game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

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game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 11:20 am

hi there, mahjong enthusiasts. i need your opinions!

Let me start off by saying that i come from a poker community. Ive played poker for quite some time online (12 years), and i participated in a number of online communities.

One of the greatest things that i came across in one of the poker communities was the recording of games for analysis of more advanced players.
There are a lot of programs that allow you to record whatever is happening on your screen (camtasia is probably the most user-friendly). People in the poker community used that program to record a tournament or cash game they participated in and talked about the choises they made, and uploaded that video to a site like rapidshare.
More experienced players would download the video, and look at the hands the player played, and hear why the player folded at a certain point, or why he went all-in, and could point out some obvious mistakes, or give some advice for future games.

On the other hand, there were a lot of expert players (some pro\'s) that recorded their online tournaments and talked about why they made different choises in different situation, and uploaded that videos for beginning players to watch and learn from it.

From my experience, i know that this is a great way for beginning players to improve their playing. Actually, not only for beginning players. I kept on learning a lot from videos of other experienced players and could still gradually improve my game thank to that.

I know that for example tenhou has a great system which allows other players to watch replays of your game, but the problem with that is, that you arent able to talk about the choises you made, or you have to type a LOT in the message where you posted that replay link.

Of course are there downsides too...
1: Videos will take time to make, upload, and download. Since the biggest part of the mahjong screen will not move, your videos wont be so big, but still expect ~60 MB for an hour of video.
2: trolls... if an absolute beginner uploads a video, most of the time on bigger communities there will be someone to tell him that he is a n00b that sucks0rz and need to learn the rules again. I hope that only applies for bigger communities, and not here (so far i havent seen a single troll on this forum).
3: you have to talk in a microphone... whooo.. scary ;) If you dont talk while recording your video, you can just as well paste a link to a game replay.


damn, this piece of text became a lot bigger than i thought it would be... So, for the main question: Who thinks this is a good idea, and more important: who would download videos to help other players, or record some videos of his/her own games to share for other players to learn from, or to improve your own game?

greetings!

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by HotelFSR » Tue May 19, 2009 12:46 pm

Great idea!

I\'m just not sure how to make these videos. I\'ll give it a shot if you can show me how, maybe I\'ll even upload some on youtube. On the other hand, I\'m very happy to review videos that you make anytime!

In the meantime here are some great pro replays from Tenhou that are very useful to learn from:

http://tenhou.net/cs/200901pre/

Scroll down to the scoresheet section and click on the blue tags underneath each game to view the replay right in your browser. Just wait for them to load then click the link that shows up under the ad.

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by HotelFSR » Tue May 19, 2009 2:19 pm

It would also be amazing to have some official reachmahjong.com videos online!

Hint hint :side:

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 2:33 pm

working with camtasia is very simple, but you will need a working version first.
When my connection is fixed (its way too slow at the moment), i\'ll try to make a short guide how to record a video of a game, with pictures.

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tom Sloper » Tue May 19, 2009 3:21 pm

>Who thinks this is a good idea,

Any reasonable person would think it\'s a good idea to record games for analysis.

As you found, the problem is the method. The logistics and the technical details. In general, it turns out to be too cumbersome. More power to you if you figure out one that can gain wide acceptance and support.
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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 3:26 pm

I found a piece of freeware software that works fine.

Its called Camstudio, and you can download it from
http://camstudio.org/
I assume you know how to install it after downloading, so i wont go in depth on that.

now... to set it up:
First make sure you opened your mahjong client of choise.
Best not to use a full screen option, but keep the window as small as possible (tiles should be easely readable of course).
the reason for this is: bigger field to record: bigger video.

Open Camstudio.

in Cam Studio, click on region --> fixed region. Click on select in the new screen, and select your whole mahjong client window. Click OK after that.

Go to options --> video options. Select a compressor of choise (divx is widely supported, but can give some recording issues... ffdshow is fine too, or keep the default microsoft video 1 compressor).
Leave Quality as it is. Uncheck Auto Adjust frame rate if it is checked, and use the time lapse slider untill you have the settings of: capture frames every 200 seconds, 5 frames per second.
Click OK.

Again, click on Options --> Audio options --> Audio options for microphone.
Recording format should be around 22.05 kHz mono 16 bit, or a bit higher (stereo is useless unless you have a really funky microphone and want to show that off instead of your mahjong skills)
Leave Everything else at default.
Click OK

Again in options, select Record Audio from Microphone.

you are ready to record!

bring your mahjong client into view, and position camstudio next to it.
Click on the record button of Camstudio (the big red dot).
you will see a selection... place that selection over your mahjong client screen, and click.
The recording will begin now!
start a game, play, and comment on your moves. If there is a long break for some reason, you can hit the pause button on camstudio, and resume recording later with the record button again.

When you are finished, click stop, and camstudio will ask where to save your file. Default folder is the camstudio installation folder.

Ive tested the file size, and i came to 2 MB for 1 hand with a resolution of 726x624 pixels. So 1 round games should be around 10-15 MB in size with this settings, which is perfect, even for the ones with a slower connection.

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 9:34 pm

As you found, the problem is the method. The logistics and the technical details. In general, it turns out to be too cumbersome. More power to you if you figure out one that can gain wide acceptance and support.
the method described in the message above (camstudio) is free, the program itself is 1.3 MB, and setting it up using the mini-guide i just wrote takes 3 minutes if you take it easy. Recording the video itself takes 3 more seconds than you would usually take to play a game, because you have to hit the record button, and the stop button to stop recording.

