This week vanished into the ether. It is gone now.
The audio from the HotSpot is exporting now and should be up soon along with the video. Brad did me a solid and made the page for it which might not sound a like a HUGE deal, but I really do not like writing the descriptions for things. After over a decade of writing descriptions for things I just sometimes don't know... how to describe them. You'd think I'd have gotten the hang of it. Thank you Brad!
Ok, export is done on the HotSpot. Going to upload it and will update this with some other stuff from week when that's done and the VinnyVania is exporting.
--Vinny
EDIT: Actually, VinnyVania is up and I'm going to grab some dinner because it's tacos and I'm not missing that... update later!
EDIT - THE TACOS WERE DELICIOUS:
Ok gonna keep this short because I just heard that Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed away and my mind is kind of reeling.
This weekend I'll be joining Drew Scanlon to help raise money to help fund multiple sclerosis research. You can watch at giantbomb.com/chat or youtube.com/clothmap at 10AM Pacific | 1PM Eastern on Sunday.
Cripes, I forgot how tiring these virtual school/hybrid learning/remote learning/whatever days are!
Here's a fun thing, though. I do woodworking, but mostly with hand tools and that means building anything takes centuries. A flat piece of wood one might call a "shelf" will take 3 months. So, when we finally decided (3 days ago) that the two kids need proper desks instead of using the kitchen table (fine) and an aluminum folding camping table (not as fine) I got to buy a new power tool. I mean, those kids need desks, right? RIGHT. Dang right. Let me dip right into that household slush fund. Didn't even have to come out of my Transformers budget. Now those desks will only take half a century to get done.
Speaking of getting it done. I'm currently awaiting Alex's files of Mass Alex so I can process them for tomorrow morning. We thought we'd get through most of the party DLC stuff, but turns out... it's very long! Still very enjoyable though. Strap in for some pull-ups.
Tomorrow is the Sony thing and I just made a YouTube upcoming for it. I swear they change that interface every 30 seconds... Or I'm extremely old. Or both.
If you're wondering if I played Factorio during my two weeks off I didn't except for one, very fun, multiplayer session with my brother. I don't think I touched anything but Microsoft Flight Sim and Spiritfarer the whole time.
Vinny's Top Ten Games of 2020
Microsoft Flight Simulator and/or Spiritfarer... Last of Us 2? I can't do this now.
If you don't know, it was announced today that ViacomCBS is selling CNET (which includes us) to a company called Red Ventures.
I know folks are extremely curious about what this all means, but we, or at the very least I, honestly don't know the answers. A lot of meetings today but detailed information isn't available yet and especially nothing yet that I could even translate into how this might affect you and what we do.
So the week continues!
Alex and I are hoping to get Mass Alex recorded tomorrow! WooHoo! Give me my comfort food!
We're going to talk over the Sony's PS5 event on Wednesday. Price? Has to be, right?
Friday! Am I right? Busy, but not so bad as Friday's go. Unless maybe if you're Alex who got the back-to-back-to-back Triple Dipple stream goodness today with Clue Crew, HotSpot, and VinnyVania. Thanks Alex!
Our site video player allows us to put an archive of the show back on the site almost immediately after it's broadcast, but only if we don't reuse the same chat for another stream. In practice, that means if there are two shows back to back you have to close the chat, boot everyone out, and have everyone file back in if you want to use that function. It's why, even for premium things, we generally weren't able to use that version of the archive for shows during the heat of Lockdown. That being said, with some breaks between shows now, we're able to use it again. When you see a version of a show up that doesn't have Download options, that's what you're looking at. It's basically just replaying to you what was streamed, at that same quality it was streamed.
I say that because The HotSpot and VinnyVania are currently in that state on the site as I type this and begin to process those archives. They should be fully archived soon.
Rorie's The Hellfire Club stream also just ended as I'm typing this all out so make sure to check out the archive when it's up!
Here's some stuff from this week to also keep you busy:
I'll be on vacation next week so probably no VinnyVania and Mass Alex (mmmaaaybe... we'll see).
To celebrate, here's a clip of when Alex and I were trying to record the QL for Madden and as soon we started my microphone stopped working and then I hard crashed. For some reason I find it very funny.
