Why do you dislike watching competitive pinball?

Wow. Thanks so much for the kind words. Fantastic idea for the current score for each player. I’ll definitely do that next time.

I was really happy with how the game camera mic picked up on the game sounds and the player sounds too. I thought for sure with how loud it was down there, that was not gonna work out.

1 Like

The rig was especially interesting. I’m sure you’ve explained it on here before, but there were essentially three (four if you include the break) separate rows of games all with a support beam on top with an essentially portable tri-camera rig. There was a VERY long protected cord that stretched the length of the gameroom, and was suspended above everything else by a separate series of supports (hooks?) to keep the cords out of the way.

I can’t speak for a taller individual, but I did not feel impeded in any way by the rig. Totally awesome :slight_smile:

1 Like

Yep. The rig hangs from the ceiling attached to sets of the Rubbermaid fastracks used for garage walls. Then I bought J channel cable management hooks and hung them behind where the rig sits and used some of that black plastic wrapping that stern uses for the wires that goes from the cabinet to the backbox.

Sometimes it’s a bit of an art to get the cables out of the way, but all the tall people helped out and we made it work.

Scott here, thank you so much for the kind words! I’m sure I’ll add more as I think about it, and I still want to go back and listen to a few hours of it myself to get a feel for how well it went (this is something I’m always trying to build confidence in), but for having about 4-5 days’ time in advance to plan for this, everything from a commentary perspective went off smoothly. Certainly nine hours’ worth of time, figuring in breaks between rounds, time when games were being picked out in the finals, the moving of the rig from machine to machine (which was actually really fun to show off because of how good his setup is on that, I took a ton of pictures), hopefully in those times we added information, levity, and kept everyone in the loop.

I also thought that myself and Michael at the end meshed really well as he was strong with ruleset knowledge. Out of all the machines Erik has, only a couple of them are regulars in my local league, so there was a lot of “learn as we go” there.

Erik will also have to call out his friend that helped with the stream setup. The transitions were great, it was easy to go from one page to the other, and it helped make the experience look and feel extremely professional. It’s one of the best OBS setups I’ve seen for this kind of thing, and it certainly offers me ideas on how to help present my own stream and improve on my own game. It’s convinced me I want to get a mixer and maybe move to XLR equipment to compliment/replace some of the USB stuff I’m using now.

Oh, the magic “well protected wire” you ask? I think it’s a combo of power for the USB Hub / Cameras / Long-Range link, and an ethernet table for data transmission. Erik uses a USB-to-Ethernet bridge so he’s able to get the cams to come out rock solid even over a 50-100 foot run, and it didn’t miss a beat the entire time. Needless to say, I’m very much now in the market for one of those too.

2 Likes

That’s my boy chad Hobbs. Awesome work indeed. @mizary

2 Likes

Magic City Pinball League A div finals with commentary recorded afterwards. Not professional by any means, but some new footage for anyone that wants to watch. The games played are AC/DC prem, S-M vault, AFMR, GB pro, and Star Wars pro. The players are Chris Warren, Timothy Street, Joshua Karg, and David Taylor. 2h.25Min.

Spoiler alert. The final game on SW was decided by 5 million points on a 1.4 billion point game!( A 0.34% difference).

4 Likes

Holy rage tilts!

Great commentary, thanks guys! I like the combination of commentary and tutorial. That worked really well!

A few fewer “absolutelies” wouldn’t have gone astray :wink:

3 Likes

I think that playfield visibility is one reason that some may lose interest. Losing the ball is easy to do especially in not well lit areas. There is another post around here discussing what could be done to improve the fan experience that was a good thread. I can help in the area of lighting to get good visibility of the playfield for players and viewers. Buffalo did a stream at Expo and they used the Pin Stadium lighting for their streaming. Nick and Kevin do this streaming professionally and they said that they were able to get the best visuals with their set up using them. Here a link to it: https://youtu.be/AEuaMW0GnjA

Just a thought and I have designed into them a competition streaming feature option to keep the lights on constant or the option to allow them to sync to the GI controls (this is more for a collector wanting the experience and theatrics). I think a competitive player would like them on all the time and the camera would do better with that. Just some thoughts.

1 Like

Not sure if I’m over-reaching my authority here, but tonight we’ll be attempting to stream the finals of the FSPA’s VBH Winter 2017 league with live commentary if anyone wants to tune in and critique. We try to give airtime to everyone, not just the top division. A few notes:

  1. The WiFi is not the best at VBH, so it may be a little choppy.
  2. We only have one or two rigs I think, so camera angles may be lacking.
  3. We know we’re not anywhere close to professional quality :slight_smile:

Still, any constructive feedback would be welcome, I’m sure. This isn’t meant as an advertisement; we want to get better with our setup/recording/commentary/all that.

https://www.twitch.tv/fspapinball - 8PM EST

1 Like

Please make a local recording and upload to Youtube.

AFAIK, local recording also happens but I’ll mention it tonight. That’ll also give us a chance to voice-over at a later date.

1 Like

yeah! I love all the casual streams… but to me tourney streams are MUCH more exciting. I could care less if Jack Danger puts up 20b on AFM. It’s entertaining but not exciting. I will try to tune in tonight! if it’s choppy lower the bitrate/resolution. Better to be lower quality and not be dropping frames.

4 Likes

100% agree. You’d be surprised how good the stream looks at very low res and 30 frames or under.

1 Like