Archiving Recorded Regionals 2008

[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).

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by 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).

http://www.dspr.com/www/products/vid...ci_encoder.htm

This is a hardware solution that claims from what i read to do real time encoding. not a solution for a laptop, but would fit in a desktop or rackmount case, could be controlled using a laptop setting on top of it (start the capture through remote desktop than unhook the laptop till the end when you reconnect it to stop the capture.

[118 Tech]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

http://www.dspr.com/www/products/vid...ci_encoder.htm

This is a hardware solution that claims from what i read to do real time encoding. not a solution for a laptop, but would fit in a desktop or rackmount case, could be controlled using a laptop setting on top of it (start the capture through remote desktop than unhook the laptop till the end when you reconnect it to stop the capture.

Well its in the horizon, but its not there yet.
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080110006038&newsLan g=en
Probably next year, but this product is not going to release anytime soon.

During the competition you could record using our recording software. While the competition is recording use VideoReDo to clip matches out of the original video, even while the DVR is recording to that file. Transcode to H.264 with our software to an equal quality as the original at 1x speeds, or lesser quality at >1x speeds.

If you clip the matches right after one has completed, your delay would be about 3-5 minutes.

[Jonathan Norris]

Here is the updated list: We have 21 Regionals covered! half way there!

Regional                                         Volunteer
Suffield Shakedown
Rochester Rally                                 Ed Patterson (Koko Ed, team 191)
Week 1
BAE Systems Granite State Regional              Kyle Fenton (team 121) *may need parser
Midwest Regional 
New Jersey Regional                             SOAP (team 108)
Oregon Regional                                 Madison Krass (M. Krass, team 488)
St. Louis Regional 
Week 2
Arizona Regional                                Andrew (Donut, team 498)
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                                 sloteera (team 1860), Bruno (Thexder, team 1382)
Chesapeake Regional 
Connecticut Regional 
Detroit Regional 
Florida Regional                                SOAP (team 108)
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 
Championship                                    SOAP (team 108)

[aksimhal]

So, just as a recap, I need to bring:

• Laptop (I've got a PC. What are the minimum specs needed?)
• A TV capture card. (Is there a cheap one, and what exactly is it and what does is do?)
• Some Software. I think SnapStream is all I need.

If there is anything else I need to bring/download, please let me know.

Thanks,
Anish

[Jonathan Norris]

Allright sorry for not getting this out earlier (work seems to pile up when you are not keeping up with it....), but here are my recommendations for recording a regional, parsing, and encoding.

Recording and Importing
There are two main ways or recording the footage from the FIRST feeds, you can either connect your computer directly to the feed using a video capture card, or you can record to a DVD recorder. The DVD recorder will add the extra time of importing it to the computer, but for many this is an easier solution.

To record with a computer you are going to need some sort of video capture card (if your computer doesn't already have video inputs). If you need to add a video capture card I recommend picking up KWorld Xpert DVD Maker USB 2.0 Video Capture Device, its cheep and gets the job done I used it successfully last year to record two regionals. The quality is not as good as a on board video capture card would be. Next you need to record the video to a hard drive, you can use anything you want to record the video but the easiest solution is just using windows movie maker and record right to .wmv. Last year using the recording settings at 640X480 (VGA) at 2mb/s my total file size for all the raw video at GTR was about 15 GB. This is much more managable then most recording software that only records at the highest setting which will be more then 100mb per minute... (if you got a terabyte drive go ahead...)

Recording to a DVD recorder is simple plop a DVD in and set it to record, just make sure you change the DVD when it is full... probably every 4 hrs or so depending on what settings you use on the recorder. Importing from a DVD recorder i would recomend you use a DVD ripping software to rip directly to .h264, my favorite is handbreak works on both windows and mac.

Parsing and Finnishing
Feel free to use what ever video editing software you are most comfortable with, windows movie maker is built into all XP installs and works pritty well. If you allready have all the footage recorded in .h264 you can just use one of the simple video cutting tools seeing that you don't need to rencode the video at all.

finnaly if you don't have it in .h264 format yet this is where you take all the cut up matches and rencode them to .h264 ipod format. The easiest ways to do this is using a program like videora on windows or visualhub on mac. in vidora use the settings

VIDEO Quality Standards
I think we all agreed earlier in this thread that it is time to move to .h264 or atleast mpg4. So these are the video quality settings that i am proposing:

Format: .mov (.h264 or MPG4)
Resoultion: 640X480 VGA
Video Bit Rate: 1024kbps
Audio Bit Rate: 128kbps Stereo

This will produce match files arround 20-25mb, similar size to the old .wmv files.

in Videora there is a setting called "H.264 VGA 1024kbps Stereo/128kbps" just use that.

in VisualHub use iTunes-All Devices-Standard Quality-H.264 encoding

[aksimhal]

How do you get into the video stream at the regionals? Do you need to ask FIRST's permission?

Thanks,

[Kyle Fenton]

Originally Posted by aksimhal

How do you get into the video stream at the regionals? Do you need to ask FIRST's permission?

Thanks,

There is a black box, usually near the pit administration table where you can plug into. Except for the championship, you have to provide your own cables.

[aksimhal]

Originally Posted by Kyle Fenton

There is a black box, usually near the pit administration table where you can plug into. Except for the championship, you have to provide your own cables.

So, do you have to reserve the space or do they have enough cables?

Thanks,