Loading Video...
Enjoy the end Celebrate the passing of summer and see you in a bit.
BUT even if you're not interested go check the Quick Look for Spiritfarer. I feel like a lot of folks are going to miss this game, and so far it's one of my favorites this year and might even crack some other favorite lists of mine... we'll see.
We're going to be talking over the Gamescom thingy in a little bit at giantbomb.com/chat so join us there. Here's a picture of me mugging for the camera while Jan gets things setup.
Very handsome.
After that we'll have The Giant Beastcast. We're aiming for 4PM Eastern but if things run long on Gamescom we'll just start after that. It's just Alex, Jeff B., and myself this week as Abby is on PTO (paid time off... I realized when I write PTO not everyone knows what that means. It's a vacation day).
Alex is going to be taking a break from drumming today as he tweaked something in his body but wanted me to let you know that "I'll be back next week with a longer set to make up for it" which sounds bananas, but those are his words.
Lastly, here's an image sent into The Beastcast by Hank. I think... I hate it.
On my calendar for today is recording a QL for Madden with Alex. Sadly, probably we won't have our annual usual scrimmage (I think Alex's is scared to face me) due to the part where local multiplayer for the consoles is off the table due to us... you know... not being local and buying another copy of the game just for that seemed a little much.
Then it's off to an hour meeting.
Then it's back to another recording with Alex for a QL for SpiritFarer, which I have really been enjoying.
Right after that it's time to test out that Playdate for Among Us. By test, I mean play it live with all of you and most of the staff. Excited, but a little nervous.
After that's up and archived I'll try and turn at least that Madden QL around for today and post it.
But that's not all! I believe Jan and Ben are doing an Unfinished for Rogue Legacy, Abby had her Rhythm Fever stream (archive should be hitting soon I suspect), and Jan is scheduled for some Pokemon later today.
Don't forget we've got that stream tomorrow for gamescom as well!
Time to go record.
--Vinny
UPDATE 000001:
Moved the start time for the Playdate back 30 minutes to allow for a bit of room between our next QL recording the start of the stream. I suspect I'm going to need some time to arrange this scene once everybody joins...
Not too much to report today as folks are prepping games to record QLs tomorrow, and also recording the Bombcast, AND also I've got to duck out around 4PM to attempt to take the family to the dentist... We'll see how that goes. We've put it off for about 6 months but we feel pretty comfortable at this point that they are taking the proper precautions. Still weird and I guess we can audible if things feel... not great.
Mass Alex is on its way through the system and should be posting soon. I can't put it in the upcoming without giving it a specific posting time and if I'm off by estimating it being done early it just won't post and people will wonder where it is, and if I'm off by estimating late, you'll have to wait longer while it sits there waiting. There's no option for "2PM or when it's done... whichever comes first." So it will just go live when it's ready.
I played a bunch of SpiritFarer last night and I love it am really enjoying it. I feel like when I put it down I was starting to get tingles that things could become tedious... but I'm definitely going to play more, so we'll see. QL recording tomorrow with Alex and I'll have more to say on The Beastcast this week.
First off, hope everyone out there is safe. I know a lot of our team is dealing with smoke and the safety of themselves and their families during the fires in California. This could and probably will affect some of our recording and availability for certain members. Stay safe!
In lighter news, I'm trying to go on vacation for two weeks! Well, by go on vacation I mean just try and spend some actual time with the family (and get some personal stuff done) before the kids get back to (home?) school. It's been, and more importantly FEELS like awhile (last Oct) since I put in for time off but also... what is time even anymore? It's been hard to even think about taking time off when so many people are struggling with employment, but when I realized the kids start school in a week and a half and we haven't really done anything all summer, the guilt built up. Also, I'm fried.
Back to THIS week.
Alex and I should be recording some of that Mass Alex today [in ten minutes!] so maybe I'll put that up as soon as I can seeing as we missed last week and MIGHT miss next week... though maybe we'll sneak another in.
We've got folks getting some games ready today and tomorrow for recording later in the week. We're looking to get QLs up for SpiritFarer, Battletoads, Mortal Shell, Madden 21, and also an Unfinished for Rogue Legacy 2. Now, that's the plan, but of course things could shift and slide around, especially if we hit recording issues. These will probably all land Wednesday and after so keep an eye out.
