Paying to have your event webcast
 

Would you pay to have your event webcast, and if so how much?:D

Re: Paying to have oyur event webcast
 

I'm pretty sure there is enough people in FIRST who are experienced in webcasting that would gladly webcast an event at no cost.

Re: Paying to have oyur event webcast
 

Payment would be for associated travel expenses and equipment rentals. If every team at an event was to give a few dollars to have the event webcast, what would you see as a reasonable amount? Would you be more likely to pay to see a particular off season event webcast, with ranking, match results, live chat? :D

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Those not at the event would might be more interested in a webcast.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

what system would you use to collect money doing a webcast? Would asking for donations be ok? Like if $X was need to do the webcast, and less than $X was sonated, what would be the coarse of action? :D

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Maybe do it for free but record the video, then clean it up afterward and sell DVDs. Many teams bring their own video recorders and capture the event either off of the FIRST video stream or from handheld camera, but I bet many teams, especially rookies (like us our rookie year) don't and wish afterward that hey had. That's where you come in. $5-$8 a DVD might actually end up being fairly profitable, once you factor in all the grandparents ;)

--Ryan

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

depends on the quality. if it included drive team interviews, highlights, team spotlights, and play by plays I might consider donating. If it cuts off the last 2 matches of the finals and who won EI or Chairmans ( like the past 3 NASA broadcasts of the championship) than nothing.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I'm pretty sure we would pay for a DVD of the full event as an archive, so that counts as paying for the webcast -- nothing huge, probably $10 per DVD.

Video is HUGE when finding the right thing to send to a sponsor. Getting that clip of you doing something crazy, lucky, or downright outrageously funny is exactly what should go at the end of a sponsor video.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

DVD and match archives would be made. If I was doing the webcast I would do my best to not cut out any of the matches, or awards. We currently don't have the man power to do drive team interviews, but will consider this. As for the play by play, we have left this up to the announcer/MC at the event, if they are dong a play-by-play than it will be webcast/recorded. :D

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

This has nothing to do with NASA. FIRST continually refuses to revise their schedule of the event. They always say it will end by a certain time, and like clockwork every single year it always goes an extra hour or two.

If FIRST extended the schedule then NASA could block off more time on NASA TV...

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I guess the bottom line is that if you offer an extra value for your product . I would pay for it, if not then no. Personally Team interviews/Bios would really be a big buying point for me. Ive always wanted to know why people did what they did and why. But if you dont have the man power for that, ask your self what can I do that isnt being added. Again add value.

as far as the NASA TV thing I never assigned blame just that the problem exists( and the fact that this has gone on for so many years is really a failure on both ends FIRST not stating the times and NASA for not getting that that time is not correct)

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Last year we had the West Michigan Regional webcast using a professional video distribution service. From what I heard, it wasn't cheap, I think in the neighborhood of a few thousand bucks. That way we were assured a high quality stream.
If it had been my wallet, I'd hook a computer up to the video drop and ustream it or something free. :p Though, you won't get the quality and reliability for free.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I did a rough calculation for a 1000 mile round trip for a 3 day event and came up with roughly $1000. :D

A sigle day event would cost less

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

As someone who has pushed webcasts up to NASA's servers its not the setup at the event that is very costly complicated. You need to consider what is serving the content. Do you have a powerful enough server with a fast enough connection? If not make sure to consider the costs of that.

Personally I would not pay for webcasting. I think a better idea would be to talk to people in the community who will be at events and get a network of people that can push a stream to your server, and share the content that way. there is no reason to pay for a crew to travel when there are already people there. Also don't forget you need a good internet connection at the venue which usually means talking to the event planners far in advance.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

we currently can't afford a faster Internet connection(DSL currently), but we are looking into faster options such as a T-1(~$350/month):D If we could afford this every month it would allow us more freedom in what events we would be able to webcast, but this wouldn't guarantee that we would be able to archive 100% of the event and produce complete event DVDs, as we would be at the mercy of the person sending us the feed. :D
But this option would allow us to charge a lower rate to host the webcast.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Scott,

If I'm hearing you right you're saying that someone at the event will feed you with video from the event, and you will use your servers to host it?

If this is the case, as I posted before, NASA is willing and able to do this for any team or individual that wishes to webcast an event. Such a team or individual would just need to obtain an internet connection at the event.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I'm offering features such as chat, match results, rankings, event pictures posted during the event, event archive DVDs. Off season events is currently the events we would webcast. :D

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Was your last post implying that you would be attempting to serve a webcast over a DSL connection?

