For those who don't know the history, the last couple years the folks at team 108 have donated a server to host FIRST match video that any one can access, called
SOAP. Much of that video is recorded by the team, and some of it is uploaded by others. In the past year the guys at
The Blue Alliance have built a great website taking all this recorded video and put it all into Flash video (like Youtube), and add match scoring information and tagging for teams. This lets you go through and search by team number and come up with a list of all the team's matches. It really is a great resource for scouting, and have made going through matches on SOAP's a lot easier.
So not to say that SOAP doesn't have its place, but I believe the system that The Blue Alliance guys have built for online video is very polished and easy to use. So my personal opinion for this next season of Regionals is to try and use The Blue Alliance as the central hub for match video (I know that I am making a lot of work for you guys, sry
). This is just my opinion, I'm sure I'll hear others with their own ideas about how to centralize match footage.
Youtube... last year we heard from Dean that he wants Youtube flooded with FIRST video, and for FIRST to grow in the media and on the internet this great resource needs to be used... properly. If you go on Youtube today you can find a large amount of FIRST video, however it is spread all over the place and does not do a good enough job at linking back to one another.
To get exposer on Youtube we need to make sure that every new video is properly tagged, title, and linked by channels and community groups. So I propose that we try and find a standard tagging and naming system, and create a large group and channel for all FIRST video. Hopefully we can find a 'standard' and spread the word to all FIRST teams to use this format so we can get better exposer!
Formating... I know in the past the standard video format for all matches has been Windows Media Video (.wmv), but let me try and make the case for MPG4 (.mp4). .wmv files for a long time were a popular standard video file, because basically every one had a PC and it was the best compression format. But these days of mass internet video .mp4 is clearly the new standard and the only .wmv video I have on my computer are old matches (most I have converted). Every type of mass portable media player supports the format (iPods, Zunes, Cell Phones ect.). Even HD DVD's, online movie rentals, ect. use a form of the MPG4 format. In the near future flash video will support MPG4 video (in the form of h.264), so the world is moving towards MPG4 as the standard video format. By using MPG4 as a standard for video it will make it a lot easier for people to put these great match videos where ever they want... on their computer, on their iPod, ect.