Video analysis camcorder / software

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TonyM

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Sadspinner posted on the main thread about finding a suitable camera / software so rather than it get lost in the general hubub I have started a new topic to see what others use

To start you off I use a camcorder that does 60fps and currently use Kinova (freeware) to do the analysis although I am currently looking at SiliconCoach which is recommended on the ECB video analysis workshops. My guess is that 60fps is plenty good enough for the general bowling action but if anyone wants to look closer at hand position / release then you need to up that quite a bit. The baseball guys have some interesting discussions over on http://www.baseball-fever.com/forumdisplay.php?53-Baseball-101-Coaching-Fundamentals (note need to create a log in to do a search)
 
I currently use a Sony HDR-CX100 camcorder. Its standard video is 60fps (30fps true playback though, they all are, think it shoots at 60fps for progressive display, so it has to shoot alternating lines, hence 60fps) and it can shoot in full 1080p HD. For analysing an action it is absolutely fine, you can slow it down to quarter speed without any major loss in quality or watchability using software. And for analysing actions I tend to move manually frame by frame anyway. Its perfectly adequate just using its normal high quality HD mode.

However, it also has Sony's "Smooth Slow Record" feature, whereby it can shoot 3 seconds of video at 240fps, and store it as a 12 second video in 1/4 speed slow motion. It plays back over 12 seconds at 30fps in slow motion. It can't shoot this in HD though, and because of the fast shutter speed it is poor at capturing light, so you have to either shoot in bright daylight, or use artificial lighting to get good visibility on the shot. It is quite poor at seeing a cricket ball from 22 yards in a net as well. But it does still see it, and it captures the bowling action perfectly.

In software it can then be slowed down to 1/16 speed without any discernible loss in quality! The most impressive thing is that the camera is only about £300 to buy. There are far more expensive cameras without such capabilities.

The other awesome feature of this is that you can choose how to trigger the recording. When you hit the "record" button it either captures 3 seconds after (as any normal camcorder would), or depending on the setting it can capture 3 seconds BEFORE you hit the button, e.g. it can record back in time!! So I have fabricated a bracket and an actuator that sit on my my tripod, linked via a long wire to a footswitch. When I hit the footswitch at the end of my follow through it fires the actuator which hits the record button, and the camera then captures the 3 seconds prior to that in slow motion. Which is how I shot all of my slow motion bowling videos.

I then use Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 to edit it all. The camera records in AVCHD format and none of the free editors could handle it satisfactorily without sacrificing on quality. Whereas the Sony software is designed for it, so it just offers the best solution for me. It only cost me £30-40 I think.
 
It really depends on what you want to do or achieve.

You can probably imagine that I have a whole room full of bits and pieces and a number of recorders in various forms... I no longer use any of them
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However, my requirements are primarily for analysis so it little matters what I capture the images on. The software is by far the most important and if it has a good and complete set of tools, then your mobile phone is good enough, as long as it is a decent one with a reasonable camera. It is also important to know how to capture the video and what needs to be captured, including angle.

The main reason for using my phone? It is small enough to keep in my pocket and it is always with me. Life is so much easier now that I do not need to carry a minimum of two camcorders with tripods, wires, laptops etc
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I have used various software but would go with Tony in suggesting SiliconCoach Live.
 
Thanks for the answers tony, jim and liz. Will try to remove encryption from what you have said. Sounds easy, but still way beyond my understanding. From what i can pick up it is the software that makes the difference rather than a 900 euro camera.

But if looking for a canon that can fit the bill can anyone give me advice on which one and why? Thanks
 
Or this one which is the one I'm after the Casio EX FC100 - this is tiny but phenomenal camera.

http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/casio_ex_fc100_review/specifications/

200; 400 and 1000 FPS and all for just over £130.00 if you fish around using Google Product search. Have a look on youtube for examples of what it can do and how good the quality is. With regards Canons (Which I abhor) you can go through all the spec's and reviews on here http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/default.asp?view=alpha but to be honest I'm not aware that this is an area that Canon dabble in. I know they're currently moving into HD digital movie capture and the quality of one of the cameras is far better than what Nikon are producing at the moment, but Nikon are working on getting a proper camera out there to compete with the Canon. The Canon HD camera is primarily a DSLR, but it's the future of digital video as the lenses and format are so flexible and hig quality. A lot of professional video productions are now being shot using this particular Canon DSLR. If you need the name of it I could find out. Once you've got that you should be able to use the free editing software you can find on line to slow it down. I use virtual dub.
 
