Online and open for beta business. [url=/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=RTVPublicBeta] click for full story [/url] edit by Roger: zeroth. I'm comandeering this post to answer any (good) questions that come up. Enjoy, everyone! Q: Can I upgrade from free-DLC-Pro to Beta status? A: Sorry, no. There are too many people in that situation for us to be able to do that and still keep the beta small. Q: When will videos appear on the file search? A: If you filter by "in the last day", you can use it now. Other time periods are on a nightly refresh. Q: Will files already converted into video format be downloadable by other users without charge (provided they have a Bungie Pro Subscription)? A: Yes, at least for now all Beta users can see all other users' videos. We're watching what this does to bandwidth, and we might have to adjust it. Q: Does this only work on PCs? A: The videos are WMV, and Macs can play that format with the right software Q: Can I render six 10-second films for one "minute" of points? A: No, points are used per minute or fractional minute. A 61-second clip is "2 minutes". You will see the point cost before you confirm the purchase. Q: If I delete the base film from my fileshare, will the video get deleted? A: No. Current plan is to keep videos around for a long time regardless. They can still be accessed by search or via the game they relate to. Still, save off your file when you can, since we can't keep all the videos around *forever* Q: How do I report a broken video, such as the end getting chopped off? A: [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=32880830&viewreplies=true]Reply in this thread[/url] Q: If I like to make machinima with lots of multi-angle shots, shouldn't I just get a capture card? A: Probably, yes. Render-to-video is geared toward players who want to highlight gameplay footage that is special to them. Buying a capture card that can encode 720p (or even digital 360p) is expensive and troublesome for the infrequent capture user, and this service is an inexpensive alternative. When final pricing is announced this summer, you can decide if you really plan to produce more footage than this service will give you for the same price. Q: Why is there audio before the action starts moving? A:That's intentional, to make sure the game engine has had a chance to fully load everything. The simulation starts paused, then we start recording, then we yell, "Action!" Similarly, we have the on-screen Spartans hold their pose for an extra second at the end before we stop recording. Q: Why is it that for a few films, the thumbnail black, the film is unseekable, the length reports as 0, and the end is chopped off? A: It was a bug which I think should be fixed as of now (May 13th, 4:33 PM) for all films rendered in the future. I'll keep an eye on it to make sure the problem is gone. Q: Where's the reticule? A: How about that? The game itself doesn't display a reticule for *clips* until you leave and reenter 1st-person camera. We're showing it the same way the game does. We'll dig around and see if we can prepare a fix for the version of the game engine that runs on the Hydra. Q: Can I render other people's videos and vice versa? A: Yes, any film that's shared on bungie.net is fair game for anyone. Q: Why can't you charge by the second rather than rounding to the minute? A: Each clip, no matter how long, takes a certain amount of our machine time as overhead, loading the clip. It's about 30 seconds of wasted time per clip, So your 1-second clip costs you 60 seconds of Points and costs us 31 seconds of machine time. But your 59-second clip costs us 89 seconds of machine time and still costs you 60 seconds of Points. In the end, it comes out even. [Edited on 05.17.2009 7:57 PM PDT by sawnose]