Do DGT boards broadcast their presence?

[John Upham]

I'm considering purchasing a DGT board for Camberley Chess Club to broadcast the board one game.

Will the sheer act of connecting it to a laptop which is connected to the Internet allow it to appear in the Broadcasts room of PlayChess.Com or does one have to do other things?

I'm wondering if PlayChess scan for MAC addresses of DGT boards?

Hopefully someone can assist ?

[Sean Hewitt]

You need to tell them where you are publishing the pgn file that the DGT board generates. But they don't show all games - I guess they have a limit so it depends what else is on.

[John Upham]

You need to tell them where you are publishing the pgn file that the DGT board generates. But they don't show all games - I guess they have a limit so it depends what else is on.

Thanks Sean. Who at PlayChess.Com do I need to contact?

I wonder how many clubs broadcast any of their league games?

Could this be a first (and maybe last )?

[Carl Hibbard]

Could this be a first (and maybe last )?

Can't you just upload the .pgn file to a web server and then use a reasonably nice viewer to show it?

Broadcast yourself

[John Upham]

I aslo wanted to run a web cam to provide a live streamed video feed for the match.

Can anyone suggest a free streaming server to use? ( I doubt if there is one but I've not looked)

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

[Alex Holowczak]

Does this team play in a league that has the option of not using a digital clock if someone declines? If they're banning digital clocks, then will they end up banning a live stream of their game around the world? I can imagine a situation where the Division Six board 1 for the away team walks in, sees the equipment, and gets rather put off by it all. Perhaps that's your intention?

Also, does it handle adjournments? I'm not sure that would be a great advertisement for British league chess...

[Roger de Coverly]

Does this team play in a league that has the option of not using a digital clock if someone declines?

If used in the Berks League, equipment is supplied by the home club.

There's no rule one way or the other about transmitting the game live. When you enter a tournament like the British, I suppose you give implicit consent to have the game broadcast if on a "qualifying" board. Use of duplicate scoresheets is a consent to have your games published.

Were a league rule to be invented, I would be in favour of the opponent being able to say "no" particularly if a webcam was involved. Leagues are not usually events with duplicate scoresheets, so there's a presumption that any dazzling novelties will only be witnessed by the participants in the match and local spectators.

[Kevin Plant]

I aslo wanted to run a web cam to provide a live streamed video feed for the match.

Can anyone suggest a free streaming server to use? ( I doubt if there is one but I've not looked)

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

There is http://www.livestream.com/ used at the British Champs and http://www.ustream.tv/

Of course there are more out there...

[John Upham]

Fairly obviously this would only happen with the full consent of both of the players involved.

It would probably be between players who actually feel that chess deserves more publicity.

It is likely to involve two titled players.

We wouldn't bother two lower rated players who wish to remain hidden or be deluded about the importance of their game to chess community.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Fairly obviously this would only happen with the full consent of both of the players involved.

It would probably be between players who actually feel that chess deserves more publicity.

It is likely to involve two titled players.

We wouldn't bother two lower rated players who wish to remain hidden or be deluded about the importance of their game to chess community.

You could alert the local news media. I'm not being entirely facetious here. In theory, the fact that a chess club is venturing into using new technology to broadcast its games to the world might grab the attention of some news editors, maybe even enough to get a reasonable write-up. You could even offer to feed the game into their news website, though goodness knows what the readers would make of it!

[John Upham]

You could alert the local news media. I'm not being entirely facetious here. In theory, the fact that a chess club is venturing into using new technology to broadcast its games to the world might grab the attention of some news editors, maybe even enough to get a reasonable write-up. You could even offer to feed the game into their news website, though goodness knows what the readers would make of it!

Thanks for your encouragement. It is good to hear more reasons to try something rather than the usual reasons for not doing something : thanks!

[David Blower]

LOL. I have considered doing live twitter commentry from our matches, and hopefully our club is using social media in the right way. Our club also has its own youtube channel, although so far only a playlist has been added of basic checkmates, all of them by other users.

The difficulty with twitter is of course it would rely on someone not playing for the evening to do the commentry, and texting commentry via phones that have the internet would be too much of a distraction. Plus the basic point of we're all there to play chess, not to watch 5 matches of some of the other players in the club.

The youtube channel is going to be used to show previous matches by our club members, hopefully with the member that played in the game, providing commentry of the match, explaining why they made moves they did, what alternative moves they may have considered etc.

[David Blower]

Were a league rule to be invented, I would be in favour of the opponent being able to say "no" particularly if a webcam was involved. Leagues are not usually events with duplicate scoresheets, so there's a presumption that any dazzling novelties will only be witnessed by the participants in the match and local spectators.

I assume the biggest thing would be some sort of assumption that the players were being told what moves to make by a computer set to impossible mode. Even if this wasn't being done, some people might still think that.

[David Blower]

We wouldn't bother two lower rated players who wish to remain hidden or be deluded about the importance of their game to chess community.

Some of the most entertaining games at our club I would say are between some of the lowest rated players at the club. Even when some of our juniors were making illegal moves at the board because they didn't know the rules it was still good to watch them. (Although that maybe just to do with how quickly juniors play.) And they do now how to play a bit better now as well.

I'm not sure watching our highest players at the club not making a move for 20 minutes would be entertaining. Even if it is better "technical" chess.

(Not sure "entertaining" is the right word to use, but your get my point.) Just saying that I'm not certain, players ratings have that much to do with broadcasting club matches.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I wonder how many clubs broadcast any of their league games?"

It's a great idea. Guernsey CC got a live board for the October Festivals, but occasionally broadcast their club championship games, which seems eminently sensible - much better than putting it a box for 51 weeks a year.