Watching a regional feed? One isn't enough. [Global Regional Feed Page] [Archive]

basicxman

28-02-2011, 13:14

Hello CD community!

On behalf of MMRambotics FRC #2200 we are announcing something exciting for the 2011 season. Regional venue dates are fast approaching and many companies and teams are broadcasting live regionals on ustream and other websites.

This is fantastic, but why watch only one at a time? Our programming team has been working on a page which allows you to watch multiple ones at the same time (including a global chat and individual regional chats from embedded players such as ustream).

Check 'er out,
http://mmrambotics.ca/regionalfeed

Feeds will be updated as soon as possible :)

Protip: ustream embeds need to be played by pressing in the very middle of the arrow - otherwise it opens in a new tab. If anybody knows a solution it would be welcomed.

EDIT: Oh an always, code on GitHub: https://github.com/MMRambotics/MMRambotics.ca/tree/development/regionalfeed

Chris is me

28-02-2011, 13:27

This is awesome.

Jonathan Norris

28-02-2011, 13:31

Really well done guys! Probably the best webcast page I've seen. I'll be using it this week.

Vikesrock

28-02-2011, 13:38

Looks fantastic!

The chat being used doesn't look familiar. Are there any usable commands? Can users change their name from GuestXXXXXXXX?

basicxman

28-02-2011, 13:40

Looks fantastic.

The chat being used doesn't look familiar. Are there any usable commands? Can users change their name from GuestXXXXXXXX?

It's a phpfreechat.net thing I put in an iframe and cut out a whole bunch of stuff from. You can get a help menu via typing '/help' (without quotes) and change your nickname by '/nick <new_nickname>' (without quotes and angle brackets).

Going to do up a quick Help dialog soon.

thefro526

28-02-2011, 13:48

Excellent work guys.

So happy there's a chat in there.

Carter12s

28-02-2011, 14:26

Wow wow wow!! I just found a new way to waste the rest of my life. I hope you guys prepared for a lot of bandwidth cause you are going to need it!! this is fantastic!

basicxman

28-02-2011, 14:41

I hope you guys prepared for a lot of bandwidth cause you are going to need it!! this is fantastic!

We heavily rely on other teams and sponsors to broadcast regional feeds so we can embed them on our viewer.

We're planning on some quick new features:

Help dialog.
#omgrobots Twitter feed.
Client side cookies to save open feeds.

Carter12s

28-02-2011, 19:30

basicxman

28-02-2011, 21:43

I assume that they only run Thursday-Saturday, and probably 10:00 am - 7:00 pm roughly, but can anyone confirm this?

Generally varies per regional but this is about accurate.

Steven Donow

28-02-2011, 22:32

Looks awesome, can't wait to use this.

Duke461

28-02-2011, 22:37

This just made my day

Vikesrock

28-02-2011, 22:47

Does anyone know if there is any schedule for when the feeds will go live and what times they will run through? I can't seem to find any solid guide. I assume that they only run Thursday-Saturday, and probably 10:00 am - 7:00 pm roughly, but can anyone confirm this?

Thursday is typically pretty sporadic. And frankly pretty boring to watch (other than maybe here in Week 1 where it gets boosted by being the first true taste of Logomotion).

Friday and Saturday are typically broadcast from sometime during opening ceremonies until the end of the awards for most events that are webcast.

Trent B

28-02-2011, 23:22

Wow wow wow!! I just found a new way to waste the rest of my life. I hope you guys prepared for a lot of bandwidth cause you are going to need it!! this is fantastic!

Yup, since they are embedding a feed from another source, the only bandwidth you use is the bandwidth to load the iframes and the rest of the page.

basicxman

02-03-2011, 15:28

I'll be waking up early tomorrow to start putting up feeds, they should start becoming available late tonight/early tomorrow (noon EST).

pwnageNick

02-03-2011, 16:37

Wow, this is awesome. Now I know how I'll be spending lunch during school on Thrusday and Friday (and 2 other classes that I'm on the computer for :P).

And a side note on the times, Finger Lakes, New Jersey, Alamo, and Granite State all start on Thursday (although as other people said, thursday is quite boring) and Kettering and Traverse City start on Friday because they're Michigan Districts.

