Newsletter 1 : April 2005

Award | Technical Support | Product Updates | Coaches Corner | Case Study | Vacancies

Welcome to this months edition of the Sportstec newsletter.

Sportstec would like to welcome its world-wide network of customers to the company’s first official newsletter. Our aim is to keep in touch with all of you who use Sportstec products and hope within this context we can share the benefits of different customer usage with you as you look towards your own future directions and development with the range of products on offer.

We have included a technical section and will over time answer many of the most commonly asked questions.

Sportstec has over 2000 systems placed around the world and is growing quickly, making us the largest provider of these types of products in the world. The products are used in many different sports at various levels from Olympic to club champs, from professional teams to high schools - each looking to improve performance with the objective of being better at what they achieve.

Many of you will know that Sportstec is an Australian based company with an operation in the USA but we also have a direct operation in New Zealand and a joint venture in the United Kingdom and distributors in 20 countries around the globe. Over the coming issues I would like to keep you informed of the changes happening within Sportstec.

I would like to thank each customer for their support in making Sportstec and our products what they are today and we look forward to continuing to meet the requirements of this exciting market.

Philip Jackson, Managing Director

In this months issue:

Sportstec Wins 2004 Sports Business Innovation Award

Last month Sportstec was honoured to receive the 2004 AusIndustry Business Inovation Award. This is the second time that Sportstec has been given this honour. To read more about this achievement click here.

Technical Support

Over the coming issues we will answer the most commonly asked questions, starting this week with Compression.

Case study

In this issue we profile the Sydney Swans, a AFL team in Australia. The Swans have been working with Sportstec products since 2000 and have successfully integrated technology into every element of their coaching department. Click here to read more.

Coach’s corner

Sportstec has an exciting range of products covering a wide variety of applications and sports. Each month we will share with you different ways Sportstec customers are using our products. This issue we look at how you can drive information out of your timeline in the range of SportsCode products. Click here to see more.

Analyst Positions

Many times we are asked by our customers if we know of video analysts with SportsCode experience that might be looking for a change in role. As part of the newsletter we are prepared to list any vacancies in this area you may have available. We will do this free of charge and potential candidates will contact you directly. If you would like to place your vacancies in this Newsletter please email the details to info@sportstecinternational.com

Next Months Issue we will profile SportsCode Stream the ultimate tool for distributing SportsCode files, look at how to create a DVD and take a look at how Duke University’s Basketball teams use SportsCode.

Product Updates

Click here to see the latest software updates.

Sportstec Wins 2004 Sports Business Innovation Award

Sportstec has added to a growing list of personal achievements in the competitive market of sports technology after winning with the 2004 Sports Business Innovation Award at the Australian Sports Awards in Sydney in early March.

This award recognises sports related businesses, which are leading the way through innovation, entrepreneurship and research and development. The award was testimony to Sportstec’s inventiveness and continued ability to keep abreast of the times.

Sportstec has become a world leader in the design, development and marketing of innovative solutions for sporting organisations. World renown names such as Manchester United, Buffalo Sabres, FIFA, the Australian Rugby Union, Duke University and some 600 other elite organisations have embraced Sportstec technologies joining the numerous Australian teams using its products.

From the initial world beating SportsCode video analysis system Sportstec has expanded the product range to include Trak Performance (used by the ARU and FIFA), Cronus – an athlete management system that is changing the way organisations manage their athlete data and Stream – an exciting new product that provides the ability to search and view video over the internet.

Sportstec strives to maintain a leading edge through continual product updates that create excitement while adding real value to sporting organisations in Australia and around the world.

Other awards won by Sportstec include:

• 2003 NSW Emerging Exporter of the Year
• 2003 Finalist ATS Patrons Award for Outstanding Achievements in International Markets
• 2001 ASI Australian Sport Exporter of the Year
• 2002 ASI Australian Sport Exporter of the Year (Finalist)
• 2002 Innovation and Technology Award (Finalist)

Technical Support

Topic: Mpeg Compression

Original	First P Frame
A few P Frames later	The end of the P Frame

When a movie is compressed from within SportsCode in Mpeg 4 you have the ability to select how often a Key frame is generated (the default is once every 24 frames). This means that a Key frame (which is a Full - Single Frame) is then compressed in spatial format. (All of the compression for this frame is based entirely on the data within this frame only).

