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Jim and Dina Lindsay from JDL Pinball - Episode 7

JBS Show·podcast_episode·56m 19s·analyzed·Dec 13, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

JDL Pinball founders discuss European tournament streaming tech and community growth.

Summary

Jim and Dina Lindsay of JDL Pinball discuss their tournament streaming operation covering European competitive pinball events, including IFPA World Championships. They detail their three-rig setup, technical infrastructure using OBS and SDI equipment, venue network across Europe, and the evolution of player attitudes toward camera presence over the past decade.

Key Claims

  • JDL Pinball has streamed IFPA 16 (2019, Italy) and IFPA 18 (Germany World Championships) and will stream IFPA 20 in Austria

    high confidence · Jim and Dina directly confirm these streaming engagements with Jamie at podcast start

  • JDL Pinball operates three mobile streaming rigs to cover three-machine IFPA group play without transmission gaps

    high confidence · Jim explains the three-rig system was implemented after IFPA 16 Italy to follow complete group stories across all three machines simultaneously

  • Jim is ranked 628th globally and Dina is ranked 1,113th globally (women's rank 612) in IFPA competitive standings

    high confidence · Jamie states rankings from notes; Jim and Dina confirm accuracy

  • JDL Pinball started streaming in 2016 at the German Pinball Open with poor Logitech webcam quality but strong game quality (Game of Thrones and Ghostbusters finals)

    high confidence · Jim describes the origin story with John Trudeau as guest commentator and his daughter Kate as second commentator

  • Player attitudes toward streaming cameras have significantly improved since 2016-2017; early flaps allowed players to opt out of face recording

    high confidence · Jim explains the evolution from player nervousness and resistance to modern acceptance, noting Andy Bagwell's compliment about invisible streaming

  • JDL uses SDI-enabled cameras on 35-meter cables connected to control desk, with PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) remote control capability

    high confidence · Jim provides technical specifications of receiver pole setup and wireless camera configuration

  • JDL switched from XSplit to OBS several years ago due to OBS's greater power and nested scene capabilities; Jim has approximately 100 scenes configured

    high confidence · Jim explains the migration and describes the complexity of his OBS setup

  • JDL Pinball experienced catastrophic computer failure at start of IFPA 18, requiring recovery by on-site IT expert and backup equipment setup

Notable Quotes

  • “Streamer should be invisible if possible. Absolutely, we're producers on the side.”

    Jim Lindsay / Jamie @ mid-conversation — Core philosophy of professional tournament streaming: minimizing disruption to player concentration

  • “I didn't even see you move and that is the biggest compliment to the tournament streamer that I can possibly get.”

    Jim Lindsay (quoting Andy Bagwell) @ mid-conversation — Validates the three-rig system effectiveness and player experience improvement

  • “We don't win very often. Because of that, partially. I actually have a theory for this that's to do with the planets in the solar system.”

    Jim Lindsay @ tournament results discussion — Humorous explanation of tournament performance trade-offs while streaming/tournament directing

  • “We're not competitors we're all providing a service to the community. 1000%. The more streaming pinball that we can do of competitive pinball the better it is for all of us.”

    Jim / Jamie @ streaming philosophy section — Collaborative rather than competitive approach to pinball streaming, positioning growth over market share

  • “It comes across as a television program.”

    Jim Lindsay (regarding Carl D'Angelo's IE Pinball production style) @ production technique discussion — Acknowledges IE Pinball's higher production values and background producer approach vs. JDL's hands-on host-centered style

  • “If I had to do it myself I would get no work done at my company.”

    Jamie Birchall @ delegation discussion — Notes importance of having dedicated video editor (Donovan) for scaling streaming operation

  • “One week before going to Italy four years ago, it was exactly the same. You burned a chip, a sound chip in the previous version.”

    Dina Lindsay @ disaster preparation section — Indicates pattern of pre-tournament technical failures requiring emergency equipment replacement

Entities

Jim LindsaypersonDina LindsaypersonJDL PinballorganizationJamie BirchallpersonWormhole PinballorganizationFreeplay RuahorganizationPinball UniverseorganizationJohn TrudeaupersonKate Lindsay

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Streaming operations require significant capital investment and technical expertise (multi-rig systems, high-end computers, multiple StreamDecks, video editors), creating barriers to entry for new streamers

    high · Jim describes $22kg alien desktop PC, five StreamDecks, dual Sonnet SDI capture boxes, multiple cameras, dedicated video editor (Donovan), post-processing workflow

  • ?

    community_signal: JDL Pinball demonstrates commitment to professional tournament streaming infrastructure and player experience, with intentional evolution toward invisibility and minimal disruption to competitive play

    high · Three-rig system implemented to eliminate transmission gaps and player concentration disruption; Andy Bagwell compliment about invisible streaming; evolution from camera flaps to registration disclaimers

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong community feedback and audience support sustaining streaming operations as unpaid voluntary work; Twitch subs and Patreon driving operational capability

    high · Jim/Dina directly thank audience: 'thanks to everybody for the followers the subs, the cheers, everything everybody does that makes our life possible'; acknowledge non-monetization model

  • $

    market_signal: European pinball tournament streaming establishing infrastructure parity with North American operators through technical innovation and professional methodology

    medium · JDL's three-rig system, OBS mastery, and venue network positioning Europe as legitimate streaming region; Jamie's statement about replicating JDL innovations at Wormhole

