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SSS Ep 2: Various Pinball Streaming Rigs, the good and the not so good

Mystery Pinball Theater 3000·video·52m 33s·analyzed·Aug 20, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Detailed analysis of pinball streaming equipment evolution, failures, and current best practices.

Summary

George (Don't Panic Flip) and Manu (Mystery Pinball Theater) discuss their pinball streaming equipment setups across multiple rigs, highlighting what works and what doesn't. They cover technical failures during recent streams, equipment evolution from 2018 to present, lighting solutions, camera choices, and the challenges of portable streaming infrastructure. The conversation includes detailed breakdowns of microphones, camera mounts, tripods, and software tools like OBS and Elgato Stream Deck.

Key Claims

  • Batman 66 flipper died during stream; both flippers failed after ~45-60 minutes of play

    high confidence · George (Don't Panic Flip) describing his Tuesday stream failure

  • George started streaming pinball at the end of 2017/early 2018

    high confidence · George explicitly states streaming start date and shows YouTube upload from February 28, 2018

  • NEEWER articulating magic arms break after extended use; George has gone through ~9 of them due to plastic knob cracking and stripping

    high confidence · George describing his current rig equipment issues

  • Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition) has playfield cracking issues similar to Jersey Jack Pinball's Pirates of the Caribbean problems

    medium confidence · George and Manu discussing operator pricing and playfield quality issues; references Kaneda's Pinball Podcast Facebook post about playfield problems

  • Jersey Jack Pinball offers at-cost playfield replacements for affected Pirates of the Caribbean machines

    high confidence · George states JJP offering replacements for playfield issues on POTC

  • Logitech C922 webcam is a poor choice for playfield cameras due to fisheye lens design and tiny sensor

    high confidence · George and Manu explain technical reasons why C922 produces soft edges and distortion

  • Battery-powered LED light doesn't last through a full 2-hour stream at full brightness

    high confidence · George discussing his rig #3 LED lighting setup

  • Razer Kiyo 1080 streaming camera is a major resource hog requiring dedicated USB connection

    high confidence · George describing equipment in his early rigs

  • New pinball games in Colorado typically cost $1 per play, with some venues charging $2 for three plays

    high confidence · George discussing location operator pricing in Colorado

Notable Quotes

  • “I have no faith in the game, which is really weird to have in a pinball machine. Like, it starts to mess with your play.”

    Manu (Mystery Pinball Theater)@ 2:30 — Describes psychological impact of unreliable flippers on player confidence and gameplay

  • “I'm going to pull a video... and send that off to Sam Stern and see what they think, because the pin should still be under warranty.”

    Manu@ 4:01 — Indicates Manu will escalate Batman 66 flipper issue to Stern manufacturer support

  • “It's like candy. So, yeah. What are you using? What have you found? What have you found that doesn't work?”

    Manu@ 12:17 — Sets up the technical equipment breakdown that becomes the main focus of the episode

  • “The newer NEEWER articulating magic arm is the next component and what's good about it is that it worked. What's bad about it is it only works for a while. I've gone through, I think, about nine of these.”

    George (Don't Panic Flip)@ 16:49 — Documents reliability problem with common streaming equipment choice

  • “The only thing that's going to be sharp is the dead center. Everything that goes out this way is going to be soft.”

    George or Manu@ 27:18 — Technical explanation of why Logitech webcams fail for playfield cameras

  • “I'd rather play a table that was set super hard and a dollar instead of playing super easy at $2.”

    George@ 9:57 — Reflects player preference for difficulty over price sensitivity

Entities

GeorgepersonManupersonThe PinsomniacpersonDaspersonPinsupersonNick George CampbellpersonThomas LawpersonWaxpersonKaneda's Pinball Podcastperson/content_creator

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Batman 66 experienced gradual flipper degradation followed by complete flipper failure during Manu's stream

    high · Manu describes both flippers dying, game initially under warranty, plans to escalate to Stern support with video evidence

  • ?

    product_concern: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition) experiencing playfield cracking issues similar to Pirates of the Caribbean

    medium · George references Kaneda's Pinball Podcast Facebook post showing playfield cracks; notes parallel to JJP POTC issues

  • ?

    content_signal: Second String Silver Ball streaming show focused on pinball streaming equipment and best practices launched

    high · Show title and interface visible in opening of stream; dedicated multi-episode format discussing streaming rigs

  • $

    market_signal: Regional pricing variance for new pinball games: Colorado at $1/play, New York at $2/play, pricing above $1 creates resistance

    high · George and Manu discuss Colorado pricing vs Buffalo/NY pricing; Wax notes pricing above $1 reduces player volume

  • ?

    technology_signal: Elgato Stream Deck and Scorebit integration becoming standard tools for pinball streamers and operators

    high · George uses Stream Deck in current rig; Manu recently acquired one; both discuss integration with OBS and Streamlabs

  • ~

Topics

Pinball streaming equipment setup and evolutionprimaryTechnical failures and troubleshooting during live streamsprimaryCamera and lighting equipment for streaming playfieldsprimaryLocation operator pricing strategy and revenue optimizationsecondaryManufacturing quality issues in new games (playfield cracking)secondaryCommunity praise for Jurassic Park pinball machinesecondaryWarranty support and manufacturer relationshipssecondaryStreaming software and macro control toolssecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.55)— Generally positive and educational tone about streaming setup, but frustrated with equipment reliability issues and past technical failures. George is candid about products that don't work well, creating a critical but constructive discussion. Humor present throughout despite technical frustrations.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.158

