Hi CD community!
This season in the PCH district we began recording individual matches (as opposed to just recording the event as a whole) and uploading them to the Georgia FRC YouTube Channel. This is A LOT of work, so we (The Georgia FIRST A/V team) wanted to know how useful the individual recordings are.
Note: Please respond even if you are not in the PCH district. We want feedback from the entire FIRST community.
Thanks!
PNW does this and its a godsend if i want to take parts of matches to show off to others or for checking out other teams.
In my opinion, if you aren’t recording them separately I think you are doing it wrong. Indiana has been working hard at perfecting our workflow ever since I came on board last year. We use BM’s H.264 recorder (which is still kinda meh) to record each match to a server and then upload with an upload tool I developed for FRC matches. If you want more help in optimizing the workflow let me know I can offer advice.
The Dalton videos seem to be running fast. Out of synch with the audio. Makes for a more exiting game though.
As you upload your split videos, don’t forget to add them to The Blue Alliance for easy lookup in the future!
If you would like a means of programatically adding the videos, send us an email and we’ll be happy to show you how. This is an approach we’ve successfully implemented with other districts, and it’s awesome to see their match videos added to TBA in near-realtime!
Our recorder decided to record every other frame for some of the matches. YouTube compensated for this by speeded the video up and then trimming off the extra audio. Hopefully it won’t happen again.
I just moved here and the way Indiana has matches uploaded and on TBA in minutes is truly amazing and the gold standard in FRC.
Thanks for all the feedback so far! Keep it coming!
I will definitely reach out to you Phil and Nikki.
NE FIRST is doing the same.
Not sure if you’ve seen this, but this may make it easier for you to split the videos.
I think that audience-view recordings of individual matches are really the bare standard that makes every event accessible to each team (review), other teams (scouting/brainstorming), and to family/friends (outreach/generating interest/socialness). I believe that it should be at every single event out there, and if you’re going to an event without it (district qualifiers?), teams need to step up.
Props to you guys for making it happen.
Thanks for all the responses so far! We are definitely going to look into the idea of uploading matches as they are played.
We competed in Indiana St Joe District and I very impressed with the instant uploads. Keep up the good work.
EDIT: This Google Doc will be updated as new information is gathered: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pvq5-V_d9qncUaWsbMM62TCGSA2XE01G4wRSz9LfEMo/edit
So I got interested in stats about match videos over the years so I decided to try calculating it. I stuck with districts only because a lot of events just don’t have the access or staff to do stuff like this.
The order is event codes that didn’t have EVERY match uploaded to TBA, num of events missing matches / total events, and then the number of missing matches per district with total matches too
Prior to 2013 all events are missing most match videos with 100% of events missing a video.
2013
'2013mibed', '2013midet', '2013migbl', '2013migul', '2013miliv', '2013misjo', '2013mitry', '2013miwfd', '2013miwmi', '2013mrcmp', '2013njewn', '2013njlen', '2013paphi']
13 / 16 = 0.812500
districts: [fim, mar]
missing : [706, 202]
total : [1005, 552]
2014
'2014mibed', '2014micen', '2014micmp', '2014miesc', '2014migul', '2014mihow', '2014miket', '2014milan', '2014miliv', '2014mimid', '2014misjo', '2014misou', '2014mitvc', '2014miwat', '2014miwmi', '2014mrcmp', '2014njbri', '2014njfla', '2014njtab', '2014pahat', '2014paphi', '2014ctgro', '2014cthar', '2014ctsou', '2014mabos', '2014mawor', '2014melew', '2014nhdur', '2014nhnas', '2014rismi', '2014orore', '2014orosu', '2014orwil', '2014pncmp', '2014waamv', '2014wache', '2014waell', '2014wamou', '2014washo', '2014wasno']
40 / 44 = 0.909091
districts: [fim, mar, ne, pnw]
missing : [756, 207, 291, 505]
total : [1573, 684, 941, 949]
2015
'2015incmp', '2015inind', '2015inwla', '2015mibed', '2015micen', '2015micmp', '2015miesc', '2015mifla', '2015migul', '2015mihow', '2015miken', '2015miket', '2015milan', '2015miliv', '2015misjo', '2015misou', '2015mista', '2015mitry', '2015mitvc', '2015miwat', '2015miwmi', '2015njnbr', '2015njtab', '2015padre', '2015ctwat', '2015mabos', '2015manda', '2015marea', '2015maspr', '2015melew', '2015necmp', '2015nhdur', '2015orore', '2015orphi', '2015orwil', '2015pncmp', '2015waahs', '2015waamv', '2015waell', '2015washo', '2015wasno', '2015waspo']
42 / 53 = 0.792453
districts: [in, fim, mar, ne, pnw]
missing : [13, 918, 172, 323, 516]
total : [346, 1964, 741, 1028, 936]
2016
'2016mdbet', '2016mdblr', '2016mdedg', '2016vabla', '2016vados', '2016vahay', '2016vapor', '2016miann', '2016mibro', '2016micen', '2016micmp', '2016miesc', '2016mihow', '2016mike2', '2016miket', '2016milak', '2016milan', '2016milsu', '2016mimar', '2016misjo', '2016misou', '2016mista', '2016mitry', '2016mitvc', '2016miwat', '2016miwmi', '2016inwch', '2016inwla', '2016njtab', '2016pahat', '2016ncash', '2016ncbui', '2016nccmp', '2016ncmcl', '2016ncral', '2016ctwat', '2016mabos', '2016marea', '2016melew', '2016necmp', '2016nhgrs', '2016ripro', '2016gaalb', '2016gacmp', '2016gacol', '2016gadal', '2016gaken', '2016orore', '2016orphi', '2016pncmp', '2016waahs', '2016waamv', '2016waell', '2016wamou', '2016waspo']
55 / 73 = 0.753425
