Does anyone have any knowledge of the equipment Code Red Robotics (team 2771) uses for the Michigan webcasts? Our team, the Discobots, helps out with many of the Texas VEX and FRC tournament live streams. We are trying to improve the efficiency of our workflow. I have heard of a “Code Red Box” that is supposedly what is used for their webcasts. Anyone know the details? Any other ideas of a better webcast solution?
For the Hatboro-Horsham district event,we use a Tricaster. Many events cannot afford to do this since it is so expensive, but our school owns one. We are fortunate enough to have our school district have their tv production staff produce our stream. Our local community collage is the one to provide them some server space to broadcast off of. If you have any additional questions feel free to email me.
Tricaster is definitely the way to go. This allows you to save a video stream, on the tricaster, while also allowing you to output the stream to a streaming service (such as ustream, or your own personal server stream), and also on a big screen 
But like SpyDan said, it costs ~$5,000 for the educational licensed version, but is well worth it if you do a lot of live video production.
My personal favorite part of using the TriCaster System is the PIP (Picture in Picture) like that can be seen in this video on youtube at the very beginning. As already mentioned above, it will run you about 5k to get, but is well worth it. Here is the link to the low end version. My Boy Scout troop has a film production division and we are looking into getting the TriCaster 455 fairly soon (it is about 20k), so if you do get it, I may be able to answer some of your questions about the TriCaster System.
We’ve partnered with Code Red Robotics to provide some webcasts (Bayou Regional 2012, 2013 and Razorback Regional 2013). I haven’t personally been involved in running the cast (drive team…) but we have one mentor on our team in charge it and a few students who know who to work it and rotate throughout regionals. I can put you in email contact with our mentor if you would like. It might, however, be more direct to ask Code Red at http://www.coderedrobotics.com/contact-us
Another thing is to use livestream.com. I was just poking around and noticed they have their own production switchers they sell. I’ve used their procaster as well (free software based simple switcher) that works pretty well.
Although there are pros & cons to both, I think Livestream ends up being a bit better than ustream in that they offer procaster, ad-free viewing, and HD streaming with their free plan.
Basically until you start investing lots of $$, you can’t do multi-camera views (unless you pull it directly from the feed that they use for the big screen)
A combination of AVerMedia capture cards and a license of XSplit gets you PIP, multicamera w/ transitions, etc for pretty cheap.
MAR has purchased some video equipment that was used to mix the projected video at the Hatboro-Horsham District. We used this mixer and a camera similar to this one (it was a Sony PTZ camera) controlled by this . It is in the works for the 2014 competition to get another PTZ camera and mount it to the ceiling for an arial view…but who knows what will happen. I would have liked if they got a HD PTZ camera…but I think that would be out of the budget since they would also have to get a new mixer as well. Overall, I think everyone was impressed with the quality and performance of the equipment.
In addition, we had a 3Play system hooked in so we could use the IsoCorder recording to save each camera’s feed. We didn’t have enough people to operate it, but we could possibly do slow motion replays using the 3Play; maybe next year.
Back in the day Battlecry did replays using a Tivo. Fact.
While I love Livestream, the one thing that sucks is that there is no way for other sites (think TBA, TRA, and WFN) to embed the actual video. It ends up with a link that loads the Livestream in a new window. So consider getting the paid version, or even seeing if we can get Livestream to discount the price for FRC-related channels.
To all those teams who would like an awesome streaming service, feel free to email Livestream to see if they would support us: partnerships@livestream.com. My guess is they would be delighted to support FIRST teams! Hey, it gets their product and name out there and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. And if they hear from more than one person/team about helping out, I’m sure they would be more willing to do so. I’ll email them when I’m free later this summer and put my good word in.
I am really quite suprised that such sites can not embed the livestream. A few sites I have worked with had no problem loading a livestream channel into the page.
Paid vs free. If the channel paid for Livestream pro/premium/whatever-they-call-it, then it will embed the video itself. But if it’s a free channel (which most of the FRC events that used it were) it embeds a webpage with a button that loads the channel in a new window/tab.
I was the one that implemented it in TBA. Unless I missed something, there’s no way to get around it. The channels I used to test the functionality were local news stations, and it loaded the video right on the site. But once Dallas’ regional (I believe) rolled around, it ended up with a message about the event being live and having to “Click Here” to actually play the event.
Another way to get a live stream is just ask your local community collage if they will give you some server space, if you have your own equipment. If you don’t, they may even be able to lend you some. I have found that people are very willing to give FRC teams, even non profits in general, things if they just ask for it.
Very odd, one service I was a beta tester for (The now closed synchtube.com) had no issue embedding a Livestream stream of any type. We tested this extensively with free and verified channels with 1000+ users.
After that site closed the owner linked me to this as an alternative. I have been meaning to play with it since it’s opensource, but looking at the test site they have, it handles livestream the same way.
Both sites are/were built off Javascript and Node.js, hopefully they can be some help.
So, I think what I would like to see from a Stream would be for just the wide angle live shot showing full field of the match while the match is live. Use the announcer commentary to help cover what is going on. Once the match is complete, it typically takes a couple of minutes to ensure the score is ready during which you could replay the whole match showing some detail shots and having a second announcer commenting on the specifics shown on the screen. This would act like an instant replay but for the whole match. From a cadence perspective, it would be 4:30 to 4:40 of robot action per match cycle. For a 6 minute turn, this would give a little over 1 minute for score and intros. For a 7 minute cycle, you would have a little over 2 minutes.
One of my pet peeves of the streams are where the screen does not match the announcing. It would be like hearing about a touchdown being scored with the screen focusing on watching the quarterback after the pass is thrown.
How long ago did you work with Livestream? Now that you mention it, I think you used to be able to embed any stream. The change might have happened when they switched to the “New Livestream” platform. I know for a fact that there’s no way to embed free channels now. It may have been possible in the past, but I’ve tried many ways to do it now and it’s just not possible.
EDIT: Look at the $333/month plan. https://new.livestream.com/plans#plan_comparison_table
Oh, I assumed we were talking about the ‘old’ livestream streams. Last time I checked you couldn’t embed the ‘new’ channels.
I honestly forgot about the ‘new’ livestream since no one I know uses it. Especially with the fact that livestream still lets you make and use ‘old’ accounts.
As an example I just made a new ‘old’ livestream channel and ran it through the site I linked. So I guess it boils down to, as long as the guys streaming know to use an ‘old’ account, it shouldn’t be an issue.
Ah, interesting. I was under the assumption that they had phased out the old channels, since every Livestream I’ve come across in the past year (including the two or three FRC events this season) were the new ones.
Guess that’s something to tell the stream admins to be aware of. While I do like the new platform in general, it sucks that they put such a basic feature behind a paywall.