Welcome back for another Tuesday with Tim! I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! For me, this holiday weekend was a bit different this year. My daughter plays volleyball and over the weekend she had her first real tournament since the pandemic started. Her team participated in the Northeastern Qualifier Tournament sanctioned by USA Volleyball. This was a large event held at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.
At this point in time with the restrictions eased, each player was able to bring two spectators, which was different than other volleyball events where no spectators were allowed in. To handle the situation with no spectators, I was able to set up a Livestream for parents, family, and friends to watch the games safely. There have been several iterations of the Livestream setup. I tried a number of different streaming platforms at the beginning that were okay quality-wise, but difficult for users to connect to the Livestream, and also required very good internet access. Another issue I ran into was not having a scoreboard on the screen, so it was hard to keep track of the game score while watching remotely. After many games, I think I have found a good combination to provide a high-quality stream that is easy for people to connect to and is also able to provide a real-time score on the screen.
What I used to accomplish this was Twitch, a popular streaming service with gamers, and an app called Scorecam that has the ability to superimpose a scoreboard on the Livestream. I would Livestream the game using Twitch on my iPhone and with the Scorecam app on my iPad as a remote control, I could change the score in real-time and that would then link back to viewers’ screens watching at home. The great thing about the Scorecam app is that it’s not just for keeping volleyball scores, you can take pictures, record the game, and it is not just for volleyball it can be used for a number of different sports. I’m sure there are other techniques out there, but I’ve been running with this latest configuration and it has really worked out well for me.
This weekend went really well and was a great way for extended family to watch and support each other while staying safe. I hope my personal experience can help other people who would like to stream sporting events to family and friends that cannot make the games in person. Please provide any feedback you want or if you have any questions feel free to reach out. I hope you all have a good week!