0:00
I'm George, aka Don't Panic Flip, and this is... This is Manu, aka MPT3K. Awesome. And this is Second String Silver Ball, where we geek out about streaming pinball. It even says so now on the interface, which I think is great. It's so good. Holy smokes, that looks great.
0:36
And today, our primary topic, I think, is going to be to go over my previous rigs and current rig. But until then, I wanted to just chat freely, see what, I don't know, like what people have been streaming. I know, what did I do? Oh, I had a pretty awesome failure on Tuesday where I was streaming Batman 66 and the flippers started to die kind of slowly. You know, where you'd sit there and you'd be going and like I'd hit the button, but the flipper wouldn't flip on the right side. So we're like, eh, not a big deal. You know, it's probably just a one off. But then it got worse and worse and worse until probably about 45 minutes in. I think it was right around the hour mark. both flippers just died just nothing like the right flipper died then the left flipper died and then we were sitting there just hitting the flippers and nothing for a solid maybe 20 or 30 seconds so then uh we picked up and tried to move over to uh what is it total nuclear annihilation and did the rest of the stream on that which is always a good time but of course like as i'm moving things over, I spaced about replugging power into my laptop, which it lasts maybe a good six minutes without being hardwired in.
2:01
Stream died, had to come back up. Tech issues are awesome. Absolutely love those. And I think you ran into some issues as well this week. Did you find out what happened to the flippers? Nope.

  • Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition) at one location had coin box overflow due to quarter accumulation

    high confidence · George describing incident where coin mech was jammed with quarters spilling out

  • “They want their dollar per game. So yeah. Yeah. And I'm actually surprised that, uh, that it's only a dollar a game.”

    Manu discussing Colorado pricing@ 6:32 — Documents regional pricing expectations for new games

  • “I wouldn't stream with any Razer products whatsoever.”

    George@ 17:26 — Strong negative assessment of Razer streaming equipment despite currently using it

    • Batman 66game
    Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition)game
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Star Wars (Premium Edition)game
    Dialed Ingame
    The Shadowgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Tales of the Arabian Nightsgame
    Dungeons & Dragonsgame
    Sterncompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Second String Silver Ballevent/show
    Elgato Stream Deckproduct
    OBSproduct

    sentiment_shift: Streaming community recognition that commercial off-the-shelf webcams and mounts inadequate for pinball streaming; custom solutions needed

    high · George catalogs 6+ equipment failures/poor choices across 3 rigs; documents problems with Logitech, Razer, Monoprice products

  • ?

    operational_signal: Coin box management and machine overflow issues at locations; pricing optimization using Scorebit analytics

    medium · Willy Wonka coin box overflow incident; discussion of remote pricing adjustments via Scorebit; operator payback concerns

  • ?

    gaming_signal: Jurassic Park generating exceptionally high community enthusiasm; described as 'greatest game ever made' by multiple players

    high · Das and Pinsu both praise game highly; Manu attempted to play but found machine marked out of order

  • ?

    community_signal: Growing pinball streaming community with established best practices and equipment standards emerging

    high · Second String Silver Ball show dedicated to equipment; detailed breakdown of what works/doesn't work; community members (Wax, others) providing feedback

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Stern warranty support available for flipper failures; JJP providing at-cost playfield replacements for manufacturing defects

    high · Manu planning to submit Batman 66 flipper video to Stern warranty; George mentions JJP at-cost POTC playfield replacements

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Manufacturing defects in new games (playfield cracking) requiring manufacturer intervention and replacement programs

    medium · Willy Wonka and POTC both experiencing playfield cracks; JJP offering replacements; similar issues across manufacturers

  • ?

    design_innovation: Streaming setup evolution reflects demand for better playfield visibility; lighting, camera positioning, and macro control becoming standardized

    high · George's rig evolution shows progression from basic webcam to dedicated lighting, multiple cameras, macro control deck

