2008 Championships Webcast
 

To all members of CD:

My aunt had been asking last night about where to find the webcast of the Championships. I didn't know, and told her I'd find out. I did some hunting around today on NASA's website, and found this webpage:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics...a-finals-2008/

It appears like they will have a separate webcast for each field, including FTC and FLL. So, take this as a public service announcement: NASA (a million thanks to them) is doing a webcast of each and every field. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell anyone who may be interested- heck, if you're not going to Championships but want to watch, tell yourself!

Good luck to all teams, and we'll see you in Atlanta!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I can't wait to see pictures of people watching all four fields on four computer monitors, it will happen.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Monitors? I just can't find enough projectors.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Haha, well hopefully someone can lend you one. Just make sure you put Archimedes on the largest one, that's where all of the action is :D

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Will the Soap Gamebox be showing all four divisions?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Unfortunately, we live on the West Coast and everyone will be in school until 5:30 EST, when all the fun ends for the day. Is there any way that we can capture the live feed and view it later? We tried screen recording using a FRAPPs-like utility, but the capture rate was terrible -- only a few frames per second.

I noticed that The Blue Alliance has the semifinals & finals matches from last year, but there was nothing from FVC/FTC, which is what we're mainly interested in. Is there any way that video of the semifinals and/or finals from the FTC fields could be recorded and posted there?

If there is any way that I can legally record and share what I capture, I'd be glad to, but I don't know how.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Gameday is supposed to be new and improved for Champs, so I would guess that it will indeed be showing all of the feeds.

That is just a guess however

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

http://all-streaming-media.com/recor...dows-media.htm

That site has a list of software programs that can be used to capture Windows Media Streams. I think you can also have VLC capture a stream and output it to a file for later viewing.

You could test one of them out and see if it works for you (although I probably wouldn't buy any of the non-free ones)!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I am SO excited!
I have a Mac, and so when I wanted to watch the video feed for the West Michigan Regional (which was only on Windows Media Player), I had to go to a computer lab on my campus and watch it.

But now I downloaded RealPlayer, and I'll get to watch from the comforts of my own dorm!
(And maybe now I won't look so weird when I scream at a robot via the computer or I jump up and down with excitement...:D )

Thanks for posting the link! And good luck to all teams!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I believe that SOAP is recording all the fields like in past years, possibly they are going to be uploading them as the day goes on?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I have absolutely no sound when I use real player but when i used windows media there was sound but the quality of the video was bad. Any ideas on why I don't have sound on real player?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I found that the windows stream was very poor using Media Player Classic, but was very good using the Windows Media Player that comes with windows. In my case, I'm using wmplayer.exe (start->run->wmplayer) version 10.00.00.4058 (check help->about). It appears that the stream server actually sends entirely different streams (50k/s for the good one, 5k/s for the bad one) depending on your player, which makes me think that perhaps the player is misreporting your available bandwidth. I'm thinking that it is possible that Media Player Classic sent the server an indication I'm using a 56kbps modem, so I got a 40kbps stream. Playing around with the settings might solve that.

Edit: Confirmed. I went to Windows Media Player's tools->options->performance tab, and set it to 28.8kbps instead of auto-detect, and I ended up with a tiny 16kbps stream instead of the larger 400kbps stream I had been getting earlier. Make sure your options are set properly.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Is anyone else having problems with Curie? It takes a while to load, then goes super fast and freezes. It was working for me before and all the other fields are working.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I'm having the same problems with Curie. At least it was working this morning when the new control system was officially announced:D

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Oh good, good to hear it wasn't a problem on my side. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

Did anyone just see 217? They picked a ball up from the overpass brought it down and it looked like their elevator/lifter broke and came out. They spent the rest of the match sitting right by the gate. Hopefully, they can get that fixed soon, too.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

did anyone else see 217 basically yank their arm off when they tried to pick the ball off the overpass?? hopefully everything is allright, just looked like their elevator came out.

edit: looks like someone did notice

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I like the move that 1114 was trying to pull off, catching a team mate's hurdle! That'll be a nice one to see pulled off consistently (especially during eliminations).

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Watching the FTC feed right now. Anyone know if there's a match schedule available online?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I don't have four monitors, but I try to compensate...



