snorbens_caleyman

Brilliant - thank you. Have today worked out how to use the web browser on my TV - I've only had it for two or three years - and intend to give it a go later. So the point about possible stuttering when the chat board is updated might prevent some anguish and swearing!

There will be contracts which prevent that.

Mine was a little bent - as though it had been read a few times Not the greatest idea to send out a paperback of that size and weight in thin plastic packaging. A little padding next time, please, guys.

And I'd expect the pie and programme to be delivered by Ann Budge in person...

Has it ever been used live? Quite possibly they don't have the infrastructure - cabling round three sides of the ground, dedicated computer and comms equipment in the stand, and onward connection to a live streaming provider.

This is what the camera looks like. Four fixed cameras and what looks like a mike, on top of a pole. The system stitches the images from all four together, so that at all times it has a panoramic view of the entire ground - just like having a big screen in front of you. The AI then controls a virtual camera pointed at the panoramic view, and decides how to "move" it and when to zoom in and out - it decides which part of the big screen we see. Nothing actually moves - except when the wind shakes the whole assembly! This would indeed cause the cameras' images to change slightly - in absolute terms, and also relative to each other - so the line of the join between adjacent images would move. Easy enough for a human to cope with - more difficult for a machine. They claim to have used and tested it on a number of different sports. Though I suspect that most of the testing was done in more benign conditions than 50 feet in the air in autumn in one of the most exposed locations that you could think of! Hope it can cope with extreme cold.

I was pleased early on that Ridgers was passing or throwing it out. But after the goal, he reverted to route one. Presumably with the wind behind him now, he'll be trying to score. Rugby coming to a close finish

Was that Robbo just being booked?

It has just completely missed a goal, for Arbroath. Inexcuseable. Complaint will be made afterwards.

Nasty noise, though. Have had to turn it right down because my wife thought I was dragging heavy furniture across the floor

Into the sun. Lens flare in the same places on the pitch as last week. No commentator - but some dodgy-connection noises.

If you are on a PC - top right of the screen - do you see a symbol for the head and shoulders of a person? Click on it.

Oh you tease! Details... ?

Possibly you could get more (most?) season ticket holders in if they were split across the three stands. Though how you would decide who didn't get their "own seat", and how you would deal with the subsequent complaints, is another problem!

Immortalise yourself on the tunnel wall! https://ictfc.com/ictfc-wall-of-fame-tiles

Because contracts ☹️ And maybe no infrastructure to support Caley Jags TV live streaming.

I can't imagine that there is much that the club themselves will be able to do to refine the system. It's an AI-based system supplied by a company which is not under their control. But I'd hope that someone takes note of the comments here, and feeds them back to the SPFL and the system provider. I know very little about machine learning, but I suspect that it could take some time to actually improve the system - to get it to learn better behaviour. As for the position of the cameras, I suspect that they need a short cable path from the camera rig to an on-site computer which will be in the main stand to maximise its protection. Having said that, the TV companies manage somehow.... As an exile, I agree with tm4tj. If it wasn't for this system, I wouldn't be seeing anything at all, so I won't complain and I will be back. Just praying for dull weather on match days!

I am also so last century ☹️ But "linesman" is shorter... You know these matches where the ref leads everyone out of the tunnel and takes the ball off a plinth? We could set up something similar with hairpieces for follically-challenged officials.

Well, they were. The camera wasn't moving. In case there are any other techies here, I worked out a few things about the system. The Pixellot website - https://www.pixellot.tv/ - mentions a "multi-camera fixed rig system" in the centre of the ground, stitching together a panoramic picture of the pitch. The ICT system used four cameras. Two were looking across to midway inside each half. The straight line across the ground and into the sky was where the images from these two cameras were stitched together by the system. That's why there were differences in colour and sharpness there - two different cameras. Would have thought that the system should be able to compensate better for that. There were two other cameras, one covering each end. The sloping lines where their images were stitched to the central camera images were quite clear, once I knew what to look for, and especially after the sun had gone. So four cameras in all, but no camera was actually moving. The system was stitching together the four camera feeds into one big picture of the ground. It was then deciding which part of that picture to show to us, and whether to zoom in or out - just like you or me deciding which part of a very large screen to look at. Clearly, it was mistaking the linesman's head for the ball, which made me wonder how the AI had learned to follow a game. It suggests that the great majority of the people in the games that it has "watched" have had plenty of hair. Made me wonder about that other common flaw in machine learning, namely using only white people whilst it is learning. Probably not such a problem here, because it is watching people moving, and not, for example, trying to do facial recognition. Clearly very far from perfect - but interesting for a (former) nerd like me.

Don't think there will be anything they can do, since contracts will have been signed. They may not even have the option of lowering the price. Just going to have to learn to live with it, and hope that the AI is smart enough to learn about the Scottish game!

Thought it was the linesman?

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

The two orange patches on the far side and the straight-edged band across the middle don't move when the camera moves. So they are not real-time lens effects. Suggests to me that the computer has decided that they are actually there, and that it's damn well going to show them!

He's on mute here

Dear AI, here is a basic rule for you. Keep the ball on screen, well away from the edges, at all times.