Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by commentingonly

snip

While I agree with some of your points, I majorly disagree with some.

First of all with time. You seem to assume every single match will get replayed and frankly for lack of better words that's stupid.
Video replay will probably be used as much as the question box. A box used what? Probably less then 15 times per regional with at least half just being simple questions. Even if we ridiculously assume that every match is replayed in its entirety then lets go to your rebuttal about watching while set up is happening for the next match. You mentioned the match could not be pre started without the score being in and you are correct RIGHT NOW. If FIRST does implement video review I am sure they will make a few tweaks in FMS code and make it so the match can be pre started while video review was happening.

Now for cameras. I think video review could fix 99% of calls with 3 wide angle action cameras(gopros) costing around $900. You also mentioned a tricaster. While I love tricasters it is not needed. Something like a Blackmagic Atem would entirely suffice and you can get a nice one for $1,500. After that, there would need to be a streaming computer which Ill say costs $500 and then another $100 for cables. In the end that is about $3,000 per setup. So to outfit all 20 fields we are talking about $60,000. Now that may seem like a huge number but when you realize that its only 12 teams initial registrations it seems much smaller. Not to mention that setup can FINALLY make it so FIRST can standardize livestreams. Volunteer role is simple Livestream role. Almost all FIRST events already have livestreams and there is someone volunteering already unofficially to run it... many times without even being recognized as a real volunteer.

Now your point about equipment breaking I somewhat understand although your main center camera should be able to see 90% of what is going on, on the field. Not to mention this year is a major outlier. Any other year a single wide angle camera could catch 99.999% of calls.

I like you have done a ton of roles at an FRC competition. This year I have done field reset, been the scorekeeper, reffed, and run regional livestreams. I know video review can happen and I really really hope FIRST wakes up and it makes it happen.