Yo what’s the deal with the livestream quality for US events? PNWR was unwatchable this year bc the audio was so off. If people are doing performances on stage synced to music, I want to hear the music. The angle was also weird and not optimized for presenting yoyo performances. PNWR stream last year was not great at all and US Nationals was bad last year like super blown out highlights.
Why is the streaming quality for US events so bad?
meanwhile AP’s livestream was great and they upload the players video after they are done performing
Ben gates told me its cause they film it on an ipad
Every contest focuses on different things. It all depends on what the host is thinking about most honestly.
The more I talk to folks everyone has a different take on what they out the most effort into and prioritize especially independent and local contests that have no need to seed winners or anything.
Some focus on the stage and competitor experience, some on judging, some on the spectator experience, some on the stream and pictures and documenting the event. Really all depends on who is doing what and how much money they have to throw at stuff.
Like stream isn’t free there’s folks that for quality you will have to pay and equipment they will either bring or you need to rent or own to have a good quality stream. If your lucky you have a generous volunteer but that’s rare…
I mean heck chairs and tables and even the stage (even if it’s at a theater it’s often an extra charge to use) aren’t even free at most venues lol
I tried watching PNWR but the sync issue made it unwatchable unfortunately. On the other hand, AP was insane! I only got to watch 1a prelims-finals but all the freestyles were so good, it felt like World Yoyo Contest competitiveness from my perspective. Only gripe I had was I just wish Takeshi placed better for such an amazing routine. It kinda made me wonder if judging can properly score Takeshi’s style compared to the modern zoning meta. I also thought Hunter’s freestyle was one of his best. He didn’t go perfectly clean but I feel like his tricks were much more difficult and unique compared to Allon’s. All just my random opinions of course..
6 posts were split to a new topic: Asia Pacific 2026 Results
Tbh even an iPhone on a cheap tripod from Amazon, plugged in for power & at the proper distance, would be better quality than an iPad on a shaky judges table or vibrating stage. But yeah man, literally every other contest stream clears the hell out of literally any US contest stream. I’ve noticed over the years that there are a very large number of videographers/photographers in the yoyo community… perhaps one of them might be willing to lend a camera/some equipment for the weekend to get a decent stream?
Also, I was wondering how Ryuichi competed at PNWR, not that I mind at all. Is it open to everyone or is he now a citizen here? I saw a cellphone clip of his freestyle on youtube earlier, he killed it.
I think these restrictions only apply for the national yoyo contest, though I’m not sure if chandler steele (2nd place) would get the seed since ryuichi is ineligible
There was a different plan for the livestream at PNWR but due to last minute technical issues with hardware that wasn’t working together they had to go with a plan b. But bad internet/wifi, no direct ethernet connection, and bad cellular connection in these venues tends to be a huge limitation too and I think there was just a combination of issues that created that situation. (And a lot of times trying to secure good internet gets very expensive fast). Resources for the contests have been limited too so live streams have kind of been at the bottom of the list of things but I’m sure everyone would all agree they want it to be better and continue to try and do better…
The last few years in contest organizing had led to a lot of burnout and so people organizing have focused their energy on things they have time and resources for.
Live stream was definitely embarrassing - sorry about that!
At least the quality of the freestyle videos themselves came out good! (Original plan had been a live feed from this camera!)
