RE: Giant Bomb's Official Thread About Site Goings-On

Just wanted to post a thank you to Vinny and the staff for putting up a forum post with these kind of updates. This type of communication on what's going on is greatly appreciated. Thanks all!

Yeah, this seems cool.

It has been a site feature I have been asking about for what seems like years so it's a really welcome addition. I don't think Vinny needs to be granular to the point of showing currently uploading videos but just general site info and announcements is enough.

What Vinny doesn't realize is that by this time tomorrow people will be demanding a 24 hour stream of video encode progress bars.

I am all for this because people will get to experience the joy of failed encoding. The amazing feeling that the entire process was a waste and must be started again for no discernible reason.

Hah, I ran into that with the Horizon QL last week! When it's a 27 gig, 22 minute file fucking up, you know it's going to be a fun problem.

It's great, thanks @vinny. You're a gent, and I wish I could buy you a drink.

@rorie: Is it mostly internet issues or having the burden of processing those files locally on machines that were probably not built or intended to do that kind of work? Or I guess a combination of both. Either way, BOY that sure sounds like a pain!

I love it.

@naterfb: I imagine they are encoding raw capture video to h264 mp4 files on their personal PCs before uploading them and it's quite CPU intensive (or possibly GPU if you have a compatible one).

I've only used ffmpeg in recent years from Handbrake or CLI for smaller videos and it's fairly modular but if it's a long video then you might compare it to an all or nothing MP3 rip of an audio CD so if anything fails you need to restart and wait 20 more minutes to see if it worked.

Thanks for the updates Vinny and I wasn't expecting them to be so frequent.

Completely agree – Thanks Vinny.

Having a thread with site updates and goings on for the week is ace.

Not going to lie, I cancelled my yearly sub renewal several weeks ago because I felt like the site was kind of going off the rails and I barely watch any of the content anymore since they shifted to streaming.

Listening to the most recent Hotspot, it's clear that Vinny is frustrated with the way things have been going. His forum posts make it seem like the crew is starting to try and get things back on track, which I'm glad to see. Keep it up.

Thanks for the continued updates Vinny, it's much appreciated!

It's cool of Vinny to give some updates. I assume the site goings on were also motivated by this being a week where a few people are taking PTO, so the schedule is gonna look a bit more barren and Vinny's updates will hopefully get ahead of some people complaining about like "what are they even doing this week."

Very much have appreciated the updates of what's going on. Totally get that with it being a transition to more regular for home streaming and trying to get back to some of the features there may be some delays and stuff. Thanks for the information and all that you do Vinny.

The next move is for this info to be in a separate box on the front page.

Oh hey thanks for pointing it out, i pretty much automatically ignore pinned forum posts because they usually don't change.
I know the crew don't chat with the community much, except for Rorie, and i don't expect them to it's not a requirement, so even little tid bits like this are nice.

Yea this is pretty cool, much appreciated @vinny

One of the best things that's happened here for a long while. There's always been minimal communication between staff and the community, so this is a good step in the right direction.

Just wanted to chime in to say thank you Vinny for the updates, and good luck with whatever it is the crew decides to try in order to change things up during these very strange and difficult times.

Its pretty cool for Vinny to do this. Now when can America start using dd/mm/yyyy format for dates. Thats the real question.

I didn't realize Vinny would continue to update that thread. Just hats off to him for that because, despite all the technical details going way over my head, it's really interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff that goes into making videos for the site. Also, boy, I knew it was hard to make video online but it appears to be even harder than I even imagined. Just wild stuff. Thanks for all the hard work you guys on staff do.

I too have wanted such a feature instead of being left in the dark, tip of the hat to you Vinny, good job sir.

It's awesome. Was gonna ask why there weren't streams on Monday, but then I saw the thread. I just wish it would stay on the front page after an update or something. Surely there are still people who haven't seen it 'cause it's hidden unless you visit the forums.

@development: it would be interesting to see if the fact that it's only on the forums provides more traffic to the forums. It seems that the forums haven't been nearly as popular as years' past and I would welcome anything that contributes to an uptick in posts.

But back on topic: I agree with everyone here. It's a welcome inclusion as I always love Vinny explaining how the sausage gets made and how they've had to change their production model in the middle of these unfortunate times.

It's great. I think the only reason it works is because it's low commitment and informal, otherwise that upcoming box would work as well. So I think it just being a post on the forums is fine.

Audio drift sounds like a nightmare!

I also appreciate the updates and the general changes in production that are going on. It was what I've been hoping for.

I think it'll pick up steam (but of course I get why it all takes time) and we can get back to some regular feeling features hopefully. I would love to see some kind of new playthrough series soon, or maybe the return of Exquisite Corps. Been waiting for the XCOM 2 version.

Take that vacation time, Vinny! You deserve it!

Vinny is back and so are the updates. Thank so much! I continue to appreciate the brief look behind the curtain of the plans each week.

Just wanted to bring this back with @vinny making another lost. Thanks so much for the continued updates and info about what to expect this week and beyond. Appreciate all the work!