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Originally Posted by ksafin
Video Replays
[i]They aren't allowed. Both in FRC and FTC. Why? I want to hear a good argument for this. [...]
It's been said before, countless times, and I'm going to say it again. Almost every major sport accepts video replays. Even Major League Baseball is instituting it for next year.
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Git yer facts straight--they been usin' it last year, and before that too on a more limited basis. Anyways, I'll be going a lot more in-depth. I can give several. I've been part of the last couple of discussions on instant replay.
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We should constantly be moving to, within means, make FIRST a better experience for teams. I can understand the difficulty of video replays for qualification matches - there's over 100 of those. That's fine. In general, a bad match in quals doesn't take you out of the game - it averages out and you end up being OK.
For Finals, where the stakes are so high, and the matches so few, this should be important and easy to institute. We spent considerably more time stalling, bickering with refs, and trying to force a rematch than a review of video would have taken.
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I'm going to start with the (heavily) emphasized part. For instant replay, you need a camera. Cameras cost money, in some amount. They need to be pointed at the area of interest, and they need to be of quality good enough to see what you're looking at (AKA, is it a foul). That means a reasonably high-resolution camera, and probably somebody to operate it. Both of which can cost money, in a somewhat larger amount than just a random dude with a cellphone.
Now, that paragraph is the major argument against instant replay. You need to have the money for coverage of all the possible areas of fouls--MLB is probably the most points of any major sport, at 5 points (ball, 3 bases, home). The others, you're mainly going to be near the ball, so one camera could work... but how many do they have, like 3-4 easily?. FRC? In an area the size of a basketball court, with action at both ends, six robots, 3+ humans... You've got 6-8 potential "zoom-in" points. One camera isn't going to cut it--there's been technical analysis done, I can bring up that thread if you like. You need 3-4 at least, with operators who actually know what they should be pointing at. (The "replays" during Einstein... eh, not so great...)
But wait! There's more! In addition to the technical problem, there's the logistics problem. Namely, the twin problem of actually calling for an instant replay, and then retrieving the footage for review and reviewing it. Now, for elims, that's not all that difficult: Alliance captain gets ONE coupon, to be used at his/her discretion, end of story. (Quals... big bag of worms, not going to go there, but sooner or later, someone will be complaining that they missed seeding #1 because of a call going against them and they'll demand instant replay for quals too.) But actually getting to recorded footage is going to need MORE equipment. You'll need a monitor. And a recording device (at FRC events, there isn't recording, just streaming, unless the streaming crew also records onsite). And a way to get the footage from "recording" to "reviewing" promptly. Did I mention money? How about the setup time to locate the action in question?
There have been some proposals for instant replay before--the big problems are that #1, the quality of the picture wouldn't have been very good; #2, getting what you want to look at in the picture; #3, the equipment isn't cheap so someone would need to pony up the money; #4, you can't solve more than 2 of the above easily. That being said, I would suspect that if someone (read: YOU) came up with a workable plan and pitched it to an offseason event, they'd at least be willing to listen, even if they didn't try it. And they'd probably go into why it wouldn't work.