And so we can hear Eric Stone!
Sometimes you get what you get - at PAPA, Bowen stuck to 4 games the entire tournament and other groups used them as common picks, so the game choices became slim pickings later in the broadcast.
I totally agree that one day, when the technology is available to multicast easily that it should be done. even if it’s just recorded and old school commented afterwards, it would be cool to see all the games.
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That’s one disadvantage of American-style playoffs vs. other countries: others are more likely to use random machines for playoffs rather than higher-seed-picks games. Seed-picked may still be the most common even overseas [Cayle, Mats, David, anybody know?], but I would prefer tournaments to use random more often.
One alternative is restricted seed picks, e.g. if you have multiple vintages or other types of games in the bank, the top seed gets to choose games, but must pick one from each group.
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BMU[quote=“PinStadium, post:157, topic:982”]
I have felt that advancements in the playfield lighting would be a good start as in many cases it’s just so darn hard to see the ball. I have developed a lighting system to help at least with that aspect that eliminates glass glare and dark spots.
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PDI/Invisi/Museum glass is awesome, might be worth having a set for the machines being streamed if they are not doing that already.
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Great (if expensive) suggestion! Decent anti-glare glass significantly cuts down on reflections. If you haven’t seen it in the flesh, do try and find a machine with PDI or Invisiglass. I really is remarkable how much of a difference it makes.
Agreed Invisiglass is a great product. I have it in my WOZ and its superb. It is expensive but a great product too. one of the things I took into consideration when designing the Pin Stadium lighting kits was to make it easy to move from machine to machine (non surgical procedure that that’s a couple minutes). Not just for the home collector who sells a machine and keep them for the next one, but also for a venue that just needs to quickly swap them into a machine for tournament viewing/streaming purposes to get the illumination needed without glare. Here is a pic of my WOZ in a dark setting room to give you an idea. Left side is “Off” and right side is “On”, the camera’s eye loves the light.
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The important part here in the application is that the kit has RGB lighting and embedded in between white LED’s too. They are both independently controllable. RGB is great for tonal color cast and the white is what gives you the level of illumination since RGB alone is not sufficient for that. The camera person can just open the app and on the fly adjust it prior to filming or during if he feels he needs to make changes for the viewer.
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Head to head makes a lot of sense for sure.
I do this with 4 people all on Pinball Arcade Tables and do the commentary for it.
Works great! Outside of the shots they are making or needing to make, people just tuning in can know who’s winning based on score alone if they don’t know pinball.
I have a layout I developed for PDQ back in the day that works great for 2 player head 2 head on physical machines too!
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I’d love to see a pinball streaming app that allows you to switch from vert. full PF view to horizontal view with DMD and player cams. Logistically I’m not sure how it would all work. Maybe have two streams and the app is just a way to switch between them. The app could also have a section for tourneys where it would display results and standings. Perhaps this app could be tied into the PAPA scoring app. Would also be cool to have live streams for each game. How cool would it be to open an app, look at where you are in the queue - then WATCH the person currently playing in the app. So maybe have one feed with commentary, then separate feeds for each game. It would be nice to be able to choose which person to follow. Pick one player and the app will automatically switch you to the game they are on. And as more tourneys starting getting streamed it would be cool to get push notifications when a player you follow is playing. Would also be cool if you could get more info on the game being played in the app. Just basic stuff, year, maker, a few playing tips. It would also be nice to get additional info on the players in the app. IFPA rank, home location, short bio, photo. And of course the app needs to support chromecast.
Most of these ideas would be difficult from a technical perspective, but with enough time and money…
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I do miss the older Bowen tutorials and Papa gameplay videos that were playfield only. Although it was a little fiddly, I would rotate my laptop display and then get a 3-4x larger view of the playfield. Now it’s tiny no matter what I do.
We probably need someone to create an entirely new video platform…one that lets the viewer change camera angles & layout on their own while watching.
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If you want casuals to enjoy the broadcasts, and we should, the number 1 priority has to be getting game sounds (including flippers flipping and such, not just music, etc.) with the broadcasters able to adjust the balance and sometimes not talk and fade the game sounds in higher to just let the viewer take it in. We should also be able to hear the player.
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Has it been said that there was never a better application for 4k than pinball?
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Bang backs and death saves… we have the technology!
I was in another thread that had a similar topic but I was actually looking for this one. It has been many months since my post and now the technology for this is ready from our end. I had Buffalo Pinball test out the Pin Stadium lighting on their stream here: https://youtu.be/AEuaMW0GnjA
It was the first true “live” test of them for a mass viewing audience. Their comments are in the video at the beginning about how they felt it was the best that they were able to see the playfield personally and on their camera. A few competitive players have asked about these going on tournament machines since it increases visibility of the playfield and ball, which they claim to have helped with scoring. I am willing to work with someone to get these out on machines for tournaments and live streaming events if anyone is interested. You can email: scott@pinstadium.com
I think this would be an aspect that I can help out on, along with others who are great with streaming software and maybe can get some really creative camera views and angles would be fun too. When watching I do like the overhead views, but it’s also very engaging when you see some close up angles from the side or maybe even some that are more for entertainment purposes or that focus on flipper control zooms. Just some thoughts.
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Adding at home olfactory element to the live stream: bag of three day old opened cheetoes, no right guard and a few stale cigarette butts?
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