Topic by Nach

Posted: 4/1/2014 12:43 AM
(Edited: 4/2/2014 1:21 PM)

Post subject: TASVideos Pro

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

We're launching a new professional gaming site for our best TASers. On this site, our entertainment requirements will be a step beyond current TASing practice. We'll also be awarding players who get a professional run published with $100. If you have a run which you think is really special, upload it to userfiles marked as private. Then alert an administrator with a link to your run to review. Players with runs published on TASVideos Pro will get 1 year free membership. For everyone else, the cost is an inexpensive $25 USD per month. Members will also receive access to our ultra-fast CDN for getting HD encodes of every video. We still have a few logistical issues to work out, so we're only giving our professional players who earned their keep access at the moment. For everyone else, we should have a PayPal account setup later this week. For more information, please see our wiki page.

Edit: Based on feedback, it seems we have more planning to do and issues to work out than we thought. See discussion for more details.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 12:57 AM

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Noxxa

They/Them

Moderator, Expert player (4138)

Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands

Whoa, just noticed the Donkey Kong Country publication. Sub one minute, nice. Didn't think you were able to push it down so low.

http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa <dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects. <Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits <adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.

Posted: 4/1/2014 12:59 AM

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jlun2

Skilled player (1706)

Joined: 9/17/2009
Posts: 4952
Location: ̶C̶a̶n̶a̶d̶a̶ "Kanatah"

Wow, that was awesome! It featured incredible runs such as Super Mario Bros. in 03:24.02 by adelikat. Infact, my favourite part of the run was this:

LLCoolDave wrote:

This seems to be competing for the "Worst looking TAS of 2011" Award.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:02 AM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

Mothrayas wrote:

Whoa, just noticed the Donkey Kong Country publication. Sub one minute, nice. Didn't think you were able to push it down so low.

Yeah, it's very very good. We managed to publish a few runs shortly after this announcement went up. Still have nearly a dozen TASs queued up to encode for the pro site, these new HD encodes take a while, Hope I can get at least one more published within the next couple of hours. So check back then.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:04 AM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

Very funny. You don't even have an account yet.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:06 AM

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ars4326

He/Him

Experienced player (764)

Joined: 12/8/2012
Posts: 706
Location: Missouri, USA

Did I just see a DOS Quake run?

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Corinthians 2:9

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:08 AM

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Bobo_the_King

Player (79)

Joined: 8/5/2007
Posts: 865

Wow! I'm so eager to sign up! I know the PayPal address isn't up yet, so can I just give you my credit card information directly? Superfied Credit Union Bobo T. King 5675 116 116 1352 Exp. 13/16

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:11 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Gee, talk about elitism. Times like this make it hard for me to be indifferent about the future of TASVideos. Feelings of regret of giving over the site do surface. This website was founded on the principle of content being freely available to others. It grew out of the need to provide content and make it accessible in good quality without extra hoops for people to jump through. I do not approve of this project. I do realize the main TASVideos site is going to remain free for all users, but shifting focus, even if so slightly, towards a pay-site means that less content will be available for the public, and this is not an acceptable direction. TASVideos is about cultural preservation. Compare it to a library, or a school (that focuses in just one topic). Barricading that information behind a paywall is a bad idea; one that certainly will stifle the development of TAS culture in the future, if this project is to grow. TL/DR: I do not support this new "pro" site.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:15 AM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

Bisqwit, I understand your frustration, this started as your baby. But adelikat and I aren't getting any younger, and we have children to feed. As a middle ground, any obsoleted runs from TASVideos Pro will be submitted and published on the main site. The encodes on the main site won't be HD though, and you'll have to stick to torrents, YouTube and archive.org.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:21 AM

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skychase

He/Him

Joined: 3/25/2007
Posts: 212
Location: Quebec, Canada

April fools ? Damn, I could watch naked tatooed girls all year for 1/6 of this price. Edit: 03:24.02 SMB, yeah right ¬_¬

http://www.youtube.com/user/skychase2rebirth/

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:25 AM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Nach wrote:

Bisqwit, I understand your frustration, this started as your baby. But adelikat and I aren't getting any younger, and we have children to feed.

Well, frankly, this suggested business model is not likely to produce anything but mere pennies, if even that. I don't know which CDN you are talking about, but from what I know the subscription fees to high-speed content delivery networks are quite high, and if you are going to use one of those, your membership fees just aren't going to cover it and leave you any reasonable amount of money to cover both of your living expenses. I'd say waste of effort, waste of dividing up the audience, and waste of a good website.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:29 AM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

skychase wrote:

April fools ?

We picked today as our launch day, so if things don't go over so well, we can pull the plug and say it's just a joke.

skychase wrote:

Damn, I could watch naked tatooed girls all year for 1/6 of this price.

CDN hosting isn't cheap. Please see this pricing calculator.

skychase wrote:

Edit: 03:24.02 SMB, yeah right ¬_¬

People once thought that about SMW too. Then you have runs like this. Total control is the new way to TAS. I wish we would've spoken to cpadolf though to get his Super Metroid run published on the new site. We forgot about him when we looked over TASers who make the must cutting edge movies to approach about early access.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:36 AM
(Edited: 4/1/2014 1:43 AM)

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

Bisqwit wrote:

Well, frankly, this suggested business model is not likely to produce anything but mere pennies, if even that.

Time will tell.

Bisqwit wrote:

I don't know which CDN you are talking about,

Rackspace Cloud Files.

Bisqwit wrote:

from what I know the subscription fees to high-speed content delivery networks are quite high, and if you are going to use one of those, your membership fees just aren't going to cover it and leave you any reasonable amount of money to cover both of your living expenses.

