being about sda either)

Why can't that show be on the SDA news posts or on the feature page, or get it's own section on the site? Do the hosts not want SDA viewers to know about it or watch them because they hate the site so much?

It's not like it is off topic content that people visiting the site would have no interest in. It's already on the kb wiki that mike just said should be integrated more with the site. https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/TSSB. Just link there every monday on the front page and pick a few exciting runs to hype up with some runs are unverified fine print. I think it would fix a lot of the sda is so out of date they are irrelevant problem people keep mentioning.

But if not that's fine the staff knows what is best Smiley

[quote="Kiyura"]Personally, I think speeddemosarchive.com updates should be about Speed Demos Archive.[/quote]

But saying anything not currently on sda should never be added to sda because it is not on sda is what put it in the position of people saying it is becoming less relevant and hasn't changed in 10 years (outside of the marathons which get news posts and spots on the feature page despite not directly being about sda either)

Why can't that show be on the SDA news posts or on the feature page, or get it's own section on the site? Do the hosts not want SDA viewers to know about it or watch them because they hate the site so much?

It's not like it is off topic content that people visiting the site would have no interest in. It's already on the kb wiki that mike just said should be integrated more with the site. https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/TSSB. Just link there every monday on the front page and pick a few exciting runs to hype up with some runs are unverified fine print. I think it would fix a lot of the sda is so out of date they are irrelevant problem people keep mentioning.

But if not that's fine the staff knows what is best :)

Lag.Com

2013-02-23 05:33:59 am

sda loyalist

Hype is bad. SDA has never been about hype. It has always been about content. What SDA has is content, plenty of it, in good quality. That's a far more admirable goal.

Emptyeye

Edit history:

Emptyeye: 2013-02-23 09:11:50 am

2013-02-23 09:11:26 am

Talk to the Hand

Quote from Lag.Com:

Hype is bad.

I'm going to take issue with this.

Hype without substance is bad.

Hype that you can back up is, I believe, a positive thing. Really, how do you think we peaked at 50000 viewers and raised almost half a million dollars for PCF? It wasn't just the product. It was that we promoted, or hyped, the marathon up, and then put on an awesome show to back up the hype. You seem to be arguing that we should have done no promotion whatsoever, or that SDA should exist in its own little vacuum on the Internet, because "hype is bad".

Unless you're drawing a distinction between "promotion" and "hype" that I'm not.

Lag.Com

2013-02-23 10:33:04 am

sda loyalist

'Hype' comes from 'hyperbole' - it refers specifically to exaggerated or false claims. I feel that as our substance is good enough, we do not need hype.

UraniumAnchor

2013-02-23 10:37:43 am

Not a walrus

Quote from Emptyeye:

Unless you're drawing a distinction between "promotion" and "hype" that I'm not.

Quote from Lag.Com:

'Hype' comes from 'hyperbole' - it refers specifically to exaggerated or false claims. I feel that as our substance is good enough, we do not need hype.

So I guess the answer is 'yes'. Wink

nate

2013-02-23 10:39:35 am

ultimately it is up to the discretion of the updaters what they decide to bring in. there is good precedent for closely-related initiatives such as non-sda-affiliated charity marathons. tssb is good stuff. reminds me a bit of patv. in fact i think the penny arcade main page may be a useful model here.

Andrew_Mills

2013-02-23 12:33:54 pm

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

It's an interesting point for me, as whilst I'm super keen to improve my COD 4 records (upgraded with super spangly 720p60 Xbox 360 encodes), the current waiting time to see them go live just puts me clean off (I could of course just get it on my Twitch/YouTube channel, but to me at least, I appreciate what SDA is trying to do with the archiving aspect). The one thing that's been invaluable to me about SDA is the technical video encoding I've learned from here, codecs, capture cards etc. But I never ever got on with ANRI. Maybe the GUI has changed since I last used it; but DOS screens just didn't gel with me and I stuck with MeGUI/AviSynth and now Premier Pro CS6.

