You seem good at adding things to engines, so add dzip support to your favourite one. ,)

I love watching demos and I like being able to watch them as I like. You can make your OS launch demos by simply doubleclicking them.

Speedruns are a niche. Why would people bother when they were at Youtube. Except for the "big" ones but those already are available there. 

...Baker posts something that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Have you every played Quake or watched demos before?? Because it seems like you're struggling with it.

Inconvenient and archaic my ARSE. If you can't work out downloading and installing Quake maps and demos, then I'm not sure why you're even bothering with Quake in the first place.

P.S. Dz unzips with Dzip (really easily I might add), then the .dem files play in any conventional engine. 

i dont see demos everyday but sometimes is realy great fun to see those, about format... bah who cares? 

Shambler

No, he's right. I don't download these things because it's a pain in the ass. The only speed runs I've ever watched are ones that were converted into AVI files.

AVI or YouTube plz! I would watch them all. 

Demos.

Demos for Quake 1.

Making a demo on Quake 1 and turning it into a video file is a bit like getting a Harley Davidson Road King and then taking it out for the day in the back of a plain white small Ford transit van.

It just SHOULDNT BE DONE!!! 

That's ridiculous. They ALREADY DO IT for some demos so it isn't like we're breaking new ground here.

- launch something like Fraps
- play the demo
- upload the video file

It's not hard and it allows people to view them much more easily. 

You are forgetting why DZIP exists in the first place: Smaller files.
Think about how much work it would be to make videos. And how small any benefit is compared to that stress.

Some demos might be so fucking awesome that they serve that easy of attention from people who do nont have Quake. I guess that is the biggest reason to make video captures.

Willem does not count since he is on MacOS X with no dzip tool (right?). ;-)

And we've been there before. DZIP is obsolete nowadays because bandwidth is better and it would be great if ZIP was used instead. 7zip would be even better but so inconvenient and modern. 

if any current formats allow you to cram a 45 minute video with full sound quality at a resolution of 2560x1600 into a grand total of about 4 megs. For 45 minutes. And it looks better.

OK, so you have to open an archive, extract its contents (unless you use an engine which makes this even easier for you) into another folder (you might have to navigate to the folder)

Then you have to run a program (heaven forbid that a command line option could be written here)

Then you have to press a key and type another command (oh horror!)

Or they could uplouad oll of the files to youtube or google video and we can watch the blurry poor sound quality versions, that took several weeks to create and upload, and hope that they buffer all the way through on our mediocre internet connection.

I really hope that if they do start hosting 100s of Gbs of video on SDA.com (at great expense to the website owner I'd imagine) that they still keep the demo files up there too :) 

Hey, do whatever you want. But know that by using stupid shit like DZ and requiring people to run the demos in the game itself, you're limiting your audience. 

1 - Demos are not stupid, and they are not shit.

2 - Enjoy your On LIVE box thing. Take your computer, throw it out of the window. 

OK, now you're frothing and not even reading posts correctly. This discussion is on pause. 

Or they could uplouad oll of the files to youtube or google video and we can watch the blurry poor sound quality versions, that took several weeks to create and upload, and hope that they buffer all the way through on our mediocre internet connection.

I really hope that if they do start hosting 100s of Gbs of video on SDA.com (at great expense to the website owner I'd imagine) that they still keep the demo files up there too :) 

The only argument here is easy user frontend or not. Baker tends to make toolsets that are frontends - that's what he was commenting about.

We're used to jumping through hoops to watch demos since we do it to play the maps in the first place.

But if I last played a map four years ago and feel like watching a demo of it then a video would be a nicer option. If I wanted to watch it properly then I'd donwload the map and proper demo.

It's only in Quake where we expect that second option. 

Is the first defense of why things are fine when things aren't workin'.

"Things are great as how they are?" - Spirit
"You are an idiot" says Shambler
"It's so easy [that no one does it]" says Ricky

Meanwhile, in the last 7-8 years I've heard of maybe 4-5 non-hardcore people that have even watched an SDA demo.

I probably watched 80 of them back 4 years ago when I built a file association demo play tool [that even supported .dz for non-dz engines].

The first rule of life is honesty.

Don't kid yourself, very few non-Quake leet (The hardcores) are going to do all the steps required to watch even one SDA demo.

Yet the few speed runs on YouTube get an assloadius maximus of views.

(And Shambler, I'm not convinced you actually know how to play a .dz demo. Add that to the list of things you don't know, like how to compile a map or use FitzQuake ;) ) 

Did those people have Quake? Would they even be remotely interested in "random run on a custom map you never heard of"?


I'm not saying that things are great as they are. Things could be easier in most engines. I launch demos via doubleclick and the engine I use has a demo browser. It also has dzip and zip support. Any halfway intelligent person could watch a speedrun this way without needing a feeding cup.

For the doubleclicking here you go: http://www.quaddicted.com/tips-and-tricks/launching-maps-and-demos-with-a-doubleclick/
metl posted the way for Windows in the comments.

You could always do it yourself, you know? Post speedruns to youtube! 

there is only one way to find out if this is the right thing to do: Doing it yourself and check the results. 

WotEVER. I'm not the person who's ever had any problems playing demos. 

"Did those people have Quake? Would they even be remotely interested in "random run on a custom map you never heard of"? "

What if you're at work and want to watch some demos on your lunch break? Hey, you don't have Quake installed there, too bad I guess.

Look, the fact is that producing a video file of a game is super easy these days. It's time to stop living in denial and move forward with technology.

Provide the DZ nonsense for those who love it but provide those of us on other operating systems or who simply want convenience some other way of checking them out. I LOVE speed runs but whenever I'm forced to download a map and then a demo and use Quake to view it - I rapidly lose interest.

That's all. 

Hell, the speed run archives site ALREADY HAS AVI files of several speed runs and I've watched them all multiple times. It's the better choice for a lot of people. 

 

Did those people have Quake? Would they even be remotely interested in "random run on a custom map you never heard of"?

I watched that bike video Shambler posted. I don't actually own a bike. Or a skate board. Or squirrel suit (oh god do I want one tho). Yet I still watch videos for them.


Look, the fact is that producing a video file of a game is super easy these days. It's time to stop living in denial and move forward with technology.

Indeed. And frankly, I don't think it'd be that hard to create an automated process on someone's machine to produce avi files from new demos and auto-upload them to youtube. Fsck, they even do HD nao... 

i never watch speed runs in quake. i might start if they were on youtube or something. 

i have watched the high profile runs such as QDQ and its variants. I have also watched the speedruns of Antediluvian since it's my own level. Since I'm not deep in the speedrunning scene, I generally don't watch all of the ~20 new speedruns that come out every couple of weeks, mainly because I don't have a sense of which ones are most worth watching. I think that's the obstacle more than installation needs. I can install a map and a demo, no problem, but I have no idea which demo of hundreds I should be watching. 

Could be the answer - if people think a demo is particularily worth watching then they should be able to make a Video file and submit it into an archive, a bit like Youtube. Each user gets an account and the capability to upload a video!

Over time I recon a large amount of quality videos would be uploaded, with a short description or whatever.

And there would be more throughput.

And the demo files would still be availiable for anyone to download.

Just an idea/suggestion. 

What you want it to click the link and be watching the demo a few seconds later. I think I know how to write the necessary glue to do this for dz files on OS X and Linux, maybe I should try it this weekend... Windows is right out, of course (for me).