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Welcome to Omnibits for Sunday, 14 September (Day 4)

0700

We woke up again to clear, crisp, cold blue skies, a car covered with ice, a full parking lot at SDC, and a whole lot of 4-Way competitors warming up in the hangar.

My smartphone says it's 38 degrees outside.

4-Way teams went on a 20 minute call ... 20 minutes ago. Five rounds of it today (FS only, all MFS/VFS events finished yesterday). The judges have work in their inbox from yesterday so look for new scores pretty soon.

1000

Glancing at the scoreboard, I see 4-Way FS Open is complete through round 7, with Arizona Airspeed distancing themselves from the pack, while a battle for third is developing between Carolina Turbo XP and GKF4.

We'll surely finish 4-Way today!

Sorry about the lack of updates this morning :) (Boring technical details alert) I've been busy adding a Nuke Video procedure to the copy station (VTADS) software. Occasionally during the course of an event a video will enter the system that has some problem -- an incomplete transcode, or the primary camera turned off and the backup is needed, or the wrong video was copied, or the right video was copied to the wrong team or round number. (Note that the latter is pretty rare these days, and hasn't happened yet here </knockonwood>.)

Chasing down and cleaning up an errant video is a PITA, because once on the copy stations, they propagate automagically to scoring computers, JukeBoxes, and admin computers, up to 8 or 9 other computers. So the new routine, executed via secret handshake on the copy station, does a seek and destroy, given a team and round number. Hopefully it will never be needed.

(End boring technical bits, resume boring non-technical bits.)

If anyone wants a free Nikon CoolPix L320, less than a year old, you can find one in the pond behind the Tiki Bar.

1100

And all FS 4-Way events are complete through 7 rounds, and Open is almost done with 8. Intermediate has a real race developing for the bronze medal with at least five teams within three points of each other. In Open, Carolina Turbo XP is just a point ahead of GKF4 after 8 rounds for the three spot.

1300

Judges are lunched up and Round 10 is in the queue and OFF THEY GO ....

I am again distracted by technical ... distractions, this time by a failed laptop power cord, the grounded kind that goes from the outlet to the DV converter, while trying to set up my last unused computer, the "emergency" JukeBox that will now be pulling duty creating videos full-time. I call it my Frankenputer ... build out of spare parts and scoring processor rejects. Darn thing is as loud as a Hoover vacuum cleaner with a broken muffler and hot as a tin roof in Eloy in June, but it gets work done.

1500

4-Way competitors are crowded around the monitors in The Hangar watching Round 10 being judged. The tie for 3rd place in Open is creating some real pins and needles!

1530

All 4-Way FS events are DONE. Congratulations to the winners!

1700

Homie here has been busy creating mp4 "scoring replay" videos. At ~62M each it's doubtful I'll be able to get all of them to omniskore.com, and if I can't get all of them there, I might be stuck with not getting any of them there. Well, I'll shoot for the top teams and hope I don't get grief for stopping there.

Awards for 4-Way FS are at 6pm tonight and the 8-Way briefing follows. Word is there are 21 or so teams. Excellent turnout! Very curious to see what the participation is in the new category. I know some teams trained for it this year!

Videographers: THIS IS HOW TO SHOOT A SLATE! (Sorry, I do mean to shout.) It's at the very start of the video (you're seeing the first frame!); it's up close and personal; and (you can't see it in a still image of course) it's being held still and long (a good 5 seconds).

Of course, this example was by the Golden Knights, from whom we get nothing but the best. Be like them!

How to shoot your slate!

How NOT to shoot your slate:
  1. Shaking.
  2. Not at the front of the video (someone -- the judges, or someone helping the judges, like me -- should not have to search through the video looking for the slate when there's video confusion).
  3. Too far away. Do it like we need glasses we don't have!
  4. Too short. Remember people are shuttling through the video looking for the slate (hence item 2).
Worst example is a short, far-away glimpse of the slate 143 seconds into a six minute video. Yes, I saw several of those this weekend. Don't become the example here of how NOT to do a slate.

1915

8-Way briefing concluding. Teams and draw willl be omniskore.com'ed within the hour. Off to the v'ographer briefing.

Well there wasn't much of a v'ographer briefing. So it is posted here. 8-Way eyeballs please read & heed.

2000

8-Way teams and draw are now online. 22 teams, I haven't seen that many in 8-Way in a long time, great to see.

Headed north to the RV and I will not, I promise NOT stop at the Tiki Bar.

I shot a couple of videos of the 4-Way awards ceremonies tonight on my smartphone and I'm hoping to get them on the facing book later tonight, if the Tiki Bar doesn't take me hostage. Look for them on Friends of Omniskore!HD, and if you're not a friend, become one!

p/o

~t1

 
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