Gamersyde: E3 and Patreon

BlimBlim
Sunday, June 4, 2017 | 11:11 AM
21 comments

Gamersyde

All Gamersyde visitors are more than likely aware that E3 starts in a week, and as usual it’s the great Miguel who will do his best to get as us much direct feed (up to 4k60) and off-screen videos of the best upcoming games. It’s also a good time for us to remind you guys that an extra download server is available for our patrons at $25 or more, and that it will be more than likely very useful at peak times next week. And speaking of our Patreon, you’ll find in the body of this news article the details of the site’s finances, and how the Patreon has allowed us to survive ever since we launched it.

Regular payments

Type	Monthly cost	Yearly cost
RSI (French social security)	86 euros	1040 euros
JWPlayer	100 dollars	1100 euros
Scaleway	57.58 euros	684 euros
OVH	216 euros	2592 euros
Accounting/legal	-	1500 euros
Taxes	-	300 euros
TOTAL		7216 euros

Game shows

Type	Cost
Gamescom	1000 euros
E3	1310 euros
Total	2310

Misc expenses

Type	Cost
Tshirts / Hats	200 euros
Total	200 euros

Hardware

Type	Cost
Capture/streaming PC	1432.37 euros
Blackmagic Video Assist	539 euros
Magewell 4k hdmi	797.05 euros
Total	2768.42 euros

Results

Type	Credit	Debit
Patreon	7640 euros	-
Ads	4500 euros	-
TOTAL REVENUES	12140 euros	-
TOTAL EXPENSES	-	12494.42 euros

Switching to 4K forced us to do some very important investments on Driftwood’s capture monster PC, and we also just received yesterday a new standalone capture system that will allow Miguel to capture the Microsoft and Sony conference in high quality 4K60 (as long as he’s allowed to have access to the direct feeds of course), and also to capture very high quality direct-feed videos of the games themselves (confirmed for a selection of Microsoft and Sony titles at the least). It’s called the Shogun Inferno, and the price is steep to say the least, around 2,000 euros with the accessories and SSDs. I (Blimblim) paid it with my own money, but hopefully I’ll be able to be reimbursed by the end of the year. If not, well I’ll survive.

As for the site revenues, currently ads get us around 200 dollars a month, and the Patreon around 400 euros. We are well aware that we did not keep all the promises listed on our Patreon page, most noticeably the monthly Podcasts. The time we put on the site itself and the live streams forced us to leave this format behind, but it doesn’t mean it won’t come back sooner than later. More importantly, we were unable to make the site evolve, which really makes us sad. After integrating 4K to our stream, we quickly realized that the generosity of our patrons would not be enough to finance the much awaited 3rd version of the site. None of us are good enough with modern responsive design to be able to do it internally, so we are in a dead end and really frustrated we can’t do anything about it for the time being. We would love to give you guys a more functional and readable design, but right now we simply can’t.

The money we’ve gotten from our beloved patrons for a year now has allowed us to keep going despite the huge loss of ad revenue, while not downgrading the quality of our video content in any way. The efforts from Driftwood and Davton, along with guts_o, Miguel and CpRBe, and of course the valiant day to day work of the amazing Game2k for the news, are the proof that we did everything we could to deserve your trust and support. Once again, we can’t say it enough, we are incredibly grateful of your fidelity, be it by keeping the site’s community alive in the forum, or by being a more silent regular like Miguel. Of course we have a very special thought for those of you who contributed to the Patron. Without you guys, we wouldn’t be here anymore, at least in this form! We would love to be able to do more, but we all have jobs and lives out of the site who bring us back to the truth of what Gamersyde is: a small team of passionate people trying to fight against the pixelated windmill of the Youtube giant.

As far as expenses go, most of them are there to stay. We will soon stop using JWPlayer once and for all and move to the excellent and free Videojs. The stream ad revenues simply does not justify the $100 a month the old player costs us.

We currently have a commercial project in the works, and if it actually goes live we should have a new source of monthly revenues. This is a project that’s completely parallel to Gamersyde, and will have zero consequences on the site itself besides a new and welcome financial stability.

To conclude, this first assessment after almost a year of Patreon is a lot more positive than we could have ever dreamed of when we launched it. The drop of ad revenues is a reality that we can’t really escape, but your implication in making sure the site would be able to survive exceeded all of our expectations. If the project we mentioned above delivers and your generosity doesn’t drop too much in the upcoming year, we might finally be able to deliver a site that smells a bit of fresh paint. I’m sure many are thinking that it’s a lot of ifs, but we can assure you that today’s hopes are much higher than what they were a year ago. And for this, thank you!

Shogun Inferno

High quality stream and download

Shogun Inferno: Unravel 4K60

Kuranghi

Commented on 2017-06-04 16:12:30

The site visual update is not as important to me as you keeping to capture, edit and upload these BEAUTIFUL direct feed videos.

I'm sure you agree but its a CRIME that these amazing looking games/trailers can often only be seen in TERRIBLE youtube bitrate/quality.

I say start a petition to show publishers that we don't want these crap-ass youtube-ruined trailers anymore, they obviously exist in MUCH higher quality before they are put on youtube, is it so hard to send you guys a link to a direct-feed-quality server?!??

p.s - I apologise to people who have been involved in actual violent crimes :|

In reply to

Sdarts

Commented on 2017-06-04 16:55:10

Really great news post, BlimBlim!

I loved how much info and specially honest you guys are are being. That's always the way to go at any situation, transparency makes for more involvement from people.