    • 2:13
    Are they still dead? They came back on, is the thing. After maybe about 10 seconds, both flippers started acting okay again. But, I mean, at that point, I just don't even trust that the button, that the flippers are going to work. So you want to try to save the ball or do something, and I just have no faith in the game, which is really weird to have in a pinball machine. Like, it starts to mess with your play. Like, I don't know, should I hit it a couple times before the ball gets there just to make sure it's actually going to work this time?
    2:44
    Oh, man, that's a drag. Yeah, yeah. So I have yet to figure out what's going on with Batman 66. It's not the kind of issue that I know how to tackle. So we'll see what happens there. But technically, I mean, the stream was kind of okay, except for the Batman 66 dying.
    3:04
    Yeah, yeah. And then lost the stream about halfway through, which is great. Actually, right at the beginning of this, OBS crapped out. and now we're going to have two different videos that show up on Twitch, which is going to be great. The countdown, the initial switch, and then it dies. We'll fix it in post.
    3:24
    I have heard that a lot. The Pinsomniac says, I've done some troubleshooting on your table and couldn't find anything consistent. And Pinsomniac, I have gone through every single physical connection on that machine, and I did it actually before the stream and made sure everything was solid, that there was no loose wires. So I guess at this point I'm concerned maybe it's a board issue. I'm going to take the video. What's up, Wax? I'm going to pull a video. I think I'm going to highlight it, what actually happened when the right flipper died. Then it came back, right flipper died again, and then the left flipper died, and send that off to Stern and see what they think, because the pin should still be under warranty. man yeah that's a lot worse than the world cup that I streamed at one time and the like the right flipper just slowly died over time I know a lot of operators so I could ask around and see if that's something as far as streaming for me it's just been tough guys if you're going to get the pinball streaming you gotta take the good with the bad cause what we're doing is putting together hardware and software and hoping they all work together.
    4:40
    Plus I just came back from Hawaii, so I was super lazy. I was not interested in tech supporting myself.
    4:49
    As far as I'm concerned, everything's going okay. I was purchasing some more things for Free Go Watch, more batteries and stuff for cameras and whatnot.
    5:03
    That's about it. Cool. Yeah. And did you get an opportunity to play Jurassic Park by any chance? Short answer is no. Okay. A little longer answer is I went to a place last night that had it, and it was turned on with a Sharpie written note that said, out of order, sorry.
    5:27
    I'm curious. Was it the pro or the premium? Which one does the dinosaur head move on? That's the premium or the LE that it goes back and forth? The pro doesn't move? It was the pro. It didn't move. Okay.
    5:41
    So, nope. I hear it's the greatest pinball machine ever made. I literally do. Like, Das, the guy I stream with a lot, he's like, oh, it's the best game ever made. It's the greatest game ever made.
    5:58
    And Pinsu, he says already. and what did were you able to tell what was actually broken or was it just turned off and out of order no and since it's not like a place i go too often i didn't you know i would turn it off turn it back on and start messing with it but i didn't want to get thrown out of this bar right just turn it on and start playing it take sign off i don't know i came up it was powered and there was no issues what are you sure they didn't just want people not to play or what not they want their dollar per game. So yeah. Yeah. And I'm actually surprised that, uh, that it's only a dollar a game. I feel like, and that's what Colorado has. Uh, whenever new games come out, it's typically a dollar or you can do $2 for three plays, but everywhere else that I've heard, cause you'll hear Nick from, uh, Buffalo pinball talk about it a lot. And other people who stream slash operate that there's not a lot of money in, in operating. So when you do have them on location, you really have to be good about making sure that you get your payback as quick as possible. And you do that by upping the price. Upping the price to what? So they made it sound like new games were $2, I think, a play.
    7:12
    And I don't know how long they maintain that. But then again, they're in New York. So that's probably on par, I'm thinking, cost-wise with around that California area as well. I know this isn't the how much does a pinball play cost podcast, but the one thing that is a problem right now is there's a place that has a Willy Wonka, the expensive version, and the operator put it in at $1.50 a play. And everyone I know is like, no, I'm not playing that game at $1.50. And it's that free-go-watch for a buck. Okay. So I think if you creep above $1, you're… Right. It's got to be based on location, and I imagine you figure it out yourself. If people are willing to pay two bucks to play the new thing, right, Wax is saying they're losing money charging $2 a play. and and i imagine that is something you can figure out in fact uh bringing streaming back into it you did something with scorebit recently and with a product like scorebit it seems like you'd figure out within 24 hours what the difference is between uh a dollar to a dollar 25 to a dollar 50 to a dollar 75 and you can even i think you can set those remotely using your bit right yeah yeah and you can just you can sit on your couch and go wow well that didn't earn this week did it one quick aside is I the free go watch Wonka that we have I put in I went to put in my money and it just didn't did nothing so I called Das over I was like dude this is I thought the coin mech was jammed he opened the door quarters were spilling out of it that is the kind of problem you want to have though it was like the old Al Alcorn thing where they not LL Coin, Nolan Bushnell, when they created Pong, they put it in a bar, and then the bartender had to call and say, your machine's broken. So they went there, they opened it, and quarters were just pouring out of it. Wow. I wish I had seen a video of that. For a bucket play, it must have had... How much is in a coin box? I don't know. It was full.
    9:22
    That's interesting with quarters. I have no idea how many quarters can fit in a coin box. And Wax says, need to switch location of the machine and not make the few people playing it pay more, you want lots more people putting dollars in it. And that's why I said I don't... In Fort Collins, and it sounds also like where you are, Manu, a dollar seems pretty regular for newer games, but if you're going more than that and you're consistently doing it, I think that just means that the market's paying for it. And the expectation, I guess, where you're at must be a little bit higher.
    9:57
