What a great show, I was there for almost the entire time and I loved it! I’m not regularly watching Nebula Jazz but when it comes around for a second season I’m definitely on board. The cast is awesome, the scenes were aswell and at this point I’m convinced Adam is the best storyteller to have ever lived. I also really liked the set and the new table.
Since I know both Scoots and—in terms of Rollplay—even more so JP are always interested in creating an even better experience the next time around, I’m going to list a couple of things that, when addressed, can make the last 5 to 10% of the overall impression for viewers I think. The overall impression is already pretty close to anyway!
Audio desync - Throughout the show Scoots asked chat whether or not the audio was synced with the video, which it wasn’t. He fixed it live and significantly reduced the desync but never quite got rid of it (at least as far as I could tell). It also seemed that while the show was going on, the desync got more noticable again. The best way to address this issue would of course be to find the cause and eliminate it, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not that easy. So as a fail-safe, and this might sound funny but I’m serious, before the show starts and maybe in every other break, you could run a short AV test screen. What I mean is a visual cue that is—in theory—synced with an audio cue, so flashes and beeps like you know from old movies. It’s much easier to notice desync with short signals than to notice it by looking at people’s mouth. Since chat is already more than willing to help out (and Scoots made use of that willingness), they could give feedback as to whether audio and video are synced or not. But the production crew (Scoots and maybe JP when there’s another show where he’s not part of the cast) doesn’t have to rely on chat of course. By monitoring the stream they can decide for themselves whether there’s AV sync or not.
The test screen doesn’t have to be dull either, I’m sure it can be made in the overall aesthetics of the show that’s on, or it could even be made into something fun and interactive for chat (although I realize I’m running wild with ideas right now). Anyway. Maybe worth thinking about.
Image quality - Like in the live shows before, I found the image quality to be very washed out and grainy. Not sure what caused this. Maybe it’s because of the lighting, or maybe it’s just the maximum that’s possible with the bitrate, I don’t know.
Screen real estate - As others already pointed out, a third of the screen space of the main shot was taken up by the front side of the table. I’m pretty sure for the next show the team will come up with good ideas, so I’m looking forward to seeing a creative solution for that.
Room acoustics - Minor issue, but there was a noticable room reverb, at least while listening through headphones. Maybe this can be fixed by a couple of porous absorbers that are worked into the set somehow. Anyway, I only really noticed the reverb with headphones, so yeah, no big deal really.
Individual noise gates - Not sure if it’s possible, but if there was a way to have a noise gate for every individual mic channel, that could help with the overall reduction of audible noise (background noise, breathing, etc). Wouldn’t help with the noise of constantly touching the mic of course, Sam, but could maybe cut some of the quieter noise that was present at times.
So yeah, like I said, these things are for the last 10% or so and are absolutely meant as constructive criticism of an otherwise fantastic show. I love Rollplay!