2008 Championships Webcast

[Graham Donaldson]

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!

[Alex Dinsmoor]

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

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Alex Dinsmoor

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

Monitors? I just can't find enough projectors.

[Alex Dinsmoor]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Monitors? I just can't find enough projectors.

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

[Protronie]

Will the Soap Gamebox be showing all four divisions?

[ManicMechanic]

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.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

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.

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.

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)!

[Alivia]

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... )

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

[Jonathan Norris]

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?

[mastermind12]

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?

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by mastermind12

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?

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.

[ManicMechanic]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

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)!

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.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

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.

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.

[Bongle]

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.

[Pat McCarthy]

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.