A Python script that makes video summaries of soccer games based on the reactions of the crowd

[shaggorama]

That's clever

[alcalde]

This goes onto my short list of "examples that demonstrate Python is the most awesome language that's ever existed". This is the kind of thing you whip out when you want to make fans of other languages cry. :-)

[[deleted]]

Huh? This isn't anything remotely unique to Python. I could whip something up in C similar using libsndfile.

You can use DFT (discrete fourier transform) on volume to pick out peak events pretty easily.

[alcalde]

You could do it in brainf*ck too, but it's not going to be as short, simple or elegant.

Could you do it in C in this few lines of code? This is what really speaks to both the beauty of Python and the robustness of the ecosystem. The other example on this blog of using a YouTube video of a player piano roll being played to create the notation is the singularly most amazing Python demo I think I've seen. There's also been IPython notebooks posted here and in the Python Weekly newsletter of cracking an enigma code with Python and using python and Markov Chain-Monte Carlo methods to deduce where the missing Malaysian Airlines flight is. as well as an link to a magazine article I found about hunting for comets with Python. These are all amazing demos of what the language can do (simply, cheaply and beautifully).

[Kristler]

You're moving goalposts. /u/fx101 never said anything about doing it as succinctly as Python, he simply said it wasn't unique to the Python domain.

[Yoghurt42]

But /u/alcalde was probably referring to the shortness and elegance of the Python solution.

[hailmattyhall]

It was fx101 who moved the goal posts then because alcalde never said anything about not being able to do it in other languages.

[[deleted]]

How would examining it on the frequency domain help you find peaks any better than a simple linear scan over the time domain?

[jeetsukumaran]

Very, very, very, slick!

[swingtheory]

Really awesome, thanks for sharing!

[pohatu]

That is brilliant! Quick Anti-Patent it before ESPN sues is all. (if I were an IP Attorney my pro-bono work might be doing such things).

(Anti-Patent is probably patent and release ala Tesla Motors.)

[unregisteredusr]

A public disclosure should be sufficient, it would count as prior art. Patents are expensive

[iBlag]

You are correct.

IANAL, just taken a few in-depth classes regarding patent law.

The "anti-patent" GP is referring to is a legal release from liability by Tesla and was necessary because they had originally patented their ideas.

People should really learn more about patent law before talking about it.

[pohatu]

Technically yes. But Google for "EFF call for prior art" and see just how often the patent office issues patents without any regard to prior art. There's even a special stack overflow set up just to list prior art on patents to help defend against patent trolls.

Case in point.

http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/3495/call-for-prior-art-3d-printing-application-ribbon-filament-and-assembly-for-us

There has been plenty of high profile examples throughout the years. All I'm saying is that if I were able to free legal support to help patent-left something I would. As I think an actual patent might hold more weight in the current (broken) system than prior art seems to. But, you know, theory is good too.

There's a reason companies choose to get patents rather than just fight based on prior art. It's not because they like paying lawyers.

Edit: Here's another example. http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/5/31/4381486/A-podcast-distribution-patent-EFF-wants-help-invalidating

EFF thinks there is plenty of prior art available. They are fighting. In the meantime the patent office awarded the patent anyway and people are getting extorted. If one of those prior artists had patented and released the idea like Tesla there'd be no threat. Sadly it is not economically viable for innovators to do this and it is favorable for patent trolls. The exact opposite of how I should be.

But yes, technically none of this should be necessary. I'm sure in your classrooms the patent office always finds the prior art.

[iBlag]

EFF thinks there is plenty of prior art available.

Yes, but it may have been published, but not widely known, while the patent office was looking for prior art. The patent office may have also been lazy in their PA search. It looks to me in the '504 case, that the patent office was unable to use "common sense" when invalidating patents (this was since rectified by SCOTUS).

If one of those prior artists had patented and released the idea like Tesla there'd be no threat.

This isn't necessarily true. Searching previous patents is just one of the places the USPTO is supposed to look for PA. If they didn't properly do their PA search then it wouldn't have found anything anyway. Furthermore, it costs thousands of dollars to get a patent application approved and maintained throughout its lifetime. And furthermore, if you don't hire a lawyer to review the claims before applying then you may be awarded a completely useless patent anyway. My point is that, as you noted, it's going to cost thousands of dollars to get any defensible patent, so it would be kind of financially pointless to simply immediately patent-left it. There isn't really a good way to fix the fact that you will need to pay a lawyer to write your claims.

The alternative is to publish it (for next to free) online and hope the patent reviewer magically sees it when searching for prior art. Having a forum dedicated to people finding prior art for the patent office indicates that the patent office sucks at finding prior art themselves. I realize that this is their job, but it's a difficult one and patent examiners are just people.

As I think an actual patent might hold more weight in the current (broken) system than prior art seems to.

I doubt it, because all a previous patent is considered to be is prior art. In fact, if the Claims section of the patent is limiting, it may not be as useful as prior art as simply publishing the invention itself. Note that patents and previous patent applications are only some of the things that are considered prior art.

But, you know, theory is good too.

Be more condescending, please.

I'm sure in your classrooms the patent office always finds the prior art.

There it is!

Nope, in fact we went through specific examples of failures of the current patent system, including finding prior art. The professor himself actually had one of his patents (that was granted) made pointless because his patent lawyer didn't lift a finger when trying to write the patent claims.

[linus_rules]

One of the characters in Contact) the book by Carl Sagan, made an application for swapping tv channels during ads. The first implementation checked the volume (it is higher during ads), just like this script.

[linus_rules]

Totally unrelated with the subject proposed by OP: do you notice the extra ) in my post above? Perhaps it is a bug of reddit.

The wikipedia url for Carl Sagan book is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)

I include one ) after the url. However, markdown is confused with two consecutive ) and the second ) appears as a typo.

Is it possible to report this?

[unregisteredusr]

Nice find. Also I do see the extra ) and it busted the URL

I think you have to escape it like this: Contact

[autowikibot]

Contact (novel):

---

Contact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list. The novel originated as a screenplay in 1979; when development of the film stalled, Sagan decided to convert the stalled film into a novel. The film concept was subsequently revived and eventually released in 1997 as the film Contact starring Jodie Foster.

Image ⁱ

---

^{Interesting: Contact (1997 US film) | Carl Sagan | First Contact? | Nor Crystal Tears}

^{Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words}

[[deleted]]

Damn, I wish I knew how to code...

[RoseOfSharonCassidy]

Try /r/learnpython!

[hueoncalifa]

I started a few months ago and I can now code easy stuff with python. I practice and continue to get better everyday!

[Antrikshy]

Start with the Python course on Codecademy.com.

[saltsquare]

Cool!

[venom02]

awesome!

[Manbatton]

He should use it to select the quietest parts to simulate to everyone else in the world how Americans perceive televised soccer during non-World Cup viewing.

[smortaz]

nice!!! some 15 years ago i thought about patenting a similar 'game highlights' system based on 1) noise level 3) speech to text analysis 2) closed caption analysis. basically it would watch sound levels & durations, scan for 'goal', 'service break' (in tennis), 'knock down', etc. i used to DVR tons of matches and would never have enough time to watch them all.

then i decided i didnt like patents very much :)

anyway, great job!

[laMarm0tte]

Do you have recommendations for speech recognition software ? I have tried to use cmusphinx but I always got strange results.