While I'm eargely awaiting the new site redesign for a few years now, I complete understand and agree that if you can't do it by yourselves at a level of quality that would actually make it significantly better, and something that you all would feel satisfied with, then it's better to wait till you have enough money to outsource it to experts who can do it at the level of quality that it should be done at.

If you don't mind - specially on a Sunday, though please feel free to answer this on Monday or any other week day, I have a few questions that may be just out of curiosity, but some might actually be useful info to a lot of people. They're mainly financial questions, so if there's any that is private, please just tell me so and I won't ask it again.

About the "Regular payments" section, could you please elaborate on what those costs are? Like why do you pay RSI (French social security)? I have just Google searched what it means and the benefits of it, but wanted to know a little more about its role for Gamersyde.

For example, do the benefits of paying RSI outweight its costs? Or is it a required thing because of a/some law(s) - and if so, does it apply to Gamersyde, if the site is not for commercial profits? Or perhaps it is and I just never looked at it in that way, which seems to be the case regarding the taxes and accounting/legal expenses.

Are the Accounting/legal expenses something you guys could handle on your own? Even if just the Accounting?

Scaleway is a BareMetal SSD cloud service, so there's no need to elaborate more on it by itself, I believe. But could you explain the differences between using Scaleway and OVH? This is just out of complete curiosity. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love Economics and Finance stuff as much as I love technology, so these are things I'm always interested in.

Though, it's crazy that the JWPlayer costs are almost double of the costs of Scaleway. Even though JWPlayer seems to be the "most powerful and flexible video platform" out there in their own PR's words. Which begs the question, moving from JWPlayer to Video.js, is there any types of changes we should expect on both a technical and streaming/viewing levels? Stuff like, faster/slower loading, less bandwidth consumption, buffer time increase/decrease, etc.

With Blackmagic Video Assist it's possible to record videos in 10-bit color depth, is that something you guys plan on implementing soon? Maybe even at this year's E3? The same question also applies to H.265/HEVC encoding. I remember either you or Miguel said that the encoding process for H.265/HEVC is very slow, but using it would definitely lower video file sizes and offer better quality - even just using 10-bit color format would make for slight smaller video files and better quality - meaning that the costs of storing data should come down considerably enough to be something to consider, no? Even if this only applied to a few select videos.

Maybe that would help with old videos not being unavailable too soon? I remember of some old videos being unavailable to download from any of the servers Some videosanymore

As for the ability to capture very high quality direct-feed videos in events, even if only for a few select 1st-party titles, that's an incredibly amazing news imho! I've wanted for this for such a long time, I like a lot of Gamersyde's videos in events, but in the past couple years I've been increasingly less interested in watching off-screen videos. I know that's almost always out of your control, but even if only a few videos can be of direct-feed quality, it's still something truly great, specially with a 4K@60fps monster video camera.

Sorry if many of these questions seem like an intrusion of company privacy/policy, again, I love Economics and Finance topics and everytime I see an article or story about it, I immediately go into numbers crushing mode, trying to see if there's anything that can be done to reduce costs and/or increase profits. Not to say that you guys haven't done that over and over countless times over the years already, I absolutely sure you guys have, this is just on my end since it's the first time I'm seeing this type of report for Gamersyde.

Really great news post, BlimBlim!

I loved how much info and specially honest you guys are are being. That's always the way to go at any situation, transparency makes for more involvement from people.

While I'm eargely awaiting the new site redesign for a few years now, I complete understand and agree that if you can't do it by yourselves at a level of quality that would actually make it significantly better, and something that you all would feel satisfied with, then it's better to wait till you have enough money to outsource it to experts who can do it at the level of quality that it should be done at.

If you don't mind - specially on a Sunday, though please feel free to answer this on Monday or any other week day, I have a few questions that may be just out of curiosity, but some might actually be useful info to a lot of people. They're mainly financial questions, so if there's any that is private, please just tell me so and I won't ask it again.

About the "Regular payments" section, could you please elaborate on what those costs are? Like why do you pay RSI (French social security)? I have just Google searched what it means and the benefits of it, but wanted to know a little more about its role for Gamersyde.

For example, do the benefits of paying RSI outweight its costs? Or is it a required thing because of a/some law(s) - and if so, does it apply to Gamersyde, if the site is not for commercial profits? Or perhaps it is and I just never looked at it in that way, which seems to be the case regarding the taxes and accounting/legal expenses.

Are the Accounting/legal expenses something you guys could handle on your own? Even if just the Accounting?

Scaleway is a BareMetal SSD cloud service, so there's no need to elaborate more on it by itself, I believe. But could you explain the differences between using Scaleway and OVH? This is just out of complete curiosity. If I haven't mentioned it before, I love Economics and Finance stuff as much as I love technology, so these are things I'm always interested in.

Though, it's crazy that the JWPlayer costs are almost double of the costs of Scaleway. Even though JWPlayer seems to be the "most powerful and flexible video platform" out there in their own PR's words. Which begs the question, moving from JWPlayer to Video.js, is there any types of changes we should expect on both a technical and streaming/viewing levels? Stuff like, faster/slower loading, less bandwidth consumption, buffer time increase/decrease, etc.

With Blackmagic Video Assist it's possible to record videos in 10-bit color depth, is that something you guys plan on implementing soon? Maybe even at this year's E3? The same question also applies to H.265/HEVC encoding. I remember either you or Miguel said that the encoding process for H.265/HEVC is very slow, but using it would definitely lower video file sizes and offer better quality - even just using 10-bit color format would make for slight smaller video files and better quality - meaning that the costs of storing data should come down considerably enough to be something to consider, no? Even if this only applied to a few select videos.

