Sea Beasts: Episode 08

Trying out some stuff with multiple feeds in one stream so let me know what you think. I think we can solve some of the latency between my stream (for example) and the others by all of us hitting a common endpoint instead of me inserting my local feed. At that point it shouldn't be too much for a staff member to switch between feeds (if they aren't also playing!) I'm curious if people would prefer the all-in-one or the 4 separate feeds if they had to choose.

@vinny: I definitely prefer all four feeds in one stream, for what it's worth! It's much easier from a viewer's perspective and not too intrusive in a game with a minimal HUD like Sea of Thieves

@vinny:

I would prefer four separate feeds to choose from and/or all in one, but each video being equal sized, the way it is on that site that merges all the Minecraft videos together

I watched live tonight and there wasn't really much point in the other streams being on the screen because they're just too small to really make out whats going on with them. I guess for reference, I was watching it on a 42" TV and not sat up next to a monitor, maybe in that case the 1 large, 3 small works a bit better?

@vinny: If I had to choose I'd rather the separate feeds instead of just one. But I'm biased and wrote my own code to watch multiple videos at the same time.

@vinny: Definitely would prefer multiple streams instead of this combination. But I'd also rather YOUR feed take up the full screen. I don't see the point in cropping the gameplay to put up borders that serve no purpose.

Love the native multi-feed views, but make the other feed a little bigger that’s just me

This is my layout on Firefox

But I know you can’t please everybody

I like all-in-one. I'm usually watching on a set top box or my phone where's there's no real way to use the multi streams that's a good time.

I'll slightly prefer all-in-one but definitely not the above implementation as the other three feeds are way too small to be of seen clearly. I would rather a single feed than that.

Four feeds would probably be my preference if the three smaller ones were larger.

I would prefer 4 feeds in one, but as a four grid set up, rather than one main one and the other sides overlapping. But It would also be nice to have each person's separate feed available to watch full screen if that was available.

I guess what i'm saying is, have one of the producers who isn't on the stream, get the feeds from everybody and stream out 1 video feed with all four people like you do on the beastcast. But then also have everybody else record and stream their separate feeds for people who would like to watch it that way.

ETA: But don't waste a ton of space with borders like the bombcast does. Do it like the beastcast where everyone takes up their full corner of the stream.

Separate feeds > Equal sized (like 4-way splitscreen multiplayer) > This > This with the focus being switched

I don't mind the smaller video with the border if it means less of the gameplay is being covered. Having facecam/separate feeds on the outside of the main gameplay like UPF would be ideal for this.

@alex I feel your pain buddy

I would much rather watch this in a 2x2 grid. The non-main feeds are too small in this setup.

IMO the picture-in-picture setup only works for 1 extra video and it needs to be much larger than these.

I would also prefer having 4 equally sized screens, which is how I'm watching the minecraft stuff through the thing @jetlag made

I gotta say I'm loving how spicy this stream got! Brad starting pirate beef is great, although Abby missing out on a lot of it wasn't D:

I'm down for a few different types of multiple POVs. Just happy Sea Beasts is back tbh

Four streams in one feed is great for casual viewing, such as watching from the Giant Bomb Enthusiast app, etc. :)

I really like this set up. I like the added production value and makes it easier to watch for me rather than having to use those community made tools to watch and sync the videos.

My only criticism is I don't know how I feel about the tiny border on the left and top of the screen. It's either too big or too small but maybe it's just right?

Picture in Picture looks fine for me, I just prefer having the choice to watch the individual archives because the non-vin sources are a little small on the ipad screen I use for most of my watching.

ty, Captains all.

I also like the way Vinny has been cropping his camera. I have no idea why my brain does this but for some reason it now looks like he's behind the screen looking through a hole rather than just a layer on top.

I like this picture and picture though I think the secondary streams could be a bit bigger? Having them sync up a little better would be much appreciated too.

Great job though! Group streams are the best content you all do and it's awesome you guys are experimenting with different ways to deliver them!

@vinny: If you can potentially solve the latency as you say, then I prefer the multiple streams in one look. The other feeds are a tad on the small size though, so it might be worth experimenting to find a balance, without compromising the main feed too much (I watch on a monitor / TV).

I think this multi-feed setup would be ace for a two person stream (like Astroneer!).

The all-in-one view works well for me, especially if there's no latency between viewpoints. It's great since everyone is in such close-quarters and generally has different perspectives of the same thing.

But! for e.g. the Minecraft streams I really like individual videos. Every player has such different playstyles and experiences that I feel like you'd miss out on a lot if it was all-in-one.

If I had to choose one, I'd go with all-in-one. I like the layout used in this video. It'd be great if the secondary streams were a bit bigger, but I'm not sure how the positioning would work so that's more of a wish than a need.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

@vinny: Great stuff. I like what you did with your webcam stream, the little portrait. Are you gonna add the others too? You could cram them in where you put the names. I guess ultimately you'd want to be able to swap who's gameplay is the focus on the fly on the stream, and in a final upload. And let users swap manually too. But baby steps

Wouldn't sea blood just be water?

Big fan of this setup! Thanks Vinny and crew.

I prefer this setup with the all in one. I’m not going to assemble the other feeds on my own and I’m not going to watch more than one feed (I don’t have that kind of time.)

@vinny I'm super appreciative of getting these as 1 video! If I had to choose, I'd say go with 4 quadrants for 1 video in an overlay. Everyone encounters fun moments, and it's a bit easier to see what everyone is up to. Thanks for posting this! (For dual streams, I think you once had a side-by-side in an overlay that looked great. Can't remember where, but it worked well)

As for lag, I've been fine with just trying to coordinate the video to 1 person's audio and just going with that. It's enough. Rather tedious to do manually though. Thank you!

