On Wednesday 27th May, Jon and I both travelled to Fettes College in Edinburgh to meet up with James Pillinger and complete the latest installation of our 16×9 Fixed IP Camera solution using our AP Capture software. This fixed camera solution was also put in place at Liverpool FC in May and has already been in use for quite some time at Cardiff Metropolitan University. We had advised James on getting a 15m Trolley Head Pole that would give them a great height and filming perspective, also making accessing the camera for future maintenance and cleaning an easy thing to do. The pole and ethernet cabling was installed by the Fettes College Hockey Pitch before our arrival, so our job was to deliver the camera and get everything connected and running smoothly in AP Capture.
Fortunately for us, it was a mostly sunny day (of course it rained a few times!) so we were able to see Fettes College in all it’s splendour whilst walking around with James and furthering our understanding of sport at the college, how video analysis wants to be used more and where future IP Cameras and poles will be installed to provide other sports with the same provisions. Take a look for yourself at what a stunning place this is!
Jon has designed a custom rain cover and sunshade to accompany our fixed IP Camera solutions, so we brought one of those along to attach onto the pole too. We fed the ethernet cable up through the pole, which was easy thanks to the drill powered trolley head design of it, then Jon attached both the camera and cover onto the swan neck bracket of the pole.
The camera feed was being picked up perfectly through the ethernet inside the filming “shed” by the Hockey astro, so we taught James how to use the drill mechanism of the pole to take the camera and swan neck up to the top of the 15m pole. All the installation went pretty quickly and because I had already set up AP Capture on the laptop we provided to Fettes College, we were able to instantly teach James how to use the joystick and AP Capture for filming the IP Camera.
As we were at Fettes College for a few days, we explored lots of different video analysis workflows with James and looked to answer some of the challenges they had. Rather than tell you about that all myself, I will leave you with these words from James Pillinger. We would like to say thanks very much to Fettes College for choosing our AP Capture solution and thanks to James for his time and kind words too. We are really looking forward to furthering this already fast-growing relationship and can’t wait to get James and the College set up with more workflows to answer their different challenges and requests.
After four years trying to embrace the power of observational learning, we now store over 600+ films on a variety of platforms. The films range from science experiments, school plays, Oxbridge Interviews and academic PE screencasts, but they are predominantly sporting fixtures and training. We have filmed from many angles and positions, from scaffolding, teletowers, SportsMasts, scissor lifts, balconies and more. Student learning has been accelerated by the provision of feedback and a culture of self-analysis is starting to embed. This has prompted senior management and the governing body of the school to invest in more permanent solutions that allow fixtures and training to be filmed with greater regularity (regardless of the Scottish weather) to maximise learning impact. Having visited various venues from universities, schools and professional organisations and met with many analysis solutions companies, it became very clear that AnalysisPro offered the very best software and solutions to every workflow, but most importantly expert support throughout the installations process, which can be very troublesome. At this stage I must mention that the support and advice given by Josh Bryan and Jon Moore is absolutely first rate. We now have a 15m mast on our water based astroturf pitch. On the side of the pitch there is a small pavilion in which pupils will capture the game and training footage through AP Capture, then soon will tag the game through Nacsport Elite. We will also look to live stream the game through AnalysisPro’s streaming solution so that parents who are unable to attend games will be able to still watch live. We will also use the brilliant new Live Review feature in Nacsport Elite, which will allow spectators and coaches (home and opposition) the opportunity to watch back events as the game unfolds. At Fettes we hope to use technology to provide the very best feedback for the pupils and coaches to optimise performance; this vision is clearly shared with AnalysisPro and thanks to them we will soon have the full capacity to capture high quality footage, construct sophisticated tagging panels, analyse live, transfer statistics and clips to the dugout (where we also use Nacsport Tag&go), share it with local spectators who are fortunate to attend and also share the live stream to those who cannot be at the pitch. As an educational establishment we aim to involve pupils at every stage in the workflow and engage them with post-match analysis. From September, pupils will capture film, then code games live and post event. Pupils and staff will also be able to view games through the AP Viewer iPad app, the best and maybe only app that allows you to navigate a tagged game on a mobile device without internet, using a matrix and timeline. The workflows we are creating are thanks to AnalysisPro; they have a solution for everything and genuinely understand all obstacles. I even mentioned the possibility of pupils completing an accredited course in Performance Analysis and AnalysisPro were already on the case. Through working with their associates to deliver a solution, our pupils will soon be able to achieve a diploma in Sports Performance Analysis alongside their academic commitments. The success of our initial single installation has seen us start our vision. Within the next two academic years we hope to have four permanent masts at sporting venues across the campus, all of which will then be networked. We will open an Academic PE classroom/Sports Science Lab and Video Analysis Suite in Jan 2016 which will house enough computers to capture all the sporting fixtures on site, code them live and stream them. Luckily we now have the support of AnalysisPro and there is no question that they will be central to the success of the project and its on-going development.