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.169

0:00
All right, let's start out. Hello and welcome to the Wormhole. My name is Jamie Birchall, and you are listening to and are watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents. Today, I am so ecstatic that they said yes. I'm joined by Jim and Dina Lindsay of JDL Pinball. I'm such an enormous fan of you, and I copy everything you do, so I'm sorry for that. But for those in the States that are watching in the mountain, I'd be familiar with you guys. You stream competitive pinball. We do. Throughout Europe. You stream the IFPA 16 in 2019 in Italy, which is brilliant, and IFPA 18 World Championships in Germany, both amazing events. What? For this pinball paradise, yeah. and we will be streaming the IFPA 20 in Austria.
0:57
That was my last question. So that's pretty exciting, right? Oh, yeah. We're already making plans. And what is your home base? Where is your home? Okay. We live in Germany in somewhere called North Rhine-Westphalia, which Gina connects to better than me. Well, it's basically a West sort of, yeah, pretty much in the middle of Germany, sort of close to the West border with the Netherlands and Belgium. So basically, we are very well located.
1:31
The airport of Düsseldorf is 30 minutes away. And we can be in the Netherlands in an hour and 20 minutes. We can be in the northern coast of Germany in two and a half hours, and the Frankfurt area is two and a half, three hour drive as well. So, yeah, very central. We do quite a lot. Most of our streaming venues we can drive to, which then means we can transport the equipment around. And that's a lot of equipment, isn't it? It's grown. It's a bit like pinball machines. You know, you start off with one and then the next thing, well, look behind you, Jamie, there's more than one there. And we're the same, you know, and the pinball streaming started the same. We started in 2016, a long, long time ago, the German pinball open in very close to where we are in Gladbeck. And that was basically me being so crazy. I volunteered to do it. Like two months prior to the tournament And nobody knew how to do it And I said Wouldn't it be great if we could And then the next thing I got my hand to volunteer Then I went out and bought some cameras And that's where we started And that was back in the day of You can't mention the name John Trudeau and Ghostbusters And we had John Trudeau there as the guest of honour And he was Co-commentating with my Youngest daughter Kate who I don't know if you know, is the female voice of the Game of Thrones so and the final machines were Game of Thrones and Ghostbusters so basically it was a dream team commentary and it's one of the most watched videos despite the Logitech webcam quality on the playfield stream the quality was awful the quality of the game was great Yeah, it was. That was a long time ago. That was a long time ago, and it was pretty classic in the way that in the final, Albert Nonden, one of the great champions from the Netherlands, he passed away last year, unfortunately, and he came first, and followed closely by Johannes Ostermeyer, who back then was... Very small. he was already rather tall but he was still yes he was very young so yeah that was a great event and a great stream can I just make a call out to everybody because I know a lot of people in the US do follow us and obviously our fan base in Europe so just thanks to everybody for the followers the subs, the cheers, everything everybody does that makes our life possible, Jamie. You're just dependent on that audience. Without it, we'd be nowhere.

high confidence · Jim describes the three-and-a-half hour drive to retrieve backup equipment after Bitlocker failures prevented immediate restart

  • European pinball venues are typically smaller rooms requiring different streaming strategies than massive North American halls

    medium confidence · Jim notes that European locations are proper setups in smaller spaces, contrasting with unspecified larger US venues

  • JDL Pinball base is in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with Düsseldorf airport 30 minutes away and central access to Netherlands, Belgium, and Frankfurt

    high confidence · Dina provides geographic details of their home base location

    • “We put a disclaimer in the announcement material for tournaments to say basically by registering and coming to this tournament, you agree to be streamed and photographed.”

    Jamie Birchall @ streaming consent discussion — Evolution of consent practices from opt-out (camera flaps) to opt-in (registration disclaimers)

    person
    Albert Nondenperson
    Johannes Ostermeyerperson
    Kurt Louisperson
    Markus Stixperson
    Andy Bagwellperson
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Phil Grimaldiperson
    Donovanperson
    IFPA 16event
    IFPA 18event
    IFPA 20event
    German Pinball Openevent
    European Pinball Championshipevent
    Fox Cities Winter Bashevent
    West Coast Pinball Placeorganization
    JDperson

    event_signal: IFPA World Championships and coupled continental championships generating sustained streaming demand and technical evolution requirements

    high · JDL streaming IFPA 16 (2019), IFPA 18 (Germany), IFPA 20 (Austria); 11 consecutive days of streaming at IFPA 18 drove equipment upgrades and three-rig system refinement

  • $

    market_signal: European tournament streaming operates at high production quality with limited competitive streamers, creating relatively uncontested market position

    medium · Jim states 'we would say, without being sort of immodest, we are the number one streamer in Europe. but it doesn't take much to get to that bar because there aren't many streamers in Europe'

  • ?

    community_signal: Evolution of player camera acceptance driven by visible community appreciation and audience feedback, shifting psychology from liability to value

    high · Markus Stix transformation from camera-averse to accepting through audience love feedback; comparison of 2016-2017 player resistance to modern acceptance

  • ?

    technology_signal: Migration from XSplit to OBS software and adoption of advanced SDI camera systems with PTZ remote control, representing professionalization of streaming infrastructure

    high · Jim describes OBS migration enabling nested scenes and ~100 scene configuration; upgraded to SDI-enabled PTZ cameras on 35-meter cable runs with remote control capability

