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[XenoRaven]

Has this been discussed at all? If you stream NBA 2K14, it streams with no sound. All of the 2K14 PS4 streams I've seen have just broadcast the sound through their commentary mic. The assumption is that it's due to music licensing, but has 2K commented on this at all?

I could be overreacting, but I find it disconcerting that using your console as a streaming device could provide a vehicle for companies to dictate what content you can stream and what you can't. I see it as a small victory in the entertainment industry's attempt to criminalize the rebroadcasting of their content in any capacity, regardless of the context. I get them not wanting you to just stream music like it was ad-free radio, but for the music to run during gameplay is completely different. I hope this trend doesn't continue, but I'm not exactly optimistic.

Mute my stream if old.

EDIT: I could also be jumping the gun and it might just be performance related. Streaming directly from the console is a brand new thing, so maybe the bugs aren't all worked out yet?

 

[USC-fan]

wow streaming must a lot of option for devs if they can just turn off music.

thats crazy....

 

[SeanNaess]

I'm not entirely sure if that's the case, but you could be right. I've noticed a few people streaming battlefield 4 on PS4 with no sound at all. Perhaps a technical issue?

 

[Abounder]

Hmm

It'll make MP3 implementation a little more interesting too

 

[cw_sasuke]

Better this way than completely disabling the streaming feature.

 

[Smokey]

Ahhhhhh

I was streaming 2K yesterday and people kept saying I had no sound. I had to turn the camera on and have it pic up the sound that way for their to be audio. But then there are other 2k streams that have sound, I've seen a few. So I'm not sure what's going on.

 

[rrs]

If the music was removed, it would just be that and not any other sound. As in the post above me, I think this is a techincal issue.

 

[Xater]

Better this way than completely disabling the streaming feature.

It's still weird. For some reason it's ok to stream whatever from your PC but on console all kinds of restrictions have to be introduced. It's also not like people will not get around it by just going through a capture card.

 

[DryvBy]

Ahhhhhh

I was streaming 2K yesterday and people kept saying I had no sound. I had to turn the camera on and have it pic up the sound that way for their to be audio. But then there are other 2k streams that have sound, I've seen a few. So I'm not sure what's going on.

I'm thinking technical. My friend said he could hear it but mine was a bit jumpy.

 

[XenoRaven]

wow streaming must a lot of option for devs if they can just turn off music.

thats crazy....

They don't selectively turn the music off. They just don't allow sound to be broadcast period.

I'm not entirely sure if that's the case, but you could be right. I've noticed a few people streaming battlefield 4 on PS4 with no sound at all. Perhaps a technical issue?

Yeah I thought of that and updated the OP accordingly. I hope I'm just being a pessimist. But this sounds like something the music industry would impose and something 2K would agree to. Also, I watch a Japanese wrestling broadcast with licensed music and they mute certain wrestler's entrances if they don't have the rights to broadcast that song on Ustream, so this isn't uncharted territory.

 

[pastapadre]

I streamed 2K14 for a few hours last night. Had it mentioned that the sound was low at points, but not that there was ever no sound at all. And I went through a few of the different modes and played a few games.

 

[XenoRaven]

I should note that people will hear sound through the commentary mic and it actually sounds pretty good. But direct feed audio from the PS4 for the game appears to be completely muted.

 

[LevityNYC]

You likely have a camera or your mic was picking up the audio.

Bf4 and nba do not stream with audio.

 

[TheSinkingKnight]

This is a kind of related question: Why can't my PS4 go from HDMI to DVI on my tv and display anything other than 480p? Is this another licensing thing?

 

[Dead Prince]

is this just for NBA 2k14 or maybe an NBA thing? anyone bought NBA live? lol.

 

[teiresias]

Wouldn't streaming the licensed music over a public stream constitute "public performance" or "public broadcast" usage - which may be different from the license to include it in a game? I know the pricing for such things differ wildly.

 

[low-G]

I've done a single BF4 video (not streaming, but uploaded to Facebook) & it had no sound. Very good question of why not...

