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Football Video Technology:

The Basics
Video Coordinator, University of Virginia
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When a football program is on the smaller scale, we have to imagine that when it comes time for budgeting, there are certain items that take precedent. Obviously, the team must be equipped with the proper tools: helmets, shoulder pads, shoes and those items necessary to outfit a college or high school football player. The next item that must take precedent is that of the medical aspect. That is, to prevent injuries and when they do happen being able to treat the injury so that the athlete can soon return to competition. What this leads to is having video be the lowest priority during budget times simply because of the other items. There is no hidden agenda to not spend money on the video aspect of football, but the other items have an obvious priority.

Where then does this leave you? You must learn how to prioritize the resources that you do get for video for your program, and do more with less. Every program is different, but to be able to realize what is important in the world of video is crucial. Every coach on your staff must look at video. Whether it is on a laptop, DVD, CD, or VHS, they are going to look at it. This leads to what I feel is the most important part of the process: the actual shooting of the video. I am not necessarily talking about how the camera operator shoots the camera although that is a vital part of the puzzle and an article on its own, but the physical camera. In dealing with some of the high school tape that we get in the recruiting process, I feel as if there is too much priority put on the editing system used or the DVD authoring when it should be on the initial look of the video. If you start with bad video, perhaps a VHS consumer model from a few years back, and then begin to make copies of that tape or digitize it to your edit system, it is never going to get better than the poor quality that it was to begin with. Upgrade the camera. You don’t have to spend $15,000 or even $8,000. With the way signals are being processed today, you can get something great for about $2,500. Sony, Panasonic, and JVC all make cameras that will do fantastic jobs. There are Division I-A schools that shoot practice with these price point cameras utilizing them in unison with the more expensive setups. There are cameras even less expensive that will also do great jobs.

When you bump up to these newer models of cameras, you will also reap the benefits of the newest features. One that is now standard on almost all digital type cameras is the fire wire input/ output. This is also referred to as IEEE connection or the 1394 connection. It is a connection that will carry both audio and video in its signal. What this does is eliminate the need for those clumsy conversion boxes that you try to use to hook up your deck to a computer. It is a one-cable connection that keeps the signal in a true digital realm.

You will also find these cameras have the ability to move from consumer-type thinking while shooting to a little more of a professional attitude. They will give you the flexibility to white balance manually improving your color as well as changing filters to fit the lighting situation. All of these features and others offered will help to improve that initial “acquisition” of tape.

What’s next then? You have spent money on a camera and now you must give your coaches the ability to watch and study the tape. It is so important that when you distribute the video to your staff that you give it to them the best way possible. With the way digital video has progressed, even the simplest video program can give you the basics for your study. Remember it was only 18 years ago that all this technology moved from film. On the film side we saw an original and then from there a minimal number of cuts as the print could only go so far. In any terms there are multiple software programs out there that can get you your video intercut or single angle sorted by offense, defense, and then special teams.

What do you want to do? Unless you have a large donor or a great budget, chances are that you might not be able to afford a networked type system. When we mention network, we are referring to having a central server and clients (coaches stations) throughout the facility that you will be able to watch video at, thus eliminating tape as the prominent form of study. Most programs need to take the cuts from the video system and put them back to tape or DVD so that not all the coaches have to gather around a single computer screen. So if the basics can be done by most of these systems, it’s your job to choose whom you feel the most comfortable with. Check the company statistics. How long have they been around, what type of support do they offer, who is included in the customer list, and what are they giving you for the price that you are paying? Remember, though, that you are not buying the entire network so some of the features mentioned during their demos may not be part of the package that your program needs.

Work with the equipment that you have in the right way. So many of the problems that occur with video equipment these days is not understanding the basics of it. When you hook up your VHS decks, or DVD recorders it benefits you to understand the best quality that the outputted product can be. When selecting the cables to use, realize that the s-video connection will be better quality than the yellow (composite) or single bnc connector video cable will be. Realize that when hooking your decks to a TV for display, using the red, green, blue cabling (component) will be even better than the s-video.

Other items to consider when outputting to tape is the speed that your VCR or DVD recorder is set at. It is imperative to understand the difference between the SP mode and SLP mode. Unless your outputted video is over two hours you should always have your record machine set to SP (on the DVD recorders you can even set the speed to record at a superior one hour mode if your program allows).

What is happening when you set your speed to SP is that the tape it is being recorded to is actually moving faster over the record heads and, in turn, writing less information to each piece of tape and producing better quality. It seems a little confusing but with the mode in SLP you are stuffing more information into a smaller area and thus, sacrificing quality. If you sacrifice the quality on the initial output, by the time someone makes the second or third dub, the video is barely recognizable especially when outputting to a projector for team study.

One other helpful item that can improve your video is a piece of inexpensive equipment called a distribution amplifier (DA). What tends to happen when you have multiple decks hooked together without a DA is something that we refer to as ‘daisy chaining.’ In basic terms it is output from one deck to input on the next, and out on that deck to in on the next and so on. What is happening when you do this is that the signal is getting weaker and weaker as it is looped. What the DA does is take the original output and send it out to the multiple sources with the same amplification thus eliminating signal loss. You can pick up a DA for composite (the single cable) or s-video from most vendors that you purchase video from.

Where can you go for advice on these tough decisions or basic information? Make contacts with the video directors at a school in your area that employs a full time video director. These are people that deal with video as their job on a full time basis and should be willing and able to help you with these decisions. Many of these video directors are members of the AFCA and listed in the directory. I know that when we have high school clinics, I am more than happy to make myself useful by answering a few questions about video and making some basic recommendations to anyone that needs it. We deal with vendors on a daily basis and can certainly help to point your program in the right direction. The more resources that you have to help in these decisions, the better off you will be able to justify the money that you are going to spend. In the end you will hopefully get the best video set up for your program.


Luke Goldstein is in his third season as video coordinator for the Virginia football program. Goldstein previously served as director of league video operations for the XFL. From 1998 to 2000, he was the director of video operations at the University of Southern California. Before that, he spent three years (1995-98) as assistant video director for the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars and one year (1994-95) as a video engineer with ESPN.






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