Hudl- any officials utilizing it?

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

bison- from what I read on their website, they were quoting you the top of the line premium package. The basic is $200- you can just exchange for the season, no bells and whistles. Youth leagues have a $29 per month option.

That top end stuff is really paying for gobs of server space to store the videos.

I questioned the "exchange issue" with an online rep today from Hudl. He said that wasn't necessary for officials (obviously, we have nothing to trade). However there is no method presently via Hudl to request a video from a school in our one way status. You've either ahve got to contact the school or have prior arrangements to have them let you access it. That is the rub- I'm suggesting our RSO create a formal agreement with the area schools who are on it to either feed it to the referees over the weekend as our WH's have a conference call on Sunday night. They could then distribute on to the crew(s). Alternatively, let the RSO access it and then forward on to the R's or the whole crew.

What would really be nice would be to tie it all into The Arbiter someway.

Presently what I do is rip the game DVD to my PC, convert to QuickTime and then transfer via iTunes to my iPad where I then use the ReplayBooth app to cut clips. I can then e-mail the clips or create a playlist to show at meetings on a projector. I can telestrate with the app also. I also upload the game to an unlisted YouTube channel and e-mail that link to the crew so they can have it as quickly as I can get it to them.

This is all very time consuming, particularly the format conversion. Add in the old guys who just want a copy of the DVD, which takes a lot of time to make on a laptop, and I spend more time creating then I do breaking down and evaluating.

I just figure there's a better way.

Either way though, it appears I'm dependent on a coach getting a hard copy or digital access for me to make it all happen. This can be the hardest part.

The way our college conference exchanges video with a couple schools is we have a 30-second clip of a play we send in exchange for the entire game. For our conference games they have some kind of community space with all the schools and the officials as a separate team. Every school puts their video in the central pool and anyone can share anyone's games. Our supervisor picks one of the videos and shares it with his team.

That wouldn't work for HS since we don't have associations that would only with local schools. It would be 165 crews and 320 schools. The schools would never agree to have everyone access everyone else's videos. The top account was quoted because exchanged video is considered "practice and scout" video. Assuming each game is about an hour of raw video (sideline and end zone), the Silver account would only give you 10 games.

If we were only a local association with 15 or 20 crews they might be more willing to work with us on a smaller account but because we would have all 165 crews in the state they would only quote us the highest account. All of this was collected by someone else so I would like to talk to them myself. There has to be a way for us to do it for a smaller price.

[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

Coaches are a paranoid lot and don't want their game video in the hands of others. Unfortunately for them, modern technology has made that attitude obsolete. Anyone could sit in the upper seats of the stands and film a game with a relatively inexpensive camera. They can then take that video and distribute via any number of methods, including YouTube. You would have to get the older ones out of that mindset.

Your issue will be overcoming already established programs for video exchange and scheduling. While merging them into one powerful set of software would be cool, getting schools to want to change with the only selling point being that the officials can have access too will not work. They could care less.

Many of the college teams have rules where they have to share their video and systems like Hudl has allowed that to happen. And football this is more acceptable to share than basketball for sure. We get video all the time in football all the time but it is like pulling teeth on the basketball side.

Peace

[bcl1127]

A couple of teams around here in Chicago used HUDL and rather than send us a DVD of the game film, they gave us access to the HUDL game film. Don't know how it worked, but we just got an e-mail saying that we had access to the games.

[eyezen]

On the basketball side of things...in one conference I work the GLVC makes all games involving all conference teams available through a similar site called gametapeexchange.com

It has an official's section and our supervisor provided us with a username and password that we use to access the official's section.

One would think that HUDL would be able to make it as easy, if nothing else to stay competitive.

[HLin NC]

gametapeexchange offered a free trial service through USA Football and I think they have or had ties to USA Football. I gave it a spin a few years back but didn't find that version all that impressive. Uploading video to share took a while as I remember.

[eyezen]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

gametapeexchange offered a free trial service through USA Football and I think they have or had ties to USA Football. I gave it a spin a few years back but didn't find that version all that impressive. Uploading video to share took a while as I remember.

That could be..I know nothing of uploading or sharing video because as an official thats not what we do...thats what the teams do. Besides uploading video is very dependent on the connection of the user and came be time consuming regardless of program used.

My point being is at least from the standpoint of an official, gte at least has delineated the role of official as separate from all others. We log in and can grab games that we are allowed to.

Its seems that HUDL, at least from reading this thread and perusing their site, doesnt have at this time a delineated role of official and you have to obfuscate that by masking as a recruiter or exchanger or something similar.

I have no horse in either product, just making the observation.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by eyezen

That could be..I know nothing of uploading or sharing video because as an official thats not what we do...thats what the teams do.

More and more officials are uploading video —*but the main difference is that officials upload PLAYS. Only coaches and players want to be able to see the entire game.

