Streaming Regionals 2008

[Joohoo]

So i know there are some people trying to get their regionals webcasted but does anyone know which ones nasa will be streaming? will they be doing it at all?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Joohoo

So i know there are some people trying to get their regionals webcasted but does anyone know which ones nasa will be streaming? will they be doing it at all?

I'm wondering the same thing. The NASA site for the webcasts says nothing about 2008.

[Dave Flowerday]

Wildstang plans on webcasting the Midwest Regional again this year. Information about it will be available at www.midwestfirst.org during the event.

[Vikesrock]

2175 is investigating webcasting the MN Regional. I'll post back here when we figure out if we will be able to or not.

[Greg Marra]

The Blue Alliance will be webcasting Boston through ustream.tv. We're investigating how to spruce up the stream with overlaid images and other things. If anyone knows how to do this sort of live video mixing (especially if I can do it in software on my computer) please let me know!

[Ricky Q.]

The Wisconsin Regional will be streamed in one fashion or another, stay tuned.

[Scott L.]

I have experience web casting and will try and answer questions you may have.

There is a demo titler available for windows media encoder, not sure what its called. I used a Tricaster pro for the web cast i did. It does a great job and has many features, but is very expensive (~$9000), I borrowed it from a local college for the event I did. I used mostly my own equipment for the event except for the tricaster, audio mixer, cameras, and wireless microphone.

[ShaneP]

Originally Posted by Joohoo

So i know there are some people trying to get their regionals webcasted but does anyone know which ones nasa will be streaming? will they be doing it at all?

Originally Posted by EricH

I'm wondering the same thing. The NASA site for the webcasts says nothing about 2008.

It looks like this will be the page containing NASA's 2008 streams:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2008_frcwebcasts.php

[stevek]

Im sure NASA will update their page as we get closer. The previous link looks like they are starting the prep for that info (so far the only active links for the regionals are going to my teams home page)

If you want to webcast. You can simply run windows media encoder but you need a capture card that can take in a signal from the Video Crew.

If you can/want to do this at your regional, I suggest you contact the regional coordinators and see if they have the capacity and if they will allow you to help.

We started about 7-8 years ago with the UTC/Suffied Scrimmage- it took us another year to get past Firewall Issues with the school we were in. (First Year we ended up only streaming to the pits becuase of network issues)

Most Network People wont be able to help you because they typically arent experienced with the full protical.firewall issues- so we resolved to Pushing a Stream to a server instead of Pulling it from the Encoder. This has some limitations (like not being able to send to multiple locations) but will bypass 99% of the firewall issues. After two good years at the scrimage we approached the Regional Contacts and have done that for thet past 4or5 years (but I digress) The point- it helps to have experience under your belt before trying a large event. Id been doing it for a while before even the Scrimage so I could do the trouble shooting needed to make it all work.

If you get past step 1 and the commitee says YES. then you need to determine the video signal you need to take in (composite/S-video/dv/etc.) based on your computer capture device. Then confirm you can get that signal from the Video Crew, if not see if there is a convertor you can run it through. Other wise I recomend seeing if there is a USB capture card that takes in the signal type they have. WinTV cards are a good standby and are pretty cheap.

Then you need a server to go to. I am not sure what UStream.tv has for resources or requirements/limitations. But that may be your best server option if you dont have access to other servers.

Lastly post links on this site, and try to contact NASA (via robotics page) and see if they can post it for you. They are busy so plan ahead (for their sake and yours-- as you see they already have our links up there!) You can ask the regional coordinator to ask FIRST to post it on the Regional page as well.

Re: NASA TV. They typically find one event a week that they can broadcast. I dont know if they just give sattellite time or if they handle the entire uplink. But I would tell you to look there (NASA TV) on saturday of each regional event week (and the Chanpionships). If you have DishNetworks look for Educational Files on the program guide. That is normally the heading (but they use it for many other shows so dont think its only FIRST when you see that listing).

Hope this helps some.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by ShaneP

It looks like this will be the page containing NASA's 2008 streams:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2008_frcwebcasts.php

There's a partial list.

[Joohoo]

Originally Posted by ShaneP

It looks like this will be the page containing NASA's 2008 streams:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/2008_frcwebcasts.php

aha! thanks, I remember seeing that page a couple days ago looks like they just updated it with all the intended webcasts that they will host.

[Greg Marra]

I put together this graphic explaining how The Blue Alliance plans to webcast the Boston Regional. Hopefully others can find it of use.

[Jonathan Norris]

The Waterloo Regional will be webcasted on Friday and Saturday using Ustream.tv, http://ustream.tv/channel/2008-waterloo-regional