The Future of FIRST Competition Video Streaming

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by coalhot

I doubt the stream quality has to do with the service you're using. I've watched plenty of Starcraft 2 tournaments on Twitch at full HD. I have a feeling it's just that the Canadian webcasters have better hardware and better internet connections at the events.

The Canadian webcasters (WatchFIRSTNow, @bochek on here), have some seriously nice hardware. They also have a Premium UStream account paid for by FIRST Robotics Canada. That's why none of the Canadian Regionals had ads on their webcasts at all.

At the events? I can tell you for sure at ONTO (Oshawa) that they were using the University's network, which runs at about 35Mbps up/down. They were streaming 720p.

ONTO2 is the worst of the bunch. For some reason, they've had real trouble getting a functional internet connection at the Hershey Centre for years.

[synth3tk]

I don't feel like cherry-picking quotes, but there are some good points in this thread.

The quality of the stream is up to the person/organization doing the streaming. I've seen some amazing Twitch streams, and I've seen some low-quality ones that makes you constantly check if it's really set to 720p+.

Keep in mind that while the music at events are licensed for playing in the arena, they probably don't have a license for streaming said music. YouTube is notorious for taking down videos in a heartbeat over the slightest hint of copyrighted material. That's going to pose major problems if FIRST events want to use their service. The hassle required just to prove to YT that you do have permission to stream music (if you actually do) is not worth it, IMHO. I personally recommend staying away from it unless your channel somehow gets the all-clear for all the necessary music licenses.

I think the future of FIRST streaming lies not in the platform, but the hardware and connection. That's probably our #1 issue right now. Most streams are still displaying at 4:3 480p 500kbps. It's 2013. No matter how amazing an event may be, if I can't make out which robots are doing what on the field, then we've got work to do.

I know most venues may not be able to easily upgrade their lines, but that's really the only option in terms of internet. Hotspots are hit-or-miss. The speeds may be mediocre, the coverage spotty, you may have a bandwidth cap, etc.

We also need better cameras and hardware. Having a static field cam on top of a driver station is OK, but not when it's the only view available.

Audio levels need to be managed/normalized. Nothing more jarring than hearing an announcer announcing at a somewhat low level, and then BUUUZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!! right in your headphones.

Before we look to adding yet another platform to segregate the community, we need to improve the quality going to the servers.