Maybe that would help with old videos not being unavailable too soon? I remember of some old videos being unavailable to download from any of the servers Some videosanymore

As for the ability to capture very high quality direct-feed videos in events, even if only for a few select 1st-party titles, that's an incredibly amazing news imho! I've wanted for this for such a long time, I like a lot of Gamersyde's videos in events, but in the past couple years I've been increasingly less interested in watching off-screen videos. I know that's almost always out of your control, but even if only a few videos can be of direct-feed quality, it's still something truly great, specially with a 4K@60fps monster video camera.

Sorry if many of these questions seem like an intrusion of company privacy/policy, again, I love Economics and Finance topics and everytime I see an article or story about it, I immediately go into numbers crushing mode, trying to see if there's anything that can be done to reduce costs and/or increase profits. Not to say that you guys haven't done that over and over countless times over the years already, I absolutely sure you guys have, this is just on my end since it's the first time I'm seeing this type of report for Gamersyde.

BlimBlim

Commented on 2017-06-04 20:12:37 In reply to Sdarts

RSI is an obligation for the type of company we used for Gamersyde. Believe I want nothing more than being done with it :/ Gamersyde could be a non-profit here in France (it's certainly never going to be able to pay us anyway), but we need to keep being a company because otherwise some publishers would be much more difficult to work with.
Accounting we are legally forced to used what is called an "Expert comptable" to validate our accounts (even if I was able to do them myself, which is not the case) before submitting them to the taxes office.
We use Scaleway for the download servers (Patreon and the other recent one). OVH we use for the main front server (the one hosting the site), our support server for the video reencoding and streams.
10-bit color depth is not HDR. It's one component of HDR, but not enough. I don't know any "affordable" hardware that can capture the type of HDR consoles output right now (HDR10), but maybe our new Shogun Inferno will have this capability with a firmware upgrade.
As for the old videos, outside of 6 months worth of them we lost a few years ago, it should all still be there. If not, please let me know.

Commented on 2017-06-05 01:39:56 In reply to BlimBlim

Thanks for reply and all the info.

I mentioned the Accounting because I know some people who have started doing their own accounting before, it's not hard to learn - certainly much more easier than learning a programming language - and you can buy a book(s) and/or learn through research online.

There's even a small fee program by a really big and famous organization responsible for aiding and helping from small scale to middle scale business owners of all types of industry here in Brazil. The course usually takes 3 months and teaches how to administer companies, how to handle accounting, paying taxes, company and employee laws, etc.

I know that in Italy, you cannot open any business without doing such a course first and that they take 9 months to complete. I remember this because I once watched a TV news segment on the differences between requirements for small to middle business owners in Brazil and other first-world countries. Brazil has no requirements to know how to administer a business before opening it, therefore most businesses fail in the first year or two. And in Italy, because of that 9 months requirement, the failure rate in those same 1-2 years is considerably lower.

Those are the reasons why I mentioned it in the first place, but if it's required by law, there's nothing that can be done about it. This I know all too well, unfortunately.

As for 10-bit color format, I didn't meant HDR at all, though that would be a bonus if it happened. I mentioned 10-bit color because almost all Anime fansubs (fan scanlation/translation) groups use 10-bit color depth in their releases for many, many years now. And it gives a slightly better color quality, helps reduce compression artifacts like color banding, and cut overall file size with varying degrees of efficiency.

But the main benefit o 10-bit color enconding would be in reducing overall file size with no quality loss. Some decreases are small, while others are very significant. Taken from a MyAnimeList thread from 2011:

"As a good example, the CGi release of Bakemonogatari was brought from a 20GB 8bit encode, to a 10GB 10bit encode."

MyAnimeList - what's the different between 8-bit and 10-bit?:
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=358699

I don't understand much of the 10-bit color enconding scene, but from everything I know, the enconding time isn't higher, or at the very least, not much higher than the same for 8-bit color enconding. I'm bringing it up because even if file sizes are only reduced by 10-20%, that should help alleviate storage costs and also bandwidth consumption costs as well.

I believe it's worth to at least investigate it and test it a little bit, since the more videos are added - specially now that Gamersyde has a 4K video camera and a 4K video capture card, along with more and more companies starting to release 4K videos - the more space and bandwidth will be used.

As an example, the "Shogun Inferno: Unravel 4K60" video here on this news article is 387.81 MB for just 55 seconds duration. And while not many 4k videos might use 58.264 bitrate, even at half that, 1 minute of 4K footage is around 200 MB. But I'm sure that Gamersyde's own videos will have +50k bitrate quality for 4K videos, so we're looking at 4 GB files at te 10 minute mark.

Another example is "Nex Machina - PSX Reveal Trailer" here on Gamersyde, it's 4K at an insane 264.269 bitrate - which I just love it! - and is 1872.6 MB in file size.

Gamersyde - Nex Machina - PSX Reveal Trailer:
http://gamersyde.com/download_nex_machina_psx_reve...

Perhaps all of this video enconding technical stuff is more for Miguel. A long time ago he gave me the HandBrake settings he normally uses for enconding Gamersyde videos - which I had saved on my main storage HDD, but which started malfunctioning while I was in the middle of the backing up process, so I can't access it. Otherwise, I would have already done some tests on the two 4K videos I mentioned above to see if just enconding in 10-bit color brings significant file size reduction - it's important to note that even 1080p file sizes have significant reduction sometimes.

Anyway, it's just an idea I had on how to help reduce file sizes, and hopefully, help reduce storage and bandwidth costs. If Miguel or you give me the Handbrake settings again - can be through PM, I will be happy to run any time consuming tests you guys want. I already have HandBrake's latest version installed and know how to use it fairly well.

Thanks for reply and all the info.