    • 4:35
    It is such an important part of what we do is the feedback and the you know, we're not looking for attaboys. We just want to make it as good as possible for everyone, right? And I think my stream started out really bad. We were terrible and Phil Grimaldi who's a pinball player here in Houston was yelling at me going, what are you doing? It's not got any better.
    5:00
    I think it's gotten a little better. A little bit better. We've got a two rig system that we're building for the wormhole and we just upgraded our cameras and we just upgraded these so now we've got some loads. I recognize those. I'm sure you do. I steal as much as humanly possible from you guys. I say this to every streamer we are not competitors we're all providing a service to the community 1000% I think the more streaming pinball that we can do of competitive pinball the better it is for all of us and how we can just grow this sport because it really is a sport and it's just fantastic I love it so I always say if anybody wants to share ideas ask for tips or all the rest of it than just do. I had the great pleasure of Fox City's guys over in Freddy's, the IFP.
    6:03
    And to spend time with them was absolutely great. They are the GOAT, right? I mean, that's what we're trying to all do, right? We're trying to... I mean, we are, I would say, without being sort of immodest, we are the number one streamer in Europe. but it doesn't take much to get to that bar because there aren't many streamers in Europe. We do it as professionally as we can, and I think we do a good job.
    6:33
    But when you then look over the other side of the pond, the level of pinball play, tournaments, everything is so much higher, and therefore there are forced to be more people covering that area. America is a big place. You couldn't do it from one small streaming outfit in the center of America. So people like Fox, IE, of course, and the others, Backbox, we were with. Backhand. Which one? Backhand. Backbox is a podcast. Oh, yeah, Backbox is a podcast. Backhand, we were with the UK Open over in Croydon with Neil McRae.
    7:15
    And, you know, you meet these guys. You sort of see them online, you see them streaming, you chat to them, you email, you send ideas backwards and forwards. But to actually meet up with the guys is wonderful. It is wonderful. This community itself is so special to me. I'm so happy to be a part of it since early 2019. And it really just puts your arm around you and just says, hey, come on in and let's teach you pinball and let's teach you how to stream. and whatever you need. It's just open arms. I love it. Love it. It was wonderful this year because obviously with the IFBA 18, lots of American players, well, overseas players, American-Australian players came to Germany and picked up the European Pinball Championship along the way, which we actively were tournament directors of. So it was really, really nice to meet lots and lots and lots of people that we haven't met before personally, but sort of know of them. But it really created the ability for a lot of the US guys to come over. The fact that we coupled the European Pinball Championship with the Olympics, with the IFPA 18 in 10 days. We were streaming for 11 consecutive days of pinball.
    8:45
    And the guys were playing 11 days of consecutive pinball. And that made it worth them flying over. They flew over and they didn't just fly in and out. It was a full, solid performance by so many of the U.S. guys and other people from around the world as well. And because of that dedication, We all got to know each other pretty well. Yeah.
    9:12
    Really, really special. It was awesome. That's awesome. You, Jim, are currently, I have it written down here, 628th in the world. That sounds about right. Dina, you are 1,113th in the world, and your woman's rank is 612. Yes. Pretty good players, great commentators, and TDs. Oh, my God, how do you win with doing all that at once? It's very difficult. We don't win very often. Because of that, partially. I actually have a theory for this that's to do with the planets in the solar system. Okay.
    9:52
    If you consider every game of pinball to be a planet, then once every now and again, all the planets will be in line. And when they're in line, each one of those planets represents your very good game of pinball. and so when they're spinning round you get lots of times when you only have one good game but occasionally you get them all and that's a tournament that you get through to the playoffs you might even get through to the finals and if you play a lot of tournaments if you play as many tournaments as me and Dina do the chance of the alignment of those planets is a lot higher than the guy just going once a year to District 82 Well since we started doing the tournament directing we actually played a lot less tournaments because in the outfit of like 5-6 tournaments of the weekend we can't play them all because we're either streaming the finals that are still going on while the second tournament started or yeah something else or doing something else so out of 11 days of pinball I actually played 3 tournaments which was really disappointing but we still got some points. Yes, well, I did really well in the group match place. Lots of top-level American players were taken seven points off by me, so yes, that was very good.
    11:16
    I was blown away. I was looking at pinball maps, and the European pinball scene itself is, when I was preparing for this interview, when I finally visit Europe next year, after the Dutch Pinball Museum, where am I going? What are my spots?
    11:31
    Well, the Dutch Pinball Museum is a good place. we streamed the Dutch pinball from there I was watching a couple of hours a month ago it was a real stream challenge because of very very low ceilings but anyway that actually caused me to have another upgrade of equipment following that stream but then you've got Belgium, great places in Belgium if you like seafood go to Ostend and a guy called Kurt Louis runs a place called the West Coast Pinball Place with a collection of machines you wouldn't believe. It's a private house that has pinball machines on three levels, three floors
    12:18
    and it's every turn that's been made since early 2000s with everything with all the upgrades that you can possibly think every special flunger every little toy on the play field uh every lighting up speaker grills everything yeah and he has about 65 machines and we've filmed some tournaments from there and he's upgrading again he's he's wanting to set up a classic room now uh with a view of maybe uh world championships in a few years so keep your eye on that space so that's one to visit And then Pinball Universe in Bünde in Germany, that's a sterling dealer and a great place, absolutely. They do lots of sterling army tournaments, sort of one, two day smaller events.
