Hudl- any officials utilizing it?
 

We've doing the DVD in a mailer thing for several years but are beginning to have diminishing returns. Many of our area coaches have been telling us to get on Hudl.

I've signed up for their 10 day free trial program but need to get a handle on how it works. We aren't exchanging video like schools would do. How do we initiate getting the video from schools- call, e-mail? I don't see how to initiate a request without uploading video for which a school would reciprocate with.

Any experiences out here?

It was used for most of our college games in the conference I mainly worked. Other schools used it hit and miss at that level. No HS used it at all.

Peace

You don't need to purchase Hudl in order to use Hudl. If you have the teams send you a recruiter copy you can log in with a free account and view the game. You don't have all the functionality of Hudl (i.e. creating playlists or telestrating) but it's still better than a DVD version because you can look at specific plays. You can also download the game to your computer and get a separate file for each play.

But if your crew or association has the means to get your own license I highly recommend it.

This is how my crew has used it. About 1/3 of our games were on it last season. I expect that proportion to continue to rise.

All of my HS games, except maybe one, were sent to my crew chief as a recruiting package.

Thanks- Hudl doesn't really make that info readily available, as I could understand.

I'm using the 10 day "free trial". We've tried to get our RSO to invest in it but haven't been successful.

I guess the drawback is still getting some Hyper-Busy-Self Absorbed-High Strung Phys Ed teacher to actually take the time to send me the info, which is kind of where we are right now the DVD's.

Our chapter signed up for the $800 per year package. We received around 95% of all games worked by our chapter. What I do is email the coaches and they will send me the game. From their I can review the film, make clips, highlight plays, circle plays, draw arrows. It's pretty much endless with what you can do. I can tell you that from day 1 to day 30 I was able to see the improvement from our officials. From my critiques to their own self evaluations it was very much a great bargain. Let me know if you have any questions.

We looked into it for our state association last year but they were quoting us $3k for our "team" since we would have over 800 "team members". We also would have to exchange film with schools which I don't believe is true. They really need to add an officiating option since our use of video is slightly different than schools.

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.

How many games is that approximately? Just curious...

That is cool ... I have heard of them, but haven't really used their software — need to check them out.

We have a great video system for the college conferences and high school chapters that use our scheduling and chapter management software. You can upload plays, do "You Make the Call" surveys, and have officials and coaches upload plays as well.

Everything works directly viewable on mobile as well as within your browser, or you can download the video for offline viewing.

Would love to hear from anyone about what features you would be looking for in regards to video for officials.

The one common denominator that I have noticed with these sports video programs is that they are geared towards the players and coaches ... officials are then added on as an after thought. So, they don't really do things the way we want them too.

Any feedback, thoughts, questions, comments, etc. are welcome — post here in this thread and/or email me directly at [email protected]

(FYI — for those that do not know because I don't usually post on the Football board ... it is me and my company, BlueZebra Sports, that runs Officiating.com and this forum)

- Brad

According to Drebelbis, he's trying to get it for every official in the state, paid for by the NCHSAA.

God bless him and the fine work he is doing. I think I'll hang onto my $200. Sorry Hudl

+1 :d

[QUOTE=Brad;870779]We have a great video system for the college conferences and high school chapters that use our scheduling and chapter management software. You can upload plays, do "You Make the Call" surveys, and have officials and coaches upload plays as well.

Everything works directly viewable on mobile as well as within your browser, or you can download the video for offline viewing.

Would love to hear from anyone about what features you would be looking for in regards to video for officials.

The one common denominator that I have noticed with these sports video programs is that they are geared towards the players and coaches ... officials are then added on as an after thought. So, they don't really do things the way we want them too.

Any feedback, thoughts, questions, comments, etc. are welcome — post here in this thread and/or email me directly at [email protected]

Here's the problem Brad. We will be the afterthought, unless a state organization forces the schools to cooperate. The system I would envision would be a central repository of video where that team, their opponents, and the officials who worked that game had access to that particular game. Telestration and bookmarking would be key assets to the program.
Server space and security would be the main issues but I'm sure can be worked out.

