2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Did a search and can't find anything about NASA broadcasts or webcasts for the 2005 competition season. Does anyone in the community know if NASA will be able to broadcast any regionals/championship this year?

If so which ones?

Thanks in Advance
Don

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

According to some friends of mine from out East, there will be a VCU broadcast. However, someone like tkwetzel or dlavery or someone else from that area will be able to tell you for sure.

I hope they do, since I love watching. :)

- Genia

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

According to http://www.virginiafirst.org/webcast.shtml there will be no NASA TV coverage of VCU - but I think there might still be a webcast.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The Lone Star Regional weekend of March 31st through April 2nd will be webcast.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

There should be webcasts- I know the majority of us can't live without at least 2 webcasts a weekend :P


If there are any webcasts, they should be here

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts.htm

last year the webcasted regionals were:


Silicon Valley Regional
San Jose, CA

Lone Star Regional
Houston , TX

Palmetto Regional
Columbia, SC

Sacramento Regional
Sacramento, CA

Peachtree Regional
Duluth , GA

Central Florida Regional
Orlando, FL

NASA/VCU Regional
Richmond, VA

Pacific Northwest Regional
Portland, Oregon

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I pulled this from the NASA TV schedule
March 5, Saturday
9 a.m. - 5 p.m. - FIRST NASA/Langley – Ames



March 12, Saturday
10 a.m. - 8 p.m. - FIRST/Boilermaker- Ames



March 19, Saturday
12 p.m. - 8 p.m. - FIRST/Portland – Ames



March 26, Saturday
12 p.m. - 8 p.m. - FIRST/LAX – Ames



April 2, Saturday
12 p.m. - 8 p.m. - FIRST/Las Vegas – Ames



April 23, Saturday
9 a.m. - 5 p.m. - FIRST National Championship - Ames

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Cool, does that mean the LA regional is going on TV!? However, this seems impossible because the date listed here is before the regional ever starts. The regional is Mar 31 - Apr 2.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I just pulled it off of this link
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasat..._Breaking.html

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Sweet, Boilermaker Regional on NASA TV. I'll have to make sure to set my VCR and watch later to see if I was on TV :]

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The date given above is wrong for the Boilermaker Regional. The Boilermaker regional is March 17-19. You might want to verify that it will actually be broadcast.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The determinations of which, if any, regional competitions will be broadcast on NASA-TV and/or webcast have not yet been finalized. The NASA-TV schedule that has been referenced is provisional only, and basically a place-holder schedule. We are looking at the costs associated with covering each event (approximately equal to the funding required for an entire team), and making appropriate arrangements with FIRST and the venues. We will post a schedule once the final decisions have been made.

-dave

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Dave - thanks for clearing that up.. sorry for any confusion my post may have made. I love to watch the regionals on TV but would rather see it go to teams for sponsorships if the choice needs to be made.

KY

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Those final decisions coming any time soon? :confused: :]

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

and the portland regional switched to the 12th, so maybe they just will switch the 2... we will have to see

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Don, I'd recommend contacting http://www.mitc.org/first officials about it. I'm even unsure about it, I just checked their website. Contact them, they may have some information for you on if they were contacted about broadcasting the regional or not. =)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

who cares about it being broadcasted.....sounds like a good excuse for a road trip....peachtree here I come....

ps i love college and flexible schedules

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

It's been a while since anyone has talked about webcasts. Does anyone really know if there will be any webcasts during the first couple weekends of competition? If not NASA webcasts, are any teams planning on broadcasting so the rest of FIRST can see what's going on?

(I felt this thread needed bumped up anyway)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I have heard rumors that VCU would be broadcasted, but i haven't seen anything official such as a link...

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

What about the UCF regional? I would like to know if that would on a webcast or any Florida teams that are going to organize and put up the competition videos while the event is going on.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Usually SOAP 108 (run by team 108 from South Florida) webcasts the UCF Regional with NASA as well as archives matches and places them on the site. You'd have to wait for a response from them for an official answer, but they've been webcasting the competitions they attend for years now, so I'd imagine that most likely this year will not be any different.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

So the first regionals begin tomorrow and still no schedule? I'm a little worried I won't be seeing any robots this weekend :( Anyone know if this is typical of regional webcast scheduling from previous years?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Last year links went up the Thursday of the first weekend, so we're still right on schedule, so to speak. There was some word from Dr. Bot prior to this about what webcasts would be going up, however. So in summary, don't panic until tomorrow evening or possibly friday morning. Presumably if quals start and there's still no link you can be sure it's a wash for this weekend.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I saw on the NASA schedule that there will be a webcast on

March 5th, Saturday
9 a.m. - 5 p.m. - FIRST NASA/Langley - Ames

does anyone know if it's gonna be archived on the NASA webcast archive ?
(http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts.htm) cause if I'd wanna see it live I'd have to wake up at 2 a.m , because of the time difference (I live in Israel).