    13:08
    Yeah, they run academies as well, they do training of people. They're our sponsor, by the way, that's Pinball Universe in the top left-hand corner of all our streams. And their focus is to bring pinball to the community. So they put pinballs on location, they'll loan pinballs to tournaments, they'll attend exhibitions, whether it's cosplay or pinball exhibitions on their own, just in order to bring it to the general public. What a great day. Then you can come to visit us. We'll take you to our garden. We take you to our club which is a collective type of entity It called Freeplay Ruah is the river where the Ruah area is obviously adjacent to We have around about 50 machines and also play three to four big tournaments a year and open to the public every month. Anybody from America, if you want to pop over for a weekend, make it a weekend when Freeplay is open. Absolutely.
    14:27
    That would be brilliant. But then you've got to go down the Frank Viteria and the Folder and Freddy's and Zelligan's, the pinball. Tim and John and I, who are the guys of the wormhole, want to do it. And it's either a 2024 or 2025 initiative for us, and we want to make that happen. Yeah, that's great. Whatever happens, Jamie, you're going to be a lot, lot better than Jeff Teolis. Oh I mean Poor guy is Canadian He can't help himself We've entertained him a few times He's been very nice to me But it would be nice to have a change Absolutely It would be nice We love Jeff to bits and he knows that We of course have a third member of the JDL Pimble team This is our Pimble Poppy JD Oh my gosh walking up and wanted to say hello so JD has her own camera a puppy cam on the stream she doesn't go to all of them because she's sometimes not allowed in the venue but if she is then she'll have a puppy cam that can swing around and watch her playing or whatever well JD is a good segue for you know what stock equipment there's probably only going to be 12 or 13 streamers listening but these questions are for us How many rigs do you have? Do you have two mobile rigs? Three rigs And I'll tell you why This was actually Dean's It was my wish We did IFPA 16 in Italy Absolutely awesome First time we'd done a world championship And we were Running around everywhere In front of the camera It all looked very calm. It wasn't. And what we realized was that the way the IFPA system works for the World Championship is that they draw cards, but each group is given three machines to play on. And so you think, okay, we can do that with two rigs definitely because we can put one on the first machine. We can put the second on the second machine. We can leapfrog the first or the third. No, because the machines either side of the third machine are being played by other groups. So therefore, you sterilize. So Dean has said, look, build a third rig, which I did. And then that means when the group set out, we've got a team of people. We've got some JDL helpers who were awesome. And they all set off with a rig each. And they were set up on the three machines before the players started playing the first game. And that means that you follow that group through a complete story. And my aim and belief is that pinball should be about the people and it should be about the story of the game. And the games themselves are not secondary, the way we're watching the thing. But if you can keep that story in line, then it becomes really entertaining for the viewer.
    17:45
    Yes. You can then also use your first rig, which is finished after the first game, to pick up what we call bonus pinball. So if there are games still going on after the end of game three of the group you are following, you can use rig one or rig two in order to pick up another group. Which is normally very predictable because you can see what the progress on other games is. and sometimes the group that you picked is in game three and another group is still in game one because obviously sometimes a group has to start with a modern machine. So therefore, then you see what's on their card and move the other two rigs respectively. Those two games of another group. So we basically didn't have any gaps in transmission with this system, but it's also probably specific to Europe because we don't have locations that are massive halls. So our pinball locations are normally like a proper setup. So therefore, the rooms are slightly smaller. I mean, in Italy, the layout didn't always permit me to wheel in and out at all because there were just other games being played, like not even right next to each other, but in the sort of out, on the way out of the row. And that's why we said pre-rigs, put them on straight away and then you don't have the motion and you don't disturb other players because obviously it's important that the players keep concentrating on what they're doing. and the biggest compliment was given by Andy Bagwell who said I didn't even see you move and that is the biggest compliment to the tournament streamer that I can possibly get. Streamer should be invisible if possible Absolutely, we're producers on the side. Exactly now we are a lot more accepted than we were back in the day 2016 you have to be really careful not to upset the players because if they were waiting for you or you were in the way or the rest of it, they used to get quite agitated. And they weren't used to the cameras.
    20:08
    Nowadays, they are used to the cameras. So if you want for players to stop playing while you wheel a rig in place, it's actually quite acceptable now to do that. It wouldn't have been five years ago. That would have been a definite no-no.
    20:23
    You know, we've had some people that didn't want to be streamed. Right. Yeah. So we have a tough situation there because at the wormhole you're going to be streamed. So but I don't want it to be so, you know, black or white with them. So I said, you know, is it would you mind wearing maybe a mask or would you be OK if I showed the back of you? OK, just the face camera. And so we work these things out. Right. And you have to. I mean, we put a disclaimer in the announcement material for tournaments to say basically by registering and coming to this tournament, you agree to be streamed and photographed. because, you know, again, going back to 2016, 17, I used to have flaps over the player camera so that the player could actually shut it off. So the game was streamed without the player being streamed. And there were very few people who used that, but it was a mechanism to sort of allow the thing to continue because, you know, back then it was sort of a little alien. Well, I think it's a psychological pressure just to have a rig in front of you. We have lots of great players here in Europe who are absolutely a joy to watch and to have on stream. Well, they have that sort of that barrier in them that once they see the rig, they get nervous and probably will potentially play worse. But we're getting there. So we're training them to love the camera.
