BLACK

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I've got to back Chris at Smart Football for his review of Gregg Easterbrook's article...

AWESOME

Easily the most efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly video system any school could ask for. With packages running from $800 - $1600 (based on storage needs), your program can open up the world of film study and game access available to anyone investing in your team.

You can eliminate the spindles of DVDs needed in a season for trades, cuts, film study, and weekly distribution (scout & last game) because everything is housed online on HUDL servers.




As new customers, we have been toying around with the product for a few months and although most on staff are not techno-philes, everyone can use the system because it is no more difficult than a remote control.

Once the game film is uploaded, it will parse into play segments for the staff to detail (as little or as much as you like) later. You can upload game film, scout film, practice film, anything you want.

With the game film online and telestrated/commented as you like, you can distribute it to other coaches, to players, to parents, or even college recruiters.

The only thing required is to have MS Silverlight (Gates' version of Flash) installed on the PC to view the applet.

We plan on (and have been for spring) using this during the athletic periods (football class) to dial up situations pertinent to the game plan or teaching plan. This eliminates the need to cutup the game film and burn to discs for special presentation the night before. Just toggle the plays you want to review and its there in an instant.

There have been tons of video editing, databasing, scouting, and storage solutions offered in the last 8 years in the coaching industry, but nothing captures the full spectrum of needs like HUDL. Be sure to check out the current offer before the season starts!

http://www.hudl.com/blog/comments/test-drive-hudl-i-promise-its-free

I would have to say, one of the coolest aspects of HUDL, isn't the program itself, but the customer service. If you have a problem or question, just call their support line and you will actually talk to a real person (that knows the product). If they can't walk you through it, they'll remote desktop into your PC and fix any issues you might be experiencing.

Video is an awesome tool for teaching young people today. If you are making a video install playbook, it is a good idea to show the play drawn up before showing the video of the play itself. This helps your players to better visualize the concept. The best way to draw this play up is to "grab" a picture just before the snap of the ball from the video clip itself, draw it up in PowerPoint using arrows and letter, and then add this drawing back to your video.

First open Movie Maker and click on View and then click on Timeline. Next, import the video clip that you want. Now, there is a green line at the beginning of the clip. You can grab the picture from the beginning of the clip or you can drag the green line to whatever point you want to in the video. Once the green line is where you want it, click Tools, then click on Take Picture From Preview. Now you have a .jpg picture file that you will draw on in PowerPoint.

Next, download and open one of these PowerPoint files. The bottom file is the newest version of PowerPoint:

PASSING PLAYBOOK (video playbook drawing template).ppt

PASSING PLAYBOOK (video playbook drawing template).pptx

I am having problems with putting links on here. Go here to download the templates:
http://sites.google.com/site/gunrun73/playbooktemplate

Right-click on the PowerPoint slide and go to Format Background and click on Picture or texture fill. Next click on the File button and find and select the .jpg file you just created from Movie Maker. Now your picture will be in the background.

Next, move around the arrows and change the letters to how you want them. Warning: working with curved lines is a pain in the butt in PowerPoint.

Once you have the play drawn up how you want, you will need to save the slide with the drawing so you can import it into your video. Click on the Windows icon in the top left corner and go down to Save As and then click on Other Formats. Click on File name and name the slide and then click on Save as type and save as .gif. It will ask you to export every slide or the current slide--click on Current Slide only. You can give the .gif file the same name you gave the original .jpg file.

Note: It is a good idea to save the play slide as a .jpg file the first time and then save it as a .gif the 2nd time after you draw the play up. This lets you go back and fix the play if you change anything on the drawing and it's easy to differentiate between the original pic and the drawn-up pic file by the file format.

Here is the order that I use. You will have to import the videos and pictures into the Movie Maker timeline:

1. Show .gif picture
2. Show the play, wide angle
3. Show the .gif picture again
4. Show the play, wide angle at 50% speed
5. Show the play, tight angle, 50% speed

To show the play in 50% speed, right-click the video, click Effects, go all the way down and click on Slow Down, Half; next click on Add, then click OK.



Make sure to save your files. Now, you can make a dvd or upload your video to Yahoo for your players to watch and learn. Kick butt and share with the rest of us when you get done.