 

[E-Jay]

well, i saw an NBA2K14 Streaming few hour ago. I heard the music normally at the menus. If i can remember, was playing Gorillaz.

This music is in the game?


I never played this game before.

 

[Vinsanity.]

Weird considering that FIFA and Madden have licensed music, and they stream just fine.

 

[Vinsanity.]

well, i saw an NBA2K14 Streaming few hour ago. I heard the music normally at the menus. If i can remember, was playing Gorillaz.

This music is in the game?

.

I think I was watching the same stream. He was using a capture device instead of streaming from the PS4.

 

[XenoRaven]

If anyone that has Twitter could do me a favor and tweet 2K, DICE, and Yoshida about it, I would appreciate it. The fact that FIFA and Madden are fine but BF4 is not makes me think it may be a technical issue. It would be nice to get clarification on this.

 

[KennyLinder]

I can confirm that this is due to licensing issues.

We had to patch our launch game (that had passed submission on PS4 and Xbox One, not NBA by the way) because of music broadcast licensing. The company in question (not the publisher) wanted an insane amount of money for the privilege so we took the decision to turn off soundtrack. We kept SFX though.

 

[E-Jay]

I think I was watching the same stream. He was using a capture device instead of streaming from the PS4.

You got a point. Dont remember if was a chat box on his screen.

 

[XenoRaven]

I can confirm that this is due to licensing issues.

We had to patch our launch game (that had passed submission on PS4 and Xbox One, not NBA by the way) because of music broadcast licensing. The company in question (not the publisher) wanted an insane amount of money for the privilege so we took the decision to turn off soundtrack. We kept SFX though.

So record companies being greedy, essentially. I appreciate the clarification. If that's the case though, I wonder what licensed content is in BF4 that they have to mute?

 

[KennyLinder]

So record companies being greedy, essentially. I appreciate the clarification. If that's the case though, I wonder what licensed content is in BF4 that they have to mute?

Does BF4 have any licenced music? They might have just chosen to block all music even if the clip in question did not contain it. If it was anything like our game, we found out AFTER passing submission so time was very limited on what we could do and coding in blocking music in specific scenes would be really time consuming.

 

[Risk Breaker]

Does BF4 have any licenced music? They might have just chosen to block all music even if the clip in question did not contain it. If it was anything like our game, we found out AFTER passing submission so time was very limited on what we could do and coding in blocking music in specific scenes would be really time consuming.

Total Eclipse of the Heart?

 

[Xater]

Ugh, fucking record companies...

 

[low-G]

Does BF4 have any licenced music? They might have just chosen to block all music even if the clip in question did not contain it. If it was anything like our game, we found out AFTER passing submission so time was very limited on what we could do and coding in blocking music in specific scenes would be really time consuming.

BF4 has blocked all SOUND though, so that may be a bug...

 

[PaulLFC]

Does BF4 have any licenced music? They might have just chosen to block all music even if the clip in question did not contain it. If it was anything like our game, we found out AFTER passing submission so time was very limited on what we could do and coding in blocking music in specific scenes would be really time consuming.

In a situation like that, blocking music but keeping SFX seems like the best option. It seems a bit strange to me that NBA also chooses to block SFX - if it's not a technical issue I assume it was just less time consuming to block streaming audio than differentiate between the two?

 

[XenoRaven]

Frankly I'm not even sure how feasible it is to selectively block certain pieces of audio from being broadcast while still allowing the player to hear it. It may be an "all or nothing" type of deal.

My biggest concern is less with sports games and more with games like GTA, Saints Row or Watch_Dogs. Or really any open world game with a radio. I think our only hope is that game companies deal with record companies that won't charge them out the ass to allow users to stream their content. The fact that this is even allowed is kind of bullshit though.

 

[KennyLinder]

In a situation like that, blocking music but keeping SFX seems like the best option. It seems a bit strange to me that NBA also chooses to block SFX - if it's not a technical issue I assume it was just less time consuming to block streaming audio than differentiate between the two?