I appreciate that throughout all these streams Alex is concerned with driving the boat and driving the boat only.

I really dislike multiplayer games where players not on your team can mess with your PvE progress. It's like Everquest all over again but worse.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Generally seems like bigger is being brought up a lot. As far as some of the technical bits go like having All-In-One and multiple at the same time a lot of that will come down to if we dedicate someone to switch these streams and if switching between different vocal audio mixes on an All-In-One stream is too jarring (my gut says it would be). For me, ideally, the person switching the feeds would have clean gameplay audio for each stream and a dedicated vocal mix that is consistent no matter what view. That would mean, though, that each participant is streaming only gameplay audio without vocals. There are, of course TECHNICALLY ways to do both (each person doing multiple sends or remuxing downstream) but that would probably introduce so many technical hoops out of the gate that it's probably not reasonable in the near future. Maybe down the road.

I'm anxious to try more out, especially with some ideas to have the latency across all views line up better and being able to switch the action on the fly. I'm also curious to see how the quality of the non-local streams hold up when they are presented larger after being recompressed by someone switching.

Of course, the other option is just do it this all in post and not live, but where is the challenge in that?

Lol trust Abby to still play on an Xbox after getting a new gaming pc from work

@vinny I personally liked the way you did this. I have a pc with multiple monitors but I prefer to sit back and watch gb content on the tv instead. I don’t like being at my pc unless I’m actually doing something

That brief bit of hearing the other play audio had me in tears.

I loved the pirate double cross backfiring, Vinny and Brad were right he was going to try and get the drop and run, never trust a pirate!

Edit: Next time just raise the anchor and point his ship away.

I really like the production on this, did not notice latency, nice one!

First, I'm super excited to get a new Sea Beasts and it's so much nicer having everyone's stream visible.

More importantly, I've literally been campaigning for Presidency amongst friends, family, and coworkers for months now with the promise of blowing up the Sun. @Alex@vinny@ybbaaabby@brad Vote for me! "Let's Blow Up the Sun. Together!"

Love Alex as a pirate who is extremely against piracy lol. This series is great, hope Abby's technical issues are fixed for the next one!

Really enjoy this and glad it's back.

For the streaming; even when at full screen I find myself not watching anyone who isn't the primary. In this case Abby, Alex, and Brad are all too small and in an awkward location for me to remember to look at them. Perhaps larger windows and situated along the bottom would help? The delay between feeds is also pretty noticeable.

When I use the Giant Bomb Video Smoosher, I tend to have everyone in equal-sized windows. Just makes it easier to bounce perspectives without straining my eyes.

@vinny Please keep the multiple streams together like this, it was wonderful to be able to watch everyone as this craziness happened, especially when Alex started raging :)

Alex was just pissed off in this episode huh? The other crew members did well to just not pick him up on his incessant moaning.

I often watch GB videos on my phone, so I wouldn't be able to really make out anything of value from the smaller POVs. A game with not much of a HUD like Sea of Thieves is ok in that regard, but that doesn't exactly leave too many games either.

@vinny: Did you ever consider just having one person be essentially a video switcher and their sole purpose would be to switch between each member. That way you can always be full and jump to whoever has the action on screen. Also wouldn't that help eliminate the delay by essentially putting everyone on a delay since the switcher person would be pushing out the feed?

@vinny: I'm a weirdo that downloads all 2-4 streams and watches them on my 4K screen at 2.0 speed at once. Main complain is it's usually impossible to keep them in sync so I just deal with it.

It would be great if you guys would do a clap or someone die in minecraft so I could sync things easier.

Or if you want a super niche feature, for 4 streams encode to a 4K feed with audios synced. I know this would never happen as it would require too much work. If your web player supported faster playback speeds I would use it.

Thanks for what you guys are doing.

I like seeing all the Streams - would definitely take this over 3 separate streams. I'm not going to go to the effort of pulling up all the minecraft streams in separate windows, but I do get fomo when it sounds like Vinny is doing something cool and I'm watching Jan hit blocks.

In terms of size - the other 3 streams taking up the right third of the screen might be a good compromise?

I get that being mad about the lack of help on the boat was Alex's shtick, but eventually it was off-putting, especially when he decided to stop trying at all.

Abby is at her best when she's doing things with other GB peeps. It's a bummer that her shit keeps breaking.

@vinny: Where is the challenge indeed haha. I'm happy with it either way. It's a bit of a hassle manually combining all these views in the videos (though, apparently I should track down some of these utilities other people have made... Anyone wanna point me in the right direction?). Seems like it's a lot of work to do this live, but of course, I'd love to just say "both". Maybe just to have like a combined 4 person split screen view a day later?

But, think ya'll are doing a fantastic job already, either way.

This is neat but I'd still prefer the option to just be able to watch them separately. This particular solution doesn't help those like me that have multiple monitors and sync one on each. The three on the side are a little too small for me as well, ended up not looking at them often.

Ah, I see that Vinny and the Sea Beasters live by the Pirate's Code.

...

I second this! This works because everyone is always pretty much in the same general area and I like seeing those perpectives on one screen without having to get other streams up. So im pro multi perspectives.

But as you say im not sure it would work for minecraft. I kinda like everyone being off doing their own thing and only now and then getting a snippet of what other people are doing.

@vinny: I like all in one, Vinny. Helps when you watch streams like this and someone is somewhere else and they see something cool. Like being able to quickly reference what others are doing.

But when it comes to the main/big feed, I like yours the best always. Just like with Minecraft. I always go for your feed.

Also: hot damn I'm always impressed by the skies and waves in this game.

@vinny: I'd love for the feeds to be all-in-one, but slightly more even in size. Even if one is the "main" one with audio and slightly larger. I think the original in-studio Sea Beasts streams were set up this way and it worked very well.