districts: [chs, fim, in, mar, nc, ne, pch, pnw]
missing : [371, 413, 59, 9, 282, 180, 329, 161]
total : [763, 2271, 344, 764, 383, 1060, 413, 929]
2017 thus far
'2017mdbet', '2017mdedg', '2017mdowi', '2017vagle', '2017vahay', '2017miann', '2017mibro', '2017micen', '2017miesc', '2017migay', '2017migul', '2017mihow', '2017mike2', '2017miken', '2017miket', '2017milak', '2017milan', '2017milsu', '2017mimid', '2017misjo', '2017misou', '2017mitry', '2017miwmi', '2017inpmh', '2017inwla', '2017iscmp', '2017isde1', '2017isde2', '2017isde3', '2017isde4', '2017njfla', '2017njtab', '2017pahat', '2017paphi', '2017pawch', '2017ncash', '2017nccmp', '2017ncgre', '2017ncral', '2017ncwin', '2017cthar', '2017ctwat', '2017mabos', '2017marea', '2017melew', '2017nhbed', '2017nhgrs', '2017ripro', '2017onbar', '2017onlon', '2017onosh', '2017onto1', '2017onto2', '2017onwat', '2017onwin', '2017gaalb', '2017gacol', '2017gadal', '2017gagai', '2017orlak', '2017orore', '2017orwil', '2017waahs', '2017waamv', '2017waell', '2017wamou', '2017waspo']
67 / 78 = 0.858974359
districts: [chs, fim, in, isr, mar, nc, ne, ont, pch, pnw]
missing : [397, 196, 3, 262, 305, 274, 201, 485, 198, 144]
total : [634, 1816, 268, 381, 616, 394, 949, 586, 355, 786]
Currently active methods of uploading (that I know of) (in order of most used to least used):
FIM - Manual (and a custom script) + FRC-Video-Splitter
IN - FRC-YouTube-Uploader
NE - FRC-Video-Splitter + manual(?)
PNW - FRC-Video-Splitter + manual
if you know more let me know here
From 2013 - 16 we see a good increase in the consistency of uploads. I think this is because A/V crews realized the benefit for teams. However in 2017 so far we aren’t doing too great. I expected the increasing number of events to cause the percentage to go up, but that has only happened this year and in 2014. I think the biggest things to pull from this are that key volunteers are clearly too few and we need to be training more people to upload matches consistently. I think the benefit to the teams is invaluable and can only be seen when they are consistently uploaded.
I hope that this data is useful to someone out there, I was just intrigued by what we would see.
Gist of the code I used to gather the data is here: https://gist.github.com/NikhilNarayana/b58e1b906c2ad0cbbf2ac09f0639fc31
It won’t give the exact same data for 2017 because I decremented the total events for each event that hasn’t happened yet after it was run.
Wow! Thanks for putting all that data together! In PCH we have not put all our videos on TBA yet, so our numbers are a little off. However, this information does raise a good point.
I would have gone through channels too if I wanted to count that way, but my goal was to focus on accessibility. Having matches linked on TBA is the best way for teams to find their matches in my opinion.
What have you guys been doing thus far for splitting/uploading? I want to update that list with all the districts if possible.
FiM records matches individually (start record before match, end after match) and uploads them with a home-built script (though the script is really just for file naming and has to be run manually after each match).
The exception to this is the additional footage provided on the official alternate streams at the Midland and (as of this weekend) Shepherd district events, which are recorded as a block and use FRC-Video-Splitter to break up matches, then upload manually (I hope to the tool for uploading too if I can ever get it to work).
Thanks for the info!
If Michigan keeps recording individually you should reach out to me after this season because what we use in Indiana is ideal for that situation. Otherwise reach out to Ty to figure out how to setup an nginix-rtmp server for using FRC-Video-Splitter during an event.
I must say though, I am impressed with FIM’s performance thus far, 196 missing matches is quite impressive for the number of matches played,
There are two reasons for the number of missed matches, for one, the recent changes to YouTube limiting number of uploads to 50 per day caught us off guard (obviously with this limit, uploading matches from 4 events to one YouTube channel in real time in impractical) so there’s been a lot of catching up to do (and FiM now has 4 channels, 1 for each field). The second is because the system is currently dependent on the user to start and stop recordings for each match it’s subject to a lot of user error.
The eventual plan is to have the system be fully automated using inputs from the field to trigger recording, naming, and uploading each match, eliminating the need for an operator altogether. There was some impressive progress on this, but I’m under the impression there was something that caused an issue with the script they were using because it doesn’t appear to be functioning anymore.
Agreed, apparently we are spoiled with such a good A/V crew. I honestly don’t know how I could live without a full library of match videos.
This is new news to me, we upload more than 50 videos each day of competition and don’t experience any trouble. I think it may have to do with the fact that we don’t upload using the website.
I would be impressed if you could setup that system and get it allowed by FIRST, I’ve heard stories saying we shouldn’t be hooking into the FMS from FTAs. I also don’t trust the FIRSTAPI 100% because at Perry they slowed down our upload time when it wasn’t updating the match scores quickly enough (we grab those for the description). However, I also believe that having at least one person doing the recording and checking the uploading of videos is important.