Sport Motion Video Analysis Recommendation

Introduction and Audience

Coaches, trainers, therapists, and players are all looking for an edge to increase efficiency and productivity. Video motion analysis has been utilized to varying degrees in many sports and therapy settings for many years. Coaches, trainers, therapists, and players of all ages and abilities have come to rely on the information garnered through video analysis. Important aspects to video motion analysis systems are the ability to work in a variety of settings, and the ability to scale to different applications.
From a coach or trainer perspective any system must be easy enough to use so a minimal amount of time need be invested in the actual management of the system. This allows for more time to be spent on the critical aspect of analysis. The system should also be manageable in the respect that it has to be utilized in a variety of settings and environments. To this end SMI created the Sports Motion system for video motion analysis.

Purpose and Goals of the System

The primary purpose of the Sports Motion system is to provide an affordable, customizable, easy to use video motion analysis system to organizations of all sizes and backgrounds. The goals of Sports Motion are to athletes to maximize their athletic potential through motion analysis, and to provide coaches, therapists, and trainers with a powerful tool to assist in the training of athletes.

Product

SMI provides a variety of systems based on the needs of the consumer. The two main product lines are the Portable Motion System, and the Desktop Motion System. Within these two lines, there are product variants such as the Personal, Professional, and Commercial series. The company also offers custom solutions for a variety of settings such as indoor facilities, stadiums, and medical facilities.
Each product line is a complete video analysis system, including a video camera, tripod, and computer hardware and analysis software. The grades within each line vary only in the size and power of the computer provided with the system.
Additionally, SMI will provide their video analysis software as a separate package for organizations that already have the necessary hardware available.

Features

The Portable Motion System contains a video camera that is capable of capturing video at speeds up to 1200 frames per second. This speed is essential to the analysis capabilities of the software. Obviously, the more frames available to the viewer the more detailed the analysis can be.
The computer hardware provided for each system is a Windows Vista Premium computer with a 2.0 GHz Pentium core 2-duo processor. The computers come with at least 2GB of RAM installed to handle the demands of the editing software. The larger systems, which are designed for professional and Olympic level teams, come with considerably more memory, hard drive space, and a faster processor.

Benefits Claimed

SMI claims that the Sports Motion system will provide coaches, trainers, and therapists with the necessary technology to accurately, and effectively, diagnose and fix irregularities in motion ranging from bat and club swings to walking and running gait. Furthermore, SMI claims that their product lines contain everything necessary to perform the video motion analysis, and

"If we don't have it, you probably don't need it".

Analysis of Performance

Teams in virtually every sport, as well as in clinical settings, utilize the Sports Motion system. When gauging the effectiveness of a tool it is important to gather information from a variety of current sources, as well as testing the system in a live, practical setting. SMI has been providing the Sports Motion System to organizations since 2003. In 2005 both of the teams playing in the World Series utilized this system in the analysis of both pitching and batting. SMI followed up this success in 2006 and 2008 with the World Series champions in each of those years. Additionally, SMI is the official analysis system of the 2007 NHL champion Anaheim Ducks, the USAF, and the German Ski Federation.
Each of these organizations makes use of the Sports Motion system exclusively, and the universal assessment is that this is a high quality, easy to learn, and easy to utilize package.
The downloadable software package can be combined with several video segments that will allow any user to work with the software without the necessity of purchasing any part of the system. This is a critical step in evaluating the ease with which the software can be manipulated.

Recommendations

My recommendation is that this product would be a useful addition to any team within the athletic department. Video motion analysis is a critical component in aiding athletes to reach their full potential on the field of play. Without a system such as this, coaches and trainers are forced to rely on their own perceptions on the field, potentially aided by film taken from unhelpful angles, and not necessarily focused on the problem to be addressed. The Sports Motion analysis system will allow coaches to focus on individual issues with each player, which would serve to make the team better overall.