Video Review Needs to Happen Now

[svpracer]

Being on drive team this year, the validity of this argument is quite clear... It's not a matter of if but when. We clearly crossed a defense 2 times but the refs didn't see it/ made it unclear if we crossed to we had to waste more time going back through it. This clearly could be solved if an "over head" camera was installed (use the top of either tower). But the case is when to use a video replay. I believe that if the refs themselves are unsure of a call or if a valid question is raised (post match, in the question area) that they can call a match under review and sort it out.

[mhaeberli]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

It's not video review, but big props to 4342 did something very similar in 2014 at Chestnut Hill.

(balance snipped out).
Very cool! Great GP! And great courage!

[Foster]

I have to say I like Ryan Dognaux's plan to pilot this at an off-season event. I like the challenge rules (one per team, etc) that were presented in another post. I'm looking forward to seeing a series of threads on "How we did replays at XYZ event."

I'm also behind adding extra scorekeepers to the field crews to help stop some of the pain for upcoming events. It's possible that an extra set of eyes would cut the pain points way down.

In the past I've run very large VEX events. In most cases there are 2 refs watching the action on the fields. (Running two divisions at a time) Once elims start the refs double up and they pretty much get told watch a single robot's action. With a person focused on a robot it's hard to miss things. For example in VEX, the dreaded "pinning" is easier to manage since there is two refs watching (the robot doing the pinning and the robot being pinned each have a ref watching the action). Again, only for the eliminations, not possible for all matches.

I'm in a wait and see mode, happy to let Ryan and others pilot this out. Alpha test for Stronghold, beta for next year, to see how it flies.

[patar8746]

Originally Posted by EricH

I might agree to the use of video replay, on one condition only.

But that one condition will, in all probability, ruin the entire concept for most of the proponents of using replay.

Ready?


You MUST use the video to prove that you LOST a match that you won, as well as the other way around. That is, if video you take shows that the other alliance should have won the match, and they did not, you need to provide that video to the referees and tell them that you should not have won the match.

Anybody got any objections? How about when it's F3 and you just won the regional by a dubious call that should have gone against you?

Thank you for posting this. I hadn't thought about this before and I fully agree. I think all steps possible should be taken to ensure fair play, and especially in the culture FIRST is trying to promote and is so important, if a team knows they lost and can prove it they should because it's the right thing to do, like using your timeout to give opponents more time to make repairs, or being honest in describing your abilities to teams looking to make picks.

That being said, I don't know how a rule mandating this would be enforced, or if it would need to be. To this point, I have seen so many examples of Gracious Professionalism in the way students handle competing. I've witnessed teams lend parts, timeouts, expertise, and even drivers to short-staffed teams, often contributing to losses. There's no way to determine whether or not a team has the necessary video, nor is there a way to confiscate a device or files so the refs could view them, but because of what FIRST is, I can't see a need for such a rule.

[Chris is me]

While games will never be free of tough calls, quite honestly a lot of the problems that call for video review shouldn't be problems in the first place. We need a game that is designed to minimize referee calls and not patched up with dozens of rules trying to legislate the ideal / intended way to play the game.

Specifically, games with scoring determined by humans watching for actions should have humans devoted solely to watching those actions. We didn't learn this lesson in 2014?

[dradel]

I still want to know how so many crossings are being missed. I saw 5 today alone while watching streams on and off of wpi and the Blacksburg event. Let alone the ones I saw from the Waterbury event last weekend.
I asked my drivers about and they told me that during the drivers meeting the refs said if they didn't see it then it didn't happen, and not to come to the question box about it.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dradel

I still want to know how so many crossings are being missed. I saw 5 today alone while watching streams on and off of wpi and the Blacksburg event. Let alone the ones I saw from the Waterbury event last weekend.

Something to think about:

If a referee isn't sure that a crossing happened, they will not count it. There's a blue box to that effect. What that means in some cases is that a team doesn't quite clear the ramps (thereby remaining in the defenses) and reverses back over. That's not a crossing. Might not be terribly obvious on the webcast that their bumper (or other appendage) is hanging over, but there's that possibility.

