2005 NASA Regional Broadcasts? Are there any?

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by miketwalker

VCUs webcast keeps booting me every like 3 or 4 minutes. At the high school I got 150kbps, but now it keeps giving me 50kbps or 20kbps, it's terrible quality. Weird.

Same thing is happening to me at my house. I have DSL. It has kind of been going for a while now though.

[Dorienne]

Now it's getting to be very blurry. Quite funky how it looks now. Seems like someone put a film over it and now it's all blurred. Yikes.

[Madison]

Jeff -- you should make them move the camera slightly to the left or right of center. I'm having a lot of trouble discerning among the goals in the center row, particularly those in the center and far from the camera.

Otherwise, while I realize this is practice, it's not too exciting to watch.

[BoyWithCape195]

Im not seeing moving video.......just audio....when the video shows up it shows one frame and thats it.

[Kyle Love]

Originally Posted by BoyWithCape195

Im not seeing moving video.......just audio....when the video shows up it shows one frame and thats it.

Same here....I waited all day for this? Well I bet it will have video with it tomorrow and maybe actual crowd/robot noise instead of just music and the announcer.

[Jeff]

FIRST Fans,

We will be webcasting the NASA/VCU event from Richmond on Friday and Saturday. The link is available at:

http://virginiafirst.org/webcast.shtml

Links to all NASA webcasts should be available soon (not yet) from:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/events/webcasts.htm

There are two of us from NASA working the VA event, myself and John Evans. The wecast was up today for practice and we expect that it will be failry stable over the next two days, but of course this depends on network traffic on our end, and the local network traffic in the region of any individual viewer. If all you care about is whether or not there will be a webcast so you can get your first week FIRST fix, you can stop reading now.

If you want a little more behind the scenes info about these webcasts, read on.

(1) We encode the audio/video locally, and this encoded stream is sent to servers at NASA KSC in Florida, so thanks to our buddies in sunny Florida for supporting these webcasts! (They have also handled the Championship webcasts for the past few years). If you view the webcast, you will be accessing the stream provided by NASA KSC, fed to them from Virginia.

(2) We have a test camera that we use for setting up the webcast, which is the video feed that is usually seen on at least part of the practice day. Once things are up an running and we have coordinated with FIRST, we switch to the FIRST production feed for both audio and video. When we make this switch on the practice day, you see the fixed, full-field view.

(3) On Friday and Saturday when the actual competition is in progress, the FRIST production usually consists of a mix of the wider field view, and close-ups provided by a roving camera operator. This is the feed that we will be encoding.

(4) Periodically, we will "reset" the webcast. Since we are archiving the stream locally at the same time that it is sent to the KSC servers, the encoder works best if we save this local file every couple of hours, instead of letting it grow to be a single, large file. We try to time these resets at logical breaks (lunch, field repair breaks, etc). There are many reasons that could cause your connection to drop including technical problems on our end, network issues anywhere in the path between us and you, or one of these periodic resets. The best advice is for you to try and reconnect after 2-3 minutes if you lose your connection.

(5) If you notice that your connection has gotten "fuzzy" after being connected for a while, you may want to stop your connection and reconnect. One behavior that we have noticed is that Real Player will connect at a fairly high bit rate and over time if there is any network congestion, it will negotiate down to a lower bit rate. When the network congestion clears up, Real Player may not renegotiate back "up" to a higher bit rate. So if your video stream is not as good as it used to be, reconnecting may make things better.

(6) There will likely be other webcasts this season, many provided by NASA. The NASA people supporting them often have multiple responsibilities at the events beyond the webcasts. They lug their AV and networking equipment to the events and do their best to provide the webcast because they realize how valuable it is to the FIRST community all across the country. As the season goes on, and you experience "imperfect" webcasts, feel free to provide your feedback (so improvements can be made) but remember that the people working the webcasts love FIRST as much as you do, and are probably working very hard to make things "right".

(7) While we can't guarantee it, here in Virginia, we will try to periodically monitor the CD forums to check out your feedback on the webcast.

Have a great FIRST season . . . we're all looking forward to seeing your inventions spring to life on the first day of competition tomorrow!

-- Jeff --

[Rombus]

Thanks Jeff and John! You guys are making the long wait untill cleveland a bit more bearable for me! Keep up the great work!

[thoughtful]

Jeff and Jhon you guys are doing a great job, and all of us appreciate it. We can only imagine how hectic it is for you guys to navigate your way through all the technical limitations and problems. But we know you would not let us down . Best of luck, and every time we watch those streams we will be praying for your health

[melitami]

Yay for Jeff and John, two very hard working, great NASA guys!

I miss being down there with y'all this year!

[dlavery]

All-

Here is the schedule we have developed so far:

NASA TV will provide broadcast coverage of the Saturday activities at these events: Peachtree Regional, Chesapeake Regional, Las Vegas Regional, and the Atlanta Championships. Coverage of the Friday activities for each event are being investigated, but are not guaranteed at this point (contention for satellite time is an issue right now).

NASA will be providing webcast support for the Friday and Saturday activiteis at these events: VCU/Richmond Regional, St Louis Regional, Silicon Balley Regional, Central Floida Regional. Exact webcast URL's will be provided as they are confirmed.

Please check the NASA Robotics Education Project - Regional Webcasts Page for additional information and updates.

-dave

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by dlavery

All-

Here is the schedule we have developed so far:

NASA TV will provide broadcast coverage of the Saturday activities at these events: Peachtree Regional, Chesapeake Regional, Las Vegas Regional, and the Atlanta Championships. Coverage of the Friday activities for each event are being investigated, but are not guaranteed at this point (contention for satellite time is an issue right now).

NASA will be providing webcast support for the Friday and Saturday activiteis at these events: VCU/Richmond Regional, St Louis Regional, Silicon Balley Regional, Central Floida Regional. Exact webcast URL's will be provided as they are confirmed.

Please check the NASA Robotics Education Project - Regional Webcasts Page for additional information and updates.

-dave

Thanks dave, now we know what to look forward to.

-Mike

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Jeff

FIRST Fans,

We will be webcasting the NASA/VCU event from Richmond on Friday and Saturday.

(7) While we can't guarantee it, here in Virginia, we will try to periodically monitor the CD forums to check out your feedback on the webcast.

Have a great FIRST season . . . we're all looking forward to seeing your inventions spring to life on the first day of competition tomorrow!

-- Jeff --

The Video seems to be delayed quite a long time behind the audio. Just a note.

[Collmandoman]

yeah by about 2 minutes

[russell]

I am not getting any video at all... This is the second computer I tried it on too

[Collmandoman]

youi have to wait 2 minutes for it to show~