We're looking to have a BIG Playdate this Wednesday with Among Us. We haven't tested it all yet, but that's the plan. I'm looking forward to it.
We'll have a delayed live Beastcast this Thursday because we're going to stream and talk over the gamescom Opening Night Live. Depending on how long that goes the Beastcast should be right after.
Then on Friday we're looking to have some VinnyVania with Curse of the Moon 2. Which means we'll probably not finish the whole thing and I'll have to pick it up again in 2 weeks... the way it was meant to be played, I'm sure.
Those are just some of the items we talked about in our production meeting today, but look out for other streams and videos going on throughout the week.
--Vinny
UPDATE
Finished recording Mass Alex with Alex. Long(er) episode this week. A lot to get though. Alex is uploading his files so I can process them (around a 2hr upload) and I'll probably set the export to go overnight. Look for that to go up at some point tomorrow.
Later today we'll have The Beastcast where I'll talk more about Flight Sim and Jeff Gerstmann will be there as well for his thoughts on Battletoads.
And, of course, this is the spot where I will continue to post about how I need to spend more time with Factorio's full release.
UDPATE
The MS Flight Simulator QL is up now! I originally tried to get this up before The Beastcast and it was down to the wire. Even pushed the show back a bit because I wanted to get that upload in before streaming. Turns out the version Premiere kicked out was missing... um.. 3GB of data? Not sure what happened there, usually this can happen if Media Encoder crashes during a write or something but I didn't see any errors. I didn't know this file was bad at the time. I spot checked the file, it played fine, run time was correct, and I uploaded it and asked Rorie to keep an eye on it while I immediately started The Beastcast. He messaged me not long after saying the offsite compressions were all broken. So, during The Beastcast's first break I checked the export and sure enough, if I tried to scrub the playhead of the movie past a certain point things would crash. I had to wait until after the show to re-export and re-upload and that brings us up to now.
Here is the image of the two file sizes and run times. Metadata is weird. You can see the time stamps for basically when The Beastcast starts and when it ends (plus the 20 minutes of export time) for each file finishing which is fun... I guess.... if you're me.
Always something.
Anyway, working on processing Beastcast now and should be up later tonight.
Enjoy!
UPDATE AGAIN!
As I was scrubbing through and listening to the posted QL I noticed I really started stepping on Drew's audio and thought... that was really rude and then it just got comical by the end. Turns out I encountered one of my worst production nightmares. AUDIO DRIFT.
Honestly, with how taxing this game was on my PC I had worried about it and initially, for our first recording had favored giving all the CPU to the game didn't do a spare recording. Mistake. This time I did and luckily I was able to use the backup. Drift is weird. I'm never sure why it appears, but it usually seems related to taxing a computer. Things start fine and by the end the sync is way off. It can happen with files with identical formats, rates, you name it. I can't state enough how much I despise it.
Here's an example. These are two recordings of my mic during the QL. The top waveform is the one that drifts while the bottom is the one that stays in sync. You can see they start fine.
By the end:
It's a nightmare.
I found this spot where MAYBE something happened and you can see a longer gap on the one that stays in sync (the bottom) versus the shorter gap on the top file. I've seen stuff like this before and it's bizarre. Maybe an audio person out there knows why this happens, where a program will clip a recording. I hate it.
Either way I think I found the issue. I was glad to have a backup. Sometimes you have to go through the whole file and methodically slice and reposition each bit to get it back. Sometimes if it's a steady drift over time (and not a lot) you can actually get away with time stretching the file and kind of cheat your way back into sync without changing too much of someone's audio pitch. It's always a pain no matter how you slice it and I've stopped using certain capture programs because of it.
The fixed file should be uploading now and live soon... but now you are more aware of dreaded Audio Drift.
Update.....
Still waiting for The Beastcast to finish processing through the system... and I can only assume that if I type that here it will go faster and I can be done. It's so close but it has been taunting me at 91%... for so long. Why taunt me so? (it's not done yet. guess this isn't working. going to watch transformer reviews). WAIT one of the videos just finished! Well if you read this and the free version isn't showing up yet you know why, hopefully that follows soon!
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