Very good commentating, excellent one might say.

Enjoy your christmas break, looking forward the next broadcast on januari

PS. teh obstacle is just talk

EDIT: only thing that can be improved () is that the commentator voices seem to get a bit lower towards the end of the show. I had to turn volumes up a bit

Brilliant commentary,great vids.
(though i can't understand comment more than half )

i did the illusion that watched Racing TV-show in halfway every time.
"High Quality"(STCC web site) was a high speed link for far-off me (about 400KB/s,25minutes)

plz Keep up the good work the next year

Quote from Hyperactive :

PS. teh obstacle is just talk

Watch round 3 again and ask frokki/T. Harjula about that.

Vain

Quote :

i hope you dont mind that i remote upped it to some mirrors
maybe it will bring you a bit less traffic

It really does mess us up, sorry, I just bought some serious web hosting for the movie files in order to cope with the downloads (over 4TB/month) and I needed to collate uniqueIP, visitors, referrers, etc as i'm in talks with 1 [or more] possible partners right now and it's all about the stats. Without them I loose the money I need to keep this series going. I did speak to our usual mirrors and ask them not too mirror this time but I must admit its my own fault for not mentioning it in the opening post (i'll edit it). tbh I was quite suprised anyone felt the need to mirror it because the hosting 'should' cope with demand.

You guys reach over 4TB a month from these downloads???? Or is that the plan you ordered?

I am curious to know myself...

That's the amount of bandwidth i've purchased which I estimate should see us ok to the 30,000 viewer level - if my guess of high/low quality downloads is right. This gives us the ability to expand from where we are and start moving toward our target which is 100,000 viewers. We may never make that, but we'd like too, but like all things of this sort it's pointless trying whilst the infrastructure doesn't allow you too. Our site (on the simtouringcarcup.com domain) only handles 35gb/month, which clearly was not adequate even for our current viewer levels so I bought the simtouringcartv.com domain which is over 4tb/month, and is on a customer reward scheme so that it grows in capacity over time.

Quote from Tweaker :

You guys reach over 4TB a month from these downloads???? Or is that the plan you ordered?

I am curious to know myself...

plus the youtube and google video versions...

Great video Becky! Video quality was good, but like it was said before that the aliasing was off, but still was great coverage and a huge step up from race 3. I cant wait to see what Race 5 will bring! =)

Good coverage and great commentary, really helped explain what was happening.

Very nice as always Becky.

These vids are the cherrys on top of the LFS Sundae.

yup, good way to end up my lfs day today with more smileys after "hey I'm Errrrborne".
good commentary, quickly "reacting" to things on track, maybe mikes needed some stockings . i didnt notice any sync problem - looks like frame rate changed in the process (ntsc?). what I would suggest is more subtitles with names of drivers passing by or while incar view.

As up here in north season is finished till next year it is good to have some fresh racing Hope todays race gives enough action to enjoy.

Pretty good as usual. Very exciting race. The commentry seemed a lot more laid back - which I was pretty pleased to see It just seemed a lot more human than before

I have, however, devised a new drinking game. When any of these phrases are said, you take a drink:
* "Moving out"
* "Switchback"
* "Evens-Stevens"
* "Cooked (front|rear) tyres"
* Any interesting corner anecdote
* "All over the back of"
I'm sure I've missed one or two.

I must say, after only doing it half way through this race, I'm quite pissed

Quote from AndRand :

"reacting" to things on track, maybe mikes needed some stockings .

do you mean that they perhaps need a pop filter on the microphones?

I like the commentary alot, but the "pops" and "esses" (saying words with P or S in them) could be resolved by putting foam on the microphones, or talking into them at 45 degree angle frm your mouth, and having them at least 6 cm from your mouth. Also using compression in the oral audio will "beef up" your voices.

Say...looking for an American commentator at all? I got a great "radio voice!"

Quote from the_angry_angel :

I have, however, devised a new drinking game. When any of these phrases are said, you take a drink:
* "Moving out"
* "Switchback"
* "Evens-Stevens"
* "Cooked (front|rear) tyres"
* Any interesting corner anecdote
* "All over the back of"
I'm sure I've missed one or two.

I must say, after only doing it half way through this race, I'm quite pissed

* "has a look down the inside"
* "kirk´s off"

Quote from jayhawk :

American commentator
great "radio voice!"

thats a contradiction

Quote from Shotglass :

"kirk´s off"

lol

Another very pleasurable viewing experience.

now this was a good rainy sunday afternoon
And theres always a good laugh at the accidents lol cant help it... i find my accidents are funny but thats until i see other ppl crashing, its even funnier


Becky,
This has been pointed out already, but its an important thing to the broadcast!
you guys have to work out those codecs and capture settings.
The RAW footage is being captured with too much Mip mapping detail/LOD, its sharpened too much and when you compress it (no matter how good the codec is) it gets really really jagged. No in-game FSAA can save this from happening.
please give it a try to change mip mapping settings in the drivers control panel to really soften the image.
Drop LOD in LFS too.

