Archiving Recorded Regionals 2008

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

Just use a hardware h.264 encoder, like this:

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/main...oduct1.en.html

That little hardware encoder looks very nice, I may have to pick one up (if I can wrangle up the funds...). I'll also experiment a bit with just using quicktime Pro to record directly to the computer, see if I can get stable recording in .h64 at something like 640X480 and at least 1.5 mbps.

I think we should recommend people try and use .h264, but I don't think everyone will. Maybe we should just stay with the quicktime .mp4 format (which still looks great, and is less processor intensive)

[synth3tk]

That seems like a pretty cool device, but none of us are fotunate enough to own a MacBook. The price tag is fine for me. If there's some type of PC alternative please share it with us.

[Madison]

We will record both the Oregon Regional and the Microsoft/Seattle Regional.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by blakcheez

That seems like a pretty cool device, but none of us are fotunate enough to own a MacBook. The price tag is fine for me. If there's some type of PC alternative please share it with us.

I just linked to the Mac one, because most of elgato's hardware gets very good reviews.

There are also h.264 hardware encoders available for Windows. Here's one from Best Buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=10-64531371-2

[Kevin Kolodziej]

I'll cover WI again this year. I'll make sure to do some recording on Thursday to make sure the audio is correct this year, and let them know if they need to fix it for Friday/Saturday. I may not have the time to parse this year, but we'll cross that bridge after March 15th.

[Jonathan Norris]

Here is an updated list of volunteers, apparently I cannot edit the other one now.

Regional                                         Volunteer
Suffield Shakedown
Rochester Rally
Week 1
BAE Systems Granite State Regional 
Midwest Regional 
New Jersey Regional 
Oregon Regional                                 Madison Krass (M. Krass, team 488)
St. Louis Regional 
Week 2
Arizona Regional 
Finger Lakes Regional                           Ed Patterson (Koko Ed, team 191)
Greater Kansas City Regional
NASA / VCU Regional                             Anish (aksimhal, team 1123)
San Diego Regional                              AJ (ay2b, team 980)
Week 3
Boilermaker Regional                            Mike Aalderink (mike AA, team 2015)
Brazil Regional 
Chesapeake Regional 
Connecticut Regional 
Detroit Regional 
Florida Regional 
Peachtree Regional 
Pittsburgh Regional 
Silicon Valley Regional                         AJ (ay2b, team 980)
Wisconsin Regional                              Kevin Kolodziej  (team 1675)
Week 4
Buckeye Regional                                David Thomas (blakcheez, team 964)
Lone Star Regional                              Kevin Sevcik (team 57)
Los Angeles Regional                            AJ (ay2b, team 980)
Microsoft Seattle Regional                      Madison Krass (M. Krass, team 488)
Oklahoma City Regional 
UC Davis Sacramento Regional 
Waterloo Regional                               Jonathan Norris (team 610)
West Michigan Regional                          Mike Aalderink (mike AA, team 2015)
Israel Regional 
Week 5
Bayou Regional 
Boston Regional                                 Greg Marra (The Blue Alliance)
Colorado Regional 
Great Lakes Regional 
Greater Toronto Regional 
Hawaii Regional 
Las Vegas Regional 
Minnesota Regional 
Palmetto Regional 
Philadelphia Regional
SBPLI Long Island Regional 
New York City Regional

[aksimhal]

Hi!

I noticed that no one has volunteered to record the NASA VCU Regional in Richmond. And since VCU is the only regional 1123 goes to, I am willing to help with the recording process.

Just one small catch: I've never done anything like this before.
So, if anyone could just get me up to speed on what I would need (in terms of hardware/software) that would be great. (I am also willing to partner with some other team too, to make this possible.)

Thanks,

[Kevin Sevcik]

Since LSR is our local regional, I just been dragging a desktop with a Hauppage video in card up to the regional and recording everything on it in a high quality MPG. I might change things up a little this year, but it seems to work well if you can do it. Granted, it's my desktop computer so it precludes me from editing and posting the videos until after the regional, but it works.

I may be able to cover Arizona, since 57 is attending, but if there's a local team that's better able to manage it, that'd probably be smarter. If they can only manage recording, I'd be happy to grab a dump of the video from them on a firewire hard drive and edit and encode everything after the regional.

[synth3tk]

I can offer my services to edit/encode any videos a team sends to my FTP. Also, are most people just recording off of the main feed, or adding their own camera work into the mix?

[Greg Marra]

Blue Alliance Capability Low Down:
Some facts about The Blue Alliance's server:

• The Blue Alliance runs on a dedicated server generously donated by Host Rocket
• We have over 1 TB monthly bandwidth, and survived making the front page of Digg. I don't expect traffic volume to be a problem unless we see astronomically higher numbers than last year.
• We have a 120 GB disk, which is enough to hold about two years worth of full-quality video at once. We are investigating upgrading it, but we also plan to phase "older competition" video off of The Blue Alliance's archive and into archives on sites like firstvideoarchive.com so there will be redundent copies online.
• So far in January, we have served 23799 unique visitors, including 123813 views of our embeddable team badges.

The Blue Alliance system ought to have no problem with the quantity of video that needs to be hosted on it to add the 2008 Competition Season, nor should we run into bandwidth problems from serving it. We are running on a beefy box, and have systems that can handle the load we are expecting.

The Blue Alliance will be able to handle the load.

When competition season (and scrimmages!) rolls around, we will allow people with recorded match video to upload it to our site via FTP. We will then import the video into our database, and everything will be ready to rock.

The thing that took the most time last year was converting WMV files to FLV videos, since it required an intermediate step into an AVI, and converting out of WMV takes forever. I fully support a move to an mp4 video standard and it will greatly reduce the effort required to convert videos to be web viewable. In fact, h264 is embeddable by Flash 9 already. Theoretically the high-quality version of the video could be used.

I hope this has helped clear up The Blue Alliance's capabilities for the 2008 Season. If anyone has any other questions, feel free to PM me.

[edit]Hey look, my 1337th post[/edit]

[Greg Marra]

Also, The Blue Alliance will be recording and webcasting the Boston Regional.

I'm going to write up instructions on how to webcast a regional. I have a solution where literally anyone with a DV Camera, a laptop, and an Internet connection can do it. Hopefully we'll see more broadcast regionals this year than ever!

[wilsonmw04]

I've heard rumors that one of my kids has a device that can record directly to a DVD. We can then change that DVD to a format than can be used on the web. Let me double check before commiting. this is for the VCU event btw

[synth3tk]

Thanks for clearing that up, Greg! I can just use your server then, although I'll still keep a backup on our's. You can never have too many copies!

Also, is Buckeye the only regional that doesn't allow a supplied internet connection? I contacted our director about it for web-based scouting and she stated that FIRST doesn't allow internet at events. Do you all use Wireless Broadband? If so, what's your speed and how much does it cost?

[Thexder]

Team #1382 will record and upload Brazilian Regional too.

Will anybody record Israeli Regionals?

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

That little hardware encoder looks very nice, I may have to pick one up (if I can wrangle up the funds...). I'll also experiment a bit with just using quicktime Pro to record directly to the computer, see if I can get stable recording in .h64 at something like 640X480 and at least 1.5 mbps.

I think we should recommend people try and use .h264, but I don't think everyone will. Maybe we should just stay with the quicktime .mp4 format (which still looks great, and is less processor intensive)

Just to let you know that the turbo 264 is not a real time mpeg4 converter. The files need to be captured first, and then it can be converted. Also the encoding speed depends very much on what CPU you have.

I will be recording the BAE regional, but I don't know if I will have time to encode and parse it.