Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Got the rest of the matches from Travis and company(AKA Delphi ELITE) at GTR last weekend (a good excuse to visit the regional). I will try to get them to Ellery ASAP!

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Is anyone willing to take the VHS's of Pittsburgh from me in Atlanta to get them on a computer, parse them and upload them? I'd do it myself but I have no way to read the tapes.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I thought you and Tom B. worked something out. No dice on that?

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Hm I sent him a message a while ago but he didn't respond (and I didn't end up going to the regional where I was going to give them to him), I'll try again...

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

These videos are from Team 1583.
Colorado Regional
Preliminary Match:
Team 2250 spears a flying tube from the human player with their flag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwnkD4pA3OA

Finals Match 1:
No video yet. But this one was exciting. Team 1583 broke down because one of the negative terminals on the Power Distribution Blocks came loose and fell out. They broke down before the match even really get going. Team1636 automatically went onto defense between 2083 and 207 as much as possibe while 1515 would be slowly reloading their hook with a tube from the human player, 555 did as much scoring as possible. The buzzer rang and blue alliance lost 14 to 4.

Finals Match 2:
Red Alliance(207, 1515, and 2083) has won the first one, if the won this one, Blue would have automatically been eliminated. Team 1636 desperately tries to get onto the ramp of 1583 but couldn't because of a black spoiler tube. 1636 pushes and pushes and the spoiler tubes hops off the ramp and 1636 tips over backwards. 15s left and with the Blue alliance crowd thinking it was all over, 555 comes to rescue. Pushing 1636 out of the way and climbing up the ramp of 1583. Winning the match 32 to 34.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF3_Bl0bxHo

Final Match 3:
1515 broke down. 1583 playing mean defense against the red alliance defense so that 555 and 1636 could score like crazy. With well over 35s, 1636 and 555 makes the ramp, 207 is still scoring as much as they can, but it just didn't cut it. 36 to 70.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg9kMwBcruM

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Apparently Day 1, Matches 1-41 of Buckeye are up on SOAP - thanks to Ellery!

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2007/movies/oh/

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

got the elims of GTR up now, will finish all the matches this weekend hopefully....

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2007/movies/on/

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Well 1 day done, 1 more to go. Thanks Travis for having a working copy of the Buckeye Regional. Now I have to catch up on my homework. :(

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Ok I've got 60 GB of MPEG 2 video from Davis Regional and am currently parsing it out. I'm confused on how to best save the match videos. If I use straight mpeg2 they're 90 MB each. WMV, 640x480 is 40 MB each. I can get them down to 10-20 MB but the resolution drops to 320x280. I can't use MovieMaker because if freezes when you ask it to load 60 GB of video. I recorded it in MPEG 2 format using a Pinnacle USB thing and their associated program Studio 10.

Any suggestions??

Otherwise I'll be posting it up as 40 MB WMV files. Sorry to eat up your hard drive SOAP.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

You can see SOAP's reccomended WME configuration here:
http://soap.circuitrunners.com/2007/2007.wme

However, it might be a pain to have to run every video through WME individually, so I would just use the 40MB matches if I were you. Hard Drives are cheap these days, labor is not.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I am working on a batch encoding script that will turn non-WMVs (such as MPEG2s (this is how we're getting Israel)) into pretty little xVids with zero labor. I am presently running into a little bit of trouble with the xVids playing back, which is weird because FLVs converted /from/ the xVids play just fine. Give me another week or so to work it out.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Doug,

I've run into a similar problem. The only solution I've found is to use TMPGEnc to parse files. You can use it to cut out individual matches from your MPGs. Instructions are here. I've then been using Blaze Media Pro to batch encode to WMV, sine Windows Media Encoder is choking on my files for some reason. Finally, I've used Tag&Rename to batch edit the WMV's metadata.

Advice if you're going this route. TMPGEnc seeks to the cut point in the file before you cut. And you cut each match individually, so the seek time for matches at the end of a 3+ hour MPG gets to be significant. I've been cutting the large MPG into 1 hour chunks first and then parsing matches out of the 1 hour chunks. I've also been getting fancy and cutting out the results screen individually. You can then de-multiplex the video stream of the results, and multiplex the video stream back into an MPG to remove audio. And then merge the results to the end of the match file to get a silent results screen. Also, when cutting using the TMPGEnc MPEG Tools, you can advance and rewind the video 1 frame at a time using left + right arrow keys, or ~4 seconds at a time by clicking the slider bar left or right of the marker. You can also set the cut points while the clip is playing, which is useful for finding dead air so you don't cut into the middle of the MC announcing.