[dradel]

Originally Posted by EricH

Something to think about:

If a referee isn't sure that a crossing happened, they will not count it. There's a blue box to that effect. What that means in some cases is that a team doesn't quite clear the ramps (thereby remaining in the defenses) and reverses back over. That's not a crossing. Might not be terribly obvious on the webcast that their bumper (or other appendage) is hanging over, but there's that possibility.

Well when a team goes over one of the defenses and is 4' away from the driver station wall and doesn't get credit for crossing in auto that is a problem. Even if you didn't see them cross but as you look about the field and see 2 bots well past the outer works and don't push a button on the scoring screens that is an issue. I mean how did they end up there if they didn't cross??

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dradel

Well when a team goes over one of the defenses and is 4' away from the driver station wall and doesn't get credit for crossing in auto that is a problem. Even if you didn't see them cross but as you look about the field and see 2 bots well past the outer works and don't push a button on the scoring screens that is an issue. I mean how did they end up there if they didn't cross??

Then that is something to bring up to the head referee. Just tell him that you were clearly past the outer works in auto and got no credit. If the Head Referee isn't listening, the next person to talk to would be the Volunteer Coordinator or Regional Director--they'll back up the head referee in on-field calls, but if enough teams are saying something they'll probably have a chat. And it it's just that one ref isn't pressing their buttons, then the head ref can take measures...

[dradel]

Originally Posted by EricH

Then that is something to bring up to the head referee. Just tell him that you were clearly past the outer works in auto and got no credit. If the Head Referee isn't listening, the next person to talk to would be the Volunteer Coordinator or Regional Director--they'll back up the head referee in on-field calls, but if enough teams are saying something they'll probably have a chat. And it it's just that one ref isn't pressing their buttons, then the head ref can take measures...

Again when teams are told during driver meeting not to even come to the box for a missed cross it is kind of hard to expect these teenagers to push like that.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by dradel

Again when teams are told during driver meeting not to even come to the box for a missed cross it is kind of hard to expect these teenagers to push like that.

That's something to bring up with the RD/VC. I'd like to think that if a ref crew was missing crossings, they'd like to know that they need to keep a sharper eye out.

By the way, you weren't looking at any spy-bots by any chance, were you?

[bdaroz]

As a Rookie Mentor on a Rookie team I hesitate to wade into this, but I do have a question....

It seems clear between the 2015 and 2016 games the referees jobs have gotten clearly more difficult, mostly because of the number of things they must watch and keep track of now.

As to the question: Has the GDC increased the number of referees from 2015 to 2016 to handle this change?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by bdaroz

As a Rookie Mentor on a Rookie team I hesitate to wade into this, but I do have a question....

It seems clear between the 2015 and 2016 games the referees jobs have gotten clearly more difficult, mostly because of the number of things they must watch and keep track of now.

As to the question: Has the GDC increased the number of referees from 2015 to 2016 to handle this change?

I'll preface my response with: You should watch 2014. Referees everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when 2015 came out. I'd like to think 2012 and 2013 were somewhat easier than 2014 (didn't ref those two so I can't compare as well). 2016 is harder still due to sightlines.

But the answer to your question is both yes and no. Many events try to have one extra ref "on staff" so they can carry on with a full on-field crew if someone has to drop out, or more usually to give refs a break every so often. Some head refs would put that "extra" ref on-field for key matches like playoffs. That "extra" position is now an official one, and with a full crew can be manned and still have a ref taking a break.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I don't know that I 100% agree with video replay, but people are blowing the level of difficulty WAY out of proportion here. It's 2016, there are some very affordable & simple A/V setups that are possible now.

