Taking videos at Championship?
 

This is the first time in six years that our team is going to the championship.

I've been taking videos for our team for the past couple of years. My videos are better than the official streams because I take full 1080P, and try to keep the whole field and the scoreboard in the frame. This is much better for following what's going on. Usually, I just set up somewhere high in the stands for this, using a large video tripod. You can see my videos on our homepage: http://www.ligerbots.org. I post all the videos publicly to YouTube.

So my question for people who have been there before? Is it appropriate to do our own recording at the Championship? Is it going to be possible for me to find a good filming position? (I have a good zoom and a quality tripod -- I don't really care how far up I'll be.)

Are there official videos and are they any good? (I hate it when the official video tries to zoom in on the "action" -- with six robots on the field, there's always something that's missed when you focus on a small space.)

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

610 and 973 had videos similar to yours last year I believe, may want to talk to them.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Official media is 240-480p at a low bit rate. Last year (and i assume this year) you can use you teams media badge to get within 5 feet of the court to take video during your matches.

My setup last year:
2 gopros
1 cannon T3i with a 28-105mm lens IS turned on with no tripod at 28mm.
Use the field supplied recordings for the scoreboard and audio
expect to shoot 1/60 @ f3.5 @ ISO 400-800
Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8bc...0wzkP7uyY4jauw
A great video by 1678 showing the courtside recording abilities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMA_r1oHOPQ

I had lenses like the 50mm f1.4 and 70-200 f2.8 IS but never really used them. Its much better to go WIDE and film up close. A quick idea of what zooms can do what:
14: full field form the closest you can get from the stands.
28: 3/4 field from the on field position
50: close up on 1 robot form on field or half court from the stands
135-400 close up from the stands depending on your location.

Feel free to PM me with any specific questions/ setups you have in mind.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Which division will you be filming? I'm going to be filming curie division, in case that helps you at all.

This is going to be my first time filming championships (I did film the AZ regional though). Any tips/advice would be appreciated.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Two years ago I was taking videos on Archimedes from some chairs set up near the entrances by the railing. It's slightly elevated so that spectators don't get in your way. I believe 2056 was taking videos from a similar position last year, if you want to compare camera angles.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

FRC Team 1676, The Pascack Pi-oneers, will be recording 1080p full-field footage of Curie and posting it on our YouTube Channel, as we try to do at all the events we go to. And I promise you it will be up in less time than the MAR Champs footage is taking ;)

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Just a reminder, if you record video in big chunks (like you leave the camera running all day) and want help automating extracting individual matches, I wrote some scripts to do that. Shoot me a pm if you want some help using them.
https://github.com/plnyyanks/match-archive-tools

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

1676 records matches in small chunks, just over 2:30 long. Yes, it means an operator needs to babysit the camera, but would you leave a video camera unattended anyway?
We use the videos for scouting Friday night, pre-parsing them trivializes seeing what we need to see, and has the benefit of making them easier to upload to YouTube.

But regarding the OP: Yes, taking your own video is appropriate and allowed. And a good idea. You might be able to get up to the upper tier to video, which would be a great angle. If not, there are plenty of good locations up higher in the stadium. Remember, it is a football stadium.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

We're going to be in Newton -- which we were really hoping for since our team is from Newton, MA!

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

5 ft would be way too close for my purposes -- I'm not bringing a fisheye lens!

Your setup looks awesome, but way more effort than I put into this. I need to get some of our students more excited about post-processing our videos. Maybe now that we've made it to Worlds..

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Awesome! I would love to use this! Does it need to be one large file, or can it be split up into chunks? I don't know If I have the capacity to film for large periods of time with my camera. I could probably do 3-hour intervals though.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Doesn't matter how long the video inputs are, you can have as many chunks as you need - all the script does is extract one match-length of video starting points you specify and can then upload to youtube for you.

Basic instructions for getting started are on the GitHub wiki, sorry you have to go through the trouble of creating a Google API project, but I can't find a better way to do it.

