Newsletter: August 2005
News | Technical Support | Coaches Corner | Case Study | Product Updates
Welcome to this months edition of the Sportstec newsletter.
We have had another exciting month around the globe. Firstly, Sportstec has added another country to the list of where our products can be found. We have sold SportsCode into Qatar to the Al-Sadd Football Club. On top of growing the business in a geographical sense we have been working on a strategic partnership with CSTV ( www.cstv.com) in America. According to Brian Bedol, Chairman and CEO of CSTV, “Sportstec develops the leading coaching and scouting tools in the world. This partnership greatly enhances our ability to serve our university and college partners, providing yet another element in our overall program. Sportstec is very excited about this opportunity and will over the coming months share with you how this alliance could provide potential advantages to your organsation.
This month we also received the first call regarding “positions available”. We hope this newsletter becomes a regular advertiser of Sportstec product related job opportunities.
The FA (Football Association) in England is looking for two Performance Analysts who have had SportsCode experience. Stephen O’Brien of The FA says the jobs are exciting opportunities for people looking to work in football (soccer) at the highest level. For details regarding the positions please contact Stephen O”Brien at StephenObrien74@yahoo.co.uk
If you have a vacancy and would like us to publish it please contact us and we will include it in the next issue.
Regards,
Philip Jackson, Managing Director
In this months issue:
News
From July 1st our USA Sportstec team has experienced some exciting changes. To read more click here.
Technical Support
Have you heard the rumour that Apple is moving to Intel chips? Well it’s true, click here to find out why the move and how it will impact on Sportstec products?
Coach’s corner
The creation of a SportsCode database is an extremely efficient and powerful tool for coaches and athletes. We outline how databasing can be a great analysis tool that can save you lots of time and storage space. Click here to read and learn more.
Case Study
The British Lions (Rugby Union) have just completed a successful tour of New Zealand. We take a close up look at how the Lions used SportsCode, to not only deliver important coaching information but to also bring the team together as a solid unit. To read more click here.
Product Updates
To find the latest available versions of all Sportstec products click here.
Sportstec News
Sportstec USA has undergone some important personnel changes in the last couple of months. New roles for the existing team and new people to join the team highlight those changes. Effective July 1, 2005 Chris Jones has been promoted to National Sales Manager. Chris has enjoyed great success in his role as account manager over the last 2.5 years. Chris will now be countedon to deliver his wisdom to our direct sales team and help each of them develop their own skills.
We also have two new staff to announce. Matt Landwehr has joined the team in a dual role as Product Trainer and Account Manager. Matt had two years of experience with Sportstec products in his former position with the University of Missouri Men's Basketball team. He was widely considered to be an expert with the SportsCode products in particular. Matt will be part of our industry-leading support team and will also help in Sportstec's sales efforts in the midwest.
Karen Sonnenschein joined Sportstec full-time officially on July 1. For three months prior to that Karen provided temporary, part-time administrative support to the US team. Karen, a native Californian, has already had an enormous impact on the quality of operations at Sportstec USA. Karen has a long background in administrative support, but a great passion for performing. She has performed as a professional singer in numerous musicals and operas over the years.
Technical Support
Yes its true.
Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006
At its Worldwide Developer Conference on June 6th 2005, Apple® announced plans to deliver models of its Macintosh® computers using Intel® microprocessors.
Apple® will begin the transition for customers late in 2006.
Why are they going to make that transition?
Because they want to be able to make the best computers for their customers- looking forward towards 2006/7/8. With the current PowerPC chip, the development is not delivering on the promises envisaged. This transition is not going happen overnight, its going to happen over a period a few years. Again Apple® have great products right now and some great PowerPC products in the pipeline yet to be introduced.
As they look ahead they have some amazing products to build, but don’t know how to build them with the future PowerPC roadmap. When they look at Intel®, it promises to have great performance, but more importantly it has a significant advantage in power consumption. This can be measured as performance per watt. When Apple® look at the future roadmaps of both CPU’s, projected out through 2006 and beyond, what they see is that the PowerPC gives them 15units of performance per watt, while the Intel® roadmap of the future show them at 70units of performance per watt.
