Thanks for the Webcasts!

[Chris Marra]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

Let me count the reasons:

1) limited internet access. We had one hard line (dial-up IIRC) and that was needed for the scoring system.

2) When NASA does a webcast they bring all the equipment AND personel needed. There is a dim possibility that the Regional Committee could find funding to rent the equipment, but we have nobody with the expertise to pull this off. I have a limited background in taping for later broadcast, and I'm the best we got. I would still need trained camera operators and to train somebody on the switcher so I could take a break when needed. Oh and I'll probably be doing other critical stuff, like making sure the field stays "up" or inspecting robots

Although your first reason obviously eliminates this possibility right away, I have to disagree on number 2. NASA themselves do not run the webcasts, all they do is provide the bandwidth for some of them. The majority of this years webcasts were run by SOAP, several by Wildstang, and a few by other teams, with both 111 and 230 I know providing their own bandwidth for the regionals they did. However, in terms of the personnel and equipment required, you are mistaken. Every regional (I think?) already has camera operators, video switchers, and a production crew that manage the feed for the main projector screen behind the field for spectators. With the exception of a few of the ones SOAP did, webcasts do nothing more than take a publically available drop of this feed, input it digitally into a laptop using either a camcorder or Firewire/USB converter, and upload a compressed stream to someone else's servers. All it requires is a computer, ~$50 video capture device, and usually can be run unattended. I believe SOAP also ships laptops completely configured along with instructions on how to get things properly set up, so aside from an internet connection, running webcasts is really a simple thing to do that any team who can bring a small amount of equipment could volunteer to do (as 230 and 177 have done [Wildstang has broadcast engineers on their team.])