Seeking a Solution: Watching Home Games at the Cornell Club

I have been corresponding with the events manager of the Cornell Club about trying to get Redcast home feeds of Cornell hockey games broadcast at the Cornell Club (NYC). She told me that there is a great deal of reticence on the part of the IT manager because the picture/stream is so bad when it is enlarged and projected on to a large flat screen.

My question to the technophiles out there is whether there is a solution to this problem. Any ideas?

My apologies if this has already been explored on this board.

My solution would be for CC NYC to talk to athletics about how important this could be for alumni relations. That kind of info might help to get a better broadcast. As far as improving the current feed, I'm no expert, but the phrase, modified for general use, junk in, junk out, comes to mind.

I don't know much about how redcast works, but the feed obviously comes from cameras in Lynah. I don't see why the feed couldn't be sent closed-circut to TVs at the Cornell Club without having to simply project the stream from the internet.

This, of course, would require an agreement between athletics and the CCNY, which is a private organization.

Jim Hyla
As far as improving the current feed, I'm no expert, but the phrase, modified for general use, junk in, junk out, comes to mind.

Disagree. The video camera and the person controlling it are one part of the problem, but one that is independent of stream quality.

I do know how streaming works, and they could easily improve the stream quality by switching to a more modern codec and upping the bitrate. h.264 (a variant of MPEG4) at 544x368 is approximately 1.2mbps. This is only a little more than twice the current bitrate, and is something most end users (including most of those on DSL) can support; and is also not mutually exclusive with a lower-bitrate stream for those on <=1mbps DSL.

Doing this would make watching a full-screen or wall-size stream acceptable, if not quite as good as SDTV. Imagine MLB.tv, only better: if that's acceptable quality to you, then this solution would be at least as good.

Kyle

krose
...cmbrmaks.akamai.com...

Blah blah h.264 blah MPEG4 blah 544x368 blah blah 1.2mbps.

Well if you're so smart why don't you do it yourself

krose
I do know how streaming works, and they could easily improve the stream quality by switching to a more modern codec and upping the bitrate. h.264 (a variant of MPEG4) at 544x368 is approximately 1.2mbps. This is only a little more than twice the current bitrate, and is something most end users (including most of those on DSL) can support; and is also not mutually exclusive with a lower-bitrate stream for those on <=1mbps DSL.

Doing this would make watching a full-screen or wall-size stream acceptable, if not quite as good as SDTV. Imagine MLB.tv, only better: if that's acceptable quality to you, then this solution would be at least as good.

Kyle

How expensive/practical would this be to do?

fightmaimkill
How expensive/practical would this be to do?

Don't know. The added bandwidth might mean it comes at a higher cost to subscribers (though probably not anywhere near 2x). The h.264 codec probably has patent royalties associated with it, but for the subscriber base Cornell is looking at that may be negligible. I think the missing links are merely will and technical know-how on their end, not cost.

Kyle

There's also the issue of space at the Cornell Club. The Tap and Grill isn't big enough for much of a crowd (not to mention it doesn't really fit the environment), plus, technically speaking, you have to be a member (or a guest of one) to dine there. There are meeting spaces upstairs, but I don't see them being devoted to this sort of thing, unfortunately. As someone pointed out, it's a private club.

As a member, I'd like to try and run this up the pole to get it done. It is true that we may not be hearing, "It's all your fault!" in there anytime soon, but there have been times when they have replayed Cornell football games in the Grill. It seems to me that we can find a way to get this done if there is enough membership interest.

At the very least, if we can convince the Redcast folks to improve the video quality, what's the worst that happens? People at home have a better viewing experience? That's an outcome I'm willing to accept.

fightmaimkill
At the very least, if we can convince the Redcast folks to improve the video quality, what's the worst that happens?

They could jack the prices up even more.

KeithK
They could jack the prices up even more.

Here's the cost breakdown for me:

Seeing 2 home games live:
$15/ticket = $30
700 miles @ 27 mpg @ $3.45/gallon = $90
2 nights hotel @ $70/night = $140
Total: $260

Seeing 2 home games on the internet at the current cost:
$7/game = $14
Total: $14, not including the cost of my broadband or computer, which I'd already own anyway

While there are intangibles about going to Lynah that are clearly much more than 20x better than watching over the intertubes, a better internet viewing experience is worth a bunch to me and still much, much cheaper than a weekend trip (with all the unproductive time spent in the car) to get the real thing.

Kyle

krose
While there are intangibles about going to Lynah that are clearly much more than 20x better than watching over the intertubes, a better internet viewing experience is worth a bunch to me and still much, much cheaper than a weekend trip (with all the unproductive time spent in the car) to get the real thing.

I'm not saying that it isn't worth the money to many folks. I'm just saying that increased cost would be a negative. It's not clear that an increased cost would be worth the cost, especially since I'm not putting numbers to my speculation.