Yes, this method is a bit time consuming, but it's the only way I've found for splitting my MPEG files. If your Pinnacle software lets you more easily parse out matches into MPGs easily, you can probably just use Blaze MP to simply batch encode them to WMV, and then Tag&Rename to edit metadata. Also, I'm really jealous of you. At any rate, I'm planning on using the "NTSC video for Broadband (1500 kbps)" setting for the Elims, and the (768 kbps) setting for everything else. It seems a good balance.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Major Thanks to 108... I was at the LV regional last week, and being the runner, the only good way to watch our matches was on the soap webcast...

and the soap people are more than just a nice group of people, they are an awesome bunch of people.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

The final few videos of the Wisconsin Regional are uploading as I type this. Enjoy!

Kev

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Well thanks to Travis from team 48, I have the Pittsburgh regional video converted from VHS (the FIRST feed) elimination rounds, to digital. I used my TV in card and ran the VCR through it to capture in MPEG format. Windows XP has that nice little "Movie Maker" program that allows you to import the MPEGs, edit and add effects then save as a .WMV file ready to upload to SOAP for the CD community. My dilemma is finding the link on SOAP to start uploading. Anybody use their site and can direct me to the link to upload ???


THANKS again Travis ! ! !

Joe J.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

You're welcome! I'm glad the videos came out ok. Thank YOU for digitizing them for the community.

I'm sure someone will contact you very shortly on uploading to SOAP, but you also have YouTube and Google Video as additional upload destinations. It doesn't hurt to keep pushing FIRST video out into the public domain!

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Joel J has all the login info ready for you.


*** We have reached our current limit of 35 GB. THANKS JOEL! I'll contact our host to bump up the quota so we can finish some regionals, and of course Championship.

**** In March we had over 1.5 TB of downloads!!! This is easily a new FIRST record. THANKS FRC COMMUNITY.

KA-108 :cool:

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Will there be any video from the Palmetto Regional avaliable soon? Can't find any and just wondering

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

It won't be for a while unless someone else has it. I still need to get my hands on our tapes, so I can get them to my aunts house for digitizing, and then parse them.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Some of the matches for the San Diego Regional on SOAP are off by one.

The match that is labled #30 is really #29. From that point, they are off by 1 until match 61. After that they are correct again.

The match labeled 29 is really 61.

See Greg's post below...

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Do not rename the videos, it is more likely a problem with FIRSTs scoring system. I will update this on TBA later today, but FIRSTs scoring system does a really poor job coordinating what is what. Unless the videos themselves say they are a different match, it is probably FIRSTs problem.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Has SOAP expanded its storage capacity? I know there are people waiting to upload vids from Pittsburgh, Buckeye, and Greater Toronto yet.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Empirical investigation says no. So I'd guess we'll have to wait at least until monday. I'm still waiting to upload the second half of LSR quals and re-upload the awards, etc.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

My Canon MiniDV Camcorder works extremely well when recording off the FIRST feed. If I had known you guys needed help getting some footage done I would have lent a hand at the local regionals I attended. I'll keep this camcorder handy for next year. The program I use to capture the video from the camcorder to my PC is Intervideo DVD Creator 8 Plat. Which I think converts it to MPEG or something like that (must go check when I get a new firewire cable). Anyways I'll keep in touch. I know SOAP has got there own area for championships but if you need help w/ anything find me on archimedes or in the area I'll have my Canon w/ me setting up in the Archimedes Field.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I spoke with Donn Griffith following the event. Turns out that University Instructional Services, who coordinated one end of the webcast, made a copy as well, which is currently heading to 34 for parsing and uploading. I know absolutely nada past that.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I'll upload the good quality videos from Waterloo Regional as soon as I'm done editing (so dreadful.. argh) and when SOAP increase their quota.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I have some questions about Soap.

1. For the Davis Regional, i've found the second day of qualification matches and finals but does anybody have the first day of qualifications recorded?

2. I noticed that there's room on Soap for awards videos. Are there any plans to get those uploaded?

3. Are the videos downloadable? It would really help us to be able to use some of the footage for a video on how this season went for us.

And thanks for all the awesome videos!:D

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Anyone looking to upload match videos (sounds like Waterloo, Pittsburgh, Buckeye, and Greater Toronto), feel free to send either myself or Greg Marra a PM, IM, E-mail, or other form of electronic communication. We can set you up with an FTP account to put them on The Blue Alliance website.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Due to the SOAP overload as of Thursday I will start uploading the remaining Buckeye stuff to theBlueAlliance.net - FYI the day 2 tapes we got, Thanks to whoever gave them to Ed, but the audio quality is poor. Also due to my group paper that's due this Friday I got everything except for matches 68-80.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Are you sure? I just double checked my copy and the match labeled 30 is match 30. At the end the anouncer says "that ends match number thirty", and then I have the score from match 30. The teams in the score card match the teams that were playing. I'm going off of what I have locally; I have not downloaded the match from SOAP. It seems unlikely, however that a file would have gotten renamed in the upload process (since I just do "mput *").