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

According to the NASA TV schedule, they're also telecasting Boilermaker.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Most regionals that are webcast end up getting archived. However, the archives don't go up right away. It's usually days to a week after the competition is over.

If you're less patient, you can try recording the webcasts yourself with various different programs. I've successfully used Net Transport in the past to record the regional webcasts. You can even schedule a recording session so you don't have to set an alarm for 2am to start it.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Dave Lavery already pointed out in this thread that the NASA TV schedule is not finalized, besides, the date for the Boilermaker regional on the NASA TV schedule isn't even right.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

well it maybe taped, remember there is a lot of inbetween time at competition

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Not unless they have some really fancy equipment! :cool: The Boilermaker regional is on NASA TV's page for March 12, but it doesn't actually occur until March 17-19.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

oh i didn't see that part, wow they have done it, they have time travel. I'm gonna tune into NASA tv on March 12 just to see if they can prove it. :yikes:

Road Trip--NOT
 

We're sure hoping there will be a webcast of some week one regional, as we'd like to have a preview of how the game is actually played before our first event at UCF. The closest week on event from here, VCU, is almost 800 miles, so I doubt that I'll be up to taking a road trip to watch.

Re: Road Trip--NOT
 

well there is the sat. finals broadcasted for one of the week 1 regionals. hopefully also be on the site?

Re: Road Trip--NOT
 

no....the closest one to Florida is definitely Peachtree in Duluth, GA....come on Kit, road trip man :)

Re: Road Trip--NOT
 

You're right. It's only 531.5 miles and 8 hours, 10 minutes according to yahoo.maps. I'll consider it.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

VCU is setup to at least record the event. It was working tonight durring setup. I have no other information if it will be webcast, NASA TV, or just recorded for later posting. I'll find out more tomorrow morning.

Wetzel

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

According to this, VCU may be broadcasted tomorrow. Stay tuned, I guess?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Just because it isn't going to be on the NASA channel dosen't mean NASA can't stream it. Its not like the link is going straight to a live NASA TV feed, if it were than I would question if its real or not.

I agree with Ryan, just stay tuned in to see.

Re: Road Trip--NOT
 

Well I'll be looking for ya....it is only 8 hours....i mean what's the problem?? :p

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

So has anyone gotten a link going? Or are they broadcasting today?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

the VCU regional has a webcast up, but its a bit choppy and pixelated. they've yet to run any practice rounds, though, so maybe it'll improve before they do.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Ahhhrrrgh. Stuck behind a firewall syndrome I guess.... I got around it last year though... hmmm..

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I've got the webcast up and running, and it looks great - but I'm coming from a limited T3 at school, so that may be the difference.

There's not much going on except trying to discern what is on the back & front of the volunteer shirts...and now it looks like teams are setting up on the field, so we shall see!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Around 10:25 they moved 6 bots on the field, the lack of audio and low quality are killing me though :(

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

There's audio. Turn up your speakers to hear the background music. Occasionally the announcer says 'Teams are you ready?' only to follow up with 'Stand down'. First week gremlins, eh?

For some reason the quality is going in and out for me. I'm on a typically-fast university connection here, dunno what's up. The link to the VCU broadcast for those of you wondering is here:

http://www.virginiafirst.org/webcast.shtml

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Not good, they are having major technical problems and haven't had a match start yet.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Choppiness you see is either due to lots of people starting to hit the NASA server, or more likely a glitchy connection between VCU and NASA.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

i feel stupid, Someone disconnected my speakers on my workstation in the office so thats why i had no audio, lol

So they havent even played one match yet?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

No they haven't played a match yet. They're still having technical difficulties, stay tuned.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

when will they start ?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Whenever they get it going. Be patient guys, I know we all want to see some matches :]

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

...and it appears that they started the matches. still a bit choppy, though.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

They just ran a match, I guess. The announcer said start and finish, and I heard the audio. Unfortunately, I only had about 10 different frames of fuzzy video -- mostly featuring workers' backs. I have a 2mbps cable link and Real only reports 160kbps speed.

