HKT48 Stage Watching Club

As suggested, I'm making this thread so we can continue the discussion that began in the general thread about this. The title of the thread was the first thing that came to my mind, we can just change it later.

Simply put, the idea is to plan meetings where we can watch one or more HKT stages (or maybe an HKT TV show) together while talking among ourselves. Think of it as friends getting together in someone's home to watch a movie or something. Except that since our homes are thousands of kilometers apart, we have to meet through the Internet.

I know it's difficult to bring people together due to the big time zone differences, but we can at least try to do it. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work.

Now, the first website I thought about was justin.tv, because it has these benefits:
-Everyone starts to watch the video at the same time
-Chat functionality that allows you to chat with people who are watching the same video.

However I've done some tests yesterday and today and I'm not very happy with the image quality I'm getting there. I want to ask you guys if you know of some other video hosting sites we could use. Any ideas on that?

 

Re: HKT48 Viewing Club

As I already said, I think this is a splendid idea, as I personally would love it if people would watch many many more theatre performances, given that chance.

Regarding justin.tv:
Aren't there stream programs where you can define the quality with which you upload your stream? I know there are for twitch.tv as I streamed there myself a while ago and I could adjust the quality of my stream.
And as justin.tv basically is the "non-gamestream" service of twitch.tv, it should work there, too.

As for LODs to watch... recently I fell in love with Tomiyoshi Seitansai (KKS) and Haruppi Seitansai (H). Both are great LODs, have the "oshi-cam" so people dont have to focus on too many different members at once and both got released just recently.
Ah.. also, both have really strong lineups!

 

Re: HKT48 Viewing Club

@Sadia: First I tried streaming with VLC on my Linux machine, but the video was unwatchable because it looked like a powerpoint presentation. Then I download OBS to my Windows machine. OBS provides a watchable stream, but the quality still leaves much to be desired, specially in scenes with fast movement (and there is a lot of fast movement in an LOD). I've tried tweaking the software settings, I've even selected the justin.tv server closest to me, but quality still isn't nice. Of course, the original LODs are in pretty poor quality to begin with, which makes this harder.

One thing I haven't tried yet is converting the videos to some other, more streaming-friendly format. Maybe if I convert them to flv they'll stream better?

 

Re: HKT48 Viewing Club

For streaming you should try the program "XSplit", its really good for that purpose and has lots of nice options!
http://www.xsplit.com/

Im pretty sure it does work with justin.tv!

And for the sake of filesize, you can safe about 40-60% of the original video size, if you recapture the LOD with (for example) Audials 10 and use custom ffmpeg compression command line arguments!
Setting this up, you can get a mp4 out of it, which is (for seitansais) ~1,1 - 1,7GB big and has a quality loss from maybe around 5-7% (<< just from my experience, no accurate numbers) for the lowest filesize.
The output LOD that way looks really the same, just the black areas are a bit more blocky (like when the lights go out, but that shouldnt matter).

I am currently tweaking this method since like 2 months and found by now a really good way to create drm free and small files for my personal DVD collection =).

 

Re: HKT48 Viewing Club

Lol the title kind of makes us sound like peeping toms
It would be nice if the program had a mobile app to allow those on the go or without computers to tune in

 

Re: HKT48 Viewing Club

LOL I changed it to something less pervy now. About the apps, justin.tv has apps for iPhone and iPad. As for Android, they have a broadcasting app but not a viewing app.

@Sadia23: Thanks for the tip. I've downloaded XSplit and I'm testing it now. Tomiyoshi's seitansai is a good idea.

About times and such, here's what I'm thinking. On a certain specified date and time, I'll broadcast two (or maybe 3) stages in a row. During this time, people are free to join and leave the channel as they see fit. This would make up a "window" of time for people to meet. People who can't watch the first stage because it's too early/too late or whatever could still catch up the second (and/or third) stage. The best day to do this would be Saturday in Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT). This guarantees that the event will be held on the weekend anywhere in the world, as Saturday night GMT is Sunday morning in Asia/Oceania.

Another possibility would be playing two different stages in different times wide apart instead of playing them in a row. For example, one stage at 2 pm and another one at 8 pm.

 

^ that time schedule is a great idea, like that everyone could enjoy at least one LOD =3. Im all up for it!

Regarding Tomiyoshi Seitansai.. I just finished watching it (took me 4 hours because I was so fanboying/fangirling over it).. Its great.. like really great, but I fear it might be too much for people who just start watching HKT LODs.
Not that its a bad thing, but it was so weird and insane, HKT LODs aren't usually like that and I fear, some people might be really confused by it, haha.