Also, I have the rest of the SDC matches, but I'm waiting for more disk space to be available on soap in order to be able to upload them.

--AJY

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I know this thread is "Coordinated Regional Video Archiving", but are there any coordinated plans for Championship Video Archiving?

I will be there and will record one of the fields. I don't know which one yet; it'll probably depend on which one I'm working on.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Yea, SOAP will be archiving the Championship Event (all fields, including Einstein).

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I think the original tape had audio issues when I did the dubbing - not sure if it was a bad VCR audio connection at the event or FIRST's audio was a bit messed up. Luckily the visuals are ok.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

CD community!!!! I have the Elimination matches from Pittsburgh and Detroit Regionals, I want to get them on to the Blue Alliance's web page but I need the FTP access. I chatted with Chris Marra from BA but I couldn't get the access to work. I could get to the FTP directory for Buckeye and GTR but it wouldn't allow me to make another folder... Any help would go a long way for all looking for the 2 regional events still missing...

Joe J. FRC team 123

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Joe,
Greg should contact you with details on how to get everything up properly. Sorry I had to run off this morning, but I have a lot of work to do pre-nationals.

With the exception of matches 68-80 of Buckeye, Ellery got me the rest of the regional, it is available for download, and I am working on encoding them for the Flash Player. It is true though, some parts of Buckeye have poor audio quality, and some matches have washed out video. Stupid VCRs, why didn't anyone record in Beta? GTR also has additional qualifiers available for download now, thanks to Jonathan Norris.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Thanks to Kevin, I was able to host matches 47-81 off of FirstTube.
http://firsttube.org/pavan/lsr/
If you would like (Soap/TBA) you can link to the previous vids rather than host them yourselves for a little bit. I am also willing to host up to about two gigs off of my personal hosts if you would like/need.

Pavan.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

As Greg mentioned, it appears that the Match List on the FIRST website is incorrect and not the videos. Sorry for the false alarm.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Just realized I should give people a heads up about this, since I have a reasonable idea what happened. LSR looked to be having a similar issue. While I was ducked behind the video table setting up my computer to record, a mentor from another team asked if I could fix the audio at the table. There was next to nothing coming out of the monitor speaker, but strangely, the audio would come back if I shook the speaker and/or table. Long story short (haha, wait for it):

Our AV crew split out the audio in about the worst way possible. They ran the field feed through an equalizer and ground lift, then into one of the ugliest AV hacks I've seen. A single audio feed was run into a panel of 3 pin connectors. All the 3-pins were wired in parallel. So pin 1 of the first connector was connected to all the other pin 1s, etc. Out of this was a spaghetti of 3-pin to RCA adapter cables. This is the equivalent of stacking up a ton of those headphone splitters till you have enough outputs. This does two things. First, the audio level drops by 3 dB every time the number of VCRs connected doubles. So if 8 teams are recording, the audio drops 9 dB. Only bad if you set up your levels and then 15 other teams hook up behind you. The more important consequence is that if a single one of those RCA to 3-pin cables gets shorted out, everyone loses audio. At LSR, a single one of these RCAs ended up shoved under a DVD recorder and was shorting.

I, personally, saw this kind of thing coming and had already rigged up an adapter cable to come out a spare output on the EQ. But that was a bit of an expert move only recommended for people that know what balanced audio is and the potential problems it can cause.

My recommendations for those of you stuck with what FIRST gives you is to look in the back of the AV rack briefly and see if all your audio is coming out of a horrible thing where all the backs of the connectors are wired together. If so, I'd wander by the AV station before anything important happens and make sure you have audio. If not, check all the RCA connectors and make sure one isn't shorting out. If you have someone to spare to stand by the AV station and help everyone out, have that person unplug all cables coming out of the horrible paralleled panel, and connect cables back into the panel only as needed.

Ok, not quite as brief as I thought it would be, but still. If audio was fine one day and crappy the next, I'd lay good odds that one of those spare RCAs was shorting somewhere. And I'd watch out for the exact same problem in Atlanta.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Well just to give some clarification we had no issues recording at FLR, and Buckeye day 1 from Travis, but Buckeye day 2 audio was definitely not balanced. But oh well now we know better to double check.

As far as Buckeye matches 68-80 I'm sorry I won't have time during the week to do them but I figured I did enough of them to give a good feel of how things went. As you know school work comes first! I will eventually get the rest up if anyone is really interested though.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

If your still interested, we in the process of acquiring more laptops for video encoding. This year we mailed out some laptops and video capture devices to some teams to encode the videos for us (SOAP). It was a good experience for all those involved. Encoding the individual matches in real-time is much better than watching a VHS tape and doing it that way.

