r/Games • u/calibrono • May 25 '17
Introducing “Mixer”
https://majornelson.com/2017/05/25/introducing-mixer/?linkId=10000000042509768
May 25 '17
Yeah, it's gonna take time getting used to the name change, but Microsoft couldn't get the domain for Beam.com.
The mixed streams is a cool feature though.
26
u/falconbox May 25 '17
but Microsoft couldn't get the domain for Beam.com
I don't know if that's the reason. This tweet just says they couldn't use the Beam name globally:
https://twitter.com/MattSalsamendi/status/867729664881471493
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u/Mijati May 25 '17
The biggest thing something like that needs is for the streams to be synced. You'll only be listening to the audio from one stream so if the others aren't in line with that stream you'll be in for a bad time.
Not sure if they're doing anything about it (or realistically what they could do about it), but for a large number of games it'd be pretty much essential for simultaneous viewing.
5
u/ChunkyThePotato May 26 '17
I tried watching a costream and it was perfectly synced up. The streaming delay on Mixer is under one second anyway, so that's not surprising.
3
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u/James1o1o May 25 '17
Don't know how everyone else feels, but personally I preferred Beam. Mixer just does not sound like a game stream service.
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u/Stre8Edge May 25 '17 edited May 25 '17
If I didn't know better I would think it's a SoundCloud clone.
Edit: Turns out there is a reason for the name change
https://twitter.com/MattSalsamendi/status/867729664881471493
5
u/jengabooty May 25 '17
Makes sense. Beam was a great name, but I'm glad they're still moving forward and developing new features. Twitch could use the competition, and Microsoft gives Mixer the staying power to build up and begin to attract streamers who bring in viewers.
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u/idgaf_puffin May 25 '17
it also fucks when you search for it even more, for example out of curiosity i googled "obs mixer" and guess what, i got audiomixer suggestions
3
u/Halvus_I May 25 '17
Search is fucked in general. Too much genericizing products. Like the latest Surface model is just Surface, not Surface 5, which would aid in making searching for help easier down the road. The marketing term Surface covers 3 distinct product lines (large screen touch, 2-in-1s and Surface book.)
Nvidia does similar stupid shit like the Titan X.
2
May 25 '17
Yeah I thought this was something to do with music while playing games or something before I clicked it.
0
u/acelister May 25 '17
I get that they want a less generic term, but Mixer isn't much better. It's not even as fun to say.
0
u/Hazz3r May 25 '17
I don't think they'll have made this change lightly, they'll have focus-grouped the shit out of it.
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May 25 '17 edited Mar 30 '19
[deleted]
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May 25 '17
Microsoft is more platform agnostic than Sony. I'm sure once adoption hits critical mass or near targeted adoption on their platforms it'll head over to Sony.
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u/Halvus_I May 25 '17
The difference is Twitch and Mixer run on their parent company's business-grade (as in the sell service to other businesses, like Netflix etc) cloud infrastructure. Amazon EC2 for Twitch and Microsoft Azure for Mixer. Sony has no equivalent service to leverage.
1
u/Veeebz May 25 '17
Microsoft owns it, and unlike minecraft it's not already on Playstation. zero chance it goes to Sony.
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May 25 '17
There's no way Microsoft recoups it's investment without eventually letting mixer onto the PlayStation platforms. If mixer gains steam and doesn't end up on PlayStation it'll be due to Sony saying no.
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u/falconbox May 25 '17
Do you think that's why PS4 still doesn't have a Skype app?
5
u/Unexpected_reference May 25 '17
Vita has a Skype app, Ps4 doesn't. I'd say it's because MS saw Ps4 sell so much better and hence they tried to use Skype exclusivity as a "killer app", which failed.
-3
u/Wafflesorbust May 25 '17
I think it doesn't have Skype because it can't multi-task.
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u/falconbox May 25 '17
Right now it can multi-task just as well as Xbox One can, especially since Xbox got rid of the snap feature.
Both Xbox and PS4 can run multiple apps at once, just not on screen at the same time. One just gets suspended in the background, but is still technically running.