By June 2006 Apple® plan to be shipping the first of the Intel® based Mac’s, by the end of 2007 they expect the transition to be mostly complete. However Apple® will not forget their current and future PowerPC users.
Steve Jobs has stated, that Mac OS X has been running on Intel® processors for the last 5yrs, in fact all OS X release versions have been built to run on Intel® and PowerPC. So Mac OS X is cross platform by design.
For other applications the transition to the Intel® processor is relatively simple.
For :
- Java applications - they just work
- Cocoa Applications - a few minor tweaks and compile to Universal binaries (a few days)
- Carbon applications - Xcode - more tweaks and compile to Universal binaries (a couple of weeks)
- Carbon applications - Metroworks C++ move to Xcode then build the Universal binaries
Universal Binaries run natively on Macintosh computers using PowerPC or Intel® microprocessors and deliver optimal performance for both architectures in a single package.
When our developers compile to a Universal Binary they produce a binary (application program) which contains all of the bits required to run on either processor, that is the loader for each processor loads the right set of bits and goes. That is a binary that supports both processors.
Apple® have stated that they are going to be supporting both of these processors for a very long time because they have a very large installed base on the PowerPC, which is expected to have increased by 30% to 50% at the end of 2007. Further they expect from mid 2006 to have a growing number of systems based on the Intel® processor, for application developers to sell their software to.
Q. So where is Sportstec, and our SportsCode® family of products.
Sportstec is finalizing the next version V6 of our products.
When the V6 release is complete we will begin the process of making our applications into universal binaries, and expect to be running the dual loader systems for 6mths before the new Intel® processor based Mac’s are available.
Q. Should we invest in new apple hardware now and what support will be provided in the future?
Apple® have stated that they are going to be supporting both of these processors for a very long time because they have a very large installed base on the PowerPC.
Sportstec expects that any hardware purchased up until the Intel based products are introduced, will be well beyond their technological life before they reach Apple’s end of support commitment.
Coaches Corner
Creating And Using The Sportscode Database Function
The creation of a database is an extremely efficient and powerful tool for coaches and athletes. It enables you to:
- Quickly review individual or team clips throughout a week, month or a season.
- Analyse competitors or your performance without the need to troll through multiple games
- Analyse key strengths and weaknesses around specific events week on week
- View technique progression of an athlete over a period of time instantly
- Create highlight tapes for the team presentation at the end of the season
Databasing also saves you hard drive space and time as you remove all unwanted footage.
SportsCode Databasing in Action: Professional Baseball
Baseball is one of the many sports that really benefits from SportsCode’s real time capture and coding capabilities, whereby every pitch, at bat, and outcome is coded.
A baseball game will typically run from 2 – 5 hours, resulting in a lot of footage that is not required. Teams create both batter and pitcher based databases; by removing all of the extra footage it means the actual footage time is compressed into about 30 minutes.
Each batter can then look at their own “at bats” to determine how they did and what pitch they went out on, quickly and efficiently.
Over a period of weeks a pattern often emerges as to what their strengths and more importantly weaknesses are in facing pitchers (or a particular pitcher) and this can be worked on with their batting coaches to improve their outcomes against their “bogey” pitches or pitchers.
Similar situation with the pitchers, they simply pull up their own individual SportsCode database and look at their techniques over the span of their game and/or multiple games e.g. a pitcher trying to remove any telegraphing through their body language as to what type of pitch they are about to throw.
An important part of a team’s competitive analysis is done using Pitchers databases; databases of individual pitchers throughout the season. A database can highlight patterns that emerge during a season, for example as to what their “money pitch sequence” will be. This is when they are under pressure (say loaded bases) what sequence of pitches will they fall back on to try and pull them out of a hole.
Humans under pressure will typically fall back into a particular pattern of moves or behaviour instinctively. By using the power of SportsCode’s database you can draw out what a pitcher’s particular pattern is over time and consequently prepare your players as to what to expect.
Databasing is a standard function found in SportsCode, if you haven’t already experienced the benefits of databasing give it a go now!
For more information on Databasing or any other Sportstec related matter please contact your local representative.
Case Study
2005 Lions Tour of New Zealand - Gavin Scott
 In terms of personnel, the just-completed Lions tour to New Zealand was the largest rugby tour in history, the Lions arriving with more than double the usual quota of players and management. With little time to adapt to each other and prepare for New Zealand conditions, technology was the key component in getting the players and coaches on the same wavelength.