Yep. I'll be honest right now, we thought we would might to block ALL audio too as time was insanely tight (game was done, off to be pressed, had to make launch so we could fulfill our deal etc). At the 11th hour we found a work around with the patch allowing us to just turn off music and not SFX, so we got lucky. It might not have been so easy for other games, or maybe they chose to kill all sound, or maybe it's a bug, but it sounds familiar to me


To note, if it wasn't a patch and were still working on it etc, turning just music off would have been cake, it was just the complete lack of time remaining after we thought we had finished the project!!

 

[stuminus3]

It's astounding that it's 2013 and we've had the internet for two decades and the big record companies still don't have a clue.

 

[Guymelef]

Yep. I'll be honest right now, we thought we would might to block ALL audio too as time was insanely tight (game was done, off to be pressed, had to make launch so we could fulfill our deal etc). At the 11th hour we found a work around with the patch allowing us to just turn off music and not SFX, so we got lucky. It might not have been so easy for other games, or maybe they chose to kill all sound, or maybe it's a bug, but it sounds familiar to me


To note, if it wasn't a patch and were still working on it etc, turning just music off would have been cake, it was just the complete lack of time remaining after we thought we had finished the project!!

I think BF4 has no sound in every streaming i see, do you think in the future devs will block sound only on specific parts or the solution will be the same, to kill audio for the entire game???

 

[LevityNYC]

I think BF4 has no sound in every streaming i see, do you think in the future devs will block sound only on specific parts or the solution will be the same, to kill audio for the entire game???

unlikely. Its not really worth the effort.


The music industry can't get out of their own way sometimes.

 

[low-G]

unlikely. Its not really worth the effort.


The music industry can't get out of their own way sometimes.

I think if people complain enough it would be trivial to simply disable music when a person is streaming. The auto record function on PS4 might be trickier. Maybe if you manually double click the share button to record it could turn off music? Or a user could turn down their music all the way to enable audio to record (a setting in settings)?

 

[LevityNYC]

I think if people complain enough it would be trivial to simply disable music when a person is streaming. The auto record function on PS4 might be trickier. Maybe if you manually double click the share button to record it could turn off music? Or a user could turn down their music all the way to enable audio to record (a setting in settings)?

I know streaming is a big deal right now, but is it really worth all of the effort from these companies?

Everyone and their mother is streaming games right now. Personally, I don't see the point. You play in a smaller window on your TV screen just so some people watch you play a game?

If I had time to watch people play games, I would just play them myself.

 

[graywolf323]

Does BF4 have any licenced music? They might have just chosen to block all music even if the clip in question did not contain it. If it was anything like our game, we found out AFTER passing submission so time was very limited on what we could do and coding in blocking music in specific scenes would be really time consuming.

what game did you work on? am curious

 

[low-G]

I know streaming is a big deal right now, but is it really worth all of the effort from these companies?

Everyone and their mother is streaming games right now. Personally, I don't see the point. You play in a smaller window on your TV screen just so some people watch you play a game?

If I had time to watch people play games, I would just play them myself.

I think it's a big enough deal to have a simple code switch that says 'no streaming sound if music isn't set to 0 and sound if music is set to zero'

 

[KennyLinder]

I think BF4 has no sound in every streaming i see, do you think in the future devs will block sound only on specific parts or the solution will be the same, to kill audio for the entire game???

Hopefully since they won't be making a launch game they will be able to plan ahead and put in better functionality. I would imagine that going forward when getting deals with music labels drawn up they will agree upon terms whether they allow or disallow it.

 

[HIGH DEF JEFF]

Cross Posting from the main BF4 Thread:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=90251036&postcount=10382

Not sure if this has been discussed...

The PS4 Share Feature - The game audio is DISABLED during video capture. The only audio you are able to capture is MIC audio..either via the camera or a headset mic. I tested it multiple ways and posted about it on the Battlelog Forums:

The workaround I used was setting the Camera Mic to On, placing the camera close to a speaker and not speaking. That method is far from ideal. The sound is distant and hollow.

I tested it using a raw 15 minute capture. No sound.
I tested it with an edited clip ready for download. No sound.
The clip is now on Facebook. No sound.


What's a Battlefield clip without dat audio..dumb decision.