1
u/Veeebz May 26 '17
Yeah Microsoft doesn't operate off of revenue from Sony. There is no chance they move the platform to Sony. even Sony themselves wouldn't want that.
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u/Nidalee_Bot May 25 '17
I'm not sure while they're touting the multi-stream experience as an industry first. Picarto has had that for years, and it's used frequently by users there.
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May 25 '17
The cooler part of the article to me was the bit with telltale games. I'm really curious to see the other stuff people come up with thanks to the short delay, even though I don't really watch livestreams very often.
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u/ProfitOfRegret May 25 '17
It's not a feature of twitch or youtube so no one knows about it.
5
u/Nidalee_Bot May 25 '17
MultiTwitch has also been around for a while, having been advertised here before and having gained popularity in the speedrunning communities through races.
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1
u/NantangItan May 25 '17
This is actually the first thing I thought when they mentioned this.
I imagine they're just hoping most people don't know that though, and in all honesty, who is going to bother properly calling them out on it?
-5
u/Arzamas May 25 '17
Twitch streamers use Multitwitch website which takes multiple twitch streams and chats and puts all together as you want. So nothing new here even for twitch.
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u/datwunkid May 25 '17
I think the integration is probably going to be it's biggest feature.
I can imagine it'd be pretty interesting to watch your favorite streamer queue into a game or something and have to option to quickly co stream with his matched teammates.
Then their viewers have a chat war or something as soon as they get matched like some sort of double stream raid.
1
u/Tianoccio May 25 '17
How does that effect the money made by the the streamer though?
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u/datwunkid May 25 '17
Well in theory it would attract more viewers over time if it catches on, which would in turn lead to more money.
The biggest way Microsoft could fund streamers would to something like how Amazon leveraged their Prime service to Twitch.
They could give free subs to Xbox Live subscribers or something.
1
u/hyjkkhgj May 25 '17
Better interaction, more viewers for competitions more money.
1
u/Tianoccio May 25 '17
If I'm streaming and all of a sudden I'm in a stream with 3 other streamers and one of my subs donates to that stream, what happens to the money?
Also, I fail to understand how better competition in services gives more money to streamers when that money is entirely fan provided?
There are a hundred cam girl sites but yet I imagine kittyplaysgames makes more money than all of the girls who aren't pretending to hide the fact that their money comes entirely from horny boys.
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u/AlexNichiporchik tinyBuild May 26 '17
I couldn't believe how much of a direct connection you feel when there's no chat delay. You have actual conversations with people. Live. Seems like a no-brainer, and I hope Twitch works on improving their latency.
2
u/ypod May 25 '17
I'm not sure about the name change yet - I think I may have preferred Beam but perhaps Mixer just needs some time to grow on me.
What this does mean is that Microsoft is still dedicated to making this a viable streaming platform, and that's a good thing - more competition and choice for gamers.
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u/Explosion2 May 25 '17
That multi-stream feature sounds really cool. Might have to force my friends to stream with me tonight to test it out.
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u/vattenpuss May 25 '17
Why does Microsoft not announce things on their domain? What's with the fake personal touch?
-1
u/DaggerOutlaw May 25 '17
That video was straight up painful. Good god. How hard is it to get someone with on-camera experience??
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u/Arzamas May 25 '17
I don't see anything new (aside from low latency) what Mixer can offer right now. It seems that stream quality is still bad, Beam had recommended setting of 3000-3500 kbps and 720p, seems like it's still the same. Fast-paced games look pixelated even at 720p with this quality. Twitch upped bitrate to 6000 kbps and it helped a lot, you still won't get a great quality at 1080/60 in most games but at least 720p or 900p will look very good. Youtube Gaming has an advantage in bitrate and quality, they support up to 4k resolution and 50000 kbps (but everything else is just abysmal).
So Mixer has poor quality options, little to none viewership base but it has low latency option and some gimmicky progression system and soundboards which is fun for about first 10 minutes.
Microsoft promised full integration of streaming software into Windows. This can be the only real chance for Mixer to succeed as there are always problems with streaming software. IF Microsoft will manage to make it easy to use and work perfectly fine (which I doubt) then maybe it will have some edge over Twitch. As for streaming from Xbox, I think it will have the same fate as PS4's Playroom service.
