EVE General Discussion

I had zero problems with the stream at Source quality, once I activated the HD code. Not that I really care about seeing the whites of everyone's viking eyes, but hey it made for nice screencaps.

What I actually considered the investment for, and perhaps I should've known better, was accessing the Archive since I couldn't catch every panel in my TZ. Twitch archives are kindof rubbish in general, because you can't pick a downsample quality like you can with Youtube. Even a window 1/4 of my screen still pulls the highest saved quality.

I timed it, and every 10 seconds of video that plays, it then halts to buffer for 20 seconds. Then it plays the next 10 seconds.
Again I will repeat that Source quality livestreaming was fine.

So no I haven't felt like I got my money's worth yet.

Well... Fanfest 2014 is a history now. I have bought HD version of stream (watched it on big TV screen in source version - on 60 mbit/s). Watched almost all of it and would like to share with you few observations...

Quality of the stream was bad... but not from the beginning. The first day was quite ok - I didn't noticed graphical artifacts and glitches that appeared from the beginning of the second day and accompanied us up to the end of the event.
Most annoying of all graphical issues were blackscreens connected to stream drops, it was drops because each time when stream came back online I received info about CCP is going online on Twitch (funny thingy - very useful). Additionally I saw today some Fanfest 2014 footage went live on youtube… and all graphical issues are inside that footage.
I guess something went wrong with some IT equipment and it stayed unnoticed or couldn't be replaced - anyway I think we deserve to know what was cause of graphical problems, we payed for the service after all. I think for next stream - no matter if it will be Fanfest or Alliance Tournament - there should be some resources prepared to deal with some technical issues (I work in IT and for any important events we are prepared with backup systems etc).

Second issue I would like to write about is camera operation during Fanfest stream. It is something that didn't change for a long time. I know that when someone is presenting something usually camera shows the talking person, because sometimes it is worth to see his face or gesture, but please... Many times during stream camera was pointed on speaker, he or she changed slide and we got more talk about something we had no chance to see, or we saw it for like few seconds before speaker changed to the next slide, or even worse - when during Art Session for like half of presentation we had no chance to see what is done with speed paint, but we could saw face of the Artist and his monitor.
Also in this place I would like to mention poor quality of picture from "whole stage" cameras. Picture from it was no sharp at all - I guess there was problem with sensivity of it - it was too dark in there for that camera.
Another issue here is for example camera during Alliance Panel - the beginning, when camera shows CEOs or representatives and only like half of presentation screen...
Anyway - there is quite much work that can be done in matter of camera switch during Fanfest relations in future.

Another thing is sound... Well - I must admit that sound wasn't impressive at all during some sessions there was >sshhhhhhhhh< sound in background... But on some other panels everything was ok.

The last Issue for me was about content of the stream. I am disappointed that Monument Event day before Fanfest wasn't streamed at all. Well - I was hoping it will be (I had in mind EvE Symphony last year). Instead of it we get timelapsed montage from preparing Monument, which was made form a far, with some ship on the first plan.

At the end of my quite long post I must say - Fanfest is a very cool event and I would like to go there at some point and at some point I will, but for now it’s a bit too expensive for me :( So all I got is stream from that event... That's is why I am sharing my thoughts about stream hoping at least some of them will be read by DEVs or someone in CCP and EvE.TV Stream will improve.

With the exception of the muted black screen in the keynote I really didnt see too much wrong with it. Yeah sure you missed an intro video for a keynote, but it wasn't like it was providing reveals or anything. The actual content came later own, you should be fortunate that they resolved the issue before moving on. In fact it has usually been the case that if there is a minor issue, they will not start a presentation until it is resolved. The sound quality was fine, it wasn't all over the place too loud or too soft as fanfest streams in the past. There were a few camera issues but overall Id say it was pretty fine. If you are so worried about missing EVERYTHING at fanfest, perhaps you should attend one year. Maybe you would like to also try donating money to CCP to buy more cameras to cover what you want.

Nah, most of what I said was geared more toward the individuals on page one who were demanding refunds and such. Its great to point out ways to improve, anyone providing a service should not only expect constructive criticism but look for it as well. But some of the comments on here are beyond that and just flat out expect 100% perfect HD stream delivered to their house like they are watching Netflix or something. Obviously there are many issues that come up in a live event such as equipement issues, your ISP may be doing maint work or even throttling traffic, and even DNS routes that sit between your ISP and CCP's provider are causing issues. The point is, hiccups happen, you just have to hope it gets fixed. With the exception of equipment errors if you had the HD stream you could go back and watch it in 1080p even if your ISP would only let you stream 480p.

The whole stream was just completely amateur. They didn't even have titles showing the names of the various people who were speaking; they instead commented that you should get the HD stream to see their nametags.

Horrible. I know for a fact that I personally could have done a better job managing that stream, and I don't have any actual proper training in the field even.