If this doesn't seem to work out so well, we'll pull the plug. It's why we specifically decided to go into the launch process today, in order to gauge interest. If it doesn't go well, you know the drill. You're the one who invented using today as a day to test run new objectives and designs. Alternatively, if the CDN bit is losing money, we'll drop the CDN feature, and just use private torrents. Maybe even substantially slash the price if we go that route. What does everyone think?

Bisqwit wrote:

I'd say waste of effort, waste of dividing up the audience, and waste of a good website.

Everyone on pro still has access here, so it's not true division. We're also not doing game resources on the new site, and leaving it all here in the public. The only thing non paying members will miss out on is immediate access to the best runs, and the fast to download HD encodes. Regarding audience, I'm sure some runs will get leaked anyway, so they'll get discussed by the mass public in any case.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:42 AM

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NhatNM

He/Him

Experienced player (705)

Joined: 6/17/2009
Posts: 600
Location: Vietnam

Hi all!! First I have agree the donate way, it'll make TAS site have funding, then the site can improve everything Second I want say, I think the word "PRO" isn't correct there mean. With my understand, the word pro mean ppl have high skill, high tecth, hight something blah blah. Maybe my enghlish too bad for full understall you there want mean, but with this if ppl didn't donate then are they not pro? Or else, if ppl was donate then they're pro although they didn't anything.... I think change to word "VIP" or "Highland" or something like this will have correct its mean

A man come from Vietnam My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NhatNM/playlists

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:45 AM
(Edited: 4/1/2014 1:50 AM)

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

Nach wrote:

You're the one who invented using today as a day to test run new objectives and designs.

Actually, Google did. I just think it was a splendid idea. However, it does not apply in this case, because you need a longer period of time to gauge the interest and plausibility of it than just one day. In any case, I can't help but wish to this project a quick and silent death; if not for anything else, but for that it runs against the very principles on which this site was founded. I do commend your HTTP authentication implementation though. P.S. Thanks for granting me the access. Despite what I wrote earlier, I did enjoy watching the new no-magnetbeam Rockman TAS. I can't wait to see the reaction of the bigger audience -- whenever that day might be. Hopefully soon, when the "pro" site fails.

Posted: 4/1/2014 1:45 AM

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Nach

Emulator Coder

Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers

Hi xxNKxx, we're naming it "pro" because all runs on the new site are made by professional TASers. The players are also paid, so it's the professional counterpart to the free and hobbyist TASVideos.

Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

Posted: 4/1/2014 2:03 AM

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Heidman

Former player

Joined: 9/13/2010
Posts: 138
Location: Tallahassee, FL

A few questions: What are the measures to be sure that the pro content stays private? By dividing the views up for and keeping the top tier stuff away from the public, how does that promote the community to converse and help improve and come up with new strats?

Posted: 4/1/2014 2:36 AM

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dekutony

Experienced player (630)

Joined: 11/23/2013
Posts: 2208
Location: Guatemala

Aww... But I like free TASes! I like the Youtube and Nico encodes and... The free stuff! Do I, a poor Guatemalan dude, have to pay that much for watch new runs?!?!? I am sorry, but my brain cannot process this... April Fools? In my place we never celebrate that... and it just seems like a joke to me. I want free stuff!!! NOW!!!

Here, my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dekutony

Posted: 4/1/2014 2:54 AM

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AverageTrey

Joined: 2/18/2014
Posts: 10
Location: United States

Daaaang, that sub 5 sm64 tas was sick.

Posted: 4/1/2014 3:21 AM

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NitroGenesis

He/Him

Editor, Experienced player (551)

Joined: 12/24/2009
Posts: 1873

Whenever I try opening the 11bit555 files I get a black screen. Which media players are reccomended? I'm using VLC.

YoungJ1997lol wrote:

Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.

Posted: 4/1/2014 3:35 AM

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MrTickles

Joined: 12/11/2010
Posts: 60

This has to be a joke.

Posted: 4/1/2014 3:44 AM

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RedGreenSonic

Joined: 6/16/2011
Posts: 48

I am actually totally on Bisqwit's side on this argument--I shouldn't ever have to pay money to watch a fucking TAS. These runs are supposed to be done because people enjoy both making and watching them, not as a money-making obligation. I would be a little less pissed if AT LEAST some regular SD encodes were posted to the normal site, but this completely goes against everything TAS has ever been for me: community, sharing techniques and findings with EVERYONE--shit like that. Not to mention the most important part--enjoyment. This completely ruins all of that.

Posted: 4/1/2014 3:51 AM

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hegyak

Editor

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 1466
Location: Not playing Puyo Tetris

The Prince of Oceans shalst take from the evil hands Natch and his devious minions to bringth to his peasants all the encodes and submissions. The Prince of Ocean cares for his peasants.

When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war. The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

Posted: 4/1/2014 4:02 AM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

“2014‑03‑22 N64 Super Mario 64 04:59.52 adelikat” I lol’d. nice one

Posted: 4/1/2014 4:03 AM

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Grincevent

Active player (306)

Joined: 8/21/2012
Posts: 429
Location: France

I've heard, err... read, sorry, on IRC that members could have access earlier to the new versions of BizHawk (and maybe other rerecording emulators). I'm not sûre if I understood it correctly because english is not my first language. Does it mean that the latest versions will be held back for some time for non "pro" TASers or something else? Maybe it was a joke, I didn't read the conversation from the beginning, that's why I'm asking here. If it's true, then mayyybe I'll consider getting the membership. Big maybe.

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