Aaargh! So near, yet so far.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I have a great picture. I have a cable connection from Comcast.
By the way, these are practice matches, so you won't hear much announcing, other than the beginning and end.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

We are connecting here in Indy on our T1 at school
Anyone having any luck in connecting with the VCU Regional?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The picture just got better. Someone fixed something.

Not a lot of scoring so far... I have to get to work, but I want to watch. I am so glad our regional is next week.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I have it on and it's working reasonably well. I have earthlink cable internet.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

It just died on me. It was working and now it says it can't find the stream.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

VCU is loading up fine for me.

Quiet, but fine.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

We were dead in the water until ~1200. There was a problem with the Blue side control system that we thought was another problem, so it took awhile to solve, but we solved it.

Wetzel

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

It's looking great here. I'm excited! I really wish I could just skip school to see this tomorrow. I'm mad I didn't know about a webcast until now. Looks awesome! Good luck to all teams tomorrow and Saturday! I wish I could stop by, I was planning to, but now I don't think I'll make it.

You'll all do well, I'm sure of it! =)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

VCUs webcast keeps booting me every like 3 or 4 minutes. At the high school I got 150kbps, but now it keeps giving me 50kbps or 20kbps, it's terrible quality. Weird.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Same thing is happening to me at my house. I have DSL. It has kind of been going for a while now though.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Now it's getting to be very blurry. Quite funky how it looks now. Seems like someone put a film over it and now it's all blurred. Yikes.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Jeff -- you should make them move the camera slightly to the left or right of center. I'm having a lot of trouble discerning among the goals in the center row, particularly those in the center and far from the camera.

Otherwise, while I realize this is practice, it's not too exciting to watch.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Im not seeing moving video.......just audio....when the video shows up it shows one frame and thats it.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Same here....I waited all day for this? :rolleyes: Well I bet it will have video with it tomorrow and maybe actual crowd/robot noise instead of just music and the announcer.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

FIRST Fans,

We will be webcasting the NASA/VCU event from Richmond on Friday and Saturday. The link is available at:

http://virginiafirst.org/webcast.shtml

Links to all NASA webcasts should be available soon (not yet) from:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts.htm

There are two of us from NASA working the VA event, myself and John Evans. The wecast was up today for practice and we expect that it will be failry stable over the next two days, but of course this depends on network traffic on our end, and the local network traffic in the region of any individual viewer. If all you care about is whether or not there will be a webcast so you can get your first week FIRST fix, you can stop reading now.

If you want a little more behind the scenes info about these webcasts, read on.

(1) We encode the audio/video locally, and this encoded stream is sent to servers at NASA KSC in Florida, so thanks to our buddies in sunny Florida for supporting these webcasts! (They have also handled the Championship webcasts for the past few years). If you view the webcast, you will be accessing the stream provided by NASA KSC, fed to them from Virginia.

(2) We have a test camera that we use for setting up the webcast, which is the video feed that is usually seen on at least part of the practice day. Once things are up an running and we have coordinated with FIRST, we switch to the FIRST production feed for both audio and video. When we make this switch on the practice day, you see the fixed, full-field view.

(3) On Friday and Saturday when the actual competition is in progress, the FRIST production usually consists of a mix of the wider field view, and close-ups provided by a roving camera operator. This is the feed that we will be encoding.

(4) Periodically, we will "reset" the webcast. Since we are archiving the stream locally at the same time that it is sent to the KSC servers, the encoder works best if we save this local file every couple of hours, instead of letting it grow to be a single, large file. We try to time these resets at logical breaks (lunch, field repair breaks, etc). There are many reasons that could cause your connection to drop including technical problems on our end, network issues anywhere in the path between us and you, or one of these periodic resets. The best advice is for you to try and reconnect after 2-3 minutes if you lose your connection.

(5) If you notice that your connection has gotten "fuzzy" after being connected for a while, you may want to stop your connection and reconnect. One behavior that we have noticed is that Real Player will connect at a fairly high bit rate and over time if there is any network congestion, it will negotiate down to a lower bit rate. When the network congestion clears up, Real Player may not renegotiate back "up" to a higher bit rate. So if your video stream is not as good as it used to be, reconnecting may make things better.