I mentioned the Accounting because I know some people who have started doing their own accounting before, it's not hard to learn - certainly much more easier than learning a programming language - and you can buy a book(s) and/or learn through research online.

There's even a small fee program by a really big and famous organization responsible for aiding and helping from small scale to middle scale business owners of all types of industry here in Brazil. The course usually takes 3 months and teaches how to administer companies, how to handle accounting, paying taxes, company and employee laws, etc.

I know that in Italy, you cannot open any business without doing such a course first and that they take 9 months to complete. I remember this because I once watched a TV news segment on the differences between requirements for small to middle business owners in Brazil and other first-world countries. Brazil has no requirements to know how to administer a business before opening it, therefore most businesses fail in the first year or two. And in Italy, because of that 9 months requirement, the failure rate in those same 1-2 years is considerably lower.

Those are the reasons why I mentioned it in the first place, but if it's required by law, there's nothing that can be done about it. This I know all too well, unfortunately.

As for 10-bit color format, I didn't meant HDR at all, though that would be a bonus if it happened. I mentioned 10-bit color because almost all Anime fansubs (fan scanlation/translation) groups use 10-bit color depth in their releases for many, many years now. And it gives a slightly better color quality, helps reduce compression artifacts like color banding, and cut overall file size with varying degrees of efficiency.

But the main benefit o 10-bit color enconding would be in reducing overall file size with no quality loss. Some decreases are small, while others are very significant. Taken from a MyAnimeList thread from 2011:

"As a good example, the CGi release of Bakemonogatari was brought from a 20GB 8bit encode, to a 10GB 10bit encode."

MyAnimeList - what's the different between 8-bit and 10-bit?:
https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=358699

I don't understand much of the 10-bit color enconding scene, but from everything I know, the enconding time isn't higher, or at the very least, not much higher than the same for 8-bit color enconding. I'm bringing it up because even if file sizes are only reduced by 10-20%, that should help alleviate storage costs and also bandwidth consumption costs as well.

I believe it's worth to at least investigate it and test it a little bit, since the more videos are added - specially now that Gamersyde has a 4K video camera and a 4K video capture card, along with more and more companies starting to release 4K videos - the more space and bandwidth will be used.

As an example, the "Shogun Inferno: Unravel 4K60" video here on this news article is 387.81 MB for just 55 seconds duration. And while not many 4k videos might use 58.264 bitrate, even at half that, 1 minute of 4K footage is around 200 MB. But I'm sure that Gamersyde's own videos will have +50k bitrate quality for 4K videos, so we're looking at 4 GB files at te 10 minute mark.

Another example is "Nex Machina - PSX Reveal Trailer" here on Gamersyde, it's 4K at an insane 264.269 bitrate - which I just love it! - and is 1872.6 MB in file size.

Gamersyde - Nex Machina - PSX Reveal Trailer:
http://gamersyde.com/download_nex_machina_psx_reveal_trailer-39900_en.html

Perhaps all of this video enconding technical stuff is more for Miguel. A long time ago he gave me the HandBrake settings he normally uses for enconding Gamersyde videos - which I had saved on my main storage HDD, but which started malfunctioning while I was in the middle of the backing up process, so I can't access it. Otherwise, I would have already done some tests on the two 4K videos I mentioned above to see if just enconding in 10-bit color brings significant file size reduction - it's important to note that even 1080p file sizes have significant reduction sometimes.

Anyway, it's just an idea I had on how to help reduce file sizes, and hopefully, help reduce storage and bandwidth costs. If Miguel or you give me the Handbrake settings again - can be through PM, I will be happy to run any time consuming tests you guys want. I already have HandBrake's latest version installed and know how to use it fairly well.

Commented on 2017-06-05 02:22:14 In reply to Sdarts

10bit h.264, while technically part of the standard, is not supported by any hardware decoder, so it's 100% decoded by the CPU. Not a problem on a PC, big problem on anything else. Also it's only really useful on anime and cartoons.
H265 uses 10bit encoding with hardware acceleration, but the codec isn't supported well enough outside of specific 4k hardware

Miguel

Commented on 2017-06-05 02:30:44 In reply to Sdarts

The problem is not really bandwidth, but encoding time (that's why we still use H264) and upload time (thus the 60 Mbps limit for 4K).

At E3 I won't have much time to encode on a laptop and the upload speed at the AirBnb house is yet unknown.
I'll have to use the "normal" or even "fast" encoding quality preset to save time and thus lose a bit of quality compared to the "slow" preset used for our regular content.

For our 4K content outside of E3, for now the max bitrate is 65 Mbps (blame Blim on that, he does not want us to use more for now :p), it's still good enough for most content, even for Wipeout (unless you check frame by frame).
I'd like to up the max bitrate a bit (up to 100 ?) and maybe tweak the settings not to have the average bitrate going to the max through the whole video.

Also, most people seem to just watch the streams and not download the files so they won't see the upgrade.

Commented on 2017-06-05 06:07:33

@BlimBlim:

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about the restrictions concerning 10-bit color format. I know a lot of TV devices from the past 3-5 years support it, but not the cheap stuff. I say this because a lot of people use it to watch 10-bit content, mainly Anime. Also, many modern smarthphones and tablets in the last years support 10-bit color format.

My nephew's tablet is a very basic one from Samsung and has a CPU with 4 cores at 1.3 GHz, though its very weak when compared to most tablets on the market. Still, even this very weak tablet can decode 10-bit color H.264 content. But I do understand what you're saying, the number of devices which support 10-bit isn't very big.