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Unfortunately, many of those features are already offered by clients like "SOAPGameday," which feature all the streams that weekend in a consolidated UI with chat and rankings.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

No, it was not, but because of this I bring the servers to the events venue to use the high speed internet. :D

BTW my intention of this thread was not to advertise, but to get a feel for what people would pay, and recommendations for services to offer, etc. Looking back I see that some of my posts seem to be advertising, but this was not my intention for starting the poll.
I am trying to form a media company and am using these forums as a form of market research.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I might not know what you're intending, but your words suggest that you don't fully grok what it takes to host a webcast well. You shouldn't expect to just plug into a generic "high speed internet" connection and be able to serve video to hundreds of viewers. Pay attention to Cory.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

I understand that there are firewall settings, etc. that must be configured before a webcast can happen this way. Having done webcasts before using T-1, T-3 connections, and network administration experience, I understand that its not just a simple plug and play thing, or that I wouldn't even attempt a webcast of more than an extremely small audience with anything less than a T-1 connection. :D

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Alan, you would be surprised how good of a webcast you can host with a basic highspeed connection. Using Ustream.tv last year I was able to host over 500 people at one point, and that was when flash streaming was still in its relative infancy. A year later i've seen these services handle almost 10,000 viewers at once. Online streaming is getting easier and easier every year, to a point where there shouldn't be a regional that doesn't have a webcast going.

edit: and with these web-based flash streaming services you don't need to worry about firewall settings and all that jazz, as long as you can get to the web page you can stream.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

A T1 is useless for a webcast. A typical webcast runs in the neighborhood of 500kbps. At that rate, a T1 could only support 3 viewers.

I've served the Midwest Regional webcast for the past few years from my personal server. The last 2 years we've come close to maxing out a 100Mbps connection with this setup. That's 67 T1 lines. Even a T3 (45Mbps) isn't enough to handle the demand for the more popular regionals.

Additionally, the serving bandwidth is basically the expensive part of the operation. If you're planning to use the bandwidth at the venue (most don't have enough for this BTW), then what value are you adding? Someone else is already ponying up for the expensive part with that setup.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Yes, using Ustream.tv or NASA some other service. It's the service that is hosting the webcast; you're just providing the video for them to distribute using their high-capacity internet connection.

Scott's comments keep suggesting to me that he expects to put the webcast server at the event site. That makes me worry about how much he really knows about the details of something like what he plans.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

As a former network engineer for a school district, I can say that my big deny stamp would have went through the desk on this one if you are planning to use the schools bandwidth to serve all the casts. If you did do it without asking, it wouldn't last long as any decent IDS (intrusion detection system) would be screaming to the rooftops when you started taking major bandwidth.

But to answer your question, $0 this is already provided by soap, and the web cast on nasa tv, as well as nasa channel.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

In the past I have coordinated with the school's network administrator and have gotten approval from the school district, so yes, I do get permission. :D
For an off-season event I have seen a simultaneous audience of about 50, with no complaints from any of the administration.

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Doesn't TBA webcast most regionals?

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

well no since i'm not the host plus shouldn't first or it's sponsors be paying these things off?

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

Even using a school's internet connection (typically a max of a T-3), wont be enough to webcast to a decent number of people.

Just get equipment to record and stream to NASA or ustream where they can actually host the video. Nasa has Gigs of Bandwidth and has been used for many regionals. Trying to host video to lots of people using a T-1 would just be dumb and a DSL is even more dumb. You have to think about UPLOAD speed not download speed.

Realistically all you would require is :

1. Permission to use the venue's internet connection
2. A computer with a video capture card and network interface card.
3. A computer with free/cheap software to stream the video ( do a search on here ).
4. A ustream account.
5. Someone to occasionally monitor the computer and watch chiefdelphi for input.

-Mike AA

Re: Paying to have your event webcast
 

We try our best, I believe we are doing Boston again this year. We also offer video archives search-able by team number complete with match results, photos of the robots, basic team information, what events they are attending and more.(all for free:) )

Also Alan is 100% right on this one. When using Ustream.tv or similar services you simply push one feed up to their servers and they feed it to everyone else. Those 500 or however many viewers are not getting data directly from you.

Finally maybe I am missing something but why are you bringing the server to events? The server should be in a remote location designed for that type of traffic. You should simply encode to a digital format and stream it to your server from a laptop at the event. Then let the server do the heavy lifting.