And whilst it's a sound idea not trying to compete with keeping up with the fastest times if you know you can't, it also means SDA will be starved of true WR runs, making it less relevant by default. Sadly, in it's current format, reading the front page of SDA is like looking back at a time machine. It looks old and thus gives the initial impression of being out-of-date. There's not fixing what isn't broke, but there's also not moving with the times. I hope the changes prove fruitful, I really do as there's a few speedrun world records I'd love to do and get on SDA. Hopefully some day. Smiley

Oh and for FRAPS users, I recently learned that turning off both in-game AA and V-Synch (along with not using RGB) will massively increase your FPS. The final video WON'T show any screen tearing from the lack of V-Synch, but you'll get a really nice FPS boost from that alone. Also, FRAPS apparently doesn't pick up on AA being used, saving more CPU power for FRAPS and your overall FPS. On my old PC, I got a 1080p25 capture up to a steady 1080p50 with DX11 on Metro 2033. with the tweaks mentioned. Hope it helps Smiley

It's an interesting point for me, as whilst I'm super keen to improve my COD 4 records (upgraded with super spangly 720p60 Xbox 360 encodes), the current waiting time to see them go live just puts me clean off (I could of course just get it on my Twitch/YouTube channel, but to me at least, I appreciate what SDA is trying to do with the archiving aspect). The one thing that's been invaluable to me about SDA is the technical video encoding I've learned from here, codecs, capture cards etc. But I never ever got on with ANRI. Maybe the GUI has changed since I last used it; but DOS screens just didn't gel with me and I stuck with MeGUI/AviSynth and now Premier Pro CS6.

And whilst it's a sound idea not trying to compete with keeping up with the fastest times if you know you can't, it also means SDA will be starved of true WR runs, making it less relevant by default. Sadly, in it's current format, reading the front page of SDA is like looking back at a time machine. It looks old and thus gives the initial impression of being out-of-date. There's not fixing what isn't broke, but there's also not moving with the times. I hope the changes prove fruitful, I really do as there's a few speedrun world records I'd love to do and get on SDA. Hopefully some day. :)

Oh and for FRAPS users, I recently learned that turning off both in-game AA and V-Synch (along with not using RGB) will massively increase your FPS. The final video WON'T show any screen tearing from the lack of V-Synch, but you'll get a really nice FPS boost from that alone. Also, FRAPS apparently doesn't pick up on AA being used, saving more CPU power for FRAPS and your overall FPS. On my old PC, I got a 1080p25 capture up to a steady 1080p50 with DX11 on Metro 2033. with the tweaks mentioned. Hope it helps :)

Mystery

2013-02-23 12:41:46 pm

Both vsync and AA are traits of your graphics card and not your CPU, so it wouldn't actually save more cpu for fraps. That said, there could be other issues that's causing fraps slowdown.
Anyway, if you haven't heard of it yet, try out yua. You might see it as a graphical anri (though it's in beta right now). It's not a replacement, but it may be worth testing.

Andrew_Mills

2013-02-23 01:54:42 pm

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Well turning off V-Synch immediately boosted my FPS by 20FPS on the spot and that was the only setting that was changed. Turned it back on and the overall FPS went down, so naturally with FRAPS adding in the drainage it does, it made a massive difference and this showed in the FPS I was getting for my final recording (which is all that matters).

No need to use yua as I have a paid license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6 which includes Adobe Premier Pro 6. And no offense to nate and his tireless - and amazing - work, but it's a professional video editing and encoding package and I'm working with progressive image sources these days, so I'll stick with that now that I'm used to it.

blarg

Edit history:

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:23:02 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:22:40 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:21:14 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:20:52 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:20:51 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:15:11 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:09:43 pm

blarg: 2013-02-23 09:06:08 pm

2013-02-23 09:03:51 pm

Quote from Lag.Com:

Hype is bad. SDA has never been about hype. It has always been about content. What SDA has is content, plenty of it, in good quality. That's a far more admirable goal.