As for 10 bit color format only being useful to Anime and cartoons, I don't understand why. I could understand if it's not very useful to live action content, but just like animes and cartoons, games are either 2D (Street Fighter 2), 3D (Super Mario 3D World) or a mix of the two. So I really don't see the problem.

Like I said before, my understanding of 10-bit color enconding is very little. Though I really don't see how it couldn't benefit gaming videos, games like RiME, Abzû, Gigantic, Mario Kart 8, Naruto Shipuuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, etc. are very "cartoony". I mean they have a very cartoon-like artstyle.

@Miguel:

Yeah, enconding H.265 at the moment is very time consuming. Plus, like 10-bit color format, most of the devices don't support H.265 yet. I don't mind about E3 4K content not being at very high bitrates, just the bump in resolution and the additional bitrate, when compared to 1080p's usual bitrate, will be a great addition. And if your 1080p videos already put YouTube's ones to shame, your 4K videos will blow YouTube's 4K ones.

To give an example, Need for Speed: Payback's - the new Need for Speed game - trailer is available in 4K, but if download it, you will see that the file size is just 175.57 MB at 1:25 seconds duration.

Need for Speed Payback Official Reveal Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc-OcOduEx0

So if we compare it to the Shogun Inferno: Unravel 4K60 video you guys made, which is 387.81 MB at 55 seconds duration. Your video has over 50% more bitrate quality even though it's 30 seconds shorter, meaning it's probably around 60-70% more bitrate quality overall.

Of course, this is just one example and the videos aren't even remotely the same. But bitrate-wise, I believe 50-100 MB is enough for 4K videos, and it certainly is way more better quality than anything on YouTube. Though if you guys wanna make 4k@60fps 1 GB videos, I'm up for that too - even if just to see my PC buckle and marvel at the insane quality. lol

I always download Gamersyde videos. First, the internet bandwidth consumed is the same whether you're downloading or watching; second, I can rewatch it as many times as I want, whenever I want, on any device and any player I want; third, I can save the videos on DVDs/BDs. I have quite a collection of Gamersyde videos already. I would have more, but I lost around 150 GB of Gamersyde videos on my main HDD. T_T

But I do understand that while at work or watching from a smarthphone, the best option is to stream. I just hope the E3 bandwidth you guys get are fast enough. I already have made over 100 GB of free space on my new HDD just waiting for Gamersyde's E3 videos.

Btw, as crazy as it sounds, if you guys get direct-feed access to the entire Sony and/or Microsoft press conferences, do you know if that's something you guys could share it on the site - or even through PM?

@BlimBlim:

Thanks for the info. I didn't know about the restrictions concerning 10-bit color format. I know a lot of TV devices from the past 3-5 years support it, but not the cheap stuff. I say this because a lot of people use it to watch 10-bit content, mainly Anime. Also, many modern smarthphones and tablets in the last years support 10-bit color format.

My nephew's tablet is a very basic one from Samsung and has a CPU with 4 cores at 1.3 GHz, though its very weak when compared to most tablets on the market. Still, even this very weak tablet can decode 10-bit color H.264 content. But I do understand what you're saying, the number of devices which support 10-bit isn't very big.

As for 10 bit color format only being useful to Anime and cartoons, I don't understand why. I could understand if it's not very useful to live action content, but just like animes and cartoons, games are either 2D (Street Fighter 2), 3D (Super Mario 3D World) or a mix of the two. So I really don't see the problem.

Like I said before, my understanding of 10-bit color enconding is very little. Though I really don't see how it couldn't benefit gaming videos, games like RiME, Abzû, Gigantic, Mario Kart 8, Naruto Shipuuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, etc. are very "cartoony". I mean they have a very cartoon-like artstyle.

@Miguel:

Yeah, enconding H.265 at the moment is very time consuming. Plus, like 10-bit color format, most of the devices don't support H.265 yet. I don't mind about E3 4K content not being at very high bitrates, just the bump in resolution and the additional bitrate, when compared to 1080p's usual bitrate, will be a great addition. And if your 1080p videos already put YouTube's ones to shame, your 4K videos will blow YouTube's 4K ones.

To give an example, Need for Speed: Payback's - the new Need for Speed game - trailer is available in 4K, but if download it, you will see that the file size is just 175.57 MB at 1:25 seconds duration.

Need for Speed Payback Official Reveal Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc-OcOduEx0

So if we compare it to the Shogun Inferno: Unravel 4K60 video you guys made, which is 387.81 MB at 55 seconds duration. Your video has over 50% more bitrate quality even though it's 30 seconds shorter, meaning it's probably around 60-70% more bitrate quality overall.

Of course, this is just one example and the videos aren't even remotely the same. But bitrate-wise, I believe 50-100 MB is enough for 4K videos, and it certainly is way more better quality than anything on YouTube. Though if you guys wanna make 4k@60fps 1 GB videos, I'm up for that too - even if just to see my PC buckle and marvel at the insane quality. lol

I always download Gamersyde videos. First, the internet bandwidth consumed is the same whether you're downloading or watching; second, I can rewatch it as many times as I want, whenever I want, on any device and any player I want; third, I can save the videos on DVDs/BDs. I have quite a collection of Gamersyde videos already. I would have more, but I lost around 150 GB of Gamersyde videos on my main HDD. T_T

But I do understand that while at work or watching from a smarthphone, the best option is to stream. I just hope the E3 bandwidth you guys get are fast enough. I already have made over 100 GB of free space on my new HDD just waiting for Gamersyde's E3 videos.

