Fan streaming video site a good idea?

We have talked a lot about legal issues. Perhaps it's worth exploring demand. How many people would watch such a service, whether it was fan generated or 'official'?

I would be watching the live streams for events I was not attending as really there is no limit to how much rally I could watch! If I can I pretty much set aside the days of a WRC round, follow the live splits and listen to rally radio.

Even 2-3 hrs of live stream on the web from a couple of stages and re-runs would get a huge thumbs up from me.

VW seem quite switched on with the video promotion side, what with drones and a their own videos, perhaps they will see the benefit for the sport.

Hey Sprocket, I'm glad you made this topic - it was my complaining about the limitations of TV that got me thinking about this kind of thing, and I feel like it may become more possible as mobile bandwidth increases.

As for rights, I think we're being a bit knee-jerk saying it's hugely illegal. I don't know about the permission from the property owners being the only thing you need to have, but at worst it is a grey area. Nobody is confiscating cameras or footage when you attend an event - and this idea is an extension of sharing that footage with friends. As we're talking about live, not reproduced and sold as DVDs or anything, that's pretty much all that matters, assuming the streaming is a non-commercial, homemade kind of semi-private situation. This is less of a competition with WRC's own media promoters than the (often quite professional) photographers who do their own rally best-of videos on youtube, and no one's tracking them down and arresting them. What I envisioned was something in a way even simpler than a google hangout or group webcam chatroom:

Basically a map of the current stage on which people who have a good 3/4g signal can place themselves as links. Each link leads to a ustream or similar type of page. Thus you could watch the guy at the finish line the whole time if you want, or if there were multiple people streaming a stage at different points, you could even follow a particular driver through the stage by keeping along with them on the map. This is not something anybody, even Red Bull, could afford to do commercially instead, assuming the thing caught on enough to have decent number of camera-wielding participants.

In the end what could you do anyway? "Hey are you streaming with that camera" "No I'm just taking pictures for myself" "Oh, OK, enjoy the rally".

Right now the biggest obstacle to something like this providing decent coverage of a significant part of a rally (or even an individual stage, not superspecials) is the 3g/4g coverage and quality of most of the areas rallies take place in. It'll be a long time before many of these places would have coverage, some places possibly never. But the European rallies I think have a good chance, considering how quickly youtube videos come up when a rally's on...

It'd be funny to be able to tune in to some drunk Finns' bonfire along the roadside when a car's not going by too!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kirungi okwogera

Hey Sprocket, I'm glad you made this topic - it was my complaining about the limitations of TV that got me thinking about this kind of thing, and I feel like it may become more possible as mobile bandwidth increases.

As for rights, I think we're being a bit knee-jerk saying it's hugely illegal. I don't know about the permission from the property owners being the only thing you need to have, but at worst it is a grey area. Nobody is confiscating cameras or footage when you attend an event - and this idea is an extension of sharing that footage with friends. As we're talking about live, not reproduced and sold as DVDs or anything, that's pretty much all that matters, assuming the streaming is a non-commercial, homemade kind of semi-private situation. This is less of a competition with WRC's own media promoters than the (often quite professional) photographers who do their own rally best-of videos on youtube, and no one's tracking them down and arresting them. What I envisioned was something in a way even simpler than a google hangout or group webcam chatroom:

Basically a map of the current stage on which people who have a good 3/4g signal can place themselves as links. Each link leads to a ustream or similar type of page. Thus you could watch the guy at the finish line the whole time if you want, or if there were multiple people streaming a stage at different points, you could even follow a particular driver through the stage by keeping along with them on the map. This is not something anybody, even Red Bull, could afford to do commercially instead, assuming the thing caught on enough to have decent number of camera-wielding participants.

In the end what could you do anyway? "Hey are you streaming with that camera" "No I'm just taking pictures for myself" "Oh, OK, enjoy the rally".

Right now the biggest obstacle to something like this providing decent coverage of a significant part of a rally (or even an individual stage, not superspecials) is the 3g/4g coverage and quality of most of the areas rallies take place in. It'll be a long time before many of these places would have coverage, some places possibly never. But the European rallies I think have a good chance, considering how quickly youtube videos come up when a rally's on...

It'd be funny to be able to tune in to some drunk Finns' bonfire along the roadside when a car's not going by too!

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Yep your vision is just what I see too. A graphic of the stage where each 'streamer' can be seen and one just clicks on the link to watch the chosen stream.

I don't see the legal aspects as too much of a barrier. There is the argument that it would be almost impossible to 'police', there is also the point that the promoters/rights holders are just people. One could negotiate with them regarding the benefits of the service.

I suspect if someone came up with the concept of internet 'Rally Radio' people might say it was illegal if it wasn't for the fact it is already well established.

We are not talking here about big production, simply some live streamed personal videos being shared on the web. One would not expect super high fidelity or production, just simply a window in. With the vast areas that rally cover, it seems like an ideal way forward for the sport. I have no doubts the promoters/rights holders may be supportive if the concept were to be presented to them in the right way. It would be even better if they funded it and provided partial content too, this being supplemented by fans adding their own streams! :D

One function of the website could also be to show 3g 4g coverage to help people to set-up in areas where streaming was likely to work. A simple database could record locations where livestream was previously successful for example. As it might be a case that the providers could be a little cagey about giving precise information regarding areas of poor coverage, over time a picture of each stage would build up of good and bad locations.

Here is a graphic of what I am thinking of:


Attachment 3113


The white box would be a thumbnail of the stream. One would click on it to open a new browser window/pop up window of the stream

Red circles indicate live streaming

Green circle a previous stream now finished but still available to view

The web page would be made up of the days stages stacked one above the other. So on arriving to the site one instantly knows which stage is live, which have previously run and which are to run. Perhaps a blue circle could be used indicate a user who has logged their position and is preparing to stream later.

The numbers in the circles are ratings. Similar to the Ebay rating system. Fans watching each stream can rate the content and regular users can quickly see favourite streamers via the user name. User names exist as each user would log-on to the site before streaming. Much like a forum one would need some control over user accounts for obvious reasons such as potential abuse of the system. Addition of a report button to the stream pop up window would facilitate reporting obviously inappropriate content for example.