Archiving Recorded Regionals 2008

[sloteera]

Woooow

On behalf team #1860, I'll be so proud to recording Brazilian Regional!

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Eek. I disagree.

If the scores are displayed quickly this year, then that is great, but if its more than ten or fifteen seconds (sometimes it has been minutes in the past) then please cut it off.

The match results are published by FIRST and will be released alongside the video on The Blue Alliance. Cutting video sooner makes the video MUCH smaller and easier for people to download and watch.

Really, you should cut the match at some appropriate and intelligent end point. THEN slice out a one second clip of score being displayed. Mash'em together, convert, and everyone's happy. It's honestly not that difficult and makes everyone a lot happier. I'll grant you that it's a little more work this way, but if you wanted to be lazy and turn out a nearly useless mass of video archives, then you'd just record the webcast of the event and upload that to SOAP/TBA, right?

[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.

[Jonathan Norris]

hopefully this year the real time scoring will give a good idea of the score at the end of the match. The blue alliance has the scores right next to the matches anyway.

[Donut]

I have to confirm with our mentor who does it but I can pretty much guarantee 498 will be able to record Arizona again (I don't see it stopping, this system is down to a science now).

We always record our own footage of the matches though, so if we also want the "official" ones with the nice banners and whatnot, Kevin or someone else will need to record that as well.

[118 Tech]

Hey Guys,

I am an Alumni from 118 and would like to help with this. I now work for SnapStream Media, a PC-DVR software company and have alot of knowledge of recording to computers. Originally I was wanting to interface the SDK from our software with the field software and create an automated recording solution, but have not been able to find the time to work on that.

Our software uses Hardware MPEG Encoding cards such as the Hauppage HVR-1600, or software MPEG Encoding such as the ADS-Tech Mini HD USB Stick. Our software can Record Directly to MEPG or WMV and has the capabilities to transcode to H.264. I can help you guys put together systems that would record directly to the computer and skip using VCRs. Using the 21 day Trial Mode you can use the software for FREE during the competitions.

Also if someone would like to try to interface with the field using our SDK, let me know so I could help you out with that.

Kevin, I would like to help you out in Houston for LSR. I would like to try something using our stuff that could help teams get better access match videos onsite. Maybe something with our RSS feed generator to host an onsite podcast for match video.

Guys feel free to PM me or contact me at chris(AT)snapstream(dot)com to let me know how I can help.

Chris

[Thexder]

Team #1382 will record and upload Brazilian Regional too.

Will anybody record Israeli Regionals?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by 118 Tech

Hey Guys,

I am an Alumni from 118 and would like to help with this. I now work for SnapStream Media, a PC-DVR software company and have alot of knowledge of recording to computers. Originally I was wanting to interface the SDK from our software with the field software and create an automated recording solution, but have not been able to find the time to work on that.

Our software uses Hardware MPEG Encoding cards such as the Hauppage HVR-1600, or software MPEG Encoding such as the ADS-Tech Mini HD USB Stick. Our software can Record Directly to MEPG or WMV and has the capabilities to transcode to H.264. I can help you guys put together systems that would record directly to the computer and skip using VCRs. Using the 21 day Trial Mode you can use the software for FREE during the competitions.

Also if someone would like to try to interface with the field using our SDK, let me know so I could help you out with that.

Kevin, I would like to help you out in Houston for LSR. I would like to try something using our stuff that could help teams get better access match videos onsite. Maybe something with our RSS feed generator to host an onsite podcast for match video.

Guys feel free to PM me or contact me at chris(AT)snapstream(dot)com to let me know how I can help.

Chris

I think the key here would be hoping against hope that the Sundial folks have an inside track to interfacing their software package with the field control system. At that point, I think interfacing with your software would be relatively easy. In fact, at that point all sorts of interesting possibilities present themselves, like Sundial browsing past matches and having the video right there flash encoded for easy viewing. Having your software chop up matches into separate files will be rather useful, but it might still be a good idea to have the entire uncut video somewhere as well, as there are often important and/or funny events between matches.