    22:06
    And, you know, it's just, and because you know how great the feedback from the audience on those players is, you tend to tell them that. I mean, one of the greatest moments of the FBA 18 was Markus Stix, the player from Austria, winning on bonus on Eric Stone in the last game of their quarterfinal. and that was on stream and Marcus is one of them one of the players who absolutely is terrified and hates it but because he is such a good friend and such a great person he sort of makes you move and says Marcus it's great to have you on stream and you're so loved by the audience and so yeah now it's a lot better it was a lot worse a few years ago for him Absolutely.
    22:58
    Yeah. We had a little mini revolt about people coming to the wormhole and being streamed. But I think as they've come to realize we're not doing it to make ourselves famous or make money. Because we're sure it's not happening. Definitely not. It's not happening. Right. We do it because we really, really love pinball and we love competitive pinball. And it's such a nice little thing that we're doing. And so, yeah, I love the idea of where you put the, what was it called? What did you call it? Where you put the thing on top of it? Or the flap of the camera. What a brilliant idea. That's really sweet. That was back in Logitech cameras. You used to be able to buy the flaps. You used to be able to buy a camera webcam with a flap. And it was designed for when you had it on top of your laptop and you didn't want, you know, anybody to be watching you online. And you have to drop the little flap down. So you have an eye in the sky camera. Where is the eye in the sky camera? Right. Okay. We do things probably slightly differently to, I think, any other streamer. And it's because we are in venues where there can be multiple rooms, there can be machines that are not accessible from Wi-Fi direct connection. So what we do is we have something called a receiver pole.
    24:23
    So those devices that you have on top of that pole there are SDI enabled, and they connect via a cable, normally 35-meter cable, to the control desk. So our wireless receivers are 35 meters away from the common tree position. Okay. And on the top of that pole is a camera. They're now PTZs. I've just upgraded them again.
    24:53
    And the PTZs can be controlled remotely, so they can be controlled back from the desk. And that gives you another ability to zoom in on a game after your streaming games have finished. When you debuted that camera, I was watching. It was one of the first times I've seen it. And I geeked out on it so much, Dina, that I texted my wife and said, hey, I need to buy this whatever he wants.
    25:25
    See, the beauty of you two is you enable each other and you say, I think we need a third rig. Oh, okay, let's get a third rig. It was her idea. I know. That's beautiful.
    25:36
    I'll bring my wife with me and you need to tell me that these streaming things are very, very important for Jamie. absolutely we can give her some wine yeah because she loves her reds so that'll work out perfectly Dana I did a sommelier qualification during lockdown so the oh no that's lovely wine is a big part of my life especially talking about it so bring her over Dina will provide the wine and all the background and everything we do blind wine tasting evenings as well not that we go blind, we cover the bottle we might not come back, so be careful you don't want the Bertels over there, so get to know me a little more before you send that invite. Let's talk about open broadcasting software. Do you use it? Oh, yes. Oh, yes? I used to use XSplit for many years when I first kicked off, and that was because it was paid for, and I assumed that paid for was better. Yeah.
    26:58
    And I persevered with XSplit. I put a lot of work into it, and XSplit is really nice and very, very straightforward were to operate, but he's not as powerful. So OBS, when I made the switch to OBS, which was a few years ago now, I was amazed at the depth that you could go to and the nested scenes and all the rest you can put together.
    27:23
    My streaming setup is incredible. I don't know how many scenes there are, but probably a hundred or something.
    27:32
    That is another reason I want to come. I just want to pick you up. I just want to see all your scenes I want to see the amount of USB hubs you have on the back of that computer I want to see the amount of video cards you have I just want to get down on it it's a lot and it's expensive the interface I was explaining about the SDI comes back to the commentary desk it goes into an external sonnet PCIe box that lets you put two capture cards in there I got two of those and in each box there is a four channel SDI capture and a four channel HDMI capture.
    28:19
    Okay. The computer I use, which is the one we've got here, is an AlienWire, Dell AlienWire, top of the range thing. It's got more of everything than you can expect.
    28:32
    And the power is easily enough to run the system. You do need, if you're going to do something, I'm bringing in basically nine cameras from the rigs, two cameras from the hall, two cameras for commentator and a camera for JD. So you've got a lot of power to just process that.
    28:56
    And yeah, so you do need a pretty powerful computer. Most people would do that with the desktop. Yeah. I actually bought an alien desktop PC it took about 4 months to get it was specially ordered and it came and it was 22 kilograms just for the computer and we live on the 4th floor in an apartment block so we pretty much decided on the 2nd floor that is going back and I've said from there the route for a tournament streamer is a high-power laptop with the external connectivity. Yeah. So that's the way we went. We have, how many StreamDecks now? Five? Yes. Five StreamDecks? You have five StreamDecks? Yeah, I don't use them all at the same time. I use three StreamDecks on a stream.
    29:52
    One is... I have one, and I don't even have all the buttons used. Oh, no, mine are the bigger ones. Mine are the big ones. Oh, I know. I don't even... Yeah, we don't. I'm so addicted to using OBS And running my own Producer show that I don't Press the stream deck yet I haven't used it Enough yeah no stream decks are wonderful So all of the scene switching is All done from stream deck There's a stream deck for the co-commentator So that brings up the little Applause and Sad trombones and all that Sort of thing so I give a stream deck To the co-commentator so they get To press all the buttons and doing the nice things. And then there's one that's just general settings.
    30:37
