Recording Official FIRST Footage

Dr Bot started a thread regarding webcasting regionals. I just want to tape the footage directly on VCR or DVD? What equipment do you need? And, what do you need to do?

I need to know how I'm supposed to setup a connection with the FIRST cameras at the regional. I'll be at the Pacific NW Regional, so if anyone wants to help us with it, look for team 948.

[Kevin Sevcik]

This is going to be a MUCH trickier issue. I'm not certain FIRST will want you just recording the footage for your own purposes. You'll need to get permission from the Regional Coordinator and probably from someone higher up in the FIRST hierarchy.

In order to do this, you'd just need your VCR, and then the A/V crew at the regional would hook it into their distribution system. I'm thinking this won't be allowed, because many, many teams would then want to do this, and the A/V crew can only handle so much work.

That being said, I can only suggest emailling around on the FIRST Contact list and maybe asking on the Q&A to see if you get an answer.

[Jessica Boucher]

Talk to the media coordinator as well as your regional director. When I worked at the Media Tent at Nats in 00 - 02, we were allowing a team-designated videographer/photographer to get in a special area near the field to tape for their matches only. I dont remember if the A/V hookups were there and allowed to be used by teams.

Good luck!

[dez250]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

This is going to be a MUCH trickier issue. I'm not certain FIRST will want you just recording the footage for your own purposes. You'll need to get permission from the Regional Coordinator and probably from someone higher up in the FIRST hierarchy.

In order to do this, you'd just need your VCR, and then the A/V crew at the regional would hook it into their distribution system. I'm thinking this won't be allowed, because many, many teams would then want to do this, and the A/V crew can only handle so much work.

That being said, I can only suggest emailling around on the FIRST Contact list and maybe asking on the Q&A to see if you get an answer.

When you are at your regional, i would suggest asking the pit administrator if they know if there are Breakout (Multi) Boxes for Audio/Video present. These are used for recording the event. Normally they have enough extra ports where a team may beable to connect a vcr to tape their match, but only their matches. If you plan to tape a match from FIRST equiptment, i would reccommend to bring your own vcr(s), connectors and cables and blank video tapes.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I stand corrected, it appears that there are setups to allow you to do this. I was just thinking from and AV standpoint. If all the teams recorded all the competition, you'd need a 30-50 output DA for all the teams, and that'd be a bit pricey and not something the AV people would be likely to have.

As far as an RCA splitter, I wouldn't reccomend doing that unless it's an absolute last ditch measure. Splitting the video signal like that will significantly degrade the signal quality for both teams. The same goes for looping through VCR outputs, just not as much. The signal quality will drop a little for each pass-through. You can get a cheap Distribution Amplifier from radio shack that will do a much better job of splitting the signal. Just check with the AV people before plugging it in, as you might cause a ground feedback loop and put a 60Hz hum in the audio and video for the entire event.

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

As far as an RCA splitter, I wouldn't reccomend doing that unless it's an absolute last ditch measure. Splitting the video signal like that will significantly degrade the signal quality for both teams. The same goes for looping through VCR outputs, just not as much. The signal quality will drop a little for each pass-through. You can get a cheap Distribution Amplifier from radio shack that will do a much better job of splitting the signal. Just check with the AV people before plugging it in, as you might cause a ground feedback loop and put a 60Hz hum in the audio and video for the entire event.

Actually it really doesn't. In UTC 2002 I remember there was a bunch of VCR's that were series attached to on another and there wasn't any signal degradation that I noticed on my tape. Unless of course there are cruddy wires that are present in the series of VCRs.
I have used a RCA splitter for a while now, (2+ years) and have not seen any degradation of either the audio or the video signal.

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by SilverStar

Dr Bot started a thread regarding webcasting regionals. I just want to tape the footage directly on VCR or DVD? What equipment do you need? And, what do you need to do?

I need to know how I'm supposed to setup a connection with the FIRST cameras at the regional. I'll be at the Pacific NW Regional, so if anyone wants to help us with it, look for team 948.

Just ask for the black box. The black box is a device where it converts HD (High Def) FIRST footage into SD (Standard Def). It is usually a table where you can plug in your VCR via RCA. You must supply your own VCR cables.
There is some limitations though
They usually only supply mono and not stereo sound.
They go the full 4:3 ratio and not just TV safe area (meaning that scoreboard will probably be cut off a little)

One thing though is to bring an RCA splitter, sometimes there are not enough jacks to hook up your VCR. And don't depend on just hooking into someone else VCR's output, they might take it out earlier than you want it.

Regarding the last post, there is no issue that I know of permission to use the official feed. FIRST gives you the tools to do so, and they never specified any restrictions on it.

[IMDWalrus]

I'm confused...the impression that I got from the original post was that he (she?) wanted to record the streaming footage from their PC to a tape or a DVD. All of the replies thus far have been how to get the footage at the regional BEFORE it's sent out via the Internet.

Which is it?

No, I want to directly get footage from FIRST at the event itself. Not through the internet.

[Kevin Sevcik]

RCA splitters do degrade the signal. They attenuate the signal by around 4dB for every split, and you can only do that so many times before the low signal makes the video look bad. I'd think the video would look dimmer and noisier after just two splits.

As for stringing VCRs in series, well I can only speak from technical knowledge/assumption there. I'm pretty sure the passthrough circuity isn't perfect in any VCR, since they're not terribly expensive. So if you string 10 or 20 of them together, I don't think the last one will look quite the same as the first.

[MattK]

If you want to get high-end equipment I would suggest asking your local Public Access TV station. I know that we have a few $10,000 cameras and about 5 Cannon GL2 (a near broadcast quality camera)