[118 Tech]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I think the key here would be hoping against hope that the Sundial folks have an inside track to interfacing their software package with the field control system. At that point, I think interfacing with your software would be relatively easy. In fact, at that point all sorts of interesting possibilities present themselves, like Sundial browsing past matches and having the video right there flash encoded for easy viewing. Having your software chop up matches into separate files will be rather useful, but it might still be a good idea to have the entire uncut video somewhere as well, as there are often important and/or funny events between matches.

That is one of the cool things about our software, we have the ability to clip files while they are recording. The original file will stay in tact, but our software will generate separate MPEG clips from the original.

If we could hook into the Field or Sundial, when we get an update with scores we could submit a file to be clipped, tag the file with team and score data, transcode to H.264 and coppied to a webserver auto-magically.

The H.264 files could be streamed from a web-server using flash or just hosted.

[aksimhal]

Chris, what exactly are we supposed to download from the SnapStream site? (BTW, I was browsing the site, and it looks really cool). Also, what hardware would be needed?

Thanks,
Anish

[118 Tech]

To setup a digital recording setup, the what you need from our site is our software. Download Page We have a 21 day trial so you can use our software at the competitions during that trial period. Our software will work with most consumer TV capture cards. My recommendation for a capture cards is the Hauppauge HVR-1600, ~$90. Search google for "HVR-1600". It is a hardware MPEG encoding card. It is available from Amazon, Newegg and some other brick and mortar retailers like Best Buy and Frys.

With those two pieces you need a Windows PC and some hard drive space. With this rig, you will be able to record the competitions digitally then clip them with some third party software. I recommend either VideoReDo or Womble. These programs work best for clipping video generated by caputre cards.

If someone with programming experience is down for the challenge. I would like to see what we could put together using our software's SDK and the field controls. Again I don't have much time to spend working on this, but would be willing to help however as I can, anyone willing to try to do some automation with the field.

- Chris

[aksimhal]

Thanks, I don't have a TV capture card, but I'll ask around. How large do you expect the files to be? (like 1 GB for an hour?). Also, is there any free (open source) software available to clip files. I also thought that the SnapStream could clip video.

Another question, since the VCU regional is broadcasted on NASA TV, is this a way to bypass the TV capture card?

Thanks a million,
Anish

[Jonathan Norris]

Originally Posted by aksimhal

Thanks, I don't have a TV capture card, but I'll ask around. How large do you expect the files to be? (like 1 GB for an hour?). Also, is there any free (open source) software available to clip files. I also thought that the SnapStream could clip video.

Another question, since the VCU regional is broadcasted on NASA TV, is this a way to bypass the TV capture card?

Thanks a million,
Anish

Allright I was planning on doing this in one big post, but my advice (it was recomended to me last year) is to use the KWorld Xpert DVD Maker USB 2.0 Video Capture Device as a capture device. Its the cheapest USB capture device that I have found (if you do not already have video inputs on your computer). It takes video from the A/V component connection provided by FIRST and lets you record it directly to your computer. (I found a way to use this with a mac if anyone is interested, I used it with my PC last year but have recently upgraded to a mac)

For capturing it you can use any video capture program, quicktime pro does a great job of recording directly to .h264 at 640X480 (max resolution) at 1500 Kbps. Which looks great, and is probably higher bit rate then needed. I'll post more detail about how to use different capture programs, I am testing a bunch out trying to find one i really like.

[Jonathan Norris]

Chris I have been playing arround with your program and was wondering if there is anyway to record to mpg4 or .h264 with it?? Because i can only get it to record to DIVX, WMV, or mpg2.

[Jonathan Norris]

looks like my dreams of finding a direct to h264 recording software is crashing in my face, the best i can do is quicktime pro in 320X240 2400 kbps... I am really looking for something that will record in 640X480 at arround 1500kbps. If anyone knows of a software solution that will work let me know... right now it looks like I will be recording in a different format (maybe even wmv), and reencoding it all to h264 when i have it cut up. I am still hunting for a solution (mac or windows).