Galileo, Archimedes, Newton, and FTC! Screenshots don't work to well on media players, though...

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Its not a legal move, if you read the rules the trackball must either contact the ground or an opposing alliance's robot to be counted as a hurdle. I think they just tried that b/c its a practice round and they weren't counting the score.

edit: looks like I was wrong, my bad...

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

The manual begs to differ: (emphasis mine)

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Watching FTC endlessly makes me envious of it. Why couldn't it have existed when I was in high school?

It also makes me feel not-smart. A large proportion of the robots (like 2 in every match) have pickup/dropoff mechanisms that are amazing.

Edit: And I'm looking for FTC478's schedule.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I don't know, but I want one too. Team 542's schedule, to be exact.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Can't get to open the Curie field on VLC and real player isn't showing anything at all except for a single picture all the time.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

anyone seen the little trick 330 added to their grabber? looks like a lexan bar between their forks that bends back when they grab a ball and adds a bit of forward momentum with they release it.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

yeah, Curie isn't working and hasn't for awhile...:(

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

a la 217 I'm thinking (its not the same, but similar to the way they hurdle :D)

Ps. on galileo did you see the almost diagonal cap?!:eek: that would of been awesome

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I didn't see that one, but are you talking about a team placing from another quadrent? In one of the first qualifaction matches on Curie, 395 shot one across the field and somehow getting to stay on the overpass.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Yeah thats what I was talking about, this one bounced around up there and evenutally fell off though, thats awesome lol

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Not yet. I do want to though. That'll be even more "fun" for opponents...

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Is anyone else getting a very poor quality for Curie?
I'm getting it for both WM and RM feeds. Low frame rate and no sound in both.

I hope that someone on that end sees this.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I am having the exact same issues Pat. In fact, the feed just went down....

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Now the Curie feed is back with sound!!!! :yikes:

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

It was great for a little while there, then it went down again and is back to the same problems.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Yeah, Curie has been off and on most of they day. Right now, though, it appears to be good.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Can somebody please help me get the webcast working on my computer. I run ubuntu linux, not windows so I'm having trouble viewing the feeds. Everytime I try to run the webcast, firefox crashes, so please help.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: nevermind I got it working by opening the stream in Totem.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

My son finally figured out how to record -- thank you! We're planning to set it for timer, since everyone will be at school during the actual event.

Does anyone know when the FTC elimination matches are scheduled for? We were planning to record from 2 - 6 pm Atlanta time on Friday, which is about when the eliminations and awards were last year. However, we wanted to make sure that we're not completely off schedule, in case it's different this year.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

According to the Public Agenda, FTC Elims and awards will run from 1:30 to 6:30 PM Atlanta time. If you want to make sure you get all of the awards I would record until 7:00 just in case things run behind.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Are they behind schedule? The agenda says FRC qualifying rounds start at 9:25EST, but it is currently 9:41EST and they're still doing anthems and things.

Also, I'm not getting sound on either galileo feed.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I'm still have no sound and poor video quality on Curie, for both feeds.
I am also pretty sure that it's not just for me, because all of the other feeds are great.

Edit: Started looking good right after opening ceremonies.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

No sound on Galileo, but Einstein works. I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe the audio guys at Galileo turned their sound off or something.

EDIT: It literally just now turned on.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Newton is an open mic at this time. I am getting good video and audio with both Real and Media Player on Einstein. Hopefully that will transfer over to the other fields once they start.

Sound just started on Newton in both.

Go Teams!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I haven't been able to get Galileo working at all today (though it was decent yesterday).

Is there anything I might look at tweaking on my end, or is it just a simple traffic jam kind of issue?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Might be traffic jam. I've got it working.

If you can't get it direct from the source, try http://gameday.soap108.com

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I think they should stick a small camera on the BAE systems blimp that I just saw floating around inside. It probably has the payload capability.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

They have cameras on them (or at least available), they are RPI's blimps, they ran into range and interference problems with the cameras in Manchester

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

cnn is doing a live broadcast right now on their site!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

First of all Good luck to all teams, this year I pepare my self with my team to be in Atlanta, so I wish to all teams good luck, and we'll see you in webcast, anyone can send me webcast so I can watch the Championships.
Mohamed
Israel team 1946

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

You can find the webcast[s] here: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I try many time I recived this masage "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Try http://gameday.soap108.com/

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Right click on the link, choose copy link location
Go to media player, do open URL (or open file), paste it in (ctrl-v)
Press open.