The input is a csv file with two columns: TBA Match Key (scheme described here) and the timestamp in the video (formatted HH:mm:ss) where you want to start extracting.

The script will cut out all the videos, upload them to YouTube (and optionally add to a specified playlist) and output a csv file that you can copy and paste into the TBA spreadsheet for archival.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Also check out the Championship A-Z, I found this:

http://www3.usfirst.org/sites/defaul...RC_CMP_A-Z.pdf

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

This will give you the low quality footage, and you're forced to record all of the camera switching that they do versus having one fixed angle.

FIRST said in their last blog post that the next deck up (I believe this is the Club Level in the Edward Jones Dome) will be open for spectators. It might be too high up to get a good view for filming, but you won't have to worry about people getting in the way.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Well, like I said, my camera has a pretty good zoom (specs: http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model...s&support#tabs . But could someone give me an estimate about just how far away we're talking about? At the far end of the zoom there is a little optical distortion and even tripod-mounted, camera shake could be an issue.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

This might give some perspective. The deck would be the blue seating you can see across the middle.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

What type of A/V connection do they give you? Does it include the scoreboard HUD in the video? Do they save the matches for later download? I'm considering recording it myself and saving their footage as an added bonus.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

They give you a standard A/V connection (Yellow, White, Red) and it includes the HUD, however they do not archive matches, and you can only record matches that your team is in if you choose to use their A/V box.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I will be recording all the matches my team is in from the field perspective with my 60D + 11-16 or 24-105 combo on my steadicam with arm and vest. This will be at the Galileo division. I will also record all matches from the stands with my 70-200 mk II if people from the Galileo division would like nice quality footage. If you want to see some of the stuff I have produced before checkout the links in my signature.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I'm thrilled. I'll be hunting you down with a portable hard drive to get any footage you'd be willing to give up.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

You can have any that you like. I'm always happy to hand out footage to the FIRST community. :)

This is going to be my first year at Champs and my first event without any credentials to get on the field whenever I want, so it will be interesting for me to figure out how to set up my gear conveniently.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Do you know if they will be recording this and putting it on youtube like they have in previous years?

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

That's great news, thank you for doing that!

Will the videos be available on the internet after the event?

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I will be posting them to youtube. I'll make an update on where they will be posted later since I'm not sure yet.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I am not sure. I would assume so, but elimination matches should be posted at the very least.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Thanks for sharing my work! I've typically focussed on creating highlight reels versus match footage. I think it better conveys the excitement of being at these events to our parents and sponsors.

Editing is a major time sink with this type of video. The first revision of my video last year took nearly a month to finish editing and I ended up unhappy with it so I re-did the editing 6 month later and made this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2sKO2Bw9ig

2013 Camera Gear: 2x Canon T2i, Canon 10-22mm, Tamron 17-50mm VC, Glidecam 2000 Pro

This year I'll be filming my team on Newton. I'm packing light since I need to be running around taking photos of every robot in Newton (for scouting) in addition to capturing photos and video of my team.

2014 Camera Gear: Panasonic GH3, Panasonic 12-35mm, Glidecam 2000 Pro

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

368 will be recording and uploading to YouTube upon return home the entirety of Newton as we have done with every event we've been to for the past few years. 1080p and full field.

Last time we were in St. Louis (2011 where we were only in the dome one day):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKik...C45&index= 60

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

177 should be getting video of all of our matches from the field side, as well as the stands. The field side setup is a T4i, Canon 18-135mm, Samyang 14mm, Rode mic, and a handheld rig.

Some of our mentors take footage with their own setups from the stands, and all I know is its an HD camera and manfrotto tripod.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I agree with this statement so much. I also love your video more than any of the other FIRST videos out there. The excitement you can create with such a short video is amazing. I think that your first edit was good, but your second edit was amazing. I've found shorter lengths to be more engaging for viewers.