The framerate misses alot also. But this is probably due to the machine. But it hurts the broadcast STCC experience.

The illegal DIVX movies everybody knows were to download have 700MB for ~90minutes runtime, and they look gooood so its possible in STCC too.

good luck and keep them coming

There is a DVD quality version, but it comes out at the end and you WILL have to pay for it

Quote from Jakg :

There is a DVD quality version, but it comes out at the end and you WILL have to pay for it

BUT it will be worth EVERY penny =P

The problems with quality are in the capture, I will experiment with mip mapping, it's fully one way or the other (not sure which) because I felt it messed up alpha'd textures like railings. I will experiment a little on that one, I am also working hard on trying to get my existing machine to handle the capture in 32bit without upgrading the CPU (which I cannot afford) as the chip I have was only ever meant to be temporary until about this time (dual core 4400 1mb cache), it's not up to the spec of the rest of the machine and can't handle the real time captures. 32bit will help a lot!

It's true that the DVD version does need to be paid for, because obviously it has a very tangeable cost of production involved. In terms of quality it's taken from the ~7gb masters, but by the time it's in DVD format I personally dont think it's much better than the MQ stream. It's commemorative, and intended really for those involved, and I will be working on some nice packaging designs and maybe even a little race program to go inside if possible. I've just mastered the first disk (rounds 1 to 3) and i've put a lot of work into the menu's and stuff, it's all quite nice, but I never really imagined it taking off as something the public would buy tbh, but i'll give the option .

Quality is something i'm trying to improve step by step, but it's pointless flaffing around with the same video, I make small improvements each time, it's a rellentless quest that runs side by side with the series itself. I hope this broadcast is the best yet in terms of quality, and next race I will try to improve a little again .

Quote from Becky Rose :

I hope this broadcast is the best yet in terms of quality, and next race I will try to improve a little again .

I think, in terms of audio quality, this broadcast is definitely better by leaps and bounds.

The Round 2 broadcast was also enjoyable, for having two commentators, but there were definitely problems with commentary sound (to use a highly technical term) blips and flubs.

Round 3 resolved all audio technical problems, and while the commentary was excellent (it really was, and I'm sure the on-track action between Green and Pickard helped too), Round 4 has shown that there is collossal worth in having a commentary team. The jostle and banter, for example when you both were discussing tyre temperatures and wear, definitely added value to the broadcast as a whole.

Another good example is your "driver of the day".. it doesn't matter that you both disagreed.. you invoked the same debate in the mind of the viewer, and in that respect you achieved viewer engagement.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The problems with quality are in the capture, I will experiment with mip mapping, it's fully one way or the other (not sure which) because I felt it messed up alpha'd textures like railings. I will experiment a little on that one, I am also working hard on trying to get my existing machine to handle the capture in 32bit without upgrading the CPU (which I cannot afford) as the chip I have was only ever meant to be temporary until about this time (dual core 4400 1mb cache), it's not up to the spec of the rest of the machine and can't handle the real time captures. 32bit will help a lot!

It's true that the DVD version does need to be paid for, because obviously it has a very tangeable cost of production involved. In terms of quality it's taken from the ~7gb masters, but by the time it's in DVD format I personally dont think it's much better than the MQ stream. It's commemorative, and intended really for those involved, and I will be working on some nice packaging designs and maybe even a little race program to go inside if possible. I've just mastered the first disk (rounds 1 to 3) and i've put a lot of work into the menu's and stuff, it's all quite nice, but I never really imagined it taking off as something the public would buy tbh, but i'll give the option .

Quality is something i'm trying to improve step by step, but it's pointless flaffing around with the same video, I make small improvements each time, it's a rellentless quest that runs side by side with the series itself. I hope this broadcast is the best yet in terms of quality, and next race I will try to improve a little again .

I have an AMD64 3800plus with 2 gig of Ram, I also have dual raptor HHD's raided 0 I have captured, with fraps, a full start at 32bit w/sound full screen at about 45 FPS. I am not sure if you need a new processor or some more throughput to you HHD/s

The quality is good for only being 500meg IMO, a bit grainy but you already said you mip mapping and bias so goodluck =P

Quote from Becky Rose :

Quality is something i'm trying to improve step by step, but it's pointless flaffing around with the same video, I make small improvements each time, it's a rellentless quest that runs side by side with the series itself. I hope this broadcast is the best yet in terms of quality, and next race I will try to improve a little again .

Did you read the comment I made about the last round? http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=274060#post274060

Quote from spyshagg :

The illegal DIVX movies everybody knows were to download have 700MB for ~90minutes runtime, and they look gooood so its possible in STCC too.

Here's a good explanation on why gaming movies are larger than regular motion pictures: http://www.own-age.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=5883&page=1

Check the section number 4.

The article also explains ways to improve image quality in encoding a gaming video.