Possible Implementation of Instant Replay

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Brandon Zalinsky

Also, can you elaborate on how the ability to record and replay the match would be nontrivial?

First off, you've got to remember that there are lots of people in the particular area suggested. If you're lucky, you only have the MC, Game Announcer, Head Ref, a couple other refs, FTA(s), and a couple human players, plus a couple of field resetters dashing in and out, not counting the cross-traffic of people with field access crossing through to talk to someone or get a drink, all within the view of a fisheye or similar lens. Lots of places for the view to be blocked. To avoid them, you've GOT to put the camera higher up. No way around it. (I'll ignore the ways of getting it up higher, as those are relatively simple to solve.)

Now that your camera is higher up, how are you going to do the following:
1) start recording?
2) stop recording?
3) get the recording down off of the camera to something that can view it at a decent resolution and isn't already being taken up for something critical?
4) view the recording?

I'd say that you can't use wireless connections, except possibly Bluetooth, or a remote for the camera. Too much risk of hacking or of field interference.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that you'd need a pretty high-resolution camera, which costs money?

One other thing--it will take more time than currently. I can sure think of a way to try to game the system... But to put it bluntly, currently one timeout card per alliance is given. Using this proposed system, an alliance could theoretically take two or more timeouts, one or more if they have a question and win, and one to fix a robot.


Now, I do have a working theory for how I'd run instant replay, and it's quite significantly different, both in terms of the number of cameras required, where they come from and are located, AND in how to call for a replay. I started a thread on the topic last year or the year before, where the theory was sort of hashed out. But, it hasn't been put into practice anywhere that I know about yet, so I'm reluctant to even suggest it to FIRST. (Any offseasons want to give it a try, drop me a line and I'll send the documentation your way.)