Brandon Rohde

Hey eveyone,

I just finished writing a new online program called 'RC Live.' This program uses new output files generated from RC Scoring Pro that Doug Hay has been working on. These files then upload to a server in real time and are read from RC Live. We would like to "stress test" our server and do some beta testing with as many people logging on as possible. Anyone who would be willing to create a quick account and logon at 10:00pm central time tonight (5/23/05) would be a great help. Here is the 411 on what RC Live is:

RC Live is an online program written in conjunction with RC Scoring Pro race management software to broadcast major races in real time as they happen. The main race screen displays all of the information you would see if you were watching the screen at the track, and all results are within 1 to 7 seconds of the actual race, no matter where in the world you are viewing from! Besides the live racing screen, the results of each race are uploaded automatically within 20 seconds of the race ending. This means that you no longer need to wait for a person to upload the results!

Additional Features
Along with the live scoring and results, RC Live also encorporates a real-time chat window for viewing users to communicate with each other on. Users who are logged in can view who else is on, and talk about the race as it is happening. All of these features, the live scoring, race result archive, chat, and active users are tied into 1 screen, so you can use and moniter everything at once.

What do I need to do to get started?
All you need to do is create an account on our site, which is 100% free. We respect your privacy, and will NEVER sell our member list or your email addresses.


In the future (possibly VERY near future), we will be using RC Live to bring you real time results from numerous events around the world where RC Scoring Pro is used.

Here is the link to RC Live:
http://www.rccars.com/rclive
All you need to do is click on "CREATE ACCOUNT" and then fill in your name, email, and password, and you are set to go. Then click on "LIVE SCORING WINDOW" and you will see the results. Until 10:00, you may see a screen that is not changing, or no race screen at all. By 10:00 however, we will be running some mock races and everything should be working then. As each race ends, the a link to a page with the full results of each heat/main will appear.

Any input you guys have is greatly appreciated! Feel free to post here, as Doug and myself will be monitering this thread.

Brandon Rohde

The races that will be broadcast live tonight are from the 2005 ROAR Off-Road Gas Nationals, including the A-Mains exactly how they happened. Normally this would be done in real time, but since there are no big races going on during a Monday night, Doug has his software setup to "reconstruct" this race.

AMGRacer

Very cool software. Any plans to interface to other scoring systems, eg. Slyfox for the upcoming 200mm worlds?

Brandon Rohde

I highly doubt I will ever make it work with other interfaces. The reason is that the scoring software needs to do some special steps also... for example Doug had to make a function that uploads a data file to an ftp server every 5 seconds with the race data. The online software then grabs that data file and parses the info in it and displays it. Trying to get the other software designers to take the time and do that would be next to impossible I think. Just one more reason to switch to RC Scoring Pro!

AMGRacer

I have a software engineering background and I was wondering how you got the live update out of the local session and onto the net. Thanks for the explaination!

I think this innovation is excellent and definately will help feed the RC addicts like myself, great work.

Brandon Rohde

Well, I think I just fixed the last of the bugs I could find! There was a problem before with the results displaying properly, but that was because the format of the file names was changed since I wrote the code. Its all working now. Let me know if you guys have any further features you would like added. I have some in mind, so I will keep you posted.

Brandon Rohde

Thanks!

Brandon Rohde

The races have just started! If you want to check it out, go to http://www.rccars.com/rclive

nashrcracer

iTrader: (1)

doesn't work with netscape 7.2????

nnick

iTrader: (1)

I use Opera 8 and it works fine

Nick

Brandon Rohde

I tried it in Netscape, IE, and FireFox and it seemed to work ok... not sure why it didn't work for you though. Maybe a weird setting perhaps? There really isn't any weird coding that wouldn't be understood by any normal browser.

Big Daddy Boomer

iTrader: (2)

I use Netscape 7.1 and it worked fine. No Problems.

gonad

What's the extent of "The Reedy Race" coverage? Will you be posting (LIVE) practice laps?

Great program! I would actually pay money to subscribe.

Hyper1

Good deal,it works,I just Joined the site.It would be sweet if it works at the birds.

Brandon Rohde

I'm not sure what they will be doing for the Reedy race in practice... from what I have heard, the practices are run like races. If thats the case, then it will be really easy to get the practice times live. Otherwise, I'm not sure. I am starting to code a live practice feature right now, so for the next race it will definitelt be ready.

Also, I finished the multiple tracks feature today... now when you open up the scoring screen you will see a table of tracks that are signed up to use RC Live. It will also tell you which tracks have active races going on. I plan on giving tracks the option to signup for RC Live for a minimal fee to cover the server cost. Unless the server load gets super high and expensive, I plan on keeping RC Live free for viewers. Maybe to add live Audio I will add a $20 yearly fee or something, because bandwidth on that will be expensive.