Btw, as crazy as it sounds, if you guys get direct-feed access to the entire Sony and/or Microsoft press conferences, do you know if that's something you guys could share it on the site - or even through PM?

ddarko

Commented on 2017-06-05 06:54:35

Just wanted to say guys, the quality of the videos offered on this site is unparalleled. Even if you had a bare-bones website, I would still come here :)

That being said, the website isn't actually that bad. It is very functional and aesthetically pleasing enough. So I think you guys shouldn't worry about not satisfying the promises in this regard. Same for monthly podcasts. You guys do a lot more work by releasing high quality videos of games for us to review before buying a game. That is more worth it than a monthly podcast.

So just wanted to make this post to say, you guys are the best and don't worry too much about the promises you listed as not being fulfilled. As far as I am concerned, you guys have delivered where it matters :)

Commented on 2017-06-05 07:11:56

@Sdarts,

On the 10-bit data, even if Blackmagic supports 10-bit capture, I am not sure there are many games that actually use a 10-bit color-space at the moment. Almost all games use Rec 709 color space. While Rec 709 does support 10-bit, the extra colors you will see is almost unnoticeable. To fully use 10-bit, you would need BT 2020 color space support in games. So at least for now, it probably won't help to do 10-bit captures of games.

That being said, I am very interested to know that there is some content in which 10-bit shows better quality. If its possible, can you post some of the meta data for a video file that you thought had good quality in 10 bits in comparison to 8 bits? Also, were the bit-rates the same? This is for personal interest. So glad if you could give some info :) Also, was the original source 10-bit in this case, or was the 8-bit data compressed to 10-bit?

Danisack

Commented on 2017-06-05 09:09:49

The problem here is the regularity of the content and the period of inactivity. That is the reason people have stopped paying the Patreon.

Commented on 2017-06-05 09:31:50 In reply to Danisack

Posted by Danisack

We know, that's what we say in the news basically.

Driftwood

Commented on 2017-06-05 09:40:08 In reply to BlimBlim

What period of inactivity? We release video content all year long and cover pretty much every game released, unless it's a genre we are not familiar with. I mean personally, I never catch a break on GSY. Unless I didn't get what he was saying I fully disagree. I mean come on, we even post content on the week-end... Sure, we'd love to be able to do more podcasts, stream more games, cover more preview events, but there is only so much you can do when things have to be done in 2 languages, while working a day job. On top of that, we sadly don't get invited to preview events that much now. If that's what was meant, then sure, we can't compete with the big websites and I can understand the frustration. As for video content on the other hand, I don't really see how we can do more (even with the official trailers, that are harder to get thanks to YT now...).

Commented on 2017-06-05 11:08:04

I think he meant on the Patreon specifically.

Commented on 2017-06-05 11:22:57 In reply to BlimBlim

Posted by BlimBlim

Oh right.

crookedmind

Commented on 2017-06-06 11:41:22 In reply to Miguel

Posted by Miguel

it's still good enough for most content,

It's fine for all the content. There is no one out there without mediainfo that could tell the difference, and no one is counting block artifacts-- you could fuck with the saturation and call it 10bit and no one would know the damn difference. You guys do more than enough as is.

The biggest issue with the site isn't the design, either. It's the same thing it's always been: accessibility and publicity. You just need more of a following. And with publishers going straight to youtube, it's becoming harder to get.

I suggest forcing Miguel to do 24/7 live streams of games without sleep for 3 months.

Commented on 2017-06-06 11:59:21

I'm pretty sure you'd fall asleep before him, on account of him being so silent. :D

sdsd2

Commented on 2017-06-06 18:42:57

I just want to express my gratitude as I haved download countless videos from this site. The vids are of impeccable quality. The only drawback is that sometimes there are trailers of AAA games missed, like StarWars:Battlefront 2. It's not a big problem. But I do hope that u have these videos.

Commented on 2017-06-06 18:49:49 In reply to sdsd2

EA = YouTube 95% of the time sadly.

masteratt

Commented on 2017-06-07 01:55:27

Hello,

I'm not sure if you're looking for outside help but I work as a web developer and would enjoy contributing to v3 of the site. I do have responsive design experience. Can provide more details / portfolio if interested. If not, best of luck, looking forward to the sharp & crisp E3 coverage!

Commented on 2017-06-07 07:13:37 In reply to ddarko

Posted by ddarko

@Sdarts,

On the 10-bit data, even if Blackmagic supports 10-bit capture,

Blackmagic Video Assist does indeed support 10-bit, the official site states it as one of the product's big features in 4 places:

"Blackmagic Video Assist features high speed SD card recorders for HD or Ultra HD recording in incredible 10-bit 4:2:2 quality ProRes..."

"You get 10-bit 4:2:2 broadcast quality files that work with all major editing software..."

"Professional HD and Ultra HD Recorder - 10-bit 4:2:2 ProRes and DNxHD recording!"

"You get incredible looking, broadcast quality 10-bit, 4:2:2 ProRes and DNxHR in Quicktime or MXF files that work with all major editing software so you can start editing without having to convert them!"

Blackmagic Design - Blackmagic Video Assist:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmag...

I am not sure there are many games that actually use a 10-bit color-space at the moment. Almost all games use Rec 709 color space. While Rec 709 does support 10-bit, the extra colors you will see is almost unnoticeable. To fully use 10-bit, you would need BT 2020 color space support in games. So at least for now, it probably won't help to do 10-bit captures of games.

The 10-bit color format I was talking about is in the encoding process, in which you can choose to encode it in 10-bit or 8-bit color format. Gamersyde's videos - even trailers sent by publishers and developers - are re-encoded in 8-bit. But even if just for Gamersyde's own videos, they could encode them using 10-bit.