The topic of 4 man Spacing came up recently, and this is the one cut-up I have of it. The play is Sluggo Space. Sluggo is the frontside route with spacing on the backside. Besides being 4 man instead of 3 man spacing, this play has another variation that the Saints use on occasion as well. Spacing usually has a Swing route from the RB in the backfield. Instead of the Swing route, the RB/WR can be split out wide and run the Hitch route.

The RB in the backfield is running the Shallow stop route. This route and the Mini-Curl route by F give the QB a 2 on 1 vs. the Sam in Cover 2 as I learned from Dan Gonzalez on the Huey board.

The QB is taught to look to the Sluggo vs. 1 Hi and to Spacing vs. 2 Hi. The defense is in Cover 2 here, which tells the QB to look backside, but the Sluggo still works because the safety gets a bit too nosy. Aggressive Cover 2 safeties don't like it when you hit a couple of Slants in front of them. Once set up properly, Sluggo can be a big play vs. Cover 2. Notice the pump fake by the QB to help get the safety to bite. We hit this for a couple of TDs the same way at my old school.



For the Tech Geeks:
The drawing of the play before the video clip is from a powerpoint slide. I stole this idea from Coverdale's video playbook and from others on this board. If you are making a video playbook, the best way to draw that play up so that your players can best visualize the concept is to "grab" a picture just before the snap of the ball from a video clip as a .gif picture file and put it into PowerPoint.

Then right-click on a PowerPoint slide and go to Format Background and click on Picture or texture fill. Next click on the File button and select your .gif file. The whole slide will be a picture of the play right before the ball is snapped.

Then, use the Drawing Tools to make arrows (and I would recommend to use Shape Effects and put a shadow on the line so it stands out and has a better contrast with the football field behind it). You can also use X,Y, Z player labels and 1,2,3 labels for the QB's reads (it looks best with a circle around the letter or number IMO).

You will then need to save the slide with the drawing so you can import it into your video. Click on the Windows icon in the top left corner and go down to Save As and then click on Other Formats. Click on File name and name the slide and then click on Save as type and save as .jpeg. It will ask you to export every slide or the current slide--click on Current Slide only.

Note: It is a good idea to save the play slide as a .gif file the first time and then save it as a .jpeg the 2nd time after you draw the play up. This lets you go back and fix the play if you change anything on the drawing and it's easy to differentiate between the original pic and the drawn-up pic file.

Another idea I got from a fellow Huey member is this: show the pass play drawn up (wide angle, leave the diagram up about 5 seconds), then show the play; again show the play drawn up, and then show the play in 50% speed. Finally, show the play from the tight angle.

It looks nice, but it is time consuming.

I am nearing completion on this spring football's video handout/playbook.
Once I get this completed, then all I have to do is show up and sip margaritas at practice for three weeks.



I hope this ends up even better than previous handouts .

[Powerpoint animation captures courtesy of Camtasia ]

The only thing left is to add the important narration and some Easter eggs for the players (incentivizing watching the material). We will likely have no returning players to the secondary, so getting this new (sophomore-heavy) group ready (and avoid many of the unnecessary mistakes) right away will be a welcome challenge.


Introduction of alignment, assignment, keys, and leverage. Then followed up by pattern matching examples of common concepts we will face. The DVD will also feature the C1 and C3 video clips of NCAA teams, as well. I intentionally included clips of when a DB was 'wrong', followed up with a clip of correctly playing a route, so they could see what kind of common mistakes to avoid.


UPDATE:
Here is the 10 minute overview with narration. Yahoo couldn't take the entire clip, so I had to break it into thirds. The audio was forced and I tried cramming a lot into short amount of time, but this is something the players can review again and again (ala a crash course in 'whats important').

Behind The Curtain

This will detail pretty much the process for doing what I do (regularly) on this blog. This is a great precursor for explaining how to do video teaching, cut-ups, scouting, etc when you have a program that doesn't invest in legitimate A/V equipment.

If you don't know by now, I am not a faculty teacher/educator. I work in the private sector so obtaining coaching gigs can be challenging (but not impossible). Consequently, my gigs typically come with a 'merc' status and my 'assets' are not tied to a school system / program. This being the case, I often come into schools who's programs do not have the budget to support legitimate and necessary coaching tools such as DSV or HUDL. To compensate for this, I will develop ad hoc services that these applications provide. Much like the earlier posts about using Excel and other MS Office products for program efficiencies (scouting, recruiting, tendencies, strength & conditioning, etc), this will be an, "Idiots Guide To Video Coaching.....CHEAPLY".

