Behind the scenes with DNN at the Wild West Showdown

By Hurt Reynolds, Last updated Sat Jun 5 2010 4:20pm

We thought you might enjoy a little insight into the steps we take to bring you coverage of a major event like last weekend's Wild West Showdown. Here's a weekend in the life of a DNN live coverage producer. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 25

3:30pm: After collecting our bags and rental car, Mercy Less and I drove around Puget Sound directly to the venue. There we met with Kitsap County IT guy Jim Shierk, who I'd previously spoken with on the phone at length about internet arrangements for streaming video. He began making changes to the venue's internet configuration while Mercy Less and I tested streaming, and also kibitzed about potential camera locations for each of the event's two tracks.

As Jim had previously indicated over the phone, the internet coverage at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds turned out to be a business cable modem connection with very high bandwidth: nearly 8 megabits per second download, and (much more critical to our needs) 1.8mbps upload. We aim for a bare minimum of 400 kilobits per second upload per video stream, and we don't start to relax and feel comfortable unless we have more like 500 or 600kbps. 1.8mbps was, theoretically, enough to support *three* video streams, so this test result brought our first sigh of relief. For us, an internet connection is never real until we ourselves hit it from SpeedTest.net.

This particular cable modem fed a total of five separate wifi access points scattered throughout the fairgrounds. As we'd previously discussed, Jim proceeded to apply a connection password to the access point in the Kitsap Sun Pavilion, and to disable the other four access points (so nobody else could use the cable modem's bandwidth). Furthermore, Jim and I determined that the router had two available ethernet ports, and we worked out paths to run ethernet cables from it to each of the two stages where DNN would be set up. We can get by with wifi as long as it's secured, but using a wired connection always brings an added level of comfort: wires are less likely to suffer interference and dropped connections than wireless.

5:00pm: Mercy Less and I each have streamed video running from our computers, just using the built in webcam as a proof of stable bandwidth. Another big sigh of relief. Meanwhile, I've been coordinating logistics with Miss Nomer and others from the host Slaughter County Roller Vixens. We found the tables already placed for us, swapped out a couple of 6' tables for longer 8' tables as we'd previously arranged, and also suggested ways they might arrange other tables based on our experience with previous events (in particular recommending that scorekeeper and stat tables go as close to track edge as insurance allows, to accommodate the likelihood of ref/nso confabs).

6:00pm: Both video streams are still up and stable, which bodes well for minimum stream problems all weekend. I met with Robert, the power guy from Kitsap County, to arrange power drops to our tables and camera locations. Track 2 didn't offer a suitable camera position, so I also inquired about a 4' riser in the corner, which Robert was happy to provide. Hot damn, this is remarkably good support from the venue!

7:00pm: Off to dinner. Oh my god, really good Japanese food at Hakata... Mercy Less and I enjoy many things about life in New Mexico, but the shortage of tasty cuisine free from green chiles is an ongoing sore spot. Over dinner we remark on how very far ahead of the game both our setup and the venue seem to be -- DNN logistics plotted, tracks, bleachers, and benches set, and nearly 24 hours still before first whistle. Naturally, it didn't occur to either of us to knock wood while we spoke.

9:00pm: After a bit of a wait as the front desk checked in most of the Tucson Saddletramps, we're in our hotel room working on all of the many, many little pieces: trying to fill final holes in the text and video schedules, working with Gnosis (back in Madison) to see about implementing a separate box on bout pages for bout officials, trying to get the officials list from Caesar who managed to collect it already, putting up ads for last-minute event sponsors, triple-checking ad rotations to make sure everyone's getting what we promised, and a hundred other things.

Mercy Less attempts to get some homework done, which always seems like a viable plan until we're actually on the road. Eventually we crash at a not completely unreasonable hour.