    I'd rather play a table that was set super hard and a dollar instead of playing super easy in $2. That's an interesting way to think of it as well. This is basic 80s arcade stuff. Unless you were there, you just don't know certain things. The new young operators need to figure some things out. Like I said, I think a lot of that might still have to do with cost of living based on different areas, and also the cost of maintenance. I imagine while the cost of living may go up in certain areas, you have to... If you're at a really busy place and you only get so many plays per day, but as a part of that so many plays per day, it needs to be, even on a brand new machine, especially something like Wonka, which I have heard nothing but negative things about in terms of playfields cracking, issues with mechanics. I keep hearing some really bad things. In fact, I think Kaneda just pointed out on Facebook a little bit earlier today a picture of his Wonka, or maybe it was somebody else's Wonka, having some issues with the playfield, which is the same problems that they saw with Jersey Jack. on Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah, sorry, they're both Jersey Jack, but the same issue with Pirates of the Caribbean, where I think Jersey Jack is offering at-cost playfield replacements for Pirates of the Caribbean that had issues, which probably doesn't feel great if you spent $9,500 on a pinball machine and then immediately have to spend $600 or $700 to replace the playfield due to manufacturing issues. Um, but it's something, and especially to get, to get, you know, two or $300 off from a manufacturer. I think that that says something about their, uh, them wanting to, to maintain a good customer relationship, but also identifying they have an issue.
    11:45
    Yeah. Um, so, uh, the, I guess, do we dive in at this point? Is there anything else you wanted to go over about streaming? I don't know. I was still trying to figure out the format of this. Is there any other streamers or anything else you wanted to go over before we touch on?
    12:02
    No, let's hear how Don't Panic Flip does it. You threw up a picture, I think, once in the Discord that I thought was amazing. Whenever someone puts a picture of their rig up, I'm just like this. It's like candy. So, yeah. What are you using? What have you found? What have you found that doesn't work? which I actually wanted to spend a good amount of time on today was what doesn't work. Because I started streaming, and it was fun. I got to go back through all my Amazon orders. And I started streaming, I think it was at the end of 2017. Kaneda.
    12:41
    I started streaming at the end of 2017, really early 2018 is when I show I had the first pieces of equipment that I picked up. Akira tries... that I don't get the reference of. Akira! That's from an anime. Go ahead. Okay And so without further ado let me switch over and I actually going to Tarantino this a little bit because I going to show you my second rig and then come back to the first because I don't have pictures of the rig itself. But just taking a second to kind of point some items out here, and I think you cannot see my mouse in this, but there is a stand that we have the laptop and the microphone sitting on. This is a portable butcher block.
    13:34
    Close, still not right on the pronunciation. This is like a portable kitchen butcher block. Like if you don't have an island and you need more counter space, this is what we had at one point before we moved into our current house. And that's what I was using to store a desktop computer inside. So inside of that thing, there is a desktop computer that I never took out. It's actually still in there today. Because that desktop computer crashes often, and I haven't needed to pull any of the hardware out. It's also from, like, 2016?
    14:08
    No, 2015, I think. And so laptop is on it. I could have paper towels on there with that paper towel holder. And you can see it between two games I no longer own anymore, which is Premium Star Wars and Dialed In. And there's some other items here, but I'm actually just going to start going through the list. The first thing we have is the portable cabinet. Hey, there's my mouse. You can see it now. It has wheels. That's a good thing. It has storage and a place to put paper towels. Also a good thing. The bad is you can't take that anywhere. That is not going in somebody's car. So if I wanted to stream from Titanic's place or from the Pinsomniac's new place, not going to happen. um also uh and and if you've if you've ever streamed uh on location you know how hard it is to get your equipment between two pins this is never getting between two pins ever so it's gonna sit behind you um the other thing you see here is the monoprice lighting stand this is the big black stand in the background it has like it's great because it was inexpensive i think this mount was $20, and it works. It technically does everything it is supposed to do. This is the most heavy, bulky tripod stand I have ever worked with.
    15:34
    And the legs, once fully expanded, still they're so high up the stand that the legs don't fit nicely under the pin completely. They end up rubbing against the side. yeah that's always going to be the case with tripods well not that bad but no yeah there's uh the tripod i currently have has a really low center i guess so if if i want to and i'm going to switch back over to chatting so that way i can gesticulate and have the camera actually see it but um if i wanted to push it in between the two pins and and really finagle it i could then loosen it and start to expand under the pinball machines. And it could stay completely under the pinball machines, whereas the Monoprice one, that's never happening, because the tubes are each that big, and somebody feel free to screen clip that and make fun of me, but hopefully you guys can still see this here. The newer N-E-E-W-E-R articulating magic arm is the next component and what's good about it is that it worked. What's bad about it is it only works for a while. I've gone through, I think, about nine of these and it has a plastic arm or a plastic twisty knob that will eventually crack and strip and you can no longer tighten your arm.
    17:08
    And for something that breaks that often, it's super expensive. The other component you're going to see here is the Siren X made by Razer, which is actually a good quality microphone. The problem is it's A, expensive. B, it's a resource hog. And honestly, I wouldn't stream with any Razer products whatsoever. they are in fact I'm kind of doing away with all of my Razer stuff which is funny because that is all I'm using currently to stream right now is nothing but Razer products and the last piece of that was that the USB mini USB connection is on the bottom right next to where you actually screw in the microphone to the stand so you have to it barely fits and you kind of have to jam it in there and ultimately that led to the microphone breaking oh geez uh because the mini usb uh was being pushed and the and the usb connector ended up breaking this sounds like fun yeah i mean it worked as long as i didn't touch it like i put it in there i put it in there once and i ended up taking this whole kit that you're seeing here sans the portable cabinet, which isn't really portable. I ended up bringing all of that on location, and the microphone popped out. So I had to put it back in, and I had to re-jam it in there, and I'm fairly certain that's the time it broke. And I think after that day, the microphone started cutting out. It was very inconsistent. And the last piece of equipment you're going to see here that I was using is the Gator Frameworks sorry, Frameworks short-weighted bass microphone stand, which is this guy right here. I've got two of those. And those are awesome. So I'm still using that today. Sure, I think the laptop is the only other component you see here that I'm still using today.
