I think incorporating these costs in the ncnca operating/marketing budgets is a good idea.

i haven't been able to make any ncnca meetings, but my vote would be in favor of exploring more options in this regard.

talk about the ability to market our sport better!!!

thanks again, Casey. keep me informed and i've got the mic ready for you any Friday you want. let's kick it into overdrive.

you can be the straight man, i'll be all color.
m

I'm going to cancel my subscription to cycling tv!

Tad Borek wrote:casey wrote:at least the ones within wireless broadband coverage areas

Casey, I hope NCNCA is paying for that, that's a great idea.

-Tad

Currently I'm footing the bill for my wireless BB account.

casey wrote:at least the ones within wireless broadband coverage areas

Casey, I hope NCNCA is paying for that, that's a great idea.

Next purchase?

I use one of these in a place where the closest cell-BB antenna is 25 miles away and there's no signal...w/repeater it's full-strength broadband. It's pretty easy to set up but you need A/C or an inverter in the car. I bet a lot of the rural race venues have no/low BB coverage but the signal would be there with a booster (considering you can stand on a beer can in Sacramento and see Fresno on a clear day).

-Tad

If I can get the system to work at Modesto than I'll come do it at the track.

please.

I forgot to say that with this streaming service http://www.stickam.com/ people can enter a live text chat while they are viewing the stream so you can have people watching post questions or comments about what is going on so it is an audience participation type of thing also.

If I can get it all working :)

Possibly. The question is where to set up the camera for the best affect. At the track you might want to set up in the middle of a turn and possibly have someone act as a cameraperson instead of just setting the camera up near the finishline and only getting the last part of the 4th turn and final straight on video in a fixed location. Access to power would also need to be a consideration.

could you test it out Friday the 23rd at the track?

To revive an old thread :)

Funny in reviewing this old thread I see where Brian Peterson said last year that next year we should have live video streaming from a race. The funny thing is I think it is now possible to have live video streaming from races. This is going to be pretty simple coverage with a single camera in a fixed position ( probably pointing down the finish stretch up to the finishline) with either audio that is picked up by the camera mic or maybe the laptop built in mic ( so not the highest quality audio).

I may give live coverage a try at the Modesto Crit on Sat for the Pro/1/2 race. I have to test to see if my broadband card for the laptop has enough upload capacity to handle the video. If it does then I'm sure I'm going to blow way past my broadband plan caps but what the heck :)

We can certainly stream the audio announcements for the Albany Crit to the Web.

Uh ... Does the FCC generally patrol webfeeds for chapping, offensiveness and absolute ridiculousness?

Maybe I'll just play music and ring prime bells instead.

Z-Bra

Please forward all live race commentary to my cell phone so I'll have something to do while I'm driving...besides eating and scanning the playlists on my MP3 player.

Hernando will be wearing a wireless mic during Masters Track Districts so he can provide us with live audio commentary during his points race. Not sure if he can text as well.

If I provide similar for the first lap of team sprints we might need a 7-second delay...

Brian - As soon as someone comes up with the sponsorship for the bandwidth and the servers ( and the geeks to get the system set up) we can do audio and or video from races ( at least the ones within wireless broadband coverage areas).

casey wrote:THat sounds like a Plan Mike. We can probably cause the whole internet to crash as Nor Cal race fans suck all the available bandwidth up trying to get their fix of local race coverage.

We could really suck the bandwidth if we could get some live video streaming. :-) I'm envisioning cameras at each corner of the crit, and a couple helmet mounted in the field. Oh, and have it recorded so that if one is racing, they can go back and review when they get home.

One can dream, eh?

Maybe Casey can spring for all that stuff next year. :-) This year the text updates will be cool.

-brian peterson

THat sounds like a Plan Mike. We can probably cause the whole internet to crash as Nor Cal race fans suck all the available bandwidth up trying to get their fix of local race coverage.

oh lawdie ... i'm prolly gonna have to start bringin' the pooter to races, too.

i'll get the backside of the course and casey'll get the bidness end.

together we'll crash the forums with race blahblah.

cycling nerds unite!

I'm pretty committed to doing lap by lap commentary at Vacaville for the Elite Women's championship, the 35+ 1/2/3 and the Elite Men's championship. I realized that it was a year ago at Vacaville that I started the Almost live reports since we had access to WiFi and I though it would be fun to post the top 10 in each race.

I might even see about getting full results posted to the NCNCA road page as they become available during the day. Now that I'll have internet access at a lot more races I hope to be able to post full results ( at least for the races that do reg/results via spreadsheet) before leaving the race site to the NCNCA road page. Hopefully I can do this without crashing the whole NCNCA web site to the ground :)

ditto dat

I whole heartedly agree with Rick. Knowing your time is valuable, your effort is appreciated. It was very exciting to read your commentary during the Burlingame crit. Your commentary and expressed thoughts created an "explicit" visual that made it "as real as it could get," for us at home reading about it.

The online "live commentary" is also an additional asset for our region. I also see it as inspirational (attacks, breaks, bridge attempts, the chase) and a good learning tool as well. It also creates a more interesting picture when reading the results, if you missed the race.

The commentary is great for people at home with other commitments and can not race but would like to know how it is going. Also many people leave after their race so then, they could check in and find out how it went. But I also think it is fun to read someone elses perspective. We are not all at the Start/finish line watching the race, while at the race.

Thanks again Casey, this kind of journalism is upbeat and very cool.
Laurie F

Casey,

The lap by lap commentary was great! Immediate top tens are really nice as well. Thanks for taking the time/effort to do this.

Rick M.