I didn't mean change SDA into a hype machine without content. How could a TSSB update be content-less it would link to a page with 30+ speedruns a week? One who does not care about verification and is ok with the video quality on twitch might say that kb TSSB page has a lot more content per week than SDA does, and that is part of the problem this thread is about. I was just using the word "hype" to describe the current news updates. Sorry if it is the wrong word.

Quote:

if you're like me and you tend to take several days to complete this game, then the completion time of 2:12:39 will be sure to pique your interests. Credit for this run goes to the gentleman named 'your name here', and before you get any ideas about taking advantage of the previous sentence, I advise you to watch the run instead. I hear it's got glitches. We love glitches.

Quote:

Of course, it's single-segment, just like the rest of the runs in this update, but it is also awesome. So go watch it.

Quote:

you will not be disappointed by this run. If you are disappointed, you can write me an angry PM.

Quote:

But don't let my ignorance stop you. 'gammadragon' has here a single-segment 0:17:25, and judging by some of the comments about the run in the game's forum thread, it's rather excellent.

Quote:

Check out this 1:55:26, done in 44 segments. Knowing Behemoth, it's a really awesome run and well worth your time.

Quote:

The run is a single-segment 0:09:27, using Tyris Flare. honrableJay estimates that a perfectly-executed run could only get another few seconds faster before trodding into TAS territory, which is always a good thing to hear.

Choose whatever word you want for those quotes and everything else informative or humorous currently typed about new SDA speedruns. Then link to the TSSB page and vod every week and do that word for some selected runs listed there. No extra hype necessary, yet much more content on the SDA front page!

Though like I said it's the staff's choice to do it or not just a suggestion. I was annoyed the focus on that one word I used implied I wanted SDA to start lying about stuff so I was hoping to clear that up.

[quote="Lag.Com"]Hype is bad. SDA has never been about hype. It has always been about [i]content[/i]. What SDA has is content, plenty of it, in good quality. That's a far more admirable goal.[/quote]

I didn't mean change SDA into a hype machine without content. How could a TSSB update be content-less it would link to a page with 30+ speedruns a week? One who does not care about verification and is ok with the video quality on twitch might say that kb TSSB page has a lot more content per week than SDA does, and that is part of the problem this thread is about. I was just using the word "hype" to describe the current news updates. Sorry if it is the wrong word.

[quote]if you're like me and you tend to take several days to complete this game, then the completion time of 2:12:39 will be sure to pique your interests. Credit for this run goes to the gentleman named 'your name here', and before you get any ideas about taking advantage of the previous sentence, I advise you to watch the run instead. I hear it's got glitches. We love glitches.[/quote]

[quote]Of course, it's single-segment, just like the rest of the runs in this update, but it is also awesome. So go watch it.[/quote]

[quote]you will not be disappointed by this run. If you are disappointed, you can write me an angry PM.[/quote]

[quote]But don't let my ignorance stop you. 'gammadragon' has here a single-segment 0:17:25, and judging by some of the comments about the run in the game's forum thread, it's rather excellent.[/quote]

[quote]Check out this 1:55:26, done in 44 segments. Knowing Behemoth, it's a really awesome run and well worth your time.[/quote]

[quote]The run is a single-segment 0:09:27, using Tyris Flare. honrableJay estimates that a perfectly-executed run could only get another few seconds faster before trodding into TAS territory, which is always a good thing to hear.[/quote]

Choose whatever word you want for those quotes and everything else informative or humorous currently typed about new SDA speedruns. Then link to the TSSB page and vod every week and do that word for some selected runs listed there. No extra hype necessary, yet much more content on the SDA front page!

Though like I said it's the staff's choice to do it or not just a suggestion. I was annoyed the focus on that one word I used implied I wanted SDA to start lying about stuff so I was hoping to clear that up.

