Paying to have your event webcast

[Scott L.]

Would you pay to have your event webcast, and if so how much?

[Andy L]

I'm pretty sure there is enough people in FIRST who are experienced in webcasting that would gladly webcast an event at no cost.

[Scott L.]

Payment would be for associated travel expenses and equipment rentals. If every team at an event was to give a few dollars to have the event webcast, what would you see as a reasonable amount? Would you be more likely to pay to see a particular off season event webcast, with ranking, match results, live chat?

[GaryVoshol]

Those not at the event would might be more interested in a webcast.

[Scott L.]

what system would you use to collect money doing a webcast? Would asking for donations be ok? Like if $X was need to do the webcast, and less than $X was sonated, what would be the coarse of action?

[RyanCahoon]

Maybe do it for free but record the video, then clean it up afterward and sell DVDs. Many teams bring their own video recorders and capture the event either off of the FIRST video stream or from handheld camera, but I bet many teams, especially rookies (like us our rookie year) don't and wish afterward that hey had. That's where you come in. $5-$8 a DVD might actually end up being fairly profitable, once you factor in all the grandparents

--Ryan

[Stuart]

depends on the quality. if it included drive team interviews, highlights, team spotlights, and play by plays I might consider donating. If it cuts off the last 2 matches of the finals and who won EI or Chairmans ( like the past 3 NASA broadcasts of the championship) than nothing.

[JesseK]

I'm pretty sure we would pay for a DVD of the full event as an archive, so that counts as paying for the webcast -- nothing huge, probably $10 per DVD.

Video is HUGE when finding the right thing to send to a sponsor. Getting that clip of you doing something crazy, lucky, or downright outrageously funny is exactly what should go at the end of a sponsor video.

[Scott L.]

DVD and match archives would be made. If I was doing the webcast I would do my best to not cut out any of the matches, or awards. We currently don't have the man power to do drive team interviews, but will consider this. As for the play by play, we have left this up to the announcer/MC at the event, if they are dong a play-by-play than it will be webcast/recorded.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Stuart

If it cuts off the last 2 matches of the finals and who won EI or Chairmans ( like the past 3 NASA broadcasts of the championship) than nothing.

This has nothing to do with NASA. FIRST continually refuses to revise their schedule of the event. They always say it will end by a certain time, and like clockwork every single year it always goes an extra hour or two.

If FIRST extended the schedule then NASA could block off more time on NASA TV...

[Stuart]

I guess the bottom line is that if you offer an extra value for your product . I would pay for it, if not then no. Personally Team interviews/Bios would really be a big buying point for me. Ive always wanted to know why people did what they did and why. But if you dont have the man power for that, ask your self what can I do that isnt being added. Again add value.

as far as the NASA TV thing I never assigned blame just that the problem exists( and the fact that this has gone on for so many years is really a failure on both ends FIRST not stating the times and NASA for not getting that that time is not correct)

[Pat McCarthy]

Last year we had the West Michigan Regional webcast using a professional video distribution service. From what I heard, it wasn't cheap, I think in the neighborhood of a few thousand bucks. That way we were assured a high quality stream.
If it had been my wallet, I'd hook a computer up to the video drop and ustream it or something free. Though, you won't get the quality and reliability for free.

[Scott L.]

I did a rough calculation for a 1000 mile round trip for a 3 day event and came up with roughly $1000.

A sigle day event would cost less

[AV_guy007]

As someone who has pushed webcasts up to NASA's servers its not the setup at the event that is very costly complicated. You need to consider what is serving the content. Do you have a powerful enough server with a fast enough connection? If not make sure to consider the costs of that.

Personally I would not pay for webcasting. I think a better idea would be to talk to people in the community who will be at events and get a network of people that can push a stream to your server, and share the content that way. there is no reason to pay for a crew to travel when there are already people there. Also don't forget you need a good internet connection at the venue which usually means talking to the event planners far in advance.

[Scott L.]

Originally Posted by AV_guy007

As someone who has pushed webcasts up to NASA's servers its not the setup at the event that is very costly complicated. You need to consider what is serving the content. Do you have a powerful enough server with a fast enough connection? If not make sure to consider the costs of that..

Personally I would not pay for webcasting. I think a better idea would be to talk to people in the community who will be at events and get a network of people that can push a stream to your server, and share the content that way. there is no reason to pay for a crew to travel when there are already people there. Also don't forget you need a good Internet connection at the venue which usually means talking to the event planners far in advance.

we currently can't afford a faster Internet connection(DSL currently), but we are looking into faster options such as a T-1(~$350/month) If we could afford this every month it would allow us more freedom in what events we would be able to webcast, but this wouldn't guarantee that we would be able to archive 100% of the event and produce complete event DVDs, as we would be at the mercy of the person sending us the feed.
But this option would allow us to charge a lower rate to host the webcast.