September 23rd, 2008
Picture this, Coach…
You have your eye on that star athlete whom you would really like to
see wearing your team’s uniform next year. You have written letters,
made a couple of calls, but are looking for that extra edge to put your
school on top as their number one choice.
You decide to give the new dartfish.tv
program a try. You find some great footage of several key moments on
your team last year, your big comback to win the conference title, and
even add some images of life at your school. You upload it to the dartfish.tv website
and ask your targeted athlete to go and view it. And whatta-ya
know…after they see it, they get a great feeling about your school and
decide to sign on.
Sound like something like that is too good to be true? Think again.
That’s exactly why coaches in a variety of sports are raving about the Dartfish software and their new web-sharing platform, dartfish.tv.
This platform will allow coaches to upload videos of their sports
performances and include tags like thumbnails, comments, annotations,
analyses and keywords.
Even more impressive is the fact that some of sport’s leading
coaches and trainers have signed on to use the technology. For
example, the national governing bodies at the Olympic level will be
using it this summer in Beijing.
“When competing at the Olympics, every second counts,” says Ron
Imbriale, Dartfish Senior Vice President, “and by using the Dartfish
software and dartfish.tv platform, coaches can review recorded performances for training purposes, as well as share the videos with other coaches back home.”
Click here for the full version
Know thy enemy with France's spy software Thu Aug 7, 2008 2:54am EDT By Sophie Hardach BEIJING (Reuters) -
Intricate spy software has helped France's handballers improve their game and head coach Philippe Bana was hoping to see the dividends at the upcoming Olympics. The French started using software combining videos of all the players in the world with match statistics to train their teams after Scandinavian handballers successfully incorporated the technology into their training program.
Studying their opponents' every move, strength and weakness, is meant to help players devise the perfect counter-attack. Bana, speaking with Reuters Thursday during a men's practice session, said the female team "is now able to destroy their (opponents') attack and defense systems." Similar software is already widely used by footballers and rugby players, but it is still relatively new in handball. France used a rudimentary version of the current system for the Sydney Games in 2000 but only applied the current software, called
"Dartfish," for the Athens Olympics. "It's a completely different approach, we have video specialists as part of the team so now there is this culture of the video statistic," Bana said, kicking a stray ball back into the field. France's women will play the first handball match of the Olympics on Saturday morning against Angola, while the men's first game is against Brazil on Sunday afternoon. In Athens, France narrowly lost to Ukraine and finished fourth, missing the bronze medal.
Despite the elaborate technology, Bana said the game is ultimately won on the court. "It's not a videogame, at the end the player is playing. In the end, you are alone in the court," Bana said. "This is a human game so you can't go too far in this (software) direction because the player is not a robot." The Beijing Olympics begin Friday. (Editing by Steve Ginsburg)