The advantages of using 10-bit color format are: a slightly - but noticeable - better image quality with slightly more vivid colors (just to be clear, this is not HDR, think vibrancy or saturation); reduce some artifacts like banding; and the most important benefit imho, reduce the file size of the video around 10-40%. Sometimes even more.

There's pros and cons with this, 10-bit files have slightly better image and smaller sizes when compared to the same 8-bit files, but they aren't recognizable by as many devices - mostly old ones - as 8-bit videos are. So then the question of whether to use it or not hinges on what the priority is. To reduce costs on storage and bandwidth, or to have your content available to as many people as possible.

Perhaps if only Gamersyde's 4K videos are encoded in 10-bit, it won't affect people with old devices that aren't capable of running 4K videos in the first place? It's just a thought I had since I believe any device capable of running 4K content supports 10-bit, after all 10-bit has been in use for a much longer time than 4K. So it's hard to imagine a company making a 4K ready device that doesn't support 10-bit. But I could be wrong. Also, like BlimBlim said, there's a difference between H.264 10-bit and H.265 10-Bit.

[quote=ddarko]@Sdarts,

On the 10-bit data, even if Blackmagic supports 10-bit capture,[/quote]

Blackmagic Video Assist does indeed support 10-bit, the official site states it as one of the product's big features in 4 places:

"Blackmagic Video Assist features high speed SD card recorders for HD or Ultra HD recording in incredible 10-bit 4:2:2 quality ProRes..."

"You get 10-bit 4:2:2 broadcast quality files that work with all major editing software..."

"Professional HD and Ultra HD Recorder - 10-bit 4:2:2 ProRes and DNxHD recording!"

"You get incredible looking, broadcast quality 10-bit, 4:2:2 ProRes and DNxHR in Quicktime or MXF files that work with all major editing software so you can start editing without having to convert them!"

Blackmagic Design - Blackmagic Video Assist:
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicvideoassist

[quote=ddarko]I am not sure there are many games that actually use a 10-bit color-space at the moment. Almost all games use Rec 709 color space. While Rec 709 does support 10-bit, the extra colors you will see is almost unnoticeable. To fully use 10-bit, you would need BT 2020 color space support in games. So at least for now, it probably won't help to do 10-bit captures of games.[/quote]

The advantages of using 10-bit color format are: a slightly - but noticeable - better image quality with slightly more vivid colors (just to be clear, this is not HDR, think vibrancy or saturation); reduce some artifacts like banding; and the most important benefit imho, reduce the file size of the video around 10-40%. Sometimes even more.

There's pros and cons with this, 10-bit files have slightly better image and smaller sizes when compared to the same 8-bit files, but they aren't recognizable by as many devices - mostly old ones - as 8-bit videos are. So then the question of whether to use it or not hinges on what the priority is. To reduce costs on storage and bandwidth, or to have your content available to as many people as possible.

Perhaps if only Gamersyde's 4K videos are encoded in 10-bit, it won't affect people with old devices that aren't capable of running 4K videos in the first place? It's just a thought I had since I believe any device capable of running 4K content supports 10-bit, after all 10-bit has been in use for a much longer time than 4K. So it's hard to imagine a company making a 4K ready device that doesn't support 10-bit. But I could be wrong. Also, like BlimBlim said, there's a difference between H.264 10-bit and H.265 10-Bit.

Commented on 2017-06-07 07:14:38 In reply to ddarko

That being said, I am very interested to know that there is some content in which 10-bit shows better quality.

https://unidospelaqualidade.files.wordpress.com/20...

The example above, while not the best since it's comparing a raw image to an 8-bit encode, it does help in showing that that the 8-bit encode does not preserve the original colors perfectly. 10-bit doesn't do it perfectly as well, but it does preserve the colors a little more, as shown in the image below.

http://i.imgur.com/3PDyoRP.png

In the image below, you can see that the black at the op is smooth on the 10-bit encode, while the black part in the 8-bit encode has artifacts. But even other colors also have more artifacts in the 8-bit version than in the 10-bit version.

https://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachm...

The image below shows the visual difference between 8-bit and 10-bit on a gradient file. You can clearly see that the 10-bit side has an uniform aspect, a certain smoothness to it. While the 8-bit side has little lines in a perpendicular cascade fashion.

http://creativeclouduser.com/wp-content/uploads/20...

The image below has a better demonstration of the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit, you can see that the rainbow's different colors and shades "blend" - has a smoothness to it - in the 10-bit image, while in the 8-bit image you can clearly see "lines" around the shapes. The color bars below each image also do a very good job of demonstrating how the colors are being represented.

http://benqimage.blob.core.windows.net/us-img/423_...

In the below image, you can see that the 10-bit version's green area is almost clean, with little artifacts, while the 8-bit version has so many artifacts in the green area that it almost looks like a blend of green and orange, like if the green paint is sheding.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachments/panasonic-...

I will stop here with the images as there's a whole lot of these comparisons. I also didn't search for YouTube videos, but I'm sure there's a lot of them covering the subject with many comparisons. The main takeway is that image quality is indeed slightly better in 10-bit, in some cases - like the green door one - I would even say that the quality difference is very significant.

If its possible, can you post some of the meta data for a video file that you thought had good quality in 10 bits in comparison to 8 bits? Also, were the bit-rates the same? This is for personal interest. So glad if you could give some info :)

I ran into a problem with HandBrake and unfortunately, I can't make 10-bit videos with it. I could use another program, but I would need to learn how to use it very well in order to not make any mistakes that could affect the quality one way or another, which I just' don't have time right now. However, I believe that there might be some videos on YouTube with this info by people with much more knowledge and experience than me.

Also, was the original source 10-bit in this case, or was the 8-bit data compressed to 10-bit?