Mystery

2013-02-23 10:18:55 pm

Quote from Andrew_Mills:

No need to use yua as I have a paid license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6 which includes Adobe Premier Pro 6. And no offense to nate and his tireless - and amazing - work, but it's a professional video editing and encoding package and I'm working with progressive image sources these days, so I'll stick with that now that I'm used to it.

These programs tend to be amazing at editing video, but you would be amazed at how pathetic they are at encoding them.
Last one I checked pretty much forced you to choose between encoding for PAL and NTSC, and you had little say over the framerate, compression technology or its settings. Amazing.
So I'd use those for encoding, but other programs for encoding. Anyway, whatever floats your boat. If it works, then it's all good.

Andrew_Mills

2013-02-24 11:20:39 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

CS6 allows you to control everything. Does every res up to 1080p60 with virtually any codec too. Take a look:

Mystery

2013-02-24 11:23:10 am

Cool. Finally a decent piece of software, actually.
Btw, you can use Alt+Print Screen to capture the current window only, not the whole screen.

Andrew_Mills

Edit history:

Andrew_Mills: 2013-02-24 11:30:02 am

2013-02-24 11:29:25 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

I know, but it didn't capture all the elements I wanted it to when I tried it that way.

Hsanrb

2013-02-24 03:54:03 pm

Quote from blarg:

Quote from Lag.Com:

Hype is bad. SDA has never been about hype. It has always been about content. What SDA has is content, plenty of it, in good quality. That's a far more admirable goal.

I didn't mean change SDA into a hype machine without content. How could a TSSB update be content-less it would link to a page with 30+ speedruns a week? One who does not care about verification and is ok with the video quality on twitch might say that kb TSSB page has a lot more content per week than SDA does, and that is part of the problem this thread is about. I was just using the word "hype" to describe the current news updates. Sorry if it is the wrong word.

As a guest of TSSB who had to sit through the WR section. I admit I muted my mic, and walked out of the room for at times 20m bored out of my mind at the WR section. Its probably the main reason I stopped watching, I never knew when the Game of the Week that I came to the show for starts. Lets not forget half the runs are repeats of small improvements of the week before and I'd rather wait to the runner is finished and submits a run then try to figure out the changes from the same game I saw last week.

[quote="blarg"][quote="Lag.Com"]Hype is bad. SDA has never been about hype. It has always been about [i]content[/i]. What SDA has is content, plenty of it, in good quality. That's a far more admirable goal.[/quote]

I didn't mean change SDA into a hype machine without content. How could a TSSB update be content-less it would link to a page with 30+ speedruns a week? One who does not care about verification and is ok with the video quality on twitch might say that kb TSSB page has a lot more content per week than SDA does, and that is part of the problem this thread is about. I was just using the word "hype" to describe the current news updates. Sorry if it is the wrong word.
[/quote]

As a guest of TSSB who had to sit through the WR section. I admit I muted my mic, and walked out of the room for at times 20m bored out of my mind at the WR section. Its probably the main reason I stopped watching, I never knew when the Game of the Week that I came to the show for starts. Lets not forget half the runs are repeats of small improvements of the week before and I'd rather wait to the runner is finished and submits a run then try to figure out the changes from the same game I saw last week.

mikwuyma

2013-02-28 06:40:14 pm

My feelings on The Demon Rush

About KB overhaul: I know I said over the weekend, but it turns out that for a project this big it requires a lot more than a weekend. Some of our forum members have been doing a great job of discussing how the game strategy pages should work on the wiki, and Mr. K has especially been doing a great job of working on page structure.

I am thinking I will make the Knowledge Base/Wiki into its own sub-forum when we are ready.

Capturing/encoding: First I might as well take on what Andrew Mills has been going on about.