    19:14
    And that is bulky. It can fall over sideways, but it works, A. and B, it allows you to counterweight a microphone and get it up close to your face, which is awesome, and extend it over, let's say, a pinball machine, so that way it's right next to your mouth and you can still play pinball. But it's expensive for what it is, which is basically a big table weight, and it's quite large and, once again, prone to kind of falling over if you don't take care of it. Now, I'm going to switch screens here and hope that we don't drop it because we keep getting a codec error.
    19:53
    In fact, I wonder, I'm going to try switching this. Can I? Huh. I can switch over to software as opposed to hardware encoding, and the codec is where we're having issues.
    20:06
    All right, cross your fingers. Software, ultra-fast, applying live codec switch, and switching back over to chatting. Okay, here we go. We didn't drop the stream. The stream is still live. Don't cross the streams either. Yeah, don't cross. so the technology we we have technology that works okay so um now we're going to step back and just don't make fun of what you see here okay this is this there's no i can't way i can't now all right so this is uh i didn't have the actual equipment although you can kind of see it and i'm going to point it out but these are what i first started with so this was uh february 28th 2018 this is actually um the uh this is this is not the first time i streamed but this is the first time i recorded and uploaded something to i think it was youtube and you can see over here on the right that's the thing that's holding the camera next to me uh that is the logitech webcam mount and what's good about this? Nothing.
    21:21
    What's bad about it is that I bought three of them for like $20 a piece and it's so bad. It's limited on how it can move. It makes noises. It's using springs. It's just bad. It's bad news bears. And this layout. All of this is just bad. Like I said, try not to make fun of the situation.
    21:46
    I've seen worse. I believe it. I believe there could be worse. I'm just, I would be really surprised that somebody else tried anything worse to stream from.
    22:00
    The next thing which you can't see here is the flexible jaw long arm swivel clamp webcam holder. And actually, because I'm on wireless, I can talk through this and then maybe go grab it if I still have it. I do still have this. I'm so excited right now to show this off. Hold on, I'm going to switch back over. Wax remembers them days. Yeah, so this guy here, you can see, like, this grabs onto something and gets really, really tight, and then it likes to fall over if you put anything with any kind of weight on it whatsoever up at the top. This spins, and it gets tighter, and then you can kind of maneuver this around and pointed at stuff it was it was okay yeah but okay but yeah you i had i had three or four of those running on once again the uh that portable cabinet and i would just set it up next to the pinball machine and uh and like i would i would slam the side of the pinball machine it would then move the portable cam cabinet which is on wheels and vibrate and shake it was I'm going to say bad news bears again the whole get up was pretty awful goosenecks and gorilla arms cameras should never go on those if a thing can droop just on it's own weight then you're in trouble just air is making it slowly what's funny is I had that on top of the mono price for a little while with the top-down camera facing down, and it just clamps onto the bar with two flat pieces, not the nice one that wraps around it and keeps it locked into place really nicely. So it's pushed up there, and you try to angle it out a little bit and get it to come back in to get that nice, almost like point-of-view style, like the person playing it. And throughout the stream, it would slowly work its way down. Oh, man. So that's bad. Don't do that.
    24:13
    What else? I was also using the Razer Kiyo 1080 HD streaming camera. It has a light around the camera. It's actually what I'm streaming with right now, because I use that one for work now, not for live streaming. It actually has a decent image. This is okay. It's not 60 FPS, which sucks when you're trying to use that as your playfield camera. And also, this is the biggest resource hog I own. Not only is it not 60 frames per second, but I can't have this plugged into anything, even with a mouse, and you start to have issues. So this has to be on its own dedicated USB connection on a laptop or a desktop.
    25:01
    Let's see here. So let's go mouse. So that was my first rig. and then switching over to rig number three.
    25:11
    Let's hope we don't drop the stream trying to switch between stuff anymore. God, that's awful. But, okay, so this is stream number three, and this is the best camera. Sorry, this is the best picture I had because I didn't go through and take pictures of all these different rigs. Oh, wow, look, it's The Shadow, the game you were supposed to teach me how to play, and then you sold it. Before I ever got the opportunity to walk through the rule set on that. That was internal, sorry.
    25:40
    So, which is funny, because that was the first time I had ever met you on stream, was when I think it was you and Wolfman were asking for me to stream Shadow, so that way I could walk through the rules on it.
    25:55
    And I never really destroyed that game. I got to the wizard mode a few times, but never, I don't think I ever cracked a billion on it. But what you're seeing here for streaming equipment, I still have the Monoprice thing. I switched from a 920 Logitech webcam to the 922 It does 60 frames per second It awful Don ever buy it Don use it It is a resource hog. It doesn't work well with other cameras. And it looks awful. Like, for a Playfield camera, I do not like the 922. I messed with the settings. It just doesn't, in my opinion, look clean when you compare it to other cameras. Do you know why it looks awful? Why is that? Because actually we mentioned it in the last show we did. It's because for that camera to get a wide field of view, they have to use such a fisheye lens in it. Right. The sensor is tiny. It's only sharp in the very middle of the screen. As you go out, since that fisheye lens is bending, it just gets softer and softer as it goes out. Right. So on screen, are you then seeing, I guess, lesser, less clarity on the edges? And the only thing that comes through sharp is the dead center? The only thing that's going to be sharp is the dead center. I am using the 922 right now aimed at me, but I am dead center. Everything that goes out this way is going to be soft. And I was thinking more aberrations. Exactly. And I'm thinking I was at one time thinking, oh, what is the Brio? Is it the Logitech 4K? I think it's called the Brio or something like that. Yep. I was thinking, oh, maybe I should upgrade to that. No, same form factor, tiny sensor, large, circular.