The next frame (a P frame) is then compared with the Key frame and only the changes that have occurred from one frame to the next is saved. This is known as temporal compression.

Obviously as frames go by, the difference from one frame to the next is very different to the original Key frame. NOTE: This means that the information in a ‘P frame’ is totally dependant upon the information in the preceding frames.

Now consider what might happen if we end an instance movie immediately after a Key frame and splice onto this another instance movie that was cut immediately after a Key frame. You now have a combined movie that has a Key frame (which starts a sequence as explained above) with subsequent P frames that do not match the original Key frame. !!!!!! Chaos !!!!!!!

When you play the instances individually then QuickTime finds the next Key frame and tries to fix the start of the movie, so that it plays correctly.

HOW DO WE STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING?
The simple fix is to Key frame every frame during the original compression.

Coaches Corner #1

Products: GB/Pro/Elite/Player

Feature: Combining instances that occur simultaneously to search for more specific examples

Application:

Example: 1. Soccer
Code for field position: Attacking 50m and defensive 50m
Code for possession: Possession us and Possession them

Combine rows: Defensive 50m and possession them, result will create a series of movies which specifically show all of your opposition’s attacking possessions.

Example: 2. Basketball
Code button for each player with 5 seconds lead + lag time
Code events eg: 3 point attempt
Code zones left + Right side of the court

Combine the player row + Event row = new row called Player A + 3PA

Combine Player A + 3PA with left side. The result will give you an indication of whether the player in question favours a certain side of the court when attempting 3 point goals.

Case Study: The Sydney Swans

The investment four years ago from an antiquated digital system to Sportstec’s sophisticated provider of sport’s training technology has revolutionised how the Sydney Swans Football Club operates.

The Australian AFL club has moved from an old version digital system that only had the capacity to store one game at a time to SportsCode which offers a revolutionary range of video analysis systems.

"We’ve gone from being able to have one video (one digital capture) of the game to now having three seasons on computer,’’ Swans technology manager Anthony Cahill said.
Cahill, who has been with the Swans since 2000, has experienced both the old and new in sports technology and said the differences are light years apart when comparing the versions.

SportsCode can look at a number of games for analysis purposes and is readily accepted by the players as a user-friendly tool.

"The can easily click on different components of a game they want to view for analysis purposes and are more than responsive about the technology,’’ Cahill said.
They now want it and almost demand it. It’s very hands-on and it’s used extensively as an educational tool by the coaches.’’

The coaching staff at the Swans includes a head coach and three assistant coaches with each of the 45 players being allocated to a coach for one-on-one meetings. Those meetings include the coach bringing up the individual player’s game on the computer and the pair will go through a detailed process of performance.

There are also group meetings with the same emphasis and full scale team debriefs.
In today’s age of professional sport where the margins between winning and losing are often very fine, Cahill said the use of technology is playing an increasingly important role.

"With elite athletes these days so finely tuned you can’t over-train them so a lot of your tactical stuff has to be done another way. You can’t do it out on the field, you have to reinforce it, educate and coach them using other means,’’ he said.

"The predominant way is using digital video technology or any sort of video technology. But naturally, the greatest benefit you can have is by putting it on computer and just having the ability to slice it up and cut it up and create presentations and being able to access it throughout the year.
"It is a vital training tool and I don’t think you could go without it now.’’

With the multi-functional facets of the SportsCode program, the Swans are able to cover any number of activities via the screen, including refining tactics, analysing opponents, analysing their own individual and team performances, analyse training techniques and strategies, fitness testing, biomechanical analysis, injury rehabilitation analysis and player recruitment. All the club’s recruiting managers have got the SportsCode system and they file through hours of recruiting vision to be analysed.

Cahill likes the simple interface offered by SportsCode and said when the Swans were looking to upgrade four years ago it was "by far the best’’ on offer.
"We made a big decision then and quite an expensive investment and we’ve stuck with it because we’ve felt that Sportstec have been good in upgrading and continuing to improve their product,’’ he said.

"Just the ease of use and the flexibility of the program was the thing that drew me, it still does and I still find it easy to use, the coaches find it easy to use and the players find it easy to use. The visual aspect is also better than other programs.’’

Product Updates

These product versions were accurate as at 1st April 2005 and available for download from http://www.sportstecsupport.com

Trak Performance 2.2.23
SportsCode 5.4.21
SportsCode Gamebreaker 5.4.19
Cronus 1.0
Stream 2.2