Quote from Andrew_Mills:

No need to use yua as I have a paid license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6

I highlighted the most important part. That's great if you have the money for the master suite, but as far as I can tell, it's 50 dollars a month for a creative cloud license or over 2,500 dollars if you want a permanent license. Somehow I don't think most of our members want to plunk down that kind of cash when it already costs them money to buy the game, console, and capture equipment for their runs (or for a pc run, a decent rig that can both screencap and play the game simultaneously).

Yua isn't for people who encode and edit video as a profession, it's meant to simplify the encoding process so anyone can make high-quality sda-accepted video without knowing a thing about encoding or editing video.

About Anri, it's a good program but at the same time it doesn't work for everyone, and it's not the most user-friendly program.

Blarg's point about posting other speedrun-related news on the site: I think posting stuff such as TSSB is a good idea, but I think before we do that we should work on other issues first, and then think about what sort of speedrun news can be posted on the front page.

About KB overhaul: I know I said over the weekend, but it turns out that for a project this big it requires a lot more than a weekend. Some of our forum members have been doing a great job of discussing how the game strategy pages should work on the wiki, and Mr. K has especially been doing a great job of working on page structure.

I am thinking I will make the Knowledge Base/Wiki into its own sub-forum when we are ready.

Capturing/encoding: First I might as well take on what Andrew Mills has been going on about.

[quote="Andrew_Mills"]No need to use yua as I have a [b]paid[/b] license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6 [/quote]

I highlighted the most important part. That's great if you have the money for the master suite, but as far as I can tell, it's 50 dollars a month for a creative cloud license or over 2,500 dollars if you want a permanent license. Somehow I don't think most of our members want to plunk down that kind of cash when it already costs them money to buy the game, console, and capture equipment for their runs (or for a pc run, a decent rig that can both screencap and play the game simultaneously).

Yua isn't for people who encode and edit video as a profession, it's meant to simplify the encoding process so anyone can make high-quality sda-accepted video without knowing a thing about encoding or editing video.

About Anri, it's a good program but at the same time it doesn't work for everyone, and it's not the most user-friendly program.

Blarg's point about posting other speedrun-related news on the site: I think posting stuff such as TSSB is a good idea, but I think before we do that we should work on other issues first, and then think about what sort of speedrun news can be posted on the front page.

Cool Matty

2013-02-28 07:33:52 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

As another regular CS6 user, I would never recommend that as a solution for the average runner here at SDA. It is way, way too powerful for what people need. It's a Non-linear editor, not just an encoding program.

Also, getting non-PC (especially interlaced) footage into CS6 in a way that looks good and doesn't mess up isn't always obvious. Finally, Premiere CS6 is far from the most stable of applications. There's a reason it has autosave functionality.

Rakuen

2013-02-28 09:34:38 pm

Weegee Time

It's just great to hear work is still moving forward on the KB. Keep it up and take as much time as you need, folks! It's a lot better to get it right the first time than have to edit a ton of stuff halfway through. Smiley

Andrew_Mills

2013-03-03 11:27:04 am

AlphaStrategyGui des.com

Quote from mikwuyma:

A

Quote from Andrew_Mills:

No need to use yua as I have a paid license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6

I highlighted the most important part. That's great if you have the money for the master suite, but as far as I can tell, it's 50 dollars a month for a creative cloud license or over 2,500 dollars if you want a permanent license. Somehow I don't think most of our members want to plunk down that kind of cash when it already costs them money to buy the game, console, and capture equipment for their runs (or for a pc run, a decent rig that can both screencap and play the game simultaneously).

Yua isn't for people who encode and edit video as a profession, it's meant to simplify the encoding process so anyone can make high-quality sda-accepted video without knowing a thing about encoding or editing video.

About Anri, it's a good program but at the same time it doesn't work for everyone, and it's not the most user-friendly program.

Well I fully appreciate the vast majority of users won't use CS6 (whether paid for or even pirated), but I mentioned it as it's a package I've been using for a couple of years now (CS5+CS6). If Yua can simplify what Anri was doing, then fantastic, I'm all for that as it'll help the vast majority get the quality SDA want up on the site. I just prefer the freedom CS6 offers me in my encodes (and obviously it allows me full editing control also). As far as stability goes, I've never had CS6 crash on me yet.