Ted Weisse

02-03-2011, 16:48

Had a problem with the feed while accessing from school, only have IE on the Instructor machines. I have no access to install another browser. So glad Chrome works from protableapps. Now I can see more than black boxes. So glad I checked before the start to get this working. Past seasons I had multiple machines on different regionals, I do believe I'm going to like this....

THANKS BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Lil' Lavery

02-03-2011, 17:28

This reminds me of SOAP Gameday. Glad someone picked up the slack.

basicxman

02-03-2011, 17:41

Glad someone picked up the slack.

THANKS BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Your welcome :P

Had a problem with the feed while accessing from school, only have IE on the Instructor machines.

Don't have the time to support IE ATM, portable Chrome is a good solution.

nighterfighter

02-03-2011, 18:39

Don't have the time to support IE ATM, portable Chrome is a good solution.

That's okay, nobody likes IE anyway...

So, how do you access the chat feature? I can't seem to find it. :(

basicxman

02-03-2011, 18:56

That's okay, nobody likes IE anyway...

Indeed, but sometimes forced to use it.

So, how do you access the chat feature? I can't seem to find it. :(

Chat link in the sidebar should open a dialog.

ATannahill

03-03-2011, 08:12

What size do the boxes default to? Is it the resolution of the video that is transmitted?

Can the chat be made so we can resize it, currently it is too tall for my screen.

ATannahill

03-03-2011, 09:58

Can you set the links on the left to be red when the webcast is not up and change it back once the embed has been inserted.

This would be nicer than opening each one just to find the Nasa broadcast.

MagiChau

03-03-2011, 10:03

Indeed, but sometimes forced to use it.

Like how it was impossible to set up the bridge from the 2011 KoP without Internet Explorer? :p

pwnageNick

03-03-2011, 10:06

Does anyone know the exact times of when each webast starts? I'm at school and I'm trying to figure out when I can watch the webcasts

Racer26

03-03-2011, 10:10

For those setting this up:

NJ Regional is broadcasting live. Not much happening, but the stream is up. Get it here: mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/njregional

EDIT: It looks like FLR (Rochester) won't be going live until tomorrow. www.firstrochester.org says so.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 10:11

Like how it was impossible to set up the bridge from the 2011 KoP without Internet Explorer? :p

Precisely, terrible times ;P

Can you set the links on the left to be red when the webcast is not up and change it back once the embed has been inserted.

Sure.

What size do the boxes default to? Is it the resolution of the video that is transmitted?

Apx. 400x400, it's a static figure, not based on the resolution of the video transmitted - these can all be resized and the video will scale accordingly.

Can the chat be made so we can resize it, currently it is too tall for my screen.

We had some serious issues doing this with freephpchat, but I can make a small version of the chat.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 10:12

Traverse and Kettering are up.

Vikesrock

03-03-2011, 10:17

Traverse and Kettering are up.

The proper stream may be embedded, but everybody reading should be aware that nothing will going on with these until tomorrow. MI Districts are 2 day events.

pwnageNick

03-03-2011, 10:29

The only one showing anything on ustream is Alamo, and they just have the sponsor page showing, nothing really going on right now. All the other one's are offline.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 10:36

And the site has crashed! Our technical monkeys (me) are working on fixing this.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 10:47

We've received a message from our hosting provider explaining that maintenance and speed improvements were currently being made and that is what had caused the crash.

Racer26

03-03-2011, 10:52

NJ just died.

Dancin103

03-03-2011, 10:54

Am I missing something? Every time I open any regional feed it's just NASA, and people seem to being seeing, well more than that.

Cass

Katie_UPS

03-03-2011, 11:00

NJ just died.

That explains a lot. Every way I tried to watch it failed :(

ATannahill

03-03-2011, 11:01

Re: Watching a regional feed? One isn't enough. [Global Regional Feed Page]

Right now, I'd be happy to just watch one regional feed.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 11:12

We've received a message from our hosting provider explaining that maintenance and speed improvements were currently being made and that is what had caused the crash.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 11:13

Am I missing something? Every time I open any regional feed it's just NASA, and people seem to being seeing, well more than that.

Cass

If a feed is not currently up, we just popped in a NASA fed. Links now display as red if no feed is present.

chessking132

03-03-2011, 11:13

Dancin103

03-03-2011, 11:15

If a feed is not currently up, we just popped in a NASA fed. Links now display as red if no feed is present.