It is our goal to webcast and archive ALL regionals next year. If you are interested in helping let me know. You can stop by the SOAP area in Atlanta if you like.

Good luck at the Championship!!!

-SOAP

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

did anyone record the drexel regionals in phili who is going to put them up sometime. cause i would like to watch. if anyone who recorded it isnt going to put them up and would be willing to mail them to me please pm me. or u can reach me at yahoo messanger,gmail,msn messanger, or email
yahoo email-kathimm@yahoo.com
msn and regular-09thimmk@wcasd.net
gmai-kthimm1@gmail.com
Thanks
Krista

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I have the tapes and I found out that they were recorded on a lp mode vcr. As a result the videos don't appear on a standard ep/sp vcr. I'm currently trying to do what I can to get the lp vcr the regional was recorded on in my possession. And I'm happy of everyones kindness waiting patiently.

What I can do tommorow is get the raw footage taken by the team from a camera on the website.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Ok,

Last week or two, SOAP ran out of space on their server and had to remove some matches from regionals. Some times they go offline during the summer during rewriting the website. The Bluealliance's website is nice and a little different to navigate, although it shows the teams involved in each match. I have setup a server with 2GB connection and plenty of harddrive space to store the 2007 and past and future archives. I plan to leave the website up and make it VERY easy to browse.

The next video archive website is firstvideoarchive.com

I am in the process of uploading all video I have but soon I should have everything online.

-Mike AA
Team 2015

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I'm not exactly sure if there is a reason for this. There are already 2 sites dedicated to archiving videos.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Actually, Mike's site predates TBA Match Archives. He's improving one that has been in existence of a while.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Anyone from Soap, TBA, or other: Did anyone record the practice matches from the Curie field by any chance? We (1675) normally had someone out there recording, but for our first practice match (match #5), our video person wasn't available. We had an error in our code and would love to include the hilarity of practicing without being to move forward or backward in our end of the year stuff. If anyone has this recorded, please PM me so I can get it from you by any means.

Thanks,

Kevin

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Space/bandwidth will not be an issue next year, I promise. I may even get to upload everything since 2000 to our new home.

A little more patience is all we need.

Thanks!
KA-108

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

SOAP almost never records practice matches, Curie is no exception. Sorry.

KA

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

For the Davis Sacramento Regional, Soap has posted everthing after match 52. (second day of qualifying and Finals) Does anybody know where I can find the matches before #52 and the award ceremonies for the Davis Sacramento Regional?

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

How about the Philadelphia Regional?

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Has anyone managed to convert and upload the Palmetto Regional yet?
I would like to download some of that footage to use as propaganda.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Sorry, no. My computer's hard drive died during spring break, when I planned to do it. My computer is working now, but AP exams are coming up, so I'll be too busy for the next two weeks. After the AP exams are over, I'll try to get them done as soon as possible.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

While soap is down, (even if it was up since soap doesnt have it), I have matches 47-81 on FIRSTTube. on the following site:
http://firsttube.org/pavan/lsr/

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

The site had resumed.
Thanks for your patience.

KA-108

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

just out of curiosity, are they're any archived videos of the palmetto regional, if anyone has any or knows a link pm me please

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I had captured the webcast, not sure how it turned out. Some of it may be usable.

KA

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I have been playing around with the vcr and it appears that the feed
1.) Wasn't recorded.
2.) Is recorded but will require me playing around with the VCR (of another team mates) a lot.

I can confirm it was either recorded in LP or SLP mode an outdated recording mode that isn't in modern day vcrs.

I am just getting use to this VCR and I will do what I can to figure it out the system of playback on this VCR.

The good news is if you can play it back!...

All of the matches have been recorded
All of the VIP appearances have been recorded
and all of the award cermonies have been recorded
everything was recorded!!!

I will also try to get it to you guys in the highest quality I possibly can.

Thanks,
From all of us on Team 578

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I was wondering whether the 2007 Palmetto Regional Videos would be uploaded at some point this summer.
Hopefully this thread is not dead and the videos shall, at some point, be uploaded to SOAP.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

I've got the Palmetto tapes right in front of me, but I suspect two are bad, and the last one has no audio. If 34 has it, their copy is probably better.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Frankly, I don't care too much of the quality so long as they exist. I have been trying to find them anywhere and failed, so any sort of posting would be welcome. The difficulty of tracking down these videos frustrates me because watching our team was such a release of anger as we continuously play aggressive defense and miraculously never got a penalty.

Re: Coordinated Regional Video Archiving..
 

Well, it turns out that none of our tapes play properly, they just jam (even the previously working one), so unless the tapes repair themselves, our copies are no good.