Almost always the source will be 8-bit, though some Animes Blu-Ray discs and 4K Blu-Ray movies have started coming with both 8-bit and 10-bit versions. Still, in most cases, these 8-bit sources are uncompressed and very big in file size, so when you encode to 8-bit or even 10-bit, it's almost never lossless - otherwise you would just copy the video track as it is instead of enconding it, which takes far more time. All 10-bit compression does is a better job at conserving the original colors, reducing artifacts and reducing file size than 8-bit. So even if the source is 8-bit, by using 10-bit you can still have a better encode overall.

The only problem with 10-bit is that compatibility with devices is very low when compared to 8-bit - even for H.265 10-bit content. Though this happens with any new technology that gets released, like from VHS to DVD, from DVD to Blu-Ray, etc. People will only start using them when the adoption rate starts growing at a fast rate and/or the benefits outweight the disadvantages.

PS. To everyone who thinks I was criticizing the quality of the videos Gamersyde makes and/or posts, read again. Like I've said a few times before, my suggestion was based on trying to reduce videos' file sizes, since from the news post, Gamersyde will start making more and more 4K videos as time goes on, and these will be much bigger in size than 1080p videos, resulting in storage and bandwidth costs rising for the site. Though even 1080p videos can be quite big sometimes, if I'm not mistaken, a 5 minute 1080p video made by Gamersyde's staff is around 1,5 GB. Therefore, I was simply trying to come up with something that could help reduce these costs. That's all.

As for quality, that can easily be increased with raising bitrate and/or tweaking settings in whatever encoding program they use. If that was the goal, all they had to do is release +200 MB bitrate videos - just like Nex Machina: Death Machine's PSX 2016 Reveal Trailer, which is 1,82 GB in file size for just 58 seconds. Which as much as I love the video - I'm even going to burn it to a DVD - is completely overkill and has far more bitrate than necessary, so it has a lot of wasted bitrate.

[quote=ddarko]That being said, I am very interested to know that there is some content in which 10-bit shows better quality.[/quote]

https://unidospelaqualidade.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/encode2.png

The example above, while not the best since it's comparing a raw image to an 8-bit encode, it does help in showing that that the 8-bit encode does not preserve the original colors perfectly. 10-bit doesn't do it perfectly as well, but it does preserve the colors a little more, as shown in the image below.

http://i.imgur.com/3PDyoRP.png

In the image below, you can see that the black at the op is smooth on the 10-bit encode, while the black part in the 8-bit encode has artifacts. But even other colors also have more artifacts in the 8-bit version than in the 10-bit version.

https://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11323&d=1331060912

The image below shows the visual difference between 8-bit and 10-bit on a gradient file. You can clearly see that the 10-bit side has an uniform aspect, a certain smoothness to it. While the 8-bit side has little lines in a perpendicular cascade fashion.

http://creativeclouduser.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Bitdepth_1.jpg

The image below has a better demonstration of the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit, you can see that the rainbow's different colors and shades "blend" - has a smoothness to it - in the 10-bit image, while in the 8-bit image you can clearly see "lines" around the shapes. The color bars below each image also do a very good job of demonstrating how the colors are being represented.

http://benqimage.blob.core.windows.net/us-img/423_5_resource_html.jpg

In the below image, you can see that the 10-bit version's green area is almost clean, with little artifacts, while the 8-bit version has so many artifacts in the green area that it almost looks like a blend of green and orange, like if the green paint is sheding.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/attachments/panasonic-lumix-g-gf-gh-gx-series/35372d1443588021-vlog-8bit-vs-10bit-vlog_8_10bit_iso400_exp0.jpg

I will stop here with the images as there's a whole lot of these comparisons. I also didn't search for YouTube videos, but I'm sure there's a lot of them covering the subject with many comparisons. The main takeway is that image quality is indeed slightly better in 10-bit, in some cases - like the green door one - I would even say that the quality difference is very significant.

[quote=ddarko]If its possible, can you post some of the meta data for a video file that you thought had good quality in 10 bits in comparison to 8 bits? Also, were the bit-rates the same? This is for personal interest. So glad if you could give some info :)[/quote]

[quote=ddarko]Also, was the original source 10-bit in this case, or was the 8-bit data compressed to 10-bit?[/quote]

The only problem with 10-bit is that compatibility with devices is very low when compared to 8-bit - even for H.265 10-bit content. Though this happens with any new technology that gets released, like from VHS to DVD, from DVD to Blu-Ray, etc. People will only start using them when the adoption rate starts growing at a fast rate and/or the benefits outweight the disadvantages.

PS. To everyone who thinks I was criticizing the quality of the videos Gamersyde makes and/or posts, read again. Like I've said a few times before, my suggestion was based on trying to reduce videos' file sizes, since from the news post, Gamersyde will start making more and more 4K videos as time goes on, and these will be much bigger in size than 1080p videos, resulting in storage and bandwidth costs rising for the site. Though even 1080p videos can be quite big sometimes, if I'm not mistaken, a 5 minute 1080p video made by Gamersyde's staff is around 1,5 GB. Therefore, I was simply trying to come up with something that could help reduce these costs. That's all.

As for quality, that can easily be increased with raising bitrate and/or tweaking settings in whatever encoding program they use. If that was the goal, all they had to do is release +200 MB bitrate videos - just like Nex Machina: Death Machine's PSX 2016 Reveal Trailer, which is 1,82 GB in file size for just 58 seconds. Which as much as I love the video - I'm even going to burn it to a DVD - is completely overkill and has far more bitrate than necessary, so it has a lot of wasted bitrate.