Posted: 2/18/2010 7:11 PM
Post subject: A question of terminology
Quote
Warp
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
I think the term "movie file" is rather confusing. It refers to the file where the emulator stores the keypresses, but somebody who doesn't know this could get easily confused and think it refers to the multimedia video file (avi, mkv, mp4 or whatever) where the run has been encoded. I understand that the term is used more or less because of historical reasons. Some/most emulators use that term to refer to their recording files. The term "movie file" is used quite prominently in the movie pages, such as "Download snes9x movie file (.smv)". (The term "movie page" itself is slightly confusing here as well). This confusion about keypress files and video files actually sometimes causes problems when discussing about them. Sometimes it's easy to get confused about whether someone is talking about keypress files, video files, or both. Maybe it would be a good idea to clear up the terminology and make it more unambiguous?
Posted: 2/18/2010 7:15 PM
Quote
Nach
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
I hate this same dilemma yesterday actually. I had to write a message to a 3rd party regarding a partnership with TASVideos, and I had a hard time phrasing what I needed. I ended up using the term "movie" to describe a run, "author sequences" to describe emulator movie files, and "video files" to describe an encoding.
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: 2/18/2010 7:43 PM
Quote
moozooh
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away
"Movie file" -> "[key] input file". My pet peeve though is "movie editor" under my name. (For the record, I proposed "publication editor" instead the instant I read that the first time.)
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Posted: 2/18/2010 8:07 PM
Quote
Warp
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
If a better alternative to "movie file" is devised, it would be a plus if the name was so descriptive that people wouldn't have to guess what exactly it's referring to. While "input file" and "key input file" are clearly distinct from "video file", they might still cause confusion about what they are referring to. Something like "emulator keypress recording file" would be more descriptive, but is it too much of a mouthful?
Posted: 2/18/2010 8:13 PM
Quote
Derakon
Joined: 7/2/2007
Posts: 3960
I agree with Moozooh that "input file" works well here. It's intelligible enough in context, and it's brief. Your alternate suggestion, Warp, is indeed too much of a mouthful.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
Posted: 2/18/2010 8:16 PM
Quote
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (241)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
How about "ghost recording", refering to the already-known-by-gamers ghost replays from racing games? Not sure if it's a good idea, but it's one direction to think about. Maybe a simplistic way to call it would be "Gamepad replay file". You can easily explain if need be, that the file emulates a gamepad and replays the game everytime. The problems is that it is technically misleading on some aspects...
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios
Posted: 2/18/2010 8:29 PM
Quote
moozooh
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5770
Location: Away
"Replay file" could actually work because a lot of games allow you to save replays which are mostly identical to our usual key input files. "Ghost recording" would conflict with the existing concept of ghost recording which implies seeing an input "ghost" while you play.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.