REDCast for 2009-2010

[jtwcornell91]

So, it looks like Cornell changed the implementation of REDCast away from the platform-independent video stream we enjoyed the last couple of years.  When I follow the link this year from Linux it rolls over to http://www.cornellbigred.com/showcase/ which gives me a meaningless page consisting of

Showcase

Alternative content

Get Adobe Flash player

Of course, I already have a working flash player installed.

Has anyone tried to access the REDCast from a mac or other system which might violate the assumptions of bad web designers?

[pfibiger]

Appears to work fine from a mac. do you have flash player 10? (i'm not suggesting it's a requirement, or that it would fix things..just curious)

[RichH]

hm.  Seeing the words "All Access" made me suspicious.  I just looked at a couple things, and here are my observations:

1) Login from last year's RedCast still works...I think I signed up for a year in November.  Archive still accessible going back to at least the spring.  So that's a positive.

2) It says "All Access - Powered by SIDEARM Showcase."  A search for "SIDEARM" brought me to a new flash-heavy version of the ICS website, which is the same company that has been providing RedCast for the past two years, which is a good thing, for the most part.

3) Under the About Us link: "ICS key technology is SIDEARM (Sports Information Distribution Engine with Archives and Records Management), a web-based content management solution that includes everything from press release and roster management, dynamic scoreboards, sponsorship recognition, interactive polls, SIDEARM STATS (live in-game statistics), streaming audio and video, and newsletter and recruiting components."  Uh-oh.  Note also the graphics bar containing ICS's logo has the phrase "COMPLETE ATHLETICS WEBSITES" and it sounds very marketing-y.  And similar to how the CSTV craziness websites started going downhill.

4) Clicking on an event doesn't bring up a separate application (like WMP in Windows) to stream the event.  It plays in the web browser with Flash, and on my laptop, the image is tiny despite the width of the player window (probably less than 1/3 the screen height.)  Don't like.  Clicking the "full screen" button doesn't take it to actual full-screen mode, but just a bigger picture in the browser with navigation buttons splayed across the bottom 1/6th or so of screen real estate.  Thumbs down.

5) I'm in a hotel with sluggish internet, and it seems to play smoothly, so that's good.  I wonder if performance will still be good for live events with a significant number of users all viewing.

6) "Manage my account" and "Tech Support" buttons bring up forms very quickly with your info and "submit" buttons, which is good.  You can also easily edit your account information.  "Key SIDEARM Staff" link on the ICS page provides email addresses.

7) About us: "ICS has a client list that includes over 315 athletic clients from around the country including Cornell University..."  The home page lists 2 dozen or so schools choosing SIDEARM to "power" their websites.  We've had ICS before, and it was solid, but not showy.  I guess we were one of the guinea pigs to start a business model and now it's going to new, annoying levels of marketing.  CSTV CSTV CSTV warning!

I'm weary.  ::uhoh::

[ansky629]

Is tomorrow night's exhibition game (or Satruday's for that matter) is going to be available on RedCast?

[cbuckser]

[quote ansky629]Is tomorrow night's exhibition game (or Satruday's for that matter) is going to be available on RedCast?[/quote]
It appears that both games will have video webcasts.

[Robb]

[quote cbuckser][quote ansky629]Is tomorrow night's exhibition game (or Satruday's for that matter) is going to be available on RedCast?[/quote]
It appears that both games will have video webcasts.[/quote]Aw,crud.  I was counting on one more weekend of sleep!  GMT was bad enough but now I'm on CET...

::coffee::

[cbuckser]

[quote Robb][quote cbuckser][quote ansky629]Is tomorrow night's exhibition game (or Satruday's for that matter) is going to be available on RedCast?[/quote]
It appears that both games will have video webcasts.[/quote]Aw,crud.  I was counting on one more weekend of sleep!  GMT was bad enough but now I'm on CET...

::coffee::[/quote]
They're exhibition games.  Go to sleep and watch the archives in the morning.

[jtwcornell91]

[quote Robb][quote cbuckser][quote ansky629]Is tomorrow night's exhibition game (or Satruday's for that matter) is going to be available on RedCast?[/quote]
It appears that both games will have video webcasts.[/quote]Aw,crud.  I was counting on one more weekend of sleep!  GMT was bad enough but now I'm on CET...

::coffee::[/quote]

Actually, you're still on CEST until Sunday morning, right?  At least you get one week of CET while we're on EDT, and then you can have the same time difference you had when you were on BST.

[jtwcornell91]

I did manage to get it to work (turns out I had an old flash 9 plugin lying around that was getting in the way), but I share Rich's annoyance that they took something simple and convenient and replaced it with flash-heavy crap.

[Rita]

[quote jtwcornell91]I did manage to get it to work (turns out I had an old flash 9 plugin lying around that was getting in the way), but I share Rich's annoyance that they took something simple and convenient and replaced it with flash-heavy crap.[/quote]

The flash and the bling... isn't that what the kids today want? Something new to keep them amused and redirect their attention every 5 seconds? ::screwy::

(so is there an emoticon depicting a cranky old person saying "get off my lawn"?)::panic::

[jtwcornell91]

[quote Rita](so is there an emoticon depicting a cranky old person saying "get off my lawn"?)::panic::[/quote]

::cuss::

[Hillel Hoffmann]

[Trotsky]

I logged onto Redcast early to check the links, etc.  The women's game is currently on the men's feed so I have a chance to preview the quality.

Image is low res but the stream is unbroken.  Single camera mounted up by the press box, same as always.

Lynah lighting is no better.

Ambient mics are *very* sensitive.  Excellent sound no matter where the play wanders.

There's a pause option that works, and FFW, REW that don't, even if you pause to get behind real time.  I assume the latter features will work on archive only.  

There's a full screen mode that I *think* may change the aspect ratio a little, making the image more square than rectangular.  There's no concomitant change in resolution, so full screen renders very blocky.

All in all, nothing flashy but quite serviceable, if the stream integrity stays the same.  Higher res would make full screen worthwhile, but at $70 for a full year's subscription I doubt they're working with great equipment.

This was all run on Windows XP via Firefox.

[Rosey]

Linux Firefox tip (don't know if it applies to Windows): if the video player starts jumping around with the scrollbars appearing and disappearing, add the following to {your firefox profile}/chrome/userContent.css:

html { overflow: scroll; }

This will add scrollbars to every page, whether or not they overflow, which appears to solve this particular issue.  You can probably do something specific to redcast with greasemonkey or stylish.


Observations on video quality: the video is lower resolution than in past years, but much smoother and clearer in action sequences.  The codec they're using is obviously better suited to sports than whatever they've used in the past.  I'd call this an upgrade in video quality, despite the lower resolution.  I'd prefer to have both (better codec and higher res), but I am not expecting miracles.

Let's go Red!

[jtwcornell91]

Does anybody else think they need to turn the gain up?