Now I have one question. I was told by my drive team that I'm supposedly not allowed on the field during the setup time. But some of your shots show your drive team setting up the robot. I don't know if the rules have changed this year, but I would think not. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

<p>so this is my first year here at champs and I had no idea what I was entering in terms of video space. It is horrible. I got a good spot, but I missed 7ish matches so far. I'm sorry about that, but at least I now know how to do this.</p>

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

The camera work is pretty abysmal, at least on the Newton field. "zoom in on the action" seems to mean just zooming in on some random part of the field.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Let us know when you upload the videos we would love to view them to watch our matches. You guys gonna record all the Newton matches?

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Sorry, I didn't record all the Newton matches. I recorded 9 of our teams 10 matches (had a camera spazz on one) and randomly probably an equal number of other matches that I felt were interesting. So far, I've only uploaded our team's matches (we're 2877): http://www.youtube.com/user/LigerbotsTests

I'll start uploading the rest once I'm home. Really just need time to sort and label the clips.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

So I was actually filming right next to the official cameraman for Newton up in the Terrace/Club level, and complained to him about zooming in tight and missing action on the other side. He said they did that because First told them to. He said his instructions were to focus on the part of the field that had the most robots.

This guy is also a camerman for St Louis RAMs games. He would have been quite capable of doing a good job, but he said First doesn't explain the game rules to his director, so the instructions he was getting were often clueless. He thought First was great (said he was going to get his grand kids involved when they were old enough). I explained the rules to him as the matches went along, and I'm hoping that the videos got a little better because of that (within the limits of First's instructions). But he was only the up top guy -- the one who could get the full field (and without any people in the way). The director liked to switch to the ground level camera, which was obscured by the refs half the time, and zoomed in so tight, that no one on earth could possibly have a clue of what was going on. It would be like zooming in on Tom Brady's nose hairs and claiming you're filming a football game.

During team selection he said his director had no idea what was going on. (I had explained all of it to him.)

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

It is completely appropriate! I have been recording video of my team at every regional for the past two years, including Championships. Happy filming!

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Video of most Galileo matches is now up on your youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TripleHelix2363/videos

Anyone with video of Galileo match Q3, could you please get me the raw video file somehow? We need it for a montage. (In progress here.) Who says FRC isn't a contact sport?

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I've worked with TV crews for track & field competitions, and too often they have no clue what's happening on the field and make many bad decisions. It's the nature of TV that if an event isn't wildly popular, the production crew rarely makes the effort to gain real insights into how to improve their broadcast. I've found them to be quite arrogant at times, unwilling to accept advice from true experts in the sport.

The second element is to be sure to have an announcer who is actually interested in the sport--that he's not just there collecting a paycheck (I've worked with those before). Tom Hammond is an absolutely awful track announcer who hurts the sport unfortunately. If we stuck with a Tom Hammond, we won't get the wider appeal we should. Instead we want Phil Liggett as he does the Tour de France.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

In case anyone wanted it, here are the full field views of Einstein matches: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?act... SB-r0H87UiPl

And here are the full field views of Archimedes eliminations:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...ivcFQS5CMTYXEn

Courtesy of The Rocketeers!
Enjoy!

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

I just got back the Newton videos a few hours ago and have begun to upload them. They will eventually all be up and put in order here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...ff0iXyF1xgxRMu

Apologies as we missed a match or two inadvertently. Also, Thursday matches were only up to 720p, the rest should be up to 1080p.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

FRC Team 1676, The Pascack Pi-oneers, has now published our 1080p full-field footage from Curie and Einstein last week. You can find the full Curie Division playlist here, and the Einstein playlist here. Along with videos of (almost) all of the Matches on both Curie and Einstein, we also have posted footage of the Awards Ceremonies and Alliance Selections from Curie as well. There are a couple of matches that we are still working on uploading, but close to all of them are now up.

Enjoy, and let me know if you find any errors in the videos.

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

Through no fault of 1676, some of these matches are unbearable to watch, with iPads and heads blocking 1/4 of the field. Why were people allowed to stand on that row blocking everything behind? Security on Galileo were keeping people away from there, for good reason.

Here's an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPzl...J4A vAkL1-4Bt

Re: Taking videos at Championship?
 