    No, it's really great. You know, it's your personality coming out in your producing, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's fantastic. It's lovely.
    30:50
    Yeah, the co-commentators absolutely love it. Yeah, and the co-commentators are so important. I mean, I can sit for 11 days and talk about pinball.
    31:02
    It comes to the point where the audience have sort of heard a little bit of it from me. So to bring in the co-commentators, it just brings another dimension to it. Now, again, you compare that to Carl with IE particularly. He will bring in commentators. So you won't see Carl in front of the camera most of the time. Carl is the producer in the background making it all happen. Now, if I do that, pretty much as soon as I walk away from the computer, things start to go wrong because people press the wrong buttons. And it's not set up for, like, you know, up to the side remote control. It's more being on the desk and doing things hands-on. Absolutely. This is my control center. Yeah. Now, in that, then, that means I can't produce the nice, slick transitions all the time between things. So I love the way that Carl puts that together. It comes across as a television program. He does. And that's a 2024 initiative for the wormhole as well. Tremendous. I try and achieve that when I put the videos post-process up onto YouTube. Right. So you stream on Twitch and then you put your videos on demand on YouTube like the rest of us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I generally take, if you take the World Championship and you take the three rigs on the three machines, I will create one video of that story of three machines and create a separate video for that. It's going to a playlist of the World Championship or whichever tournament it is. but you can then from a tournament weekend you can create 10-12 videos a lot of work in post processing, post editing but I think that's worth it as well you need a Donovan because I have Donovan who does all our videos he does all our Twitch videos and all the, he's been a saviour for me because if I had to do it myself I would get no work done at my company I tend to just take things on which can be a disadvantage you should really delegate more and I should have a Donovan it would be a great addition to the team it's your time with your hobby and it's the time when I can do lots of my other hobbies which kind of don't correspond with video editing very well, because normally it involves a shovel.
    33:47
    And I'm also now doing YouTube shorts. Those are fun. Those are good. One minute video, a particular moment in pinball history. One was Marcus Fix and Eric Stone, because they display of sportsmanship from them both. at the end of that game.
    34:13
    Harry was absolutely awesome. I got to know him quite well over IFPA 18. Yeah, it was great to have him over. So a couple of questions left. What's your worst stream disaster that you've had when you're streaming?
    34:33
    Well, it's funny you should mention that, because the start of IFPA 18, our 11 days of consecutive pinball streaming, this alien computer failed.
    34:47
    We'd taken all the equipment down. It's a three, three and a half hour drive down from here to Bulls and Bulls in Fulham. We'd taken all the equipment down with plenty of time. We put it all set up and working. Well, we were setting up for the European Pinball Championship. So we traveled on the Wednesday night. we were there for the Thursday the first tournament started I think on the Thursday night of Friday the computer I mean it didn't just fail, it catastrophically failed, it like it just died and I didn't have a backup plan so I jumped in the car well actually I found a computer expert who happened to be in the club which was fortunate we went through some sort of things we might be able to quickly fix and worked out we couldn't and he agreed to take the computer away with him and work on it overnight and try and get it recovered and we got bit locker problems and all sorts of things on it so as a backup plan i drove back up here three and a half hours put together the streaming equipment that i used at IFPA 16, because I never throw anything away, tested it all out, went to bed about 3 o'clock, 3.30 in the morning, got up the next morning and drove back down to Balls and Balls with Plan B equipment. And fortunately, the guy had managed to recover the computer.
    36:18
    And, you know, so we continued. It was his last attempt. He said that he sort of had a bit of a hunch. But he was going to completely reformat it after that if it had... While I was up here, I got all the backup files and everything so that if he did have to restore it, we could get the computer back up and running again. And since then, I tend to carry that with me.
    36:44
    It's a panic attack, isn't it? I mean, literally, what do you do? There's going to be no stream of the World Championship. There's going to be no stream of the European Championship. That's bad enough. But then, you know, you work it all the way through. You've got a week to the World Championships.
    37:02
    And you can't buy another computer. Well, I looked. You know, we could probably get something similar. Well, you need to set it up. Well, and one week before going to Italy four years ago, it was exactly the same. You burned a chip, a sound chip in the previous version. And we bought another one on Amazon and got it next day delivery. Yeah, it was prior to the corona crisis, so electronics were available sort of freely. But this one took half a year to get. Something about world championships. Maybe we should stop streaming them. Oh, you're doing great with them. They're fantastic. Ours is, I drove five hours, and then I didn't bring the video cards.
    37:49
    Yeah, I've had lots of things like that. And so I have this list and I checked it like Santa Claus. I checked it three to four times. And then so there was a Walmart that had three left.
    38:06
    In Abilene, Texas, which is five hours away in the middle of nowhere, really. And they invited us to stream this 80-person tournament. and it had a big deal that the wormhole was coming and dum-dum-dum. Yeah. I actually have pretty much a second set of everything. I do now. Yeah, because that's packed, that's ready to stay with me. But the last thing we streamed, which was the one before, the Dutch Pinball one we streamed a couple of weeks ago, I arrived there and I'd forgotten the Thunderbolt cables that connect the computer to these external sonic boxes.
    38:51
    Thunderbolt cables are quite special. You can get USB-C high-quality cables. They're not forced to work.
    39:00