That should work.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

for FTC:
is it just me or did "i say thomas you say edison" get really annoying and old really fast?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Andy,

I normally don't comment on things like this because, announcers and MCs are volunteers, they are trying their best, they are all awesome people who are doing something they love. And yes, I would be the first to applaud and pat them on the back for volunteering their time to do this. It is a very difficult job, and I would hesitate to say that I could ever do better.

But, to tell it like it is, there were more than a few moments that I flipped from the FTC field because... well... I was annoyed.

They need to fill time, yes. But the next level for announcing in both FTC AND FRC is to give us more than just FIRST's rendition of MARCO-POLO for 5 minutes.

Tell us about the teams. What are their histories, where have they met before. Why do they love/hate each other? "Every match has a story" - tell it to us.

Call out the team that fought for 20 seconds to try and place TWO measly 5 point rings and failed - all while the entire time a goal right beside could've been nudged into the their zone for a 14 point swing. It was a stupid move, point it out, explain why.

Applaud the team that did nothing but grasp the double goal and shake it violently. They won their alliance a TON of matches, but how? Explain it to me.

Tells us that alliances that pushed the double goals deep in their own zone won almost every match.

Point out when teams fail to do this, when they had perfectly good opportunities to.

They need to add PERSPECTIVE, and it's impossible to do when you do nothing but applaud "good" play, but never admonish mistakes.

Having been an FRC coach on the field, I can personally say I've messed up plenty of times. If an MC or announcer called us out on it, I couldn't be happier. I would take no offense. We messed up - go ahead and point it out for all to see. Point it out for me to see, because maybe I never caught it. If anything, it's more motivation to never mess up again.

But would other teams be okay with this? Because I honestly think it would make all our webcasts and competitions far more entertaining.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

sorry, i really appreciate all the volunteers and what they do i just found it funny that on the webcast they were like you say thomas i say edison but then there was some silence quite a bit of the time

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

thanks it is working we have 6 hours more
mohamed

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Shawn I am surprised that you don't understand what announcers try to do. We call the match as we see it and try positive input on all teams. I for one would never call out a team unless it was my own, which I have done, and even then I got spoken to. Positive reinforcement is what FIRST wants and what most teams want and like. As announcers we enjoy the job but it is very taxing. Making sure that you don't give away strategies, tell teams how to play, speak about every team as evenly as possible and make the game exciting. We try to do this all in 2:15 and then we start all over with new teams.

Yes there are announcers that are annoying. Sometimes we get in a place that we don't want to repeat things but we do. We try but we are human.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

While I do not agree with putting down teams for mistakes they make,
I do think that good and bad strategies in general should be pointed out. Good announcers should of course "give away" the strategies of the game - that lets the average unobservant spectator get a better understanding of how the game is played besides running around in circles. No team has a "trademark" on strategy - it's being laid out for everyone to see.

I wish at the rookie regional in Flint that the announcer would've been observant enough to point out that knocking your own trackball off the overpass with 10 sec to go is a "bad" strategy, while "blocking" opponents trackballs was a good strategy. You can point out fairly obvious strategies without being condescending, such as some that Sean points out:
The way I see it - I reject and denounce announcers that say catchphrases and play Marco Polo with the crowd over and over again. It doesn't take much creativity and is lazy announcing. If you want to get the crowd into it, try something new. I prefer Dan Green Mad Libs myself. I also like Verbrugge's Stats. I also like Leon's..... um.... whatever you call what he does.

Also, I find that when I'm not trying to pull a Copioli and try to be an announcer AND pitcrew at the same time, AND also try to be a team coach and argue with the refs, it's a lot more enjoyable of a job. (Maybe why I only do Lego League :))

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

When does Einstein start?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Woodie is up now

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

So, who's up for going to the New Zealand Regional?:D

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Announcing the Chairman's Award before the Semi-Finals?