That's what I thought, but at the same time, I was getting NASA while others got the actual feed.

Cass

ATannahill

03-03-2011, 11:16

Hey i cant seem to find any links that allow me to view the NJ regional. I am using Google chrome and have also tried IE with no success. Could some one post a link to the NJ webcast.

Thank you,

Matthew Simpson
WPI Robotics Engineering 2014
The webast is at mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/njregional. You wil need to open it with a media player, I suggest VLC but Windows Media Player or Quicktime will work. The feed is not currently up.

chessking132

03-03-2011, 11:21

Ok thank you. i received this error but i assume that the error is because the webcast is down.

Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/njregional'. Check the log for details.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 11:28

The webast is at mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/njregional. You wil need to open it with a media player, I suggest VLC but Windows Media Player or Quicktime will work. The feed is not currently up.

Is there a browser-friendly feed?

Basel A

03-03-2011, 11:36

Looks like the entire site is crashed..
Can we get these links to each of the feeds, or will the site be back up before the end of the night?

Racer26

03-03-2011, 11:38

@basicxman: You should be able to embed that in a browser-embedded windows media player.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 11:38

Looks like the entire site is crashed..
Can we get these links to each of the feeds, or will the site be back up before the end of the night?

Hosting provider is working on some maintenance, it will be back up before the end of the night. Links are available on FIRST Wiki and NASA.

http://robotics.arc.nasa.gov/events/2011_frcwebcasts.php

ATannahill

03-03-2011, 11:40

Looks like the entire site is crashed..
Can we get these links to each of the feeds, or will the site be back up before the end of the night?
New Jersey: mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/njregional
Alamo(only FTC today): http://www.ustream.tv/channel/first-robotics-alamo-regional-webcast
Granite State: http://coderedrobotics.com/webcast/BAE-Systems-Granite-State-Regional/
Kettering: http://coderedrobotics.com/webcast/kettering-district/
Traverse City: http://coderedrobotics.com/webcast/traverse-city-district/

basicxman

03-03-2011, 13:19

Sites back up, we'll be moving chat to another server and embedding with an iframe so it performs optimally.

basicxman

03-03-2011, 14:32

We are back up! With a new, much nicer chat (via ustream). Maintenance should be finished now and things run much faster. Thanks for your patience :)

Carter12s

03-03-2011, 14:50

No, Thank you for your work! This is fantastic, I cannot say enough good things about it! All I can say is that you better do it next too!

pwnageNick

03-03-2011, 15:39

The windows still keep popping up as black for me? Any ideas as to why?

familyguyfreak

03-03-2011, 15:45

This is so awesome!!! Great job on the site. I'm watching Alamo and New Jersey right now. Alamo is a little choppy but I don't think that is because of your site because on the regional site it's smoother but still choppy. Could be because I'm using WiFi also. I don't know but thanks for the work you did to get this up in time for the season!! :)

basicxman

03-03-2011, 15:56

The windows still keep popping up as black for me? Any ideas as to why?

Browser version? Flash version? Operating system?

bam-bam

03-03-2011, 19:32

Hello basicxman, I think you did a fantastic job making a multi-thread website!

It may be me (and it probably is), but it seems the New Jersey Regional webcast isn't working that well, because it keeps crashing my browser.

I'm on a Mac (version 10.5.8), looking on Safari (version 5).

basicxman

03-03-2011, 19:35

I'm on a Mac (version 10.5.8), looking on Safari (version 5).

I've been using OS X 1.6 in development of the website with Chrome - my testing with Safari has been fine but the New Jersey regional uses Microsoft Media Streaming so make sure you have the latest plugin from here,

http://microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download

Fireworks 234

04-03-2011, 08:04

New Jersey is popping up black for me as well and it doesn't let me manipulate it like the other windows (other than move and close). (Using Chrome on Windows 7)

Great website though!!! :) Love it!

basicxman

04-03-2011, 10:45

New Jersey is popping up black for me as well and it doesn't let me manipulate it like the other windows (other than move and close). (Using Chrome on Windows 7)

New Jersey uses Microsoft Media Streaming which is seemingly horrible to embed, I can't get it to dynamically resize or play nice with windows like the ustream ones do.

