Free camera control on demo playbacks?

[Hyper Sonic]

While I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure Descent client side demos record all action of the entire map (unlike Quake client side demos which only record action in the recorder's PVS/PHS as that is all they are sent.) Assuming this is true, have any of the source ports taken full advantage of this for powerfull playback abilities? Not only watch it from any player's point of view, but also have the ablility to fly a camera freely around the map observing the demo from any point of view?

[[UF]LotharBot]

Descent demos record all of the action which is visible from the player ship (including action behind / to the sides -- but not action which is blocked by walls and such.)

It may be feasible to make modified demos that record all of the action everywhere. The free-flying camera has been tested as a proof of concept. It's still several steps away from being ready to use in this way, though.

[Hyper Sonic]

Yea you're correct
http://www.descent2.com/ddn/specs/dem/

Demos seem to lack any sort of persistance as well:
-such as a power-up was located at x,y,z last frame, so unless there was a remove message it should still be there this frame.
-nor does it predict linear movement such as conc missle shot from x,y,z travelling at a,b,c speed at time d, so unless there was a remove message it should extrapolate it's new position based on that initial position,speed, and time elapsed.

But no, it seems every single frame has the entire scene written over again. I suppose all of this inefficiency caused them to limit demos to 30fps.

The reason I thought demos might have all action recorded was because I'm fairly sure that all action is sent over the network, regardless of whether it might visable or hearable to the player it's being sent to. You say free moving camera has been tested, tested in the Rebirth port by chance? Recording all action should be feasible if static and linear persistance was used.