I don't know that I 100% agree with video replay, but people are blowing the level of difficulty WAY out of proportion here. It's 2016, there are some very affordable & simple A/V setups that are possible now.
Here's what it would take to implement a basic level of high quality video review -
- 1 volunteer to man the webcast PC. I get that volunteers are scarce but that's a bad excuse to not do something that will improve events big time.
- 1 GoPro on a tall pole. The one we used at St. Louis
this past weekend used a $20 speaker stand, a 7-8 ft. tall PVC pipe, a GoPro and a cell phone charger with a USB cable to give the GoPro power all weekend.
- An HDMI input recorder like the
Elegato to allow for recording of the GoPro's view.
- Software to record the stream locally on the PC. We use XSplit because it's so easy to use, but there are other options too. Match files are saved automatically to the PC's hard drive and can be opened immediately after the match ends.
Here's what I envision the process looking like -
1. Each alliance gets one challenge flag during the elimination tournament. The challenge must be issued within 2 minutes of the match ending. Once the match has been challenged, the head referee must watch the match / incident in question.
2. Head referee coordinates with the webcast PC volunteer and pulls up the locally recorded file of the last match. This would literally take a minute to do.
3. Head referee watches the video and based on the evidence shown makes a call to replay the match or let the match stand. Similar to the NFL, the video would need to show overwhelming evidence that the match should be replayed i.e. no close calls.
My opinion - if we want FRC to be represented as a truly competitive sport then we need to present it as most sports are presented. One great example of this is how E-sports have exploded over the past few years. The coverage of online gaming tournaments is incredible and is a model FRC should look to follow. For roughly $1000 in equipment, every event could implement a basic level of coverage that would up the home viewing experience ten fold. There's no reason this same setup couldn't be used for a basic level of video replay. Will it be like the NFL? Of course not. But it has to be better than what we have today - which is nothing. FIRST could easily include the kit I described to travel with the fields from event to event and include a tip sheet on how to set it up. Anyone that can hook up their Xbox to their TV could handle setting it up.
Saying we can't do this because 'it's hard' and 'would take too much effort' is a total cop out. This is FIRST, we're supposed to be doing incredible stuff right? What happened to trying to make it loud - or is that not a thing anymore?