Lots of tears though, as well as Haruppi Seitansai (which was more emotional though).
Well.. I like to watch each and every LOD, lets just watch em all x3

 

You got me curious now! I haven't watched her seitansai yet.

We can start with regular LODs to "ease" people into it.

So, I'm running another test right now. I converted the video file to h.264 in an mp4 container, and I'm using Xsplitter to broadcast. Results are much better now, with no freezing nor dropped frames. [clap]

Any suggestions for what stages you guys want to watch? I've been posting brief reviews of the stages in the LOD thread so you can use that as a guide.

 

Plus one on Haruppi's Seitansai! Really though, I am good with any show. And the Saturday GMT showings would make it easier for me to work it into my overloaded schedule, as I am on the West coast US. [hi] Currently 7 hours behind GMT. Stupid outdated Daylight Savings Time. An 8pm showing would put it in the afternoon my local time.

 

I'm good at any time even if it's midnight for me, I'd stay up for you guys, as long as we do Haruppi's birthday as well XD oh and Okapon's and H2 shonichi, also if you guys wanna be thrilled out of your brains we better put HKT's anniversary somewhere there, one of the best LODs to exist, I've watched it over and over again.

Was that too much

 

Im glad that you could work the streaming problem out, DreamingPebbles =).

There are so many good LODs, its hard to pick one for me...

130805 (H)
130809 (KKS)
130811 (KKS)
130829 (H/Natsu BD)
130904 (H)

^ These are just some of the good LODs that got stuck at my brain, nearly all of them are watchable in my opinion anyway .

Ah.. do you happen to have 130617 (Yuriya BD)? Havn't had a DMM sub at that time and really would like to enjoy that one in a nice quality!

 

Just for side note:

Spoiler

Open Broadcaster Software
I used this. Its pretty cool and easy to configure. Its compatible many popular streaming sites.
Also there is an estimator which can help a lot.

 

by the way, isn't justin a pay-per-view streaming site?

Or it's only the streamer who decide if it's free or not?

For example, to see Janken live on honmayan.justin.tv the site cut me after 5 min telling me i had to pay

 

^ You can watch any video on justin.tv for free. However, during periods of heavy traffic, the site limits the bandwith to people of certain places and gives priority to people who have Pro accounts (which cost 10 USD per month). More info: https://help.justin.tv/entries/2414...-purchase-a-Pro-Account-to-view-video-content

This is pretty annoying, but it's hard to know beforehand who will be affected by this. For example, I was watching the Janken live in honmayan's channel too and I didn't get that message. The video was playing perfectly for me. However I have seen that message before while watching other channels. So it really depends on where you are and on what time it is. :dunno:

Also a note about justin.tv accounts for people who are not familiar with that website. You don't need an account to watch the videos, but you need one to take part in the chat. You can sign up for a free account, which enables you to talk in the channel chats. Or if you want you can get a Pro account (10 USD per month). The advantages of the Pro account is that you don't see ads and, like I said above, you don't get bandwidth restrictions.

I don't have it, sorry. I wasn't a subscriber at that time either. I've searched for it in H!O but it looks like they don't have it.

Haruppi's seitansai it is then! Then we could have a KKS stage to even things out. I think Sadia23's suggestion of 130809 or 130811 are good ideas. The star KKS (Meru, Mio etc) were away on the Dome Tours at the time, so it fell to the other less famous girls to hold the fort at the theater.

 

^Yesh! I can watch my torrent another time as well as the AKB one but it's gonna be so much fun watching my baby's LOD with everyone, I'm glad I didn't watch it today and stuck myself to working on her album [party]

btw guys I watched the entire Janken stream from that annin channel on Justin without any problems, I didn't pay or anything, once every 20 minutes a 10 sec ad pops up but that's all. I don't know if it's just for Janken though.

 

With a justin.tv account and addblock you wouldn't even get those short ads ^o^
I watched the stream live without any interruptions, worked fine.

But IDK about the streaming options on justin.tv; like Twitch.tv comes with multiple quality settings. That would be useful if someone's internet is rather slow.
+ There's an android (and probably iPhone as well) app of twitch.tv if someone would join from his/her phone.

 

Yeah I was actually watching it on my phone, S4, via photon browser, cause that plays all my flash without polug ins or additional apps.

 

you should start it up again, ill be up for it

 

I suggest Nounai Paradise from 3rd anniversary special show. That one has strong lineup and pretty good for those who love great performance.

 

yeah the stage watching club used to be a pretty good laugh back then.