Dev Blog: Bringing Live Coverage to SA Rallying

At the recent ASP Adelaide Hills Tarmac Sprint, the SA Rally team decided to try something that we don't believe has ever been done before: quasi-live video coverage of a South Australian Rally Championship event.

On a technical front, "Autosport TV", as it was known for the ASP Tarmac Sprint, was relatively simple. Video was downloaded from the on board cameras in several cars as soon as they arrived in service, rendered, then uploaded to popular video sharing site YouTube. Once on YouTube it was added to the front page of sarally.com.au. Once we discovered the best way of rendering the video at a size small enough to upload in a timely fashion, this went extremely well.

SA Motorsport Tyres Instant Results involved updating of results online and via SMS. An online SMS gateway was utilised to send the SMSs, and a mailing list developed from those that subscribed to SA Motorsport Tyres Instant Results. This would have gone well, except for radio and network problems delaying results being received by rally headquarters.

The sad reality is, this wasn't hard. Two blokes with three laptops and two wireless internet card successfully uploaded video to the internet during an event, and delivered results direct to mobiles to an extent. And to make this look even easier, everything was put together in a week.

The reaction from people was incredible. We realised what we needed to make this happen, and as soon as we mentioned we need it, someone volunteered it. We needed internet cards: all of a sudden we had two. We needed cameras: half a dozen appeared. The generosity of our supporters and sponsors, and the positive reaction we received, was quite amazing.

Anyone could do this for any rally series in Australia, let alone the rest of the world. If we could put this together in a week, imagine what we could do for any rally given a month?

And all this leads me on to Sprint Auto Parts Rally SA. We could take the easy path, and just refine what we were doing. Quasi-live video and SMS results were extremely well received, so getting these turned around faster is one thing we will be focusing on with Sprint Auto Parts Rally SA. Larger fields also means more in car cameras, and we are hoping to download in car video from 10-20 competitors at every service break throughout the day. For this we require a dozen computers, half a dozen wireless internet cards, and an army of helpers. Amazingly, we have almost all of this already, and we haven't even made public our plans.

However the key challenge we have set ourselves for Sprint Auto Parts Rally SA is 100% LIVE coverage of the Angaston Super Special Stage on both Friday and Saturday night. Two to four cameras will be placed around the stage, and will be streamed live across the internet, complete with results.

This could possibly be a first for Australian Rallying.

In order for this to be successful, we still require 2 video cameras, 4 computers and 5 wireless internet cards, however we are hopeful that these will be available prior to the event.

Our thanks must go to all of those that supported Autosport TV and SA Motorsport Tyres Instant Results at the ASP Adelaide Hills Tarmac Sprint: Autosport, SA Motorsport Tyres, Iles Selley Lawyers, RallyGraphix, Application Service Provider, Southern Vales Tinting and Accessories, and the ASP Adelaide Hills Tarmac Sprint organising committee. Thanks also go to Michael Jenke, Dave Rudham and Deb Shorrock who helped put all the pieces together.

SA Rally TV And SA Motorsport Tyres Instant Results will both receive support from SA Motorsport Tyres, Autosport, Iles Selley Lawyers, RallyGraphix, Application Service Provider, and an army of volunteers.

For Sprint Auto Parts Rally S.A., there is currently no naming rights sponsor for SA Rally TV. For enquires regarding naming rights for SA Rally TV, requests for more information or in car video feeds, please contact Ryan on 0410 131 658, or at www.sarally.com.au/contact.