A lot of officials are now are using video software on their computers to extract certain plays from games to upload to officiating sites to share with their coordinators and communicate about the play.

You are right that the needs are definitely different —*and I've found that a lot of these sports technology companies are geared only towards coaches and players ... and then add on officials as an afterthought, but with no differentiation in what they offer, even though officials have unique needs and will use the software differently.

[HLin NC]

Only coaches and players want to be able to see the entire game.

That isn't necessarily a true statement, Brad. When I do get a video, I sometimes do want to jump to a particular play(s) but at some point I watch the whole thing to evaluate myself and to discuss with other members of the crew.

Dropbox was suggested to me by one of our ministers last night as a way to exchange files. I've heard of it but have not utilized it.

[Brad]

Good point ... I was thinking more along the lines of sharing with other officials, but you are right that many officials want to review some of their games in entirety.

[JasonTX]

With HUDL there will be an administrative account. You can create multiple administrators. When a coach shares the video with you each play during a game is a separate clip. Now you can play the whole game if you like or you can skip to a certain play. What I do for our chapter is I will view each game and I will find all the fouls that are on the foul reports that the crews submit. You can add notes to the clips and organize them how you like. The video will play in a screen at the top and on the bottom is a spreadsheet type screen at the bottom where you can see each play. You can put each play into different categories. For example my spreadsheet will be something like.

Play Type: Pass, Result: Interception, Foul: Holding

Then after viewing all the video you can then create 1 video with all the holding fouls called during that week or month. It's very simple and only takes about 3 mouse clicks to create the video. You can highlight the player on the video, draw arrows, etc. You can then share it with whoever you like.

[Ref1973]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

That isn't necessarily a true statement, Brad. When I do get a video, I sometimes do want to jump to a particular play(s) but at some point I watch the whole thing to evaluate myself and to discuss with other members of the crew.

Dropbox was suggested to me by one of our ministers last night as a way to exchange files. I've heard of it but have not utilized it.

True, and most videos we get have all dead ball time edited out. As an R, I would love to be able to see my RFP, penalty signals, enforcements, etc. that occur between plays.

[parepat]

For the two years prior to this, our D-3 conference used Game Tape Exchange. This year they switched to HUDL. Both have advantages over the other. However, overall, I think HUDL is the better product. It has a few more tools that one can use to break down individual plays.

[HLin NC]

So far, so good.

I signed up for the Exchange package, which only allows the exchange of video, no bells & whistles. The first set of videos I got was from when I went by one of our local HS and spoke to an assistant whose father is one of our umpires. He sat at his laptop and sent me 4 or 5 games quickly. He also went over the spread sheet and features the higher levels have.

I can see where the features might have some additional utility for us but a quick cost/benefit analysis by me indicated we're ok with what I'm trying out for now.

The next three videos were from games I worked where the DVD was never returned or I don't even bother trying anymore. I sent e-mails to them advising we were trying the program out and asked for their help. The head coach of the school I've given up on responded the next morning with his clip.
That indicated to me I've been dealing with the wrong staff members in the past.

The last two I utilized the actual exchange feature where I loaded a 30 second clip of the "official's dance" and submitted to two schools I worked late in the season that we had no video on. An assistant coach from the Regional final I worked responded last night!

I'm quite happy with the results so far- once the file is unzipped it is in an mp4 format so it transfers easily to my iPad via iTunes so I can use my Replay Booth app (lot cheaper) to cut and telestrate.

A group of us meets on Thursday to begin review and I hope I can get their support to steer our supervisor to purchase it or reimburse me.

[bossman72]

Not sure if this would work or not:

Have one universal email address / login for officials and have it act like a college recruiter, basically. All the schools in a conference share their film with the "officials" login, so all officials can use that login to see their games. You wouldn't get the fancy functionality, but you can at least download the game and mess with it that way. Better than the DVD system we have now.

Would that work?

[jchamp]

Originally Posted by bossman72

Not sure if this would work or not:

Have one universal email address / login for officials and have it act like a college recruiter, basically. All the schools in a conference share their film with the "officials" login, so all officials can use that login to see their games. You wouldn't get the fancy functionality, but you can at least download the game and mess with it that way. Better than the DVD system we have now.

Would that work?

At the point you provide a public "universal" guest login, they might as well post it to YouTube, because that's exactly where the video will all end up. The purpose of having logins for individual people is to have some verification of who is getting access to your material, even if you aren't too discerning about who all sees it, you at least can know who accessed it. You can also insert digital watermarks that are unique to the user, and possibly other criteria, so that you can track when video ends up on unauthorized sites. You lose that completely if you make a single login public knowledge.
Someone will transcode it, publish the video to a third-party site, and now you've lost what little control you had over your content. Lose control over your content, and you lose control of your revenue stream.
If Hudl sets up an account class for officials, there will be methods to authenticate the official's status with organizations, and there will likely be digital watermarking of content in place, if it isn't already.