Twitch changes/future plans (part 2)

Hello everyone.

Once again, I have a bit of information to share on upcoming changes/features on Twitch. If you have any questions, comments, or remarks, don't hesitate to contact me (via PM, twitter or wherever). This includes uncovered topics that you would like answers to.

tl;dr version:

-- Stream delay is being set to the minimum (2s chunks) for more streams. The main focus group for this would be smaller streams that rely more heavily on chat interaction (a lot of speedrunning streams, inter alia). If successful, it will be further extended.
-- Audio muting appeals are handled by a small team atm, but it's being expanded. Regardless of response time, report any unjustified audio muting. The more reports there are, the better it can be refined. Remember: Game audio is never meant to be flagged!
-- Audio is being removed from VoDs, but it's also stored separately. Once the muting system has been improved beyond the 30 minute chunks (ETA: weeks/few months, depends on AudibleMagic), audio may be restored to older VoDs. This is resource intensive, however.
-- Separate audio channels for streams has become part of pipeline to be put in the product plan. No engineers working on this full time yet, but given the awesome applicability, don't be surprised to see it one day. Example: Multiple commentary audio streams for AGDQ on a single Twitch channel.
-- More transparency of changes/updates via partnered channels (which is why you're reading this pastebin!). Easy way to diffuse information to specific communities.


Stream Delay:

As mentioned in the last pastebin (http://pastebin.com/R0UjQm5X), unlike when using RTMP, it isn't trivial to reduce stream delay. Most people, if not everyone, have hated the big delay, which used to go all the way up to a full minute, making chat interaction impossible. It has come down gradually over time (20-30 sec average, would be my guess), and is being reduced further. The most noticeable, but not the only, way to reduce this delay is to reduce the length of the video chunks that are pre-buffered. These chunks are being reduced all the way down to 2 seconds - the minimum length. This means that, technically, you could have a stream delay down to about 8-10 seconds (transcoding included) if you're close to the server and a bit above that if you live far away. Of course, this isn't quite as magical as the delay a lot of people get on sites like Hitbox (for me it's about 3-13 seconds, depending on whose stream I'm watching), but the difference is certainly drastically smaller, to the point where it hardly matters. The 2 second chunks are not being implemented for everyone just yet, as it's still in a somewhat experimental stage, but its application is being expanded. The main targets for lower delays are streams that involve a lot of interaction with the chat, such as speedrunning streams, but also Runescapers, Minecrafters, and so forth. That is to say, eSports streams are not the focus group here (because it's not like you'll ever hear someone talk about chat during events like The International (unless they're screwing around with their Kappa Per Minute meters)). To my knowledge, it's not being stated publicly who's being put in the sample group for the reduced delay, but if you notice it's smaller than before one day, now you'll know why.
Here's an example of what you may see on a wider scale soon: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/aj6sn4rupj6o5e5/2014-08-21_19-37-53.png?dl=0

Audio muting appeals

Right now, the team handling audio appeals coming in (an average of about 200 per day) is very small. A lot of the appeals coming in are invalid, because people were just playing music via Spotify/CDs/whatever, and there's quite a few repeat submissions. Current response times aren't exactly stellar yet, but the team handling the appeals is being expanded, so things should speed up soon. Regardless of how long it takes for you to get a response, make sure you appeal any kind of muting you think is unjustified. That is to say, in game audio/sfx and music are never meant to be muted (unless it's a game like Vice City, but that's a special case). The more reports are sent in, the better the database can be refined, and the better games can be completely whitelisted from being flagged. Even if you don't get a response right away, you're doing yourself and other streamers of the same game a big favour by making sure your/their game is no longer muted in the future.

Audio restoration

I think most people have noticed by now that if you download your VoDs to circumvent the audio muting via something like twitchtvtools, the audio is actually removed from those VoDs rather than just the player forcibly being muted. The reason for this is that it's simply a legal requirement that the audio is not publicly accessible, and muting the player isn't quite enough for that. However, the affected audio is being stored separately. This means that once the muting system has been refined and doesn't mute these huge chunks of 30 minutes any more, a big portion of the muted audio could be restored to these (older) VoDs (with the exception of the actually copyright violating part, of course). This process would be quite resource intensive, so it's not something prioritised, but it may happen in the future. I'm sure a lot of streamers, myself included, would appreciate the restoration of our highlights to their full, former glory.

Audio stream splitting

A feature that was mentioned last time, is the idea of making it possible to stream multiple audio channels to the same stream. That is, for events like ESA/AGDQ/SGDQ/SRGMarathon (:v), you could have audio commentary in several languages on the same stream. Could simply choose between original audio, and for instance French commentary (by the MisterMV crew), German commentary (EXE crew) and so forth. This feature is still far from being finished, and it also heavily relies on streaming software being updated to incorporate the idea, but it's in the pipeline to be put in the product plan for Twitch (that means it's not 100% confirmed). A lot of big streams (eSports ones in particular) have requested this sort of feature, so don't be surprised to see it some time in the (near?) future.

Chat-related things

Quite a few people have expressed their interest in a moderator log for chat. For most people, this would be a convenient tool to see if a moderator might've been overzealous or to get rid of "rogue mods" who mess up chat just to troll the streamer and the viewers. The mod log has been put on a wishlist, which means it'll be considered for future implementation. Probably low priority for now, though.

Hosting mode is a neat feature that lets streamers send over a lot of viewers to another stream instantly, but chats remain separated. One of the reasons why this is the case is to prevent malicious use, since you could flood and destroy people's chats with it (which, in all fairness, is no different from raiding). The hosting system is still under development, and (optionally) merging chats in one way or another is considered the next logical step.

In general, Twitch's dedicated chat team has been focusing on stability, which has taken up a lot of resources, and somewhat halted the development of chat features. They are coming out of the woods, though, so if all goes well more emphasis will be put on the development of new chat features - possibly the ones mentioned above.

Why am I writing this?

Twitch admits that, and I quote, "we've screwed up with speedrunners". A huge issue is that features were being implemented unannounced in the past, and speedrunners have been affected by them quite a lot (highlight limitations, for instance). Horrorgate has also not been forgotten. It's resulted in a lot of internal changes (admin system revamp), but still transparency was lacking. If I hadn't made friends with a few admins (love you, Pipe), I would probably not have noticed any changes, since they weren't really elaborated on publicly after the promises made during the Horrorgate AMA. The current idea is that information is shared with a select group of Twitch users, so that we can diffuse it to everyone else. It's an easy way to reach a big group of people, and it doesn't involve a lot of time or resources. A handful of people have the impression that I'm somehow being hired/paid by Twitch to do this, but that's not the case. I simply appreciate the gesture of being informed about what's happening and what's going to happen, and being able to inform my fellow speedfriends about it. "Quid pro quo" would be a nice way to put it. The fact that this can prevent or at least alleviate any future drama is a huge plus, and makes it more than worth doing.

Once again, the above information was shared with me by Justin Wong, but I wrote the pastebin myself on the basis of it. If all goes well, there will be more future updates as well (though I don't quite know how regularly those will happen).

Have a lovely day!

-- Adam (& Justin Wong)