YouTube Links and Match Scores with Team Numbers and Names for Einstein 2014 CMP shot by Gary Hedge of team 3476, Code Orange.

Playlist of Bird’s Eye View of the CMP Einstein field tournament of Divisional Champions 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...S_qaXa3lc7ex6k

EINSTEIN FIELD
FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field SF 1 Match 1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDTJ_b4d1nY
Score: Red 221 points; Blue 121 points. Newton Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1678, 1640, 1114, 5136 vs. Galileo Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 973, 67, 2481, 2363. RED teams: Citrus Circuits, Sab-BOT-age, Simbotics, Mechapirates. BLUE teams: Greybots, The HOT Team, Roboteers, Triple Helix, frc1678, frc1640, frc1114, frc5136, frc973, frc67, frc2481, frc2363.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field SF 1 Match 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnsz6D9M95E
Score: Red 200 points; Blue 125 points. Newton Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1678, 1640, 1114, 5136 vs. Galileo Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 973, 67, 2481, 2363. RED teams: Citrus Circuits, Sab-BOT-age, Simbotics, Mechapirates. BLUE teams: Greybots, The HOT Team, Roboteers, Triple Helix, frc1678, frc1640, frc1114, frc5136, frc973, frc67, frc2481, frc2363.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field SF 2 Match 1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFjmpMqbx00
Score: Red 235 points; Blue 320 points. Archimedes Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1477, 2590, 1625, 3467 vs. Curie Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 469, 2848, 254, 74. RED
teams: Texas Torque, Nemesis, Winnovation, The Windham Windup. BLUE teams: Las Guerrillas, The All Sparks, The Cheesy Poofs, Team C.H.A.O.S., frc1477, frc2590, frc1625, frc3467, frc469, frc2848, frc254, frc74.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field SF 2 Match 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0DFIMRyM6c
Score: Red 245 points; Blue 261 points. Archimedes Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1477, 2590, 1625, 3467 vs. Curie Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 469, 2848, 254, 74. RED teams: Texas Torque, Nemesis, Winnovation, The Windham Windup. BLUE teams: Las Guerrillas, The All Sparks, The Cheesy Poofs, Team C.H.A.O.S. frc1477, frc2590, frc1625, frc3467, frc469, frc2848, frc254, frc74.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field Final Match 1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-heuQ9kahzo
Score: Red 236 points; Blue 361 points. Newton Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1678, 1640, 1114, 5136 vs. Curie Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 469, 2848, 254, 74. RED teams: Citrus Circuits, Sab-BOT-age, Simbotics, Mechapirates. BLUE teams: Las Guerrillas, The All Sparks, The Cheesy Poofs, Team C.H.A.O.S., frc1678, frc1640, frc1114, frc5136, frc469, frc2848, frc254, frc74.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field Final Match 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9HAuYuuLeI
Score: Red 240 points; Blue 153 points. Newton Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1678, 1640, 1114, 5136 vs. Curie Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 469, 2848, 254, 74. RED teams: Citrus Circuits, Sab-BOT-age, Simbotics, Mechapirates. BLUE teams: Las Guerrillas, The All Sparks, The Cheesy Poofs, Team C.H.A.O.S., frc1678, frc1640, frc1114, frc5136, frc469, frc2848, frc254, frc74.

FRC 2014 Championship Einstein Field Final Match 3
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd2tmCgCa8A
Score: Red 250 points; Blue 280 points. Newton Alliance RED Teams (drivers on left): frc team 1678, 1640, 1114, 5136 vs. Curie Alliance BLUE Teams (drivers on right): frc team 469, 2848, 254, 74. RED teams: Citrus Circuits, Sab-BOT-age, Simbotics, Mechapirates. BLUE teams: Las Guerrillas, The All Sparks, The Cheesy Poofs, Team C.H.A.O.S., frc1678, frc1640, frc1114, frc5136, frc469, frc2848, frc254, frc74.

QED The Curie Curse is Crushed.

Playlist of 2014 Curie Division Matches shot by Gary Hedge with all Curie Elimination Matches:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...sIDkmvdfa3bECL