Orienteering video experiment: Automatic videoreport

The online orienteering TV channel woO-TV is developing a semi-automatic system for post-race video reports from orienteering events, aiming to make it possible to make low-cost interesting video/TV-productions from orienteering races with a minimum of manual work. The system is currently not aimed at live coverage, to keep costs and work at a minimum- and additionally observing that a good report after a race will get potentially more viewers over time than a live report.

The concept

The concept is based on setting up video-cameras at a few controls and at the finish, continually recording the race – and then generating a video report from the race based on combining the timing-information from the time-keeping system with the videos. Due to the coupling between the split-times in the time-keeping-system and the videos, one knows in which parts of the video to find a given runner, and also the position of the runner in the race.

Two types of videos are to be generated,

• A video of a complete race at a given control or at the finish, showing the time/position of each runner when they pass the control. At first thought, this seems to be extremely boring to view! But some of todays video-hosting services – like e.g. Viddler – make it possible to link to any given point in a video. Thus it is possible to link directly from the result list to the correct point in the video for all runners in a race. And the first thing everybody who was in the race will do is to look at themselves passing the controls. And then their friends. And finally – if they have more time – they will be interested in looking at the best competitors….
• A condensed video report of only the top-6 runners in each category showing how the race developed – being a bit more interesting to watch through than the complete video from above.

Proof of concept

As a proof of concept, a local night race in Bergen (Norway) Wednesday October 17th was chosen. Video quality is extremely low as it was pitch dark at the finish were the video-camera was set up – but nevertheless it shows that the concept is viable. A little less than 100 runners participated, and they all finished within about 2 hours. The complete video has been generated and uploaded to Viddler. For each runner in the result list, it is possible to click the runner to get up the video of the runner. The video includes time/position of the runner. Here are the results for the category DC:

(Note! If it says “progressive” and not “streaming” in the lower left corner of the video it won’t work. If this is the case, press “progressive” and it will turn into “streaming”.)

See the complete result list here, including runners sorted by name and by when the runners pass the finish.

Sample video starting at a certain runner as embed

(Note! If it says “progressive” and not “streaming” in the lower left corner of the video it won’t work. If this is the case, press “progressive” and it will turn into “streaming”.)

Technical details

The only manual work done in creating the video is syncing video and timing system for a single runner – and doing a few video conversions. Timing is done using ttime – but it should be just as easily doable with any timing system. A script has been written which generates the timing info as a video-overlay, and this just has to be overlayed on the video. The script also generates a result list with links to appropriate points in the video.

Part 2 – the top-6 video report, has not been finished yet as of now.

Any comments or suggestions? Please add them below!