Here's what it would take to implement a basic level of high quality video review -

- 1 volunteer to man the webcast PC. I get that volunteers are scarce but that's a bad excuse to not do something that will improve events big time.
- 1 GoPro on a tall pole. The one we used at St. Louis this past weekend used a $20 speaker stand, a 7-8 ft. tall PVC pipe, a GoPro and a cell phone charger with a USB cable to give the GoPro power all weekend.
- An HDMI input recorder like the Elegato to allow for recording of the GoPro's view.
- Software to record the stream locally on the PC. We use XSplit because it's so easy to use, but there are other options too. Match files are saved automatically to the PC's hard drive and can be opened immediately after the match ends.

Here's what I envision the process looking like -

1. Each alliance gets one challenge flag during the elimination tournament. The challenge must be issued within 2 minutes of the match ending. Once the match has been challenged, the head referee must watch the match / incident in question.

2. Head referee coordinates with the webcast PC volunteer and pulls up the locally recorded file of the last match. This would literally take a minute to do.

3. Head referee watches the video and based on the evidence shown makes a call to replay the match or let the match stand. Similar to the NFL, the video would need to show overwhelming evidence that the match should be replayed i.e. no close calls.

My opinion - if we want FRC to be represented as a truly competitive sport then we need to present it as most sports are presented. One great example of this is how E-sports have exploded over the past few years. The coverage of online gaming tournaments is incredible and is a model FRC should look to follow. For roughly $1000 in equipment, every event could implement a basic level of coverage that would up the home viewing experience ten fold. There's no reason this same setup couldn't be used for a basic level of video replay. Will it be like the NFL? Of course not. But it has to be better than what we have today - which is nothing. FIRST could easily include the kit I described to travel with the fields from event to event and include a tip sheet on how to set it up. Anyone that can hook up their Xbox to their TV could handle setting it up.

Saying we can't do this because 'it's hard' and 'would take too much effort' is a total cop out. This is FIRST, we're supposed to be doing incredible stuff right? What happened to trying to make it loud - or is that not a thing anymore?

[patar8746]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

I don't know that I 100% agree with video replay, but people are blowing the level of difficulty WAY out of proportion here.

Here's what it would take to implement a basic level of high quality video review -

- 1 volunteer to man the webcast PC.
- 1 GoPro on a tall pole. The one we used at St. Louis this past weekend used a $20 speaker stand, a 7-8 ft. tall PVC pipe, a GoPro and a cell phone charger with a USB cable to give the GoPro power all weekend.
- An HDMI input recorder like the Elegato to allow for recording of the GoPro's view.
- Software to record the stream locally on the PC. We use XSplit because it's so easy to use, but there are other options too. Match files are saved automatically to the PC's hard drive and can be opened immediately after the match ends.

Here's what I envision the process looking like -

1. Each alliance gets one challenge flag during the elimination tournament. The challenge must be issued within 2 minutes of the match ending. Once the match has been challenged, the head referee must watch the match / incident in question.

2. Head referee coordinates with the webcast PC volunteer and pulls up the locally recorded file of the last match. This would literally take a minute to do.

3. Head referee watches the video and based on the evidence shown makes a call to replay the match or let the match stand. Similar to the NFL, the video would need to show overwhelming evidence that the match should be replayed i.e. no close calls.

My opinion - if we want FRC to be represented as a truly competitive sport then we need to present it as most sports are presented. One great example of this is how E-sports have exploded over the past few years. The coverage of online gaming tournaments is incredible and is a model FRC should look to follow. For roughly $1000 in equipment, every event could implement a basic level of coverage that would up the home viewing experience ten fold. There's no reason this same setup couldn't be used for a basic level of video replay. Will it be like the NFL? Of course not. But it has to be better than what we have today - which is nothing.

Exactly. Combined with the fact that almost every event is streaming and therefore already has at least one camera constantly recording matches, many more for tons of events. If these recordings could be saved we'd have far fewer issues.

Reading through some earlier replies in this thread, I'm shocked about how many missed defense crosses are being reported. My opinion stands that one incorrect match is too many, but since there have been so many more, we've got to implement a system for review, preferably before the end of this season. However, I definitely understand why FIRST would be against changing rules midseason, but FIRST should make a strong attempt at implementing a video system for the 2017 season.