    27:51
    It's going to do the same thing. Right. So it's going to get worse as it goes out. Wack said, there is no such thing as a 60 FPS webcam at 720p+. Logitech has total control of the market, and they just don't care. They should be sued for false advertising. Handycam or death for the play field. Yep, which gets me to, well, which will get me to my current streaming rig. But we'll get there, Wax. So what else did I change in this rig?
    28:22
    A, it was the 922, which was really awful. The camera tripod. Oh, yeah, so over to the right here, you can see a light and a camera tripod. So this was the first time I actually tried lighting things up. Cool. And this was amazing. This was, especially on shadow, the shadow looked awesome. I can't, short of going back and looking at the VODs of this, like it really, it made the whole play field glow. And you just, the reason I had it on an articulating arm on a tripod was because I was really struggling not getting a reflection off a glass in this setting, which ultimately found out had to do with not having enough light on the play field. Exactly.
    29:09
    So the third part then is not just the tripod, but also the LED light. What's good about this one is it's battery-powered. You can adjust between blue and yellow, what I think of as white light or yellow light.
    29:25
    And the majority of the time, I like a really clean light on everything, but there are some play fields. Actually, Iron Maiden, just to the left of this picture, and Titanic's Totan that he had for a while. Both looked really good in a yellow light. It really brings out the browns and the reds out of the playfield. So that was really nice.
    29:49
    CNK, welcome to the stream. And Deadpool puts the P in pool. The other thing you can do on this LED light is adjust the intensity. So you can make it brighter or softer. And that's twofold in that sometimes you need it to help brighten up a playfield. and you just make it brighter, which is pretty straightforward. The other thing to do, though, is use less power, and you can increase your battery life by dropping that. And what you'll see here is the battery doesn't make it through a two-hour stream, though, and that's the bad thing on this, when your power is greater than 50%. So the way I tackled that was hardwiring this in and keeping it plugged in, and then I can have the brightness all the way up and go for as long as I want to. Or the other thing I did was buy more batteries.
    30:37
    uh so that was streaming rig number three and moving on to the current rig all right okay so this is where we're at today and by today i mean i literally went over and took this picture about three hours ago so this is also how my basement currently looks and we had some people stay over last night and they did not make the bed that's right pat my brother-in-law who never makes the bed whenever he stays over. Look what happened. This is all you.
    31:10
    So other components that we have upgraded and made changes. First off, you're going to see I now have two lights.
    31:21
    Pinsomniac, I actually had my D&D session today. And as a part of that D&D session, we have a bodybuilder friend who loves to play fighter style characters, although he is playing a doctor who does not fight right now in our current game.
    31:38
    But he is physically a very large guy and that actually take that, brother-in-law, that actually causes issues bringing pinball machines down the stairs because he feels the need to just pick them up, which just puts all of the weight right into my forearms as you're trying to walk it down the stairs. But yeah, I had a big 6'4", 250 pound bodybuilder guy help me get D&D downstairs today. So D&D is downstairs. It is not set up, but that's just a little bit of effort and some free time, and I will be able to stream D&D again. So beyond the D&D, which is right behind me as I'm taking this picture, and the messy bed, you're going to see I have a laptop stand, which is actually identified, I think, in the other screen, but I forgot to mention it. that's amazing it's portable you can adjust the height of where you want the laptop which is great if you need to get it up and over a pinball machine next to you and it obviously has enough room for the 17 inch massive laptop because that's a Razer that's the Razer Pro laptop so it's like 17 and a half inches wide it has enough room then for the Elgato Stream Deck and the microphone the other thing that you're going to see here I guess since we just talked about it, the Elgato Stream Deck, which I think, Manu you also picked up one of those recently I do, I love it, I don't I can't use it on my rig but I love it at my desktop right here awesome, right, like it's so what's good about it, it's a macro device, like at the end of the day it's going to be the same thing if you're a power gamer and you have a Razer or Bleever or any one of those other devices where when you click a button, it performs some actions, right? And that's what this does. But you can put images on the buttons. Additionally, the software that comes with it is great. It integrates with OBS, with Streamlabs OBS, with XSplit. Like, it has all of these built-in functions that make it super easy to work with all of that software and bring in scenes or switch between scene collections or start streaming, stop streaming. It also works with... Credit roll. Credit rolls, yeah. So you can actually make calls directly out to Streamlabs to initiate your credit rolls. And it's awesome for that.
    34:08
    Hold on, wait a second. Where was it? Oh, and also the setup interface for it is great. It's super intuitive. You drag stuff over, you give it a name, and it has some options. It's easy to use, and I love it. I use it all the time.
    34:23
    But it is expensive. I think they have a 6-key, a 15-key, and now like a 26-key or something like that version, like an XL version. And I think they start at like $70, $150, and I don't even know how much the XL is now.
    34:41
    Yeah, it's like $199 or something. I don't remember. Okay, yeah, $199. Pinsomniac says, George hasn't done it yet, but a pro that he isn't listing is that the holes to put additional ads onto the desktop stand are the same distance as the leg bolt holes, meaning you can install a pin gulp to the laptop stand. Yes, we have talked about that several times and just haven't done it.
    35:06
    And we absolutely need to. Imagine you go stream at somebody's house and you bring your own beer holder in case they don't have them.
    35:15