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.


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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You don't need to do that. A school can create a recruiter link and send it to one member of your crew. With that link anyone can create their own free login to view that particular video. If you already have a Hudl account you can use it to access the video. You are correct though...no major functionality other than viewing and downloading the entire game. You can also have the school create a download link and send that you to. You will download one WMV vile and would have to use your own software to slice and dice plays.

You guys that "slice and dice" video —*what are you using? Just curious what you've found to be the easiest tool to extract plays.

Any of you doing things to edit the video as well — like be able to draw arrows, pause the video, highlight a circle around a player, etc.?

At this point I used Windows Movie Maker. I had to download a newer version that had some other features, but that is what I use now.

Peace

Transfer Quicktime (.mp4 or .mov) file via iTunes from laptop to the Replay Booth app. Replay Booth allows you to either bookmark (pre-set for 10 second clips but can be adjusted) or AB loop buttons that you can cut and add to playlists or e-mail out. You can telestrate live video play but it won't save to the clip.

Hudl downloads are already in the format. I did have an issue this week with a couple of schools downloads being corrupted with "a bad public atom" which would not open in Quicktime or Real but VLC didn't have a problem with it and the files also transferred to iPad and opened with no problem so its only a problem with certain players.

The hard part is converting the DVD's received into a usable format. Takes lots of time and space. The "dinosaurs" that want a DVD copied for them are going to have to start giving me a flash drive. TV's now are allowing you to plug and play direct so there is no need to burn DVD's to watch.

I purchased the AVS suite several years ago with Video Editor, Video Converter, and DVD Copy- I think it was like $36 or $39 online. Its clunky but gets the job done. I'm sure there are better, faster, easier to use. Its just what I'm used to.

VLC and Handbrake both have functionality to convert video, ... Handbrake requires less command line experience, and is a much easier one to use in general.

I used to use a program called Multiquence back in the day, I had bought a license that removed the shareware limitations on it, but that was back in 2002.
I've heard good reviews about Nero Vision, which I think is now Nero Video, iMovie, and Windows Movie Maker.
My drug of choice is Lightworks, which had a strange learning curve due to some bizarre UI choices the developers made, but I had to use it for another project I was on a couple years ago.

If you have the time to learn the interface, I would recommend Lightworks. Otherwise any of the others can do what you need.

I use Handbrake myself -- very familiar with the Mac version of it. Free and works extremely well.

I'll chalk up another vote to using Handbrake. Very easy to convert videos with that program.

I also use MPEGStreamclip to clip plays on my Mac. It allows you to save your clips in almost every file type out there... and it's free.

I've also dabbled in VLC, but I like the MPEGStreamclip program as it allows you to fast forward the video a lot easier, and you can also rip DVDs onto your computer in a movie file (this allows me to upload my games onto my iDevice).

Finally, I use iMovie to edit, add text, add transitions and slo-mo replay to my clips.

Cool ... good tips, jeschmit. Thanks.

Although Hudl was built by coaches for coaches it generally works well for officials as well. Are there any feature changes Hudl could make that you think would be better for officials? What is it missing for us?

The only way this works better for officials is to have someone else taping the video. I could see most plays when I used this program. The only problem was the video skills of the person taping and how long they showed us in the picture. Otherwise not much the program can do better.

Peace

We use it for evaluations and trainign
 

This year we started using HUDL for our officials. We have 4 HD cameras and dispatch a rookie official to video the game. He takes a wide angle so as to get all officials on the screen. Each time the umpire spots the ball, he stops and starts the video (as well as some other times). This gives us the HUDL plays. That way we also get the between play activity by the crew. We have 3rd party retired officials review the HUDL video and do their evaluation from that. They make their comments and tie in the specific plays.
We also use it for trainnig purposes. I am also one of our state observers and I video any game I observe the same way. Then my report cites specific plays.
Very hard to argue with the video. Most guys appreciate the feedback. Some, who think they are great, don't appreciate it being pointed out that they are not. Hopefully they get on board or leave.

Dave