So, with that in mind, the following process will be how I have supplied a 'ghetto-fix' to what those AV services provide, only cheaply (with more effort). This method can serve a variety of needs you may have at presenting data / video / concepts more efficiently whether it is for your players, your coaches, or just sharing information.

Working With Video

The first part is acquiring the video. If you have a robust PC, importing bulk video files in via a camera-firewire connection, or a burned DVD, then cutting up later - great. If not, and if you want to cut down on the processing of the PC, you can simply cut up video by recording the clips you want through a DVD burner. This is actually my preferred method of getting the cuts I want, and it takes up less space on your HD.

The easiest, cheapest, and most user-friendly method I know of is Nero.
NERO
http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nero9-trial.php

Nero is a video editor / DVD creator that I use heavily to create scout DVDs. I import a DVD file/chapter to bring it in to an mpeg/avi format that is recognized on most PCs.

With the video file imported, you can upload it or distribute it as you see fit, otherwise, you can continue manipulating (add audio / cut-up) through Nero before exporting an edited video. Once you have a video file on your PC in mpeg/avi format, you can distribute it, host it to an online server, or convert it to a mobile device (if you want to have available for PSP’s, iPhones, blackberrys, etc).

Working With Images

Another related process that I regularly use is taking image snapshots of videos. This can be simpler to illustrate a point or provide a focus that moving images would detract from. To do this, playing the video through a media player. You won’t find this on many video players. A couple of free players you can use (hey, did I mention it was free?). I would recommend VLC media player or Windows Media Classic v2.4.5
VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Media Player Classic
http://www.esoft.web.id/audio-video/xp-codec-pack-2-4-5-view-and-listen-your-media-files-your-computer.html
PowerDVD also does this snapshot function, but it isn’t free. The video snapshots do exactly that, create a jpeg image of what the screen displays. This is particularly helpful in doing your best ‘John Madden’ on a telestrator. All that is required is to play the file, take a snapshot (built-in feature of the program), then retrieve the image file from the save-to directory.

With limited practice time and with having players going both ways, cramming extra coaching points and ideas into player's heads has become more challenging. More so than ever, I have been experimenting with video cutups on DVDs to send home with the players by position.

This can be real simple or pretty in-depth. I have sent out a total of 6 different DVDs since April to my positions with the benefit of;

1. a better visualization of technique and concept is formed
2. repeated viewing (= conditioning message)
3. tracking curriculum covered

The first DVD was a consolidated collection of NFL/NCAA cuts of our coverages (1,2,3,4) for the DBs to get a understanding of how to play, how players fit within that coverage (run & pass), what breaks a coverage, and playing route patterns.

The next DVD was a break-down of our first intrasquad scrimmage, both OL and DBs.

For the Oline video, I included NFL/NCAA cuts of our zone and 90's vertical set protection for the players (since OUR footage was not a good example to use), illustrating individual work (2 steps), group work (6 steps), and team work (game film) of what these concepts actually look like (what's important).

For the DBs, since alignment was crucial to many of our technique work, I included a 45 second prelude of pre-snap snapshots of our scrimmage. This made sure we highlighted how and where we align based on our coverage rules. This was done for the corners, then the FS. Lastly, I wanted to make sure we covered one of the most important concepts that we struggled with, which was handling the smash concept from C3. I included all the clips of 4 verticals and smash so it could provide a clear picture of what we did versus how we should be responding.

The breakdowns of last week lead to breakthroughs a week later.

Frustrated with the progress at the time, the weekend was spent creating position-specific, narrated DVD film study/coaching points with video overlays of what needs to improve. This saved considerable time in addressing the needs heading into game week and affords the players something to focus on (again and again at their convenience) throughout the summer.

The matchup against Evangel went as well as could be expected and the competition helped further define who needs to be on the field and who can contribute.




Next up, 7-on-7 tournaments, weights, and preparing for Fall ball with an intensive film study of all opponents as we transistion to a new (athletic) class this year.