    Yeah, that's pretty baller. I want to switch back over to chatting, but I'm really afraid moving back and forth is going to cause issues. So I'm going to try and make it through the rest of these on the current rig, and then we'll switch back over and we can keep chatting. I don't want to lose the stream a fifth time or a sixth time.
    35:36
    So we have the blue Snowball condenser mic. The last mic would not consistently record, even when it wasn't plugged into the microphone stand. So switched out to what was recommended by Deadflip at the time, was the Blue Snowball. I love it. I think it's great. I think the sound quality on it is great for the price. It's only $50. Although I think you posted something last time about a 1999 version that was equally as good. Is that correct? It wasn't by Blue. No, sorry. It was a different manufacturer, but something equally as good. And I think you have a ton of experience in sound and video. So you would know in terms of quality whether or not I feel like in spending $50, even though that seemed inexpensive. Dirty Toes, welcome to the stream. And even though that seemed inexpensive to me when I compared it to the Razer Siren X as opposed to the Pro, which was like $80 and this one was $50, I think you said the quality of the one that you had recommended on your previous stream from a different manufacturer was going to be on par with the Blue Snowball. yeah it's from five fine and i generally as a rule as an audio guy i would never trust a microphone that's less than 99 okay um if this is going to be your only microphone so if this is going to do double triple duty um then you know spending 50 bucks on that is probably a good thing for you um i'm remember this 20 it was 29 five fine microphone that i thought was very good for the job that I gave it.
    37:15
    So, that being said, you know, because I don't want to spend more money on a microphone. If this is the job you're giving it, and it sounds good, go for it. If you're going to be recording vocals in your house, maybe not. For your next demo. Right, right. It gets the job done, and at $20, it's kind of hard to argue with, but like you said, if you're doing vocals for a band, it's not going to... Yeah. It's not going to be up to snuff. And then I think after that, you and I are pretty standard. You can see here the red knobs on these articulating arms. Those are the ones that MPT3K suggested I switch to during our last stream. You got good clamps. Good. Yeah. And what the benefit of these guys is that they're metal. So they're not plastic. No matter how tight I make them, they are not going to strip, hopefully. we're both using I think 920 Logitech for the LCD or the DMD and we're both using Sony HDR CX405 cameras I have it for the playfield and I have a second one pointed at me trying to get better quality on the players the playfield looks great I feel like when the camera is looking at me it's nowhere near the same quality as the playfield and I'm not sure what I did there Dernito says is that the bed you sleep in when you've gotten in trouble in the background you actually missed the quick discussion about that my brother-in-law stayed over last night we had a pretty big party after a day spent at the Peach Festival and he did not make that bed afterwards and now it's on stream and everyone knows that he never makes the bed when he comes over so let's see the Elgato Cam Link you also went over those There's the double ball head ball arm camera clamp. That is what is connected to the I think you also talked about this one that is connected to the camera down And the biggest pain in the butt I have with getting the Playfield cam actually centered is that it a pain in the butt The camera wants to move a little bit. The tripod here wants to move a little bit. I wonder with your mount, which is the rack mount that actually goes over both sides, if you have less movement, because this is always a pain in the butt. Yeah, so you're using a boom arm, Unless it's like a C-stand, it's going to drift. I don't know if you know what a C-stand is. That's what they use in the video business to do booming of lights and stuff like that. No, no. I would love to see if there's – It's overkill. C-stand is overkill. Got it, got it.
    40:07
    There's the new microphone stand, the pile heavy – Oh, it says microphone stand. This is the new stand that – I think it's Minnesota Pinball recommended. And the reason was because, so checking eBay, this is the camera, right? And that is the CX-405. Yeah. Yep. And it's expensive if you buy it brand new, like $150 to $170 on Amazon. But if you can find a used one on eBay or somebody selling one on Craigslist, you can typically pick them up between $70 and maybe $100. I picked up mine both, I think, between $80 and $90. and the really cool thing about this stand I'm using now is that you can see down here at the bottom the legs expand out really wide but they start really low. They're actually very small legs so I can sneak them easily under a pinball machine.
    41:03
    I think the rest of everything else I have here is all consistent with what we have. I'm going to switch back over to us. Hopefully I don't reinitiate this codec issue. We didn't. Oh my gosh. We're still streaming.
    41:17
    Cool. So those are my original rig, my second rig, which was updated, thinking I'm actually kind of enjoying myself. This is kind of fun. My third rig, which somewhere between second and third, I started live streaming on Twitch. And then finally, my current streaming rig, which hasn't changed in probably about six maybe to eight months.
    41:44
    Nice. Short of the articulating arms you recommended. Right. Cool. So if anybody has any questions about what George has set up, please throw them in the chat.
    42:00
    Whenever you're dealing with booms and stuff like that, it's It's going to be a little finagling to get it quite right, but I think it's a good solution because you have to get over the play feel. And nothing does that better than, say, like a boom arm.
    42:24
    Now, did you see the streaming rig for, what was it, Pinberg? No, you saw it. I did, and I took a picture, and I did not prep it. Okay, we can show it next time. Yeah, we can show it next time. But the coolest thing they did, and the biggest issue I have with the, I guess, the over the straight box, is that you're looking, at that point, you're looking straight down. Actually. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, you sent it to me, actually, so I saw it. Okay. Keep going, sorry. And what I really like about the boom, and I can't do this when tall people like Rob or the Pinsomniac are here, and they're over six feet, whereas I'm this little 5'10 guy. So I can have the camera over me kind of looking down, and it gives you a slightly more player-esque view, as opposed to top-down when you can't make out a lot of the, I guess, dimensionality of the objects on the playfield. and to give a good example it might be if you're looking at Groot on Guardians of the Galaxy and you're looking top down you're just going to see this circle with what looks like almost like you were making waffles. Maybe like a waffle iron kind of top to it on top of his head because it's just the sticks coming up whereas if you can get that angle and a good enough angle you can actually see all of that stuff and get to see a lot of that And that's where the boom is, I feel like, great, except when I was at Pinberg and I got to see what they had, they have a huge, very heavy mount, very similar to yours. Then they have a set of arms, and this is up really high, that they put the camera back a good, like, two feet, angling down to catch specifically, I'm guessing, that. And then they also had some remote control capability as well, which is great. Like they could pan and tilt the camera all from a computer, which was great. Yeah.