    And another friend, streamer of mine, Jules, was there. He uses Mac. And I'd got one spare cable with me. He'd got one. So I managed to run it. Otherwise, I was driving an hour and a half back from Coruscant. There was a massive electronic store right next to it, so you would have got one there. But, of course, now there are two more spare cables in the back because it's just crazy.
    39:28
    It's so funny. People watch us and they say, hey, would you be interested in streaming this tournament, coming here and going streaming that tournament? And lately I've been saying no because it's such an ordeal moving this system. and it's such an ordeal that we stream space city open which is our houston super bowl and then all the events here in houston and then we stream tpf which is the texas pinball festival also streaming the texas championships and then in 2025 26 we're putting in for the u.s championships we have a museum that we'll talk about later coming up but um yeah we've got to have backup I literally have done what you do I have every cord and then a backup to every cord I've checked them and I switch them and I make sure the anxiety is a real thing the anxiety is a real thing when you come over take a look at the rigs because the rigs are incredibly modular I'm going to be taking pictures with the rigs yeah no problem But there's a control box on them that houses everything. That's also the marshalling point for everything. So you can build a rig in five minutes. Well, the frame goes up in three to five minutes, and there are three cameras and two receivers on it. And a microphone. Yeah, and a microphone. That probably takes another ten. But the system was designed to be taken on a plate because we designed it for Italy and we can't drive to Italy so we had to fly and therefore the initial the design of the new system like post the whole rig is less than 20 kilograms in a bag and the bag is not oversized luggage so the design of the poles and everything it's all made to measure there's nothing just pre-ordered and light waves so it's aluminium tubes and things and it's into a bag which you can take onto a plane in normal luggage and all three are identical so three identical bags would need three you're my hero what you should do next time which would be really cool is you should make a YouTube short of you putting it together and then putting it together and like you could even use what was that famous British comedian Benny Hill Benny Hill music you could but whatever but it would be really cool to see a rig going up in next to no time because I've noticed again the other streamers tend to use the IE design rig which is absolutely fine but it's fairly big and heavy then strap things to it so you build a rig and then the next thing you've got a bag full of batteries but a bag full of cameras and rather than it being sort of already pre-loomed and all the rest of it sort of strapped that's what we used to do until we figured out that cabling is the biggest amount of time so therefore make a cable tree beforehand stick it in your connecting point and then it's just five connections so it's five power connections and five data connections And that's it Anyway, this is getting a bit technical No, no, no, don't worry about it I was going to give it 10 minutes for the streamers And we lost everybody else But don't even worry about it, it's fine Alright, so back to pinball Escher Leckhoff is 20 years old Number one player in the world Jason Zahler is 19 Number two player in the world And Arvid Flager Arvid is the third Oh, Arvid Flager Yeah, he's 15 years old So, I mean, we have a youth movement and competitive pinball. That's pretty awesome. What about the future for both pinball and competitive pinball? And what do you think about this youth movement?
    43:47
    Well, the age is definitely coming down. I mean, the older guys can compete on experience, machine knowledge, ability to cope with high-level tournaments and things. But the younger guys, the reactions are just so, so much faster. Their ability to take in the rules, the ability to work out the deep side of the rules in order to take full advantage of the scoring systems and things is just phenomenal. And that comes from gaming. You know, it's gaming experience that gives these young guys that. And they are getting younger and younger. We've got, you know, guys in Europe, obviously, Johannes Ostermeyer now is the old man. Okay, he's 21. 21, yeah. so he's more or less out of it now we've got Paul Englert turn 17 he's going to be out of it soon then you go down you've got Arvid, you've got Vigo you've got you go down to a little 8 year old that was playing in Holland oh yeah that was we had an awesome The unfortunate thing I think At the moment is that all of these younger guys Are the Sons and daughters Of pinball players Why is it unfortunate? Well I always say it's unfortunate That's the way of life I mean dynasties are everywhere I think what he's trying to say is That wouldn't it be better If we can then also pull in their friends Yeah exactly And then, you know, because, you know, we have a lot of gray hairs around here, right? And so we want to continue this great hobby. Absolutely. And the youth movement, and if they can pull in their friends and if they can pull in their buddies and go, listen, man, you're going to get addicted to this. Yeah. It's fine. Yeah, but that happens. I mean, first you pull in the partner or, you know, a group of friends. well, Paul said, and Johannes, so their friends do like to play pinball with them. But obviously, the guys are then very bored with that because it's not the same level. Right, that's right. That's true. But for the younger players or younger people, if you want to play tournaments, somebody has to take you there. It's an expensive kind of situation. So, therefore, if you're going with a parent who is another pinball player, you're more likely to go than to draw on somebody who is not your parent. And therefore, yeah. So maybe the way to grow it within the general populace is through clubs like ours at Freeplay. You have lots and lots of similar places in America where people can go along and just play for an evening's entertainment. Yeah. You know what Dallas does for their tournaments? And I think we're going to implement this. Or no, maybe it was San Diego. It was San Diego. I went to San Diego. And if you had an IFPA ranking of 5,000 or more, it only cost you $5 to play in that tournament. Nice. Okay.
    47:16
