Tarek Tomes, as the president of ASN Technologies, a software company based in Woodbury, MN, and also an a assistant basketball coach at Tartan High School in St. Paul for the past eleven years, has a pretty good idea of what coaches are seeking in sports-related technology.
That relationship has produced the Practice Manager and XO Illustrator. Created by coaches for coaches, the basketball coaching software is cutting edge in its design and simpliflies both the teaching aspect and the technological use of the product.
"The use of technology allows coaches to organize themselves and gain efficiency," says Tomes, a former professional basketball player in Germany. "Right now, technology is relatively on the bottom end of the proverbial hockey stick. But, whether it's video editing packages or play diagramming packages, as the tools mature they will become easier to use.
"Many of the tools created by great technology people aren't really pertinent for coaches. They are too difficult to use or too time-consuming. They have to be made with an eye toward the basketball problem that the coach is trying to solve, not the technology problem."
From video and digital editing systems to software to scoreboards and video display systems to sound systems, coaches and AD's expect a smooth, glitch free procedure that is simple to operate and produces maximum results. LRS Sports Software is making great strides in productivity and performance. Its Ultima Multi-Stream video editing workstation has a new feature called multi-capturing, or quad-capturing, as the company refers to it. The technology allows the user to capture four streams of video simultaneously from one computer.
"You call do four times the work," says Ron Wojcicki, LRS Sports Software's marketing manager. "College video coordinators keep asking, 'How can I get the video and the data faster In the coaches?' Now they can".
LRS's Gamer digital video editing and game analysis system allows the user direct edit from digital and analog cameras, using a firewire cable out of the camera Straight into a hard drive connection.
This allows the user to not only capture the video to a tape, but also capture the video to a hard drive. The hard drive version is a file copy that can be reproduced.
John Barkley, director of marketing and business development for Pinnacle Systems, Team Sports makers of the popular SportsEdit digital video editing and analysis tool, knows that coaches are looking for ways to help expedite the burden of team preparation.
First, they don't want to deal with videotape anymore. Second, they want a complete set of tools that work together-a nice seamless environment in which to get through their day and complete their game plan.
"They're looking for a greater integration of tools," says Barkley. "They want to do more, better, and faster produce more streams of video in quicker time or speed up the process of getting to digital video."
Barkley used a sports technology analogy that would combine Excel, Power Point, and Word a complete Suite--in order to streamline the tasks of play drawing, game planning, and team meetings.
Barkley estimates that 30% of Pinnacle's customers are tapeless today, meaning once it's on the computer they never go hack to tape. Mow and more high school coaches are making the transition to video editing.
"I think people wig centrally to go digital," says harry Bryant, president of CoachComm Sports Electronics, which has partnered with Pinnacle in the sales of SportsEdit. "More and more are doing so because they want to. But a lot of is because they have to. There's just not enough analog equipment out there.
"If you try and lind a full size VHS camcorder, you won't succeed because basically it doesn't exist. You have to get one of the smaller formats. Schools are looking for that standard to swap tapes. It used to he VHS forever. Now schools are being forced to go digital or go another route."
As an aside. CoachComm has developed the Commando Control RF wireless remote. It uses radio frequency (RF) instead of infrared. Features include a familar button layout, built-in laser pointer, and instant replay on select models.
"With your home remote, if you point it at the TV it works fine," CoachComm's Bryant says. "But if someone walks in front of it and breaks thai infrared beam, it blocks it. All coaching remotes, up until this one, have been wired remotes, This will allow coaches to be mobile."
The beauty of a product such as SportsEdit--which is Windows compatible and runs, the gamut from football and basketball to lacrosse and hockey to soccer and volleyball is its simplicity. Even the least computer savvy coach can be up and editing within a co.pie of hours.
"You're making cut ups in two and a half hours," Barkley says. "Which is something you really can't do on videotape. It's simple and intuitive."
submitted by Steve Gentry
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