    44:36
    It was interesting watching the Papa stream because I learned a lot. First of all, they're using the Teradek HDMI transmitters to transmit their HDMI stuff, and that stuff is like $500 per receiver and transmitter. Got it. So that would be the ability then to just move around, move to the next one, no cables. It's all there, and they have two cameras, probably one looking at the player and one looking at the play field. At the play field, yeah.
    45:09
    And that is all wireless. So is that – I'm unfamiliar with that hardware, but is that line of sight?
    45:16
    I'm not familiar with that hardware either. Okay. I've got to say, that's out of my pay range, right? 500 bucks to – actually, I do have a – I don't know. So I'm going to do some research on those guys. If you have the cash to throw at those, because they could also probably, you could also probably use more than two comfortably.
    45:36
    So the consumer stuff with the HDMI transmitter slash receiver packs is that you can generally only get away with using two at a time before you have trouble. A third won't connect.
    45:46
    Interesting. And are they causing issues with themselves? Or are they... They're just not built that way. And one thing I heard is that there's a lot of manufacturers making wireless HDMI for the homes. The problem is they're all using the same chipset, the same base chipset. And that base chipset only has the ability to work on like a couple of frequencies. when you get into the more expensive stuff they can do eight you know eight hdmi separate cameras on different frequencies and they don't have problems with each other but that's really expensive right right that starts getting into into the i guess the professional side of things that gets really into professional side of things but pemberg is at the professional side of things because they're using those plus they're using ptz cameras which you mentioned which is pan tilt zoom remotely so they have 1080 uh hd ptz cameras which allows them to nobody has to go up to the rig they just have to get in the general ballpark then they can just use a little controller or joystick and uh zoom out move you know tilt and get the perfect angle which is you know you don't want a guy messing with keith elwynn while he's trying to win for the right right sixth time um his name is up there a lot it's up there a lot yeah um so what we're trying to do here is teach you guys how to do it uh with a a smaller budget don't get too cheap because we're trying to show you how not if you get too cheap it's not gonna be great and you have to rebuy stuff and if you get too expensive well then good for you i mean if you can afford this stuff then go for it cool I didn't see any other questions come through so unless you got anything else that you wanted to target on chatting I think I went over everything I wanted to and plan for the next episode one other thing about the playfield angle you made a good point if you can get the camera to kind of be a virtual player and be in the same position as a real player's head almost then you eliminate some bad reflections also because if you if you notice as a player angle to the machine you you you generally have a good angle where there won't be too many reflections but if the camera the further back the camera goes the top camera i'm talking about goes to the back back glass um reflections kind of get nasty um so yeah the boom helps in those situations.
    48:32
    It's really your mileage may vary. You just have to really figure out what will work better for you. I'm not saying it's situational. A boom or overarching rig that I set up which is like over and across. I love that rig personally. The over arching because it seems like you could very easily go completely wireless on that and having to do a quick change, I it's awful to have to move everything. A really good example I was talking about Batman 66 at the beginning of this crapping out, the flippers crapping out and heading over to a different machine and had it have been that single worst case scenario, unplug a few cables, move the whole thing over put it back over kind of centered, great, plug in a couple of cables reset OBS and we're good. Nope. Instead it was unplug everything one of these guys and kind of walk it over and I'm like tagging people's ankles as I'm trying to do it the boom is not conducive to moving I feel like not even a little bit no not really I do want to I don't want to bother other streamers but I do want to maybe in the chat or maybe just send them a private message and say hey can you if it's not in their description can you let us know what your stream setup is because I was watching I think yesterday with you guys we were watching they were playing Adam's Family Colorado? Colorado Pinball they have a beautiful stream I'm very curious of what their setup is I don't think I saw it in the description it might not be down below but Snow has been has definitely put the link to all of her streaming gear many times in chat and it's probably on her her or i should say their their website uh and i'm pretty sure i've actually seen it on there as well so colorado pinball has an amazing website where they talk a lot about um uh local uh they they run a lot of tournaments so they talk a lot about tournaments on there but you'll see you'll see conversations around uh around their streaming gear as well awesome awesome so let's get that list yeah that would be great there's a bunch people i would love to see so we'll work we'll work on that um also just so you guys know i i plan on getting a third order of the rig that i built to come in and i will do i want to do a full video of how i modify it to become what i actually use because i noticed that um there was a streamer who actually did go out and buy it.
    51:24
    We love pinball. We love pinball, yeah. So he went out and bought it. But I don't want to kind of misrepresent myself. It is modified slightly, and one of the pipes are cut at the hardware store so I can get that thing. So I'm going to try and work on doing one for you guys. And, yeah, I'll do a separate video from this so you guys can just see how I modified it.
    51:50
    Awesome. Well, cool. Yeah, great stream, great chatting. This has been Second String Silver Ball, where we geek out about streaming pinball and the technology associated with it. And we'll have another episode up at some point in the future.
    52:10
    Awesome, you guys. Have a good one. I'm going to switch to the ending scene. Bye, George. See ya. Bye, folks.
    52:20
    Thank you.