Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

To the folks planning to experiment with video replay/review of challenged calls this year, please take a look at what Tristan and I wrote here: Related thread.

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

My proposal isn't for the actual system that would be deployed to every field. It's a proposal for what's needed if you want to determine what sort of video replay system is needed. The goal is to answer the question: "what's the minimal setup needed to correct most incorrect referee calls" with data.

The best way to do this is to capture a bunch of data, and score every match under differing sets of assumptions using independent reviewers. Setting up a camera or two, and only allowing a maximum of 8 samples (one challenge per alliance, playoffs only) won't provide enough data to convince anyone to act.

The question I'm trying to answer is the percentage of time these variations prevent a review from correcting a missed call:

* lack of time sync
* low resolution
* slow shutter speeds (blurry)
* bad camera mounting (blurry)
* lack of depth of field (blurry)
* is 30fps adequate?
* bad point of view

For example, consider the FPS value. A robot moving at 10 feet per second moves 4" per frame at 30 frames per second. Is that enough that, in most situations, the correct call can be made?

I missed one thing on my list -- you need the match time, matched with the video.

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

In tennis, each player gets X challenges. If the video challenge is called in favor of the player, they keep the challenge. If the player is wrong, the challenge is used up.

With the "one challenge each" approach described in the first post of this thread, I think a good variant is "one incorrect challenge." That way, if the team has multiple bad calls, they can keep benefitting from them. However, they can't waste time with multiple silly ones.

One problem in tennis is that towards the end, a player will challenge just in case. Because the challenge is no good shortly, they might as well take a change and use it. Maybe FIRST can counter that with GP - only challenge if you really think the refs were wrong.

The other thing tennis does is have music and audience participation (clapping for drama) for challenges. Which adds some ceremony. I bring up tennis because the sport resisted video replays for a LONG time and they worked out well.

Note: I'm not sure what I think of video challenges in FIRST, but that's irrelevant to my posting ideas.

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

I'd love to assist anyone in the greater NYC region at offseason events trying to implement this solution.

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

I can help with any summer events in/near Chicago or other seasons in/near NYC

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

I think their suggestions wasn't that 10 cameras should be the solution, but that we should use 10 cameras during this testing phase to try various angles and determine the maximum amount of cameras needed.

That still doesn't address the fact that an off-season event may not have access to 10 cameras (or a system to accept and record all those inputs), but maybe they can crowdsource that. Have up to 10 teams bring in a camera that's up-to-spec.

Re: Offseason Video Review Pilot-Volunteers?
 

A challenge in tennis is also completely automated and only takes a couple of seconds to complete. The result could be displayed before the player finishes signalling that they want to challenge. The drama is what takes most of the time, sort of like the Project Runway 20+ second, "You're out!" drumbeat music at the end of the episode. Here, it really would take some time to review, more like an NFL game with the ref having to go "under the hood".

I'm also trying to envision a "challenge coupon" when most teams don't fully understand how timeout and backup robot coupons work.

I'm interested in seeing where this goes though. Evolution is a wonderful thing in a sport as complex as this one.