#utv - Home of quality broadcasting

What is UTV?

UTV is a mod for Unreal Tournament that allows many people to spectate a game without putting any additional load on the game server. The UTV Client allows you to watch and broadcast games. The UTV Server should be run on a machine with plenty of bandwidth to allow many clients to connect and watch.

Who is behind UTV?

UTV was created by Fnordia and SJ. Linux port was done by Tal.

How does UTV work?

There are three steps that must be completed for a game to be successfully broadcasted and viewed.

A machine with a lot of bandwidth should run the UTV server.
A person with the UTV client connects to the game to be broadcasted as a spectator. This person connects to the UTV server in broadcast mode, and starts transmitting the game. You do this by selecting UTV under the mod-menu.
The viewers use the UTV client to connect to the UTV server in watch mode. This is also found by selecting UTV on the mod-menu. After buffering game data for a small time, the playback will begin.

Why not just spectate a game?

Every spectator will place additional bandwidth and cpu load on the UT server which may have an impact on the game being played. Also the maximum total number of connections can only be 32. And perhaps more importantly, the game is watched directly so spectators can use voice communications to give the players information they shouldn't have. When using UTV to spectate a game, the broadcaster specifies a time which the UTV server will use to delay the broadcast.

What are the benefits?

Unlike a demo, the default watching mode is with the camera locked to the current player, but the view can be rotated manually. It is also possible to see players' packetloss, something which was removed in UT version 436.

Are there any limitations?

The playback is (as of now) not 100% perfect like a demo. But as of version 2.0 it is pretty close actually.. Effects like shellcases are not there yet. All players dying will die like shot with an instarifle and won't leave any carcass.

What are the system requirements?

To watch a game: If you can run UT there should not be any problems.
To broadcast a game: You might get a somewhat lower framerate with UTV running, but since you are not playing anyway this should not be a problem.
To run an UTV server: Calculate around 3-4kb/second per client of outgoing bandwidth. The CPU requirements should be very low, since the server transmits most of the data without any interpretation.

What mods are supported by UTV?

As of now, UTV works with all gametypes (capture the flag, domination, deathmatch and team deathmatch). UTV supports instagib and the default mods as well, but other mods that add weapons to UT like Tactical Ops will most likely not work.

Are there any known bugs?

The client crashing problems should really be gone now. However, it is recommended that the broadcaster always restart UT at the start of a new map.
Sometimes weapons do not show properly, this may be during a broadcast on a UTPure 7c server where the feeder has an older utv.u installed. If the feeder has the most current version, then try reconnecting. You can get the newest version of utv.u here.
If you need ZeroPing support then you have to download UTV client 4.0 here.