Thoughts on Streaming (Page 3 of 8)

^ what glenn said

Last edited by Parallelis (Dec 18, 2012 4:20 am)

I don't see any turds on any heads.

i actually gained a following from all my webshows. now i'm known as the guy who had "solarbear can suck it" on his keytar.

A big part of why I don't really care for these streams are the fact that a LOT of the activity on the Facebook events/Youtube videos seem to be the people that are playing, about to play, or have played the event already. My girlfriend was actually commenting on the phenomenon and she said something really insightful -- there doesn't seem to be any room for people to simply be fans of the music, especially when it comes to these streaming shows. And that kind of thing matters when you're trying to present this stuff to people outside the "scene"; if all anyone sees are jpegs of the performers that have been MSpainted on, these livestreams start to become insular to the point where it's alienating to other people. Instead of discovering new music and feeling like I'm participating in a community, it ends up feeling like I stumbled in on a big inside joke

As far as the streams themselves go, I've found that they're most successful when they act as portals to events, rather than become the events themselves. The stream has always been a convenience for those who wanted to see/hear an event but didn't have the means to attend. The only way I can see a stream becoming an event is if there's some element of an interactive nature, because if I wanted to listen to x artist's music while I browsed the web then I'd just pull up iTunes.

If you want to make these things better, you have to study the recent successes of the actual streaming format, not try to emulate things that already exist in a better form (i.e. concerts). So two examples that I'd take a REALLY close look at are the e-sports/fighting game streaming scenes (example: http://crosscounter.tv/ or anything day9 related) and turntable.fm.

The first example demonstrates how well you can use streams as portals to bigger events; the most popular streams are always tournament matches between really good fighting game players. The second example shows how adding an interactive element to what is essentially a chatroom with a DJ can make things really interesting and fun for everyone. In our case it could be implemented with livestreams of real shows and/or making it less of a "festival" and more of a hangout session or workshop.

My ideal case is some crazy networked game that can only be played when someone's performing; the performer acts as an agent in the game with some crazy abilities (boss character) and the stream participants have to work together to beat the performer! That would be AMAZING and if anyone has the technical chops to implement this kind of thing let me get in on it as a designer

EDIT:

It's not really that people are shitting on those that enjoy it; it's more of a request that we do better. A critique of something demonstrates way more respect for that thing than coddling its deficiencies.

Last edited by spacetownsavior (Dec 18, 2012 5:19 am)

WELL SOME DAY ILL JUST HAVE TO SEE FOR MYSELF

Unless you have ctrix sitting around ready to mash on some video mixers and tape cables everywhere, your stream probably isn't worth it.

cripes, a ton of thoughtful answers all up in here.  definitely appreciate everyone's candidness and i'm glad that many of the criticisms are being taken really well - shocking! 

yeah, by no means was my intent to tear down any particular web show, but instead to be honest about aspects that inherently don't work, in the interest of refining something that has potential.  (btw Glenntai, i totally appreciated the relative responsiveness and attentiveness of the Clipstream staff, the support alone really does bolster one's confidence about doing a stream.)

If i had to tl;dr all the discussion so far into a few key points of near consensus -- here goes:

- streams are not a replacement for live shows, nor do they need to be.  when presenting a streamed show in the same way, something just doesn't translate well, and it has something to do with either the separation of the artist from the audience, or some visual factor.  streams have the potential to be something else altogether though - something that makes sense given the medium, and something that plays to the medium's strengths.

- there's some untapped potential of video streams as a means for connecting the chip community in interesting ways, like realtime chat, Q&A, interactive games/visuals/whatever.  there's also a sense of immediacy and intimacy that's of value.

- setting up streams can cost some significant effort, many times for little or no (financial) return.  to actually achieve a setup resembling some kind of TV studio would be cost-prohibitive for most people, so to emulate TV broadcasts (at least in terms of production value) is probably not the best way to go.  btw, many "professional" e-sports broadcasts actually dump a whole lot of their sponsor-fueled budget into the logistical and technical aspects of the streaming production itself, so that already gives you an idea as to its feasibility in a community that isn't known for their extravagant spending.

- there's a hosting/editorial component that definitely could be expanded upon, instead of just having a loose string of artist after artist with little cohesion otherwise.

Overall i'm pretty excited by the possibilities and ideas that everyone's brought up!  the idea and the desire is cool, but there's no reason to just touch down at the familiar tropes like "lineup of artists".