2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by JimInNJ

I couldn't agree more that FIRST streaming has been spotty at best. I'm curious about where you get a clean outbound path at all of these different venues? Do you contract with a local carrier for temporary bandwidth, or do all of your venues have sufficient bandwidth available to provision your outbound stream in addition to all of the normal traffic?

Professional curiosity requires me to ask about your hardware setup. Do you stream HD or standard Def? How many cameras, lockoff, tripod or handheld? Do you take the interface from the scoring system? How big does your car/truck need to be to haul all of this gear around? What switch/SEG? Do you carry lighting as well? Sorry for all the questions, I'm preparing for a local group request that goes " Hey, you do video stuff at work, what can you do for us???"

Kevin may not make it back for awhile so I'll answer the questions that I can.

The stream is HD.
I believe we have 3 Cameras though sometimes some of the students supplement that with their own gear. Typically 2 are on tripods and one is available for handheld use.

Yes they connect to the FMS to get the score overlays.

We haul it around in a 53' trailer, but the bulk of the video equipment is in a road case aprox 2'w x 6'l x 5'h, there is a second one of the same size that is for the Audio equipment. Projectors fit in another case that has space and the screens ride on top of the Video and Audio cases. We also have a 2'w x 8'l x 3'h road case that holds the tripods for the speakers and projectors. I know that the IN district has a similar set up and I believe they haul it around in cars since the AndyMark truck that is used to haul the fields does not have room to add another road case.

No additional lighting is used.

Kevin does have a list with all of the equipment that is used which he is supposed to dig up and forward to me for the areas that are joining, or thinking about joining, the district system for the 2016 or 2017 season. When I get that I can post it.