(6) There will likely be other webcasts this season, many provided by NASA. The NASA people supporting them often have multiple responsibilities at the events beyond the webcasts. They lug their AV and networking equipment to the events and do their best to provide the webcast because they realize how valuable it is to the FIRST community all across the country. As the season goes on, and you experience "imperfect" webcasts, feel free to provide your feedback (so improvements can be made) but remember that the people working the webcasts love FIRST as much as you do, and are probably working very hard to make things "right".

(7) While we can't guarantee it, here in Virginia, we will try to periodically monitor the CD forums to check out your feedback on the webcast.

Have a great FIRST season . . . we're all looking forward to seeing your inventions spring to life on the first day of competition tomorrow!

-- Jeff --

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Thanks Jeff and John! You guys are making the long wait untill cleveland a bit more bearable for me! Keep up the great work!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Jeff and Jhon you guys are doing a great job, and all of us appreciate it. We can only imagine how hectic it is for you guys to navigate your way through all the technical limitations and problems. But we know you would not let us down :) . Best of luck, and every time we watch those streams we will be praying for your health :cool:

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Yay for Jeff and John, two very hard working, great NASA guys!

I miss being down there with y'all this year!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

All-

Here is the schedule we have developed so far:

NASA TV will provide broadcast coverage of the Saturday activities at these events: Peachtree Regional, Chesapeake Regional, Las Vegas Regional, and the Atlanta Championships. Coverage of the Friday activities for each event are being investigated, but are not guaranteed at this point (contention for satellite time is an issue right now).

NASA will be providing webcast support for the Friday and Saturday activiteis at these events: VCU/Richmond Regional, St Louis Regional, Silicon Balley Regional, Central Floida Regional. Exact webcast URL's will be provided as they are confirmed.

Please check the NASA Robotics Education Project - Regional Webcasts Page for additional information and updates.

-dave

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Thanks dave, now we know what to look forward to.

-Mike

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The Video seems to be delayed quite a long time behind the audio. Just a note.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

yeah by about 2 minutes

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I am not getting any video at all... This is the second computer I tried it on too :(

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

youi have to wait 2 minutes for it to show~

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Its been going for three now. I had it going for about five earlier too. Il just wait and see. The matches seem to have incredibly low scores based on what the announcer is saying...

Edit: Whiles I was posting that the video started. Thanks :D .

Edit Again: The video and audio are synchronized now! Thanks Jeff and John!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Yes, the scores are very low.

Also, whats up with the bash fest? Dont remember it being that much last year.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

The video is now once again about a minute behind the audio...is it just me, or the actual Webcast?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I'm about a minute and a half behind on the video. It must the webcast, not you.

EDIT: Thanks John, it is good now!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

We are re-starting the webcast.... stay tuned. should be just a second...

edit 1: Should be back up... back in synch?

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Thank you so much, its perfect now :)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

man there are too many people watching. Im getting 20kbps. Ehh.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Try reconnecting, I'm getting 150kbps steady.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Yea, I have been trying. Connects at 150, drops to 50 then 20.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Your not alone, same thing here. 150 lasts for 1 min, then it goes to 50, and almost instantly to 20

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Nasa Servers + Thousands of viewers = Very Bad.

I keep having to stop and start it to even watch it for a while. So, I guess you can do that. :(

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

I've been experiencing pretty much constant 150 Kpbs since I started watching.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

10 seconds behind in video! *dies*

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

John, we are about 20 seconds behind on the video now. Perhaps it is time for another restart?

EDIT: Make that about 50 seconds behind.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

51sec now.

Edit, all better now

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Sorry was off doing other things... will re-start.
Will be just a second...


EDIT: Should be up and running! :)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

It appears to be back and synchronized.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

w00t! You're doing great, John. Thank you so much for doing this. It's awesome! =D

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

At the conclusion of the match #57 the VCU webcast video was lagging 35 seconds behind the audio, you might want to restart it again before awards.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

That was actually our plan during the break, and have just re-started...

Thanks everyone! :)

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

NASA/VCU should be up and running... please let me know if it gets slow or out of synch...

Thanks!

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

So far, things are looking good. Occasionally skips, no biggie.

As other have said, thanks again!

-Mike

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Just did a re-start... so don't panic. Should be up in a second.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Just watch the Peachtree regional on Windows Media. No lag at all people.

http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx
:)

I gave up on Real player in general, so.. Sorry folks at VCU, Not watching you this year.

Re: 2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?
 

Has anyone been able to link to the Broadcast for Annapolis yet?

It has listed today and tomorrow, however it redirects you to a NASA TV page.

Any luck, anyone?