Congrats to 842, and welcome to the Hall of Fame

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Steve, I do understand what they're trying to do. But what they're trying to do isn't effective, at least not with me.

Play-by-play announcing has evolved for generations in professional sports, it is effective, entertaining, and adds to the game. It involves pointing out both the good AND the bad.

When Jason Kidd dribbles off the side of his foot and out-of-bounds, an announcer shouldn't turn a blind eye because he's afraid of hurting the Mavs feelings. It was a bad mistake. Point it out, let us know, explain it, it's not personal.

When they throw a 3-2 zone out there, explain it, why is it good, why is it bad, how do you do it, how do you beat it, don't hide it for fear of "giving up a team's strategy."

I know exactly what the announcers are doing by not mentioning this stuff. I just feel that we would add far more to the value of the game if they did mention it.

The few "exceptions" in FIRST of excellent announcing that I've seen, they've mirrored pro-sports in this way. The comments are snuck in there once in a while, but they are meaningful.

But there's no reason why announcing like that should be exceptions, and not the rule.

I was at Kettering with Dan, and yes an announcer pointing out the folly of knocking down your own ball late in the match would've helped everyone.

On FTC, teams desperately trying to score 10 points worth of rings were passing up opportunities for 14 point goals which were far easier to get.

These are all bad moves, but is there really some unwritten taboo that announcers can't mention them?

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

The difference is that they are sports announcers and that they don't announce to the audience or the teams at the event. Can you see these announcers saying that player XX made a huge mistake and should smarten up or that the home team is playing like doggie-do-do. This just wouldn't fly. If the announcing was just over the web or TV I might tend to agree with you but to say negative things at the event would just cause harm.

I am sorry if I come on strong on this issue but I know that there are tons of instances where teams have talked to me and told me how I have encouraged them. I have also been spoken to at this years events being told that I was influencing the Refs when all I did was announce that a flag was raised. Teams are not as forgiving as you believe.

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

Really late reply: The white blimp had a camera on it that was being fed to the video guys. It showed up on the FLL screens a few times, I'm not sure it was on any FRC screens though (we were too busy flying them!). So, yeah they had cameras on them, they weren't the greatest quality footage though and were breaking up a little bit (the transmitter uses 802.11x so it can get interference pretty easily if there are networks around -- but it seemed to be working pretty well unless we went way up high).

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I really didn't get to see much of the webcasts, but I was extremely pleased with what I saw when I did:

Every time I brought it up it worked the first time.
There were very few streaming/bandwidth/technical problems.
The sound quality was much improved compared to previous years.
The awards presentations were not chopped short or lost by the camera.
The field shots were pretty clear.
In general, the shot selection and transitions were done well.

I see the previous posts mentioning some issues, but I didn't run into those. I remember many more in other years.

While it's been a few years since I personally watched a Championship webcast, I've seen and heard reports of many problems in these areas nearly every year. I've also seen many problems with regional webcasts.

Thanks for all those involved in continuing to improve this service!

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I am trying to find out if there are video of the matches from Galileo/Championship that will be posted online? I did a search and nothing came up. I would like to show the students in my class the video and I have only the two I was able to video. I would like to show more.

Carolyn

Re: 2008 Championships Webcast
 

I think there is a happy medium for calling plays and strategies in matches. I think with the proper creativity, you can point out any play that is going on. You can point out a play that might be somewhat "out of the normal" by using humor or "surprise" to nail down the point, as opposed to outright saying "what they heck are they thinking!!!".

For example, there were a few instances where I witnessed a team hurdling a trackball over the wrong overpass, and I essentially said "There goes team XXX, hurdling the red trackball over...the....blue....overpass. Not sure if that action will benefit them, but hey, whatever works!"

I think this points out the play at hand, while making light of the situation.

Remember this though...FIRST is not the NBA. While a competition such as this appears to play in the same flow and excitement of the sport, the ideals through which we play are much different. This is an important point for someone who is game announcing. It is our job to relay the ideals of Gracious Professionalism with every call. Being constructive and positive is at the very root of that ideal.

I hope you all had a great weekend at championships, or watching from home wherever you may have been. In particular, thank you to all of you who came over to Galileo this weekend to check out the action...and truly brought an amazing energy with you.

See you in the offseasons!