[quote="mikwuyma"]A[quote="Andrew_Mills"]No need to use yua as I have a [b]paid[/b] license for Adobe Master Suite CS 6 [/quote]

I highlighted the most important part. That's great if you have the money for the master suite, but as far as I can tell, it's 50 dollars a month for a creative cloud license or over 2,500 dollars if you want a permanent license. Somehow I don't think most of our members want to plunk down that kind of cash when it already costs them money to buy the game, console, and capture equipment for their runs (or for a pc run, a decent rig that can both screencap and play the game simultaneously).

Yua isn't for people who encode and edit video as a profession, it's meant to simplify the encoding process so anyone can make high-quality sda-accepted video without knowing a thing about encoding or editing video.

About Anri, it's a good program but at the same time it doesn't work for everyone, and it's not the most user-friendly program.[/quote]
Well I fully appreciate the vast majority of users won't use CS6 (whether paid for or even pirated), but I mentioned it as it's a package I've been using for a couple of years now (CS5+CS6). If Yua can simplify what Anri was doing, then fantastic, I'm all for that as it'll help the vast majority get the quality SDA want up on the site. I just prefer the freedom CS6 offers me in my encodes (and obviously it allows me full editing control also). As far as stability goes, I've never had CS6 crash on me yet.

Heidrage

2013-03-03 01:32:47 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Quote from Andrew_Mills:

I'm all for that as it'll help the vast majority get the quality SDA want up on the site.

I know it has been said before, but I will say it again. You, the runner, only need to record the run proper. You then send the video file to SDA and SDA does everything for you. If you do it yourself then you speed up the process, but in the long run if you are 100% unsure, just send the original recording to SDA. No worries.

UserName001

2013-03-16 03:52:55 am

I'd rather have "slow" than unverified or improperly verified any day of the week.

Zehnpai

2013-03-28 08:32:39 am

There are many places in the world where you cannot watch Twitch. Unless I connect to a US based VPN Twitch and other popular streaming sites are heavily throttled in many foreign countries including the one I currently reside in. Youtube really ins't an option either since most of those are TAS or Let's Play videos.

For what it's worth all I really wish for more videos to come with commentary from the player and some way to play that from within the web video if it isn't already possible. Watching AGDQ 2013 one of the best parts was watching guys like Funkdoc or Feasel not only telling me that an awesome trick is coming up but explaining how or why it works. I know I can read it from the video comments but reading about a trick kinda spoils it.

I like SDA for what it provides. It may not be the most up to date but when I have 20 minutes to spend watching some speed runs I'd rather come here and just pick a video rather then hunt through twitch streams.

Thanks for all the work you guys do.

There are many places in the world where you cannot watch Twitch.  Unless I connect to a US based VPN Twitch and other popular streaming sites are heavily throttled in many foreign countries including the one I currently reside in.  Youtube really ins't an option either since most of those are TAS or Let's Play videos.

For what it's worth all I really wish for more videos to come with commentary from the player and some way to play that from within the web video if it isn't already possible.  Watching AGDQ 2013 one of the best parts was watching guys like Funkdoc or Feasel not only telling me that an awesome trick is coming up but explaining how or why it works.  I know I can read it from the video comments but reading about a trick kinda spoils it.

I like SDA for what it provides.  It may not be the most up to date but when I have 20 minutes to spend watching some speed runs I'd rather come here and just pick a video rather then hunt through twitch streams.

Thanks for all the work you guys do.

Heidrage

2013-03-28 08:35:16 am

Willing to teach you the impossible

I like this guy

nate

2013-03-28 10:28:41 am

looked into multiple audio track support in a flash player and didn't find anything except feature requests and this which doesn't look very helpful. why is web video such a fuckfest? does anyone have flash programming experience and could help?