Quote from Becky Rose :

It doesn't take me long to set these up, it takes far longer to record the actual footage than to setup a camera. It'll be handy, but not a major time saver at all.

I was thinking that would be better for "good enough" videos and live broadcasts. It probably wouldn't save you much time because of the format you use.

[quoteAgain though the issue becomes that of hand versus machine. Do programmers really know best? I sit on both sides of the fence here and I chose to do it by hand, I think that says a lot...[/quote]I agree that a human doing camera work by hand is generally going to be better. A machine will never have the same eye for beauty that a human does. However; the machine has a LOT of advantages over a human in that it can examine multiple camera angles, multiple cars, etc all at the same time. This is difficult to impossible for a human and can give a computer program a definite edge when it comes to "good enough" videos.

Hmmmzzz. I think we're actually agreeing on the subject.

One of the main problems with current video productions, and especially live broadcasts, is the camera movement is too accurate. In real life (as demonstrated in my first video) a camera, even when focussing on a single car, isn't perfectly aimed at the car. It moves around the car, changes focus, etc, etc. If that can be helped by an automated system (using insim this should be possible) it would add a tremendous amount of realism to videos.

Second part is overlays. The second movie has overlays. Not the best I've seen (I've seen 768k streams at high-res that used life-like widescreen overlays like on TV), but they were live overlays. This is also possible to create for LFS, both live (automated) and as a post-production add-on. This would also add to the immersion.

Next ingredient would be the director's chair. This is going to be a problem. This will be virtually impossible to do live, unless you have 15 screens showing every part of the track. Some kind of 'action' trigger using insim might help somewhat, but that's going to be one heck of a job. LFSMM has a feature like that, but that only works for post-race capturing.

The final problem (which can only be helped on post-race capturing) is the way screenshots are processed. NR2003S, GPL, and RBR have the best way of doing this, LFS, for lack of a better word, suX0rz at it. Although it could be done using insim, I suspect. You need to be able to advance the replay frame by frame (at say 29.97fps), and capture each and every frame without loss of quality.

In summary, the best way to capture in-game footage live and direct, with a realistic look would need the following features (either in LFS, or insim utilities):
- Realistically moving cameras
- Pre-defined custom track cameras (also, less restricted camera positions would help creating realistically placed cameras)
- Instant focussed car switch
- In-game overlays (of course selectable)

All of these could be created using insim. But for the moment, these features are not available.

NR2003 has the advantage that these pieces of software have already been written. The camera shots in the first video could've been used in the 2nd. It would require a lot more work for the people creating the broadcast, though.

Everything else is human work. We'll see how things progress... I'll try to make a video sometime soon from one of our XP Open races.

Quote from Jonas8431 :

the live TV show is done since 2004

http://www.automovilismovirtual.com/modules.php?name=videos

and this http://www.granprixvirtual.com/Videos/reality.html

There is in fact a homage to GPV in the first STCC video .

Anyway that's an aside. I do not believe that LFS should be knocked for not having a step by step frame rendering engine at the moment. I know some users of entry level computers would like it for video work, but video always has been and always will be something that requires an above average computer.

I capture at 800x600 at a locked 30 frames per second, this is above DVD quality, infact I cut out the outside edges of the frame. I rarely get dropped frames.

The fact that it is 'missing' from LFS is hardly an issue, you just need to use the right tools for the job and it's unfair to expect LFS to work with something like Fraps or Hypercam when you're on a low end or low-middle system.

Any half decent gaming rig these days is dual core, put a half decent graphics card in and problem solved.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I capture at 800x600 at a locked 30 frames per second, this is above DVD quality, infact I cut out the outside edges of the frame. I rarely get dropped frames.

Agreed, but post-processing messes up the quality of the movie.
I always capture at a whopping 50 or 60 fps (depending on where the movie will be shown). This has the advantage of creating excellent slow-mo footage, and it doesn't mess up the frametiming when creating a DVD (30fps needs to be downscaled to 25fps for PAL).
This unfortunately is hardly possible real-time without AV-drives and a stunning computer.

Quote :

The fact that it is 'missing' from LFS is hardly an issue, you just need to use the right tools for the job and it's unfair to expect LFS to work with something like Fraps or Hypercam when you're on a low end or low-middle system.

Any half decent gaming rig these days is dual core, put a half decent graphics card in and problem solved.

It's not 'missing' from LFS... It is possible. It would be nice to be able to capture at any resolution at any speed (120fps for all I care). The right tools simply aren't there yet. I'm not expecting LFS to work on any system and get the quality I want. I don't blame LFS for that. I understand why it's not in, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see it added nor see an insim app doing the capturing.

And no, to get really high quality videos (which I'm after), a half decent comp won't do. A high end comp won't quite do. There's always FPS fluctuations on any system, and those get recorded as well. But I think that's beyond the scope of what we are discussing (I'd be happy to discuss this further, though).

Quote from Jonas8431 :

and this http://www.granprixvirtual.com/Videos/reality.html

I don't understand a word of what they're saying, but I think this is the best vid I've seen so far. They show a walkthrough of the grid with driver names and qualifying highlights. They've got great looking overlays, including an animated logo for the series. The cars all look pretty professional with no real sloppy paint jobs or odd logos. The only knock against this vid is that they use the in-game cameras and tab through the field, in addition to using several "gamey" camera angles. Otherwise, this is top notch!

Absolutely, although aged now the GPV coverage looked excellent although I only understood one word in eight (one word in seven if you count driver names... ). Some of the things GPV did with their coverage inspired some of the things you see and some of the things coming with the STCC, although I only descovered in the build up to round 1. One of the things that was very clear to me after watching it was how I was going to do the cameras, so I totally agree with you there.

The earlier link I hadn't seen before so i'm going to take a peek now.