[TBA]: Comprehensive Video Archiving

[Greg Marra]

Hi all,

It's clear that this year The Blue Alliance has been unable to provide match archives for as many matches as we have in previous years. In particular, the dissolution of SOAP has removed much of the organizing drive behind video archiving at events. Perhaps less teams are recording events because they assume someone else will be and the matches will be available online, but if no one records anything, we can't offer them.

The Blue Alliance is weighing a number of options to improve the environment for next year. One possible course of action would be buying 12 Pinacle video recording units, and sending one along with each field. Swapping in and out 8gb thumbdrives would let each event be fully recorded for later processing, splitting, and uploading. This is obviously a somewhat expensive option, but we may be able to obtain sponsorship for this project, and part of the cost could be covered by the relatively moderate amount of advertising revenue we have made.

We would love to open the discussion for other ideas. Match videos are great for showing sponsors what their money enables, letting parents who couldn't come to events see what their children's long hours at the school were for, and relieving your most exciting matches. As a community, we can do a better job preserving these memories, let's just figure out how!

[Jonathan Norris]

I'll give my thoughts on this at a later date, but I would be willing to donate the Pinacle Video Recording unit that I have.

[Chris is me]

For what it's worth, I'm planning on buying a Pinnacle thingamabobber over the off season in time for IRI in order to record it hopefully. I mean, who else is going to do it?

I go to regionals that generally have people that record for TBA though. Silly Northeast...

[JackG]

This may be a crazy idea, but would there be some way to share advertising revenue with people/orginizations who record the videos? The monetary incentive might induce more people to help get you the videos. Also, it might save you from having to buy a bunch of units yourself. I suppose that means that TBA would have to have an income stream in first place, so it might not work out.

On a related note, I personally wouldn't mind seeing some banners or other ads on TBA if I knew it meant more money for you guys. Of course I'm using Firefox with Adblock so I don't see many ads in the first place. But Chief Delphi has a few banners, so I don't think more advertising on TBA would be a bad thing if it meant the financial flexibility to do more stuff.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by JackG

This may be a crazy idea, but would there be some way to share advertising revenue with people/orginizations who record the videos? The monetary incentive might induce more people to help get you the videos. Also, it might save you from having to buy a bunch of units yourself. I suppose that means that TBA would have to have an income stream in first place, so it might not work out.

On a related note, I personally wouldn't mind seeing some banners or other ads on TBA if I knew it meant more money for you guys. Of course I'm using Firefox with Adblock so I don't see many ads in the first place. But Chief Delphi has a few banners, so I don't think more advertising on TBA would be a bad thing if it meant the financial flexibility to do more stuff.

I know as a startup business, being able to do an event without compensation currently just isn't feasible. I would love to be able to webcast/record an event.

Maybe having a donation system were teams can donate to a fund that is used to help support whoever does an events video. Another idea is that a higher definition(higher than webcast quality) video DVD could be sold to support future event recordings.

[ATannahill]

Can CDVideo be cleaned up? There are videos in there that have been put to the site or are ready to be put up.

[coalhot]

Just wanted to chime in here. In Philly, Miss Daisy had a video stream using ustream.tv (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/philadelphiafirst). The video can be downloaded from the ustream site, so that may be a direction to look into.
If we could get every regional to stream matches, we could later go on and download the video and archive it.

Last year I got the Philly regional recorded using an Elgato Eyetv 250. It worked pretty well, I just need to find the time to split the video up.

just my $0.02

--Phil

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by coalhot

Just wanted to chime in here. In Philly, Miss Daisy had a video stream using ustream.tv (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/philadelphiafirst). The video can be downloaded from the ustream site, so that may be a direction to look into.
If we could get every regional to stream matches, we could later go on and download the video and archive it.

Last year I got the Philly regional recorded using an Elgato Eyetv 250. It worked pretty well, I just need to find the time to split the video up.

just my $0.02

--Phil

You can download from uStream O.o? Well, this means that splitting FiM matches is now doable. Code Red (2771) webcast every event using uStream. I'll have to check that out tonight.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by coalhot

Just wanted to chime in here. In Philly, Miss Daisy had a video stream using ustream.tv (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/philadelphiafirst). The video can be downloaded from the ustream site, so that may be a direction to look into.
If we could get every regional to stream matches, we could later go on and download the video and archive it.

Last year I got the Philly regional recorded using an Elgato Eyetv 250. It worked pretty well, I just need to find the time to split the video up.

just my $0.02

--Phil

This would be a suboptimal solution as the webcast feed is inferior to the actual video footage you can record field side.

[synth3tk]

I'd like to think that we can just by-pass the uStream solution, since we're talking about archiving here, not webcasting. It's way too low-quality for offline viewing, especially if you're trying to impress a sponsor, group of students, school board, parents, etc. Or just for looking back at matches for nostalgia/education-sake.

I think the Pinacles would be an ideal solution, since that would provide the same quality/format for each regional.

[Chris is me]

How cheap is a simple DV camera? Maybe instead of trying to hook into the video feed, which isn't always possible anymore, we could have someone set up a full-field tape?

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How cheap is a simple DV camera? Maybe instead of trying to hook into the video feed, which isn't always possible anymore, we could have someone set up a full-field tape?

If we coordinated with the Regional Planning Committees before events, it would be trivial to add an RCA cable splitter to their AV setup expressly for the purpose of archiving their event. Special permission would solve that problem, and get us the on screen scoring still.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How cheap is a simple DV camera? Maybe instead of trying to hook into the video feed, which isn't always possible anymore, we could have someone set up a full-field tape?

The problem is recording 20+ hours of video, not the DV camera (since one can generally be borrowed for the event, or purchased for well under $250). With my DV camera, that equates to 20 tapes...

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by JackG

On a related note, I personally wouldn't mind seeing some banners or other ads on TBA if I knew it meant more money for you guys. Of course I'm using Firefox with Adblock so I don't see many ads in the first place. But Chief Delphi has a few banners, so I don't think more advertising on TBA would be a bad thing if it meant the financial flexibility to do more stuff.

TBA has google text ads. Apparently, you're blocking them.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

TBA has google text ads. Apparently, you're blocking them.

Our ads are also pretty far down the page. We didn't want them to get in the way of any content. Since we have a donated server from HostRocket, we don't have very many ongoing costs, and mostly use the ad revenue to support new projects (like buying and mailing Pinacles) for the site.