All feeds are now up!

JoeXIII'007

04-03-2011, 12:11

You've made the end of Spring Break just awesome!!! Thanks a lot!!!

basicxman

10-03-2011, 13:01

Regionals are coming up on http://mmrambotics.ca/regionalfeed

A lot are MMS and we have problems making them resizable, if anybody has a solution please post! A note to companies and teams broadcasting regionals: please use a webpage-friendly format. MMS requires annoying plugins and just...bleh.

Regionals up so far:

WPI
Pittsburgh
Lake Superior
Wisconsin

HarveyAce

10-03-2011, 13:12

is there a way to get them up with no plug ins required? my computer won't allow for plug ins... i liked the usstream from before... great site tho!

basicxman

10-03-2011, 13:38

is there a way to get them up with no plug ins required? my computer won't allow for plug ins... i liked the usstream from before... great site tho!

Unfortunately some teams/companies are streaming with Microsoft Media Stream/Server instead of using something more web-friendly like ustream. We're working on a way to re-broadcast MMS streams to ustream.

HarveyAce

10-03-2011, 13:46

okey dokey! Thanks a lot! Take your time, there's no rush. the quals don't start til tomorrow, so good luck!

Mike AA

10-03-2011, 14:01

Has anyone contacted NASA about them streaming the video? If you can provideo a capture and broadband to send it they have hosted it in the past.

ATannahill

17-03-2011, 08:05

Updates?

Please?

basicxman

17-03-2011, 09:27

Being updated, shall keep posting on status.

basicxman

17-03-2011, 13:01

Boilermaker is added, nothing broadcasting yet. If you have links, post 'em here.

ATannahill

17-03-2011, 15:01

Boilermaker is added, nothing broadcasting yet. If you have links, post 'em here.
http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2011_frcwebcasts.php has more links.

basicxman

17-03-2011, 15:59

Seattle and Peachtree are up!

Clinton Bolinger

18-03-2011, 10:24

Here are links to:

Detroit District (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/Detroit-FIRST-Robotics-District-Competition/)
West Michigan District (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/West-Michigan-FIRST-Robotics-District-Competition/)
Bayou Regional (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/Bayou-Regional/)

-Clinton-

ATannahill

18-03-2011, 10:27

Can you put up the boxes for Bayou, Micigan, Sacramento, Oklahoma and Lonestar.

Why is there only one box for Seattle?

Karthik

18-03-2011, 10:48

Here are links to:

Detroit District
West Michigan District
Bayou Regional

-Clinton-

Clint,

I'm not seeing any links.

- kk

BrendanB

18-03-2011, 10:49

Can you put up the boxes for Bayou, Micigan, Sacramento, Oklahoma and Lonestar.

Why is there only one box for Seattle?

I think more details will come out when they go live. It is only 8am there. The seattle site only shows the seattle regional.

Donut

18-03-2011, 11:13

It was mentioned in the Arizona thread already, but the link for AZ is on http://www.tecbot.com.mx/site/24-hrs/

BrendanB

18-03-2011, 11:43

Anyone get Seattle to work?

soccerchapo12

18-03-2011, 13:01

is Seattle still not working? i cant get it to work!

Clinton Bolinger

18-03-2011, 13:09

Clint,

I'm not seeing any links.

- kk

Sorry about that.

Here are links to:

Detroit District (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/Detroit-FIRST-Robotics-District-Competition/)
West Michigan District (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/West-Michigan-FIRST-Robotics-District-Competition/)
Bayou Regional (http://www.coderedrobotics.com/webcast/Bayou-Regional/)

-Clinton-

basicxman

18-03-2011, 15:27

Following regionals are up:

Boilermaker
Seattle
Peachtree
Oklahoma
Detriot
West Michigan
Bayou
Arizona

Enjoy!

ATannahill

18-03-2011, 19:27

Sacramento and Lone Star are up at http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2011_frcwebcasts.php.

Can you put the ustream chat link next to the link for the webcast, the links are starting to fall off the page.

Also the Boilermaker you have up seems to be on a loop. Can you please replace it with http://video1.itap.purdue.edu/first.

I really appreciate the work you put into this.

basicxman

19-03-2011, 23:05