| 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). 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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