From the outset, Lions video analyst Gavin Scott said the tourists were quick to embrace SportsCode, the simplicity, flexibility and easy use of the equipment being the cornerstone to the quick transfer of common information. Bringing together four nations to play as one within a minimal amount of time was the most pressing challenge facing the Lions and where SportsCode played a pivotal role. "Using SportsCode meant we could take a lot of information and get through it quite quickly,’’ Scott said.
"From a coach’s perspective, a number of them hadn’t used the system before so it was important it was simple to use and easy to pick up because they were going to be using it a lot and they didn’t have a lot of time to have a lot of training.
"That’s the beauty of SportsCode, it’s such an easy system to learn that the guys, particularly the England coaches who had never used it before, picked it up really easily and really enjoyed using it.’’
 With minimal training required, Scott was able to leave the coaches to their own devices, enabling the respective team mentors to build their own presentations. In essence it cut down the time spent on the training process.
"It was the same with the players,’’ Scott said. "There were a reasonable number of players who had used SportsCode before but also a lot of them who hadn’t and the ones that hadn’t picked it up really quickly and found what they wanted from it without having to do too much training.’’
Before the tour, the Scotland, Wales and Ireland rugby unions had all used the SportsCode system. "England don’t currently but I think they are just about to buy some because of what they’ve seen on the tour,’’ Scott said.
With computers providing coaches the luxury of having the game at their fingertips, there is the opportunity to review real time information of specific incidents as well as the overall unfolding of the match for debriefing purposes afterwards.
Because of limited time during a game, real time information usually relates to something a coach didn’t see properly and wants to have another look at or a couple of different plays that can be compared, rather than delving into plays that need deeper analysis.
 "The coaches may look at a lineout or a backline move and see if there’s anything different that can be done next time they do it to improve it during the game,’’ Scott said.
"A lot of the stuff that we do during the game cuts down the time we have to spend doing other things after the game but it also allows coaches to review certain parts of the game that they want to review for talking to the guys about at halftime or for getting messages onto the pitch and that sort of thing.’’
With the mid-week team and the test team having their own set of coaches throughout the tour, both teams benefited from an equal amount of video work and the associated input. Six laptops were available in the team room at the respective hotels so players had access to their own games as well as opponents matches that they could look through during the preparation for matches.
Scott said player use of SportsCode during the tour had been fairly equal and was not frequented more by those who were familiar with the system but rather usage had followed traditional paths.
"You tend to get a lot of lineout forwards who will be fairly heavy users because they like to look at their own and opposition lineouts and certain other players will use it a bit less,’’ he said.
The use of Apple equipment had also received strong endorsements throughout the tour. Initial hesitation at using something new quickly evaporated when it was found they weren’t all that different at all."Because you can use things like Microsoft Office then it’s almost the same as having a PC anyway,’’ Scott said.
"Because some people were using them fresh, and again it’s similar to SportsCode, it would have taken them less time to learn how to use an Apple than it would have done to use a PC for the first time. It’s such an easy thing to pick up. You know where everything is on your Apple and connecting to the internet is dead easy and all that kind of thing. I think everyone’s been really impressed and really enjoyed using the machines.’’
Scott needed no convincing that the SportsCode/Apple platform was the best set-up available.
 "It’s good because it’s so flexible,’’ he said. "You can design your own templates and you really get out of it what you put in. It can be designed so coaches can look at specific things in different ways and that’s been one of the good things about this tour.
With so many different coaches from so many different places we have been able to put some things together quite quickly that suits all of them and in that respect it’s gone very well.’’
Scott has been a SportsCode user since 2002 and before that had used two or three other systems. He acknowledged "all give similar things’’ but SportsCode was the standout product in its field.
"SportsCode’s definitely the most flexible out of them all and it’s the most powerful as well,’’ he said. "You’re able to compile lots of games and lots of information together and analyse it reasonably quickly. You can prepare presentations very quickly which is the key thing because that’s what we’re doing on a daily basis.’’
Product Updates
To download the latest versions of Sportstec software go to http://www.sportstecsupport.com
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