    That's an incentive. And so we're going to implement that here at the wormhole. I just announced that. So now we have to do it. But if you have an IPA 5,000 or more, your chances of winning some of this cashback are small, smaller. So you know what? We're just going to put that to the house and you come and you just play pinball and you ask as many questions as possible and we'll help you. That's a great system. Yeah, good for you. Yeah. I'm ripping that off there too. No, the venues that have, well, in our neck of the woods, the pinball is taxable. So you can't really have a commercial venue because you have to pay 40 quid per pinball machine to put it in public if you're doing it commercially. So therefore, most of the venues here are clubs and collectives. So we have a charitable status and we're allowed to be open for public. So we can't have the coin operation in. So basically everybody will come through the door, pays an entry fee, and then everything is set on 3Play. And all the open days are an absolutely great adventure for families with kids. I mean, we also do like, you know, company days out and things. and then people come and say, oh, can we do a kid's birthday with you? And of course you can. So you can have, I think we do at least two kids' birthdays a month. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. That's a great source of younger talent.
    48:59
    I did the company day out with my company there, and there were some younger guys who were absolutely great, and they felt encouraged to like, they never played it, they never played pinball, but the natural abilities were amazing. So, yeah, that's... We rent out the wormhole too, Dina. You need to try it out and then if you're sort of good at it, then you like to continue. And the first thing we always do is we have tournaments here on these days, here's a card, here's where we're going, come here Saturday of every month, come here the first Monday, And so we sell out a free play. We sell out every open day within hours.
    49:45
    People have to book online in order to come because you couldn't do it by just the door entry system. We used to do that before the before Corona. And we had 120 people through the door in five hours of opening.
    50:02
    Yeah, we can't fit that here. Well, we can't feed that here, so they weren't there simultaneously for, like, you know, for the evening. We can fill with about 60 people, maximum. It's as comfortable as we can do here. So we're building a museum in Houston. And so Tim and John, Tim has 173 pens in his collection, and then John has about 50. So we're well stocked with a variety. But Tim has gone to, I'll share this with you, and then we'll shut it down in a minute. Tim has gone down this European wormhole buying of rare titles and this is what's coming in the wormhole soon I wrote these down here Toppin from Bell Games no one, I don't know Verne's World from Spinball Wild Schultz and Dark Rider from Geiger Wild Schultz is the Strikes and Spares equivalent Andromeda is right here That's getting set up right now And then New Wave from Bell Games I don't know New Wave So he's into, you know, they're being tested So we have to test them Before they can come to the wormhole because They get banged on here And we have the tournaments and they have to be We really need them to be perfect So we have the shed system That they go to the shed when they come in And the techs It's all about techs too, isn't it? How important are techs? We all, yeah, and there are some great, I mean, some people are just naturals. We've got some great guys in most of our locations who just have that ability to see an issue and know from experience, know what it is. It's not from, you know, putting lots of equipment and great diagnostic skills. I've seen that before. It was that switch. and you know that level of experience is just invaluable for our guy his name is Brian Foytick and this cosmic princess behind me wasn't coming in very well, it wasn't working and so this is rare, that's an Australian stern and then so he fixed everything there, that's playing great the baracora and then that trailer is a Spanish it's a tractor trailer and you the guy's arm is the playfield arm is him holding the oh cool all the Spanish classics are absolutely amazing there's a guy I don't know if you've seen me streaming him called Julio from has been the champion for a long long time I've seen him on but I he plays with an absolutely tremendous energy If you watch him He's never still He's literally shaking the machine He rarely tilts He does tilt but he rarely tilts And I've been over and played some Tournaments in Madrid in the club He plays He doesn't play in Madrid Well he was there And the first time I walked into this room It was Dina wasn't there It was actually our Yeah, it was The Stag weekend on a tournament In Madrid, anyway And I walked in this room And the room is full of Spanish classics, played by Julio It was just, every player Was a Julio, they were all playing With this manic, sort of amazing Shaking of machine Oh, that's hilarious That's how we learn how to play And the machines were Machines like you've got behind they were all absolutely amazing things you just don't see they were made special editions or special versions for the stand Tim Geek's on them right and I love that he does because that kiss that's a German kiss oh right ok so it's a different baguette the S's yeah so that was made specifically for Germany yeah Yeah. We streamed a Paragon at Freddy's without a right upper flipper.
    54:26
    Okay. Yeah. It has the hole through the playfield and a mechanism underneath, but it doesn't have the flipper fitted. And that was a, we found out as part of streaming that that was made especially for the European market, because something to do with they thought it was cheating. I mean, an upper flipper there. So the beta version. And like everybody that watched it on stream said, where's the flipper?
    54:55
    My Paragon 3rd flipper. Jim and Dina, thank you so much for meeting with me today. This has been really amazing. I really appreciate it.
    55:04
    Please visit JDL Pinball on Facebook and Twitch and see their videos on demand on YouTube. Just search JDL Pinball. if you're not already a subscriber, but you should be. This podcast, we're going to put this up later tonight. It's going to be bedtime for you soon. But in the States, I'll put this up around 7 p.m. our time, which is 2 or 3 in the morning for you. But just search Pimball, Wormhole Pimball Presents, on anywhere you can download podcasts. And, of course, our video companion will be on YouTube. Any questions for me? No, right? Well, I think you've told us a lot about what you do. We'll look forward to you coming over to Europe and we'll look after you and your wife as well when you're over here. Just make sure you give us some advance notice. Absolutely. We'll give you six months at least, I'm sure. And, you know, we'd love to have you when we do open the museum. And it is going to be amazing.
    55:59
    We'll let everyone know that's a 2025 project and they are building it as we speak. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting us on this. Oh my gosh, this has been fantastic. Thank you guys so much, Tim. Thank you, Damien. Thank you, everybody. See you soon, okay? Good luck. Bye, guys. Bye.