I’m from FRC Team 1604, the Mekheads, and I’m planning on doing a live broadcast of the Orlando Regional at UCF. I just came in here to get everyone’s opinion, and I’m willing to accept feedback and/or criticisms about how I’m doing this.
I’ve already contacted FIRST directly, and so far it’s smooth sailing as far as getting approved to do it. So far we have plans for a camera in the pits showing our team, and two cameras in the stands, one showing the field, and one showing the stands.
The camera in the pits is wireless but is using 3G so as to not interfere with any robots.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is… do you guys think it would be worthwhile to do something like this? The quality will be very professional, like something you’d see on television actually. We’re planning on broadcasting it to online webcast hosts like UStream and similar.
3 independent streams?
The field stream is definitely worthwhile, that will be great. The pits, maybe not so much (aside from when the field is “empty”). The stands, in my own opinion, not at all.
But don’t let me discourage you, sounds like an awesome plan!
The streams won’t be independent. We’re bringing video and audio switching hardware to incorporate all the cameras into a single feed, and will also have a scoreboard in a corner showing the score during a match.
Sorry I didn’t say this earlier… but the pits cam would be focused on our pit, not the whole area. It would only show during down time when we’re working on our robot.
Because of hardware and network constraints, we’re only able to produce a final video quality of 480p. We’re planning on also having commercials (thanking sponsors, our team throughout the build season, etc) during down time.
We’re also planning on mounting two GoPro cameras in the arena. One on the drive station, and one on the robot itself to get a first person view. These feeds unfortunately won’t be live because of frequency issues and complexity. These would also show during down time in a “highlights” kind of way.
I too have family and friends that would love to watch, and I’m grateful that you are taking on this challenge. Plus, I’m sure there are a lot of scouts out there that would like a first look at some of the great robots in Orlando. I’d prefer it if your field shot was a static view of the whole field - and a bonus if it’s from up high. Cameras sometimes zoom in on the face of a driver while an epic robot battle takes place on the field. But hey, it’s your gig. Do whatever you like and we’ll be happy. Thanks!
I’m hoping I can get really high up, but I don’t know… The shot of the field will definitely be static, but the other cam will move every now and then. We’re thinking of having a television with the show on it in our pit and also next to the control system so people can watch. I’ll have the URL on the bottom of those TVs so people walking by can watch it for themselves if they would like.
We’re planning on setting up on the second floor (where you get into the stands) because I would like to keep as much wired as I can. Wireless cameras are iffy at this point, problems keep popping up. Part of the problem is that we have to rely on 3G smartphones to provide Internet to the wireless cams.
If anyone could get me some really good open source music, I’m taking requests as I honestly don’t have any plans for music right now. Hoping for at least 200 songs total to avoid it being annoying. So far I found foobar2000 to handle music playlists, but if any of you have better ideas, I’d be willing to look into them.
Also, I don’t know how we’re going to receive the scores live to post on the scoreboard. Maybe have the stands camera operator be on a chat on their phone and they can tell the scores as they change.
Both 100% free to use, even commercially. For the second link, take note of the license for any song you download, since some may require you to attribute the song. I would assume a lower third with the name of the song and artist would suffice.
While not 100% reliable, it’s close enough for you to use for a live broadcast. How you translate the tweets into data suitable for your broadcasting software is up to you.
Really cool. Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely get those tracks downloaded and set up in a playlist We’re also thinking of conducting interviews and then airing them throughout the regional at different times. Does this seem like a good idea?
Anyone willing really… members of other teams, mentors, etc… just to get people’s opinion about the games, how they participate, what their team does, stuff like that. It’s actually an idea one of my friends had who is also on the team. It’s a last minute kind of thing, so it’s up in the air as to if we’re actually going to do it or not.
Alright, so we got everything taken care of in terms of permission, and we’ll actually be getting help from Moose team 1065 in order to pull it off. It will broadcast to the web on UStream (MekheadsLive is what it’s called now… will change the name to reflect the collaboration) as well as possibly having sections on Nasa TV as well as some other extras. We’ve got 8 HD security cameras, some wireless cameras, camcorders, etc. so it should be great!
If any of you guys have any music suggestions, we’d love to have em. Just make sure they’re copyright free, or the owner has given permission. If they require credit on the stream, that can be arranged without a problem.
Also any help in general would be greatly appreciated. What would you like to see done on the show?
As of right now, no not quite yet. We’ll for sure have a majority of them in the stands placed at different strategic locations.
So far, I know that our team will definitely have a camera in the pits, on the robot, and at the driver station looking at the drivers’ faces. Other angles aren’t set in stone yet.
I would say that you could do one up above the stands perpendicular to the field. 1 up high above the stands behind each driver station overlooking the field and then 1 on each corner of the field closest to the stands looking towards the corner across the field from it. I’d also say if possible to have one camera just continuously pointed towards the score screen.
Those sound like great ideas. The ones behind the driver stations would be a little difficult, but we may be able to get them in.
In order to show the score continuously during matches without using the entire monitor, we can mask out the on-screen scoreboard from the jumbotrons and have it on the top right or left of our stream. This way we can show the score at all times while using our cameras for video.