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Senechal » Tue May 19, 2009 9:42 pm

It\'s a good idea as long as a few things are taken care of:

1- The processing of media is well done. No choppy audio, clear video, a voice that can explain what needs to be explained in a good voice.
2- For review purposes, there must be a strategic, tactical and learning point in each clip. \"Look at me make tanyao\" won\'t cut it.
3- BGM added clips are fine but for the sake of my eardrums and for clarity, the music can\'t have vocals. And to save yourself trouble in the future, look for non-copyrighted stuff if you can. Newgrounds audio or muzie are good places to start looking, but there are others. (Youtube might mute your entire video if it scans copyrighted audio)
4- Good uses of subtitles to explain mathematical concepts relative to the game are fine, just don\'t overdo it.
5- Never, EVER, review games with full view. It\'s always to be seen from the player\'s perspective, the only time you should see all tiles is after explaining the important stuff through one hand, THEN maybe point out 2-3 potential things. But 75% of the time, they\'re not worth doing if you can\'t explain why it\'s important to see it. You can change from Player A to C over one game, but not review the same hand 3 times and extol the merits of D\'s play that just fell short of A and C.
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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 10:00 pm

Senechal

good points, but those only apply when an experienced player makes a video for the unexperienced player to learn from.
In case the unexperienced player makes the video, maybe its quite interesting to see that he tries a tanyao every round. People can try to help that person then to avoid that situation, and get more points from his hands.

subtitles will be a hassle i think... maybe you think on a scale too large. my proposal was that players that needed help, or wanted to offer help can make a small vid when they play a game, so others can take a look at it... its not necessary to make a whole documentary on mahjong. Keep it simple, then more people will be willing to participate. (im silently hoping for a pro to record some rounds)


anyway. i\'ll try to make a vid at the end of this week, or the beginning of next week. Since i\'m a total newbie, it will be a video of the \"help me\" kind...

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by HotelFSR » Tue May 19, 2009 10:13 pm

I just made a video which is processing on youtube as we speak.

I\'ll post it here when it\'s fully uploaded.

I agree with all of Senechal\'s points. The only ones I fall foul of are the video and sound quality. I\'ll definitely be improving that on the next video, just not sure how without making a huge file.

Unfortunately I have no mic at the moment so I had to record using headphones, giving my voice a rather annoying sound thats overly nasal and quiet. I\'ll be fixing that too.

Topic wise, I cover mostly basics but also read several waits live- all of which I nail!

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Senechal » Tue May 19, 2009 10:16 pm

Well, you\'ve just hit the nail on the head. It takes an experienced player (someone who\'s played at least a year) to make a video worth having other people watch. To review your own play, yes, by all means it\'s good to do, but we have had other people post videos which are unbearable to watch. Linkin Park tanyao videos aren\'t worth the upload. I won\'t name the person but he\'s made a lot of videos that weren\'t good to watch and didn\'t learn anything from them.
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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Ruro » Tue May 19, 2009 10:31 pm

hmm great idea with this recording thing, but it needs the popularity to get effective, so come on ppl make videos. This whole, thing reminds me of the jap tv mahjong programs, and sadly reminds me of that there is just a few that is accessible in youtube, and other sites, and almost none has subtitles (it\'s really hard to follow the commentators for me at least with this puny little knowledge). I consider making a video, for showing off how lame i am :D But seriously this seems an innovative idea ;)

EDIT: i just read Senechal-s comment and hell i laughed hard :D

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tom Sloper » Tue May 19, 2009 10:44 pm

Tha_Reaper wrote:First make sure you opened your mahjong client of choise.
OK, so this method only records games played online on a computer. And it doesn\'t show what hands the other players are holding during play.

If online computer games are suitable for the purpose of satisfying the desire to record games for analysis, then another way to go is to program the computer game so that it records all the pertinent information as the game is played. It may be that some of them already do this (Ron2 may have such a feature).
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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Ruro » Tue May 19, 2009 10:53 pm

I think you don\'t really need to play the game real time, a small replay is good enough, because it\'s just about adding a narrative to the play. For example you don\'t need to show us the whole round just say that \"i tried to have a kokushi here but (advance the replay to like 3-4 rounds later) I gave up on that here, and so...\" So if you use replay you can show the other players hands too. And yea it\'s about online mahjong, recording and narrating a play with friends at a real table could take quite a long I guess :)

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Re:game recording for analysis. Good or bad idea?

Post by Tha_Reaper » Tue May 19, 2009 10:55 pm

Tom Sloper: yeah, like i said: tenhou already does that, and you can view every game with a simple link, but a new player will not understand why the experienced player decided to break up a certain wait to go for another one unless you do a hell lot of typing with every link you post.

it works the same the other way around. If an inexperienced player posts a link, but doesnt tell why me discarded certain tiles, and held on to other tiles, its hard to correct that person since you dont know what he was thinking.

on the tenyao comment: i find myself finishing with tenyao hands way too often. with the vid that i\'m going to make, i hope that some people can help me in avoiding such hands, and can teach me some ways to go for the higher-point hands that i didnt think of before.

HotelFSR: To increase the quality you have some choises: set the video quality higher, or use a different codec (microsoft video 1 looks crappy compared to ffdshow for example).
If the video gets too big, you can reduce the frames/second recorded. Mahjong isnt a visible spectacle, so it doesnt matter at all if the video is choppy.
Remember that youtube again downgrades your video, so it might become unbearable to watch... its best to upload the video to www.megaupload.com or www.rapidshare.com for example. that way everyone can download and watch the video as many times as he wants without having to download it all over again from a streaming site.

ruro: camstudio has a pause option, so you can pause recording at any time, and resume it when something interesting happens. I think for myself that i cant comment on my own playing style well when i use the replay option. its different when you see the opponents tiles... but if someone can make a good video with open opponent tiles, would be great :)

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