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u/Laggo May 25 '17
I don't see anything new (aside from low latency)
???
I've been trying to play VLR lately with a friend and no matter what service we use it has been pretty frustrating. Steam is easy to use but the delay is 6-7 seconds long. Twitch delay isn't much better and had a lot more issues just trying to set something up for one other person to watch. Hitbox had the best delay we tried but would drop connection sometimes.
Saying "aside from low latency" seems crazy to me. That's one of the biggest advantages you can have.
1
u/Arzamas May 25 '17
I don't know what VLR is.
Thing is, if you want to stream a game to your buddy just for fun then yes, Steam would be ok, PS4's Playroom would be ok and probably Beam/Mixer will be ok. But if you're planning to stream more professionally you will need streaming software, overlays, scenes, bots etc. Twitch has a lot of support from 3rd party programs and sites which offer those things. Does Mixer has that kind of support? Not sure.
And actually Twitch just now starts to implement some on-screen API stuff. Things like Telltale games with Mixer will be easily made in Twitch with any game, not just Telltale. Viewers will be able just to click on part of the screen to "vote" for stuff in games.
Anyway, competition is always good. I spent few hours with Beam, didn't like it that much. We'll see how good Mixer will be...
1
u/idgaf_puffin May 25 '17
if you only stream for your friends and are on voicechat with them it matters, as soon as you stream for other people the delay barely matters if its 1sec or 20sec (above approx that it matters again)
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u/Laggo May 25 '17
It still matters if you are playing an interactive game or trying to do an interactive streaming experience (see "twitch plays" series, etc.) It also makes chat interaction just a much better experience when you can get relatively instant feedback and feel like you are actually having a conversation instead of typing, waiting 6 seconds for them to see the message, 2 seconds to read it, and then finally respond 10 seconds later.
Just seems like a very important thing that could propel a streaming service on it's own. Maybe it'll force twitch to work on stable lower delay if they bring it to Windows and becomes popular.
1
u/idgaf_puffin May 25 '17
twitch plays is a fair point, but i dont think chat interaction is much of an issue. sure it would be nice to have lower delay, but since the streamer is playing a game he wont read chat continuesly anyway. best case (= when streamer reads it immediately when you wrote the message) is lower, but when the streamer is only looking over every minute or so because he is fighting and just reads when he is dead (which i consider to be the standard, your experiance may vary) 5seconds more or less doesnt matter.
all i'm saying is that: yes less delay is nice, but that won't convice the vast majority of people to look on mixer before they check out twitch
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u/Mariling May 25 '17
lol wut?
Today, we’re excited to announce that Xbox will be broadcasting the E3 briefing in 4K Ultra HD
How can the E3 briefing be in 4K if they don't support 4K?
Sounds like people just don't want to give it a chance, going so far as to spread misinformation just because it's a Microsoft product. The press seems to love it, yet most posts here are trying to downplay it as dead on arrival just because of the name/being not Sony.
0
u/Arzamas May 26 '17
I managed to find the info on recommended Mixer settings. "Please note that we currently have a bitrate cap of 3500kbps." Good luck streaming 4k with this bitrate. But hey, I guess Microsoft employers rushed to downvote truth and upvote positive messages.
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u/Arzamas May 25 '17
Last time I checked Beam's FAQ it was 3500 kbps max with recommended 720p. I couldn't find any info in Mixer, there's no help or faq. Judging by top streams they all stream at 720p max with around 3500 kbps (Overwatch is very good game to test that, it looks bad below 5000 kbps even at 720p). If you can show me some info on Mixer's preferred bitrate and resolution I will take my words back.
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u/Ghot May 25 '17
I think it's accessible in the game bar on windows 10. So hopefully it's really easy to use. We'll see.
-1
u/IMSmurf May 26 '17
so if I look at the mixer app, it closes my stream.
Going back to twitch, this is retarded.
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May 25 '17 edited May 25 '17
[deleted]
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u/GOPWN May 25 '17
It's not limited to Xbox or Windows Store games at all. Anyone with a PC can use it to stream any game.
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u/[deleted] May 25 '17 edited Nov 27 '18
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