Posted: 4/4/2013 5:22 PM
Post subject: What takes so long from submission to publication
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Arthur42Wonko
Joined: 8/15/2008
Posts: 13
Location: homee
Probably not right topic and probably this question has been asked many times before. How does the submission process work and why does it take so long before the video is up on the site? And may that process take less time in the future?
N/A?
Posted: 4/4/2013 5:53 PM
(Edited: 4/6/2013 10:45 AM)
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Noxxa
They/Them
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Arthur42Wonko wrote:
Probably not right topic and probably this question has been asked many times before. How does the submission process work and why does it take so long before the video is up on the site? And may that process take less time in the future?
The exact process is as follows:
  1. The player (TASer) submits an emulator movie file to the site. (status: new). A discussion thread for the movie will appear in the Workbench.
  2. The viewerbase watches the run (if the player provides an encode, this will stimulate viewership much) and provides feedback through the voting system, and by posting in the submission discussion threads.
  3. A Judge will also claim a run for judgment (status: judging underway), and will also watch the run, check its validity and note the feedback from the viewerbase about the movie.
  4. After a minimum of 72 hours, the judge will make a verdict to accept or reject the run, depending on the technical quality of the run and the viewerbase feedback on entertainment. (status: decision: accepted or decision: rejected). The judge also decides which tier the movie will be published in, if accepted. If rejected, the run will be left in gruefood.
  5. If a movie is accepted, it can be claimed by a Publisher (status: publication underway). The task of the publisher is to create high-quality low-sized encodes for watching, YouTube streams, torrents, etc. on the site.
  6. When a publisher is done publishing, the movie will appear on the site as a publication on the front page.
How long a submission takes depends on the qualities of the movie: its movie length, the console/emulator it is on, how well-known the game is, etc. There are a number of potential bottlenecks:
  • There's always a minimum of three days (72 hours) for judgment, so no publication can be done in less than 72 hours.
  • If a movie is long or the game is unknown, people will be less interested in watching, and judges will be less hasty to claim.
  • If no encode is provided, people will be less interested to watch. This is especially true with newer consoles (i.e. PSX and up) because most viewers do not want to download ISOs that are hundreds of megabytes large just to watch one run.
  • Certain consoles (N64 and PSX in particular) are a large pain encode with optimal quality, and therefore take a very long time to publish.
If you're wondering about specific instances like the current Ocarina of Time run in the workbench, see the fourth reason above. As for your final question: Yes, the process may take less time... if we have better AVI dumping-capable emulators (PCSX-rr and Mupen64-rr are both notorious offenders of being tricky to dump properly). And more powerful hardware to render the HD-quality encodes that they receive. Although, still, for proper feedback, it will always take a few days minimum. Otherwise, a run cannot get enough feedback to properly judge. I hope this answers most of your questions.
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: 7/24/2015 12:07 PM
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Muhahahahaz
Joined: 4/2/2015
Posts: 3
Location: Southern California
I'm not sure if this is the right place, but since this is a sticky regarding the submission process, here it goes. I was wondering what the rules are regarding improvements on an existing movie? I'm more of a speedrunner than a TASer, but I've found a few improvements on an existing TAS for a game that I speedrun (the improvements are of the routing and game mechanics nature, as opposed to "execution"). The game is for NES, so I know how to use the FCEUX TAS editor well enough. Also, I have most of the relevant RAM addresses, so I could theoretically create my own movie from scratch. However, that would take a lot of time, and I'm not sure if it's required. Also, I'm mainly interested in speed rather than adding any "entertainment", so any brand-new video I made might be boring. I've already managed to improve the movie by 18 frames, and there may be more on the way. It's a rather small amount, I know, but considering that the Super Mario Bros. TAS (with Warps) was improved by a single frame by HappyLee (and the obsoleted movie was by someone else), I can see that small improvements may be relevant. Anyway, considering that a majority of the inputs in "my" video will be the work of someone else, I have no problem seeing it listed under their username or whatever (though I would hope to have my name mentioned :-P). But as a newbie here, I just have no idea what the protocol for such a thing would be? Thanks in advance. :) (And of course, I would have no problem contacting the original submitter if it becomes relevant. In fact, I've PMed with him once before, although it was in regards to my speedruns of the game as opposed to TASing.)
Posted: 7/24/2015 12:17 PM
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xy2_
Editor, Experienced player (854)
Joined: 5/2/2015
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Muhahahahaz wrote:
-snip-
The rules on improvement are: if it's faster, it gets published 99.9% of the time. The only exeptions are emulator changes (load times) and obscure cases. You're welcome to submit any improvement you find, even if it is less interesting/reuses 90% of input, but if you reuse input you should co-author whoever inputs you're using.
Youtube
Posted: 7/24/2015 12:20 PM
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Samsara
She/They
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Well, we almost always accept improvements regardless of entertainment value. There are some rare cases where improvements are rejected, but that mostly happens in two cases: * There are still more improvements to be had, or a faster TAS out there * There's no actual gameplay improvement, as in the "improvement" is just faster text or something similar As long as you directly improve the published run, it'll be accepted even if it's only 1 or 2 frames. Faster is faster. Entertainment is a bit of a dodgy subject, but a more "boring" movie shouldn't make any difference on what the audience thinks. If your movie is mostly input from the published run, then it's highly recommended you give co-authorship credit to that runner. Permission shouldn't be necessary as long as co-author credit is given. Hopefully that answers your questions.
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Posted: 7/24/2015 1:27 PM
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Muhahahahaz
Joined: 4/2/2015
Posts: 3
Location: Southern California
Cool, thank you xy2_ and Samsara for such quick and useful information. I will make sure to give co-authorship to the other TASer when I submit. :) Also, I just realized that I should make a movie for 100% as well, considering I speedrun that category, but there isn't a TAS of it yet. It's only about 3 minutes longer than the 8 minute Any% TAS, so it might be a good place for me to learn some TASing from scratch. :D By the way, is there any room for "Theory TASes" on this site? Theory TAS meaning a TAS that is supposed to represent a run that a human could actually achieve (as opposed to one that uses TAS-only tricks). I already made one for the game in question as a tool for the (admittedly few) speedrunners of it, but I didn't have anywhere to post the FM2 file.
Posted: 7/24/2015 1:43 PM
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ais523
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1029
My guess (I don't know the rules for certain) is that a TAS under those rules wouldn't be published as part of the site, but could be hosted in userfiles (which is normally used for route demos and works in progress) and would be worth posting in the thread about the individual game. People who are interested in the game might well want to watch it.
Posted: 7/24/2015 1:57 PM
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Muhahahahaz
Joined: 4/2/2015
Posts: 3
Location: Southern California
ais523 wrote:
My guess (I don't know the rules for certain) is that a TAS under those rules wouldn't be published as part of the site, but could be hosted in userfiles (which is normally used for route demos and works in progress) and would be worth posting in the thread about the individual game. People who are interested in the game might well want to watch it.
Cool, thanks. I didn't know about userfiles or anything like that, so I'll have to check it out. :)
Posted: 7/24/2015 4:31 PM
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ALAKTORN
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Posted: 7/25/2015 5:30 PM
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CoolKirby
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Muhahahahaz wrote:
Also, I just realized that I should make a movie for 100% as well, considering I speedrun that category, but there isn't a TAS of it yet. It's only about 3 minutes longer than the 8 minute Any% TAS, so it might be a good place for me to learn some TASing from scratch. :D
Go for it! It'll be a fun learning experience for you, and a nice TAS to watch for the rest of us.