I need it mainly as a camcorder not as a digital camera. I would need to record for say an hour/90 mins of video and hopefully have the battery lasting the distance.
 
Yeah the Canon would walk that I'm pretty certain. Why do you want the 'Camcorder' format - what do you see as the advantage? I've just checked and I think the one I'm talking about is the 5D MKII but its in excess of £1500. I think you may be better off asking Jim or taking his advice. I think all the media people at work would advise that your steer away from camcorders and sit on this for a while and see what Nikon come up with in the DSLR format to rival the Canons 5D model. The future in this market in the short term is going to be DSLR's because they're so versatile and advanced in comparison with camcorders. I think on that appalling gadget show on C4 - (you may have it in Malta if you're unlucky enough) they put the Canon D5 MKII up against a proper arriflex camera which used to go for £250,000 a go and the punters couldn't see the difference when it was screened. But as camcorders are now suddenly 'Old Skool' you might be able to pick them up for peanuts - again it's a case of sitting and waiting to see what happens with the technology and prices.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah the Canon would walk that I'm pretty certain. Why do you want the 'Camcorder' format - what do you see as the advantage? I've just checked and I think the one I'm talking about is the 5D MKII but its in excess of £1500.
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I need it to video daughter's sports activities in tennis/swimming/taekwondo and.........?cricket. The first three to be able to justify any eventual expense with the wife
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How close are you getting to the action - swimming for instance? I shot my kids swimming gala on my Canon G9 compact camera and everything else and it suffices, they're pretty spectacular, but wont do detailed bowling analysis hence I want the exilim. I reckon the exilim would probably do you if you're looking to do primarily family type video. You'll have to check the zoom capabilities if your shooting a swim gala from the audience position alongside the pool. 6x digital zoom would probably be okay. It's quite complex when you're trying to get all bases covered and not spend a great deal of cash.
 
Dave - I didn't realise DSLR's could be used so effectively for video. Just been reading that article you linked to. I'm going to get a DSLR sometime in the not too distant future, probably not this year though, need to save some pennies to get something decent. For 99.9% of consumers I think a basic camcorder is a much simpler device to use. Compact cameras would fall into the same bracket if they are indeed capable of high quality video. I think most people, myself included, see compact cameras as just that, and thus camcorders are the better device for video. But if thats not the case then certainly a Casio Exilim with its high frame rate capabilities would probably be the best possible device for sensible money for all round video, and with the bonus of cricket specific video. I may even buy one myself at some point just to have a play with.

My company sells GoPro cameras and I've played with the HD HERO at 60fps in 960p mode and that is still very good for working with bowling actions, and cheap and durable enough to put in dangers way (the outer cases are everything proof near enough, and even if a cricket ball cracks it, the lens covers are cheap to replace). When the weather improves I intend on arming myself with a handful of them and setting them up from every angle (including one on the batsmans helmet) and capturing some proper video and editing it from all angles like on TV (but better).

Am I right in assuming with DSLR that since you can set the shutter speed manually, you could set it to just about any frame rate within the capabilities of the camera? Obviously exposure then becomes an issue with very fast shutter speeds, but you could easily achieve 1000fps with a good SLR, provided you had sufficient lighting? If the Exilim is capable of it, then an expensive SLR must surely be even more capable, and with a far better sensor as well!
 
Jim the DSLR's are stupidly simple to use, for instance on the D90 I spent ages trying to find the section in the instructions manual which is 200 + pages long and couldn't find it. I'd heard that the D90 was a digital video recorder so was expecting a big section on how to use it. I rang my mate saying 'You sure this does video - cos I can't find anything in the instruction about its use'. he said - yeah it is video I'm 99.99% sure. I had a look again and under some obscure title I found the section on video use. It's two or three lines long and basically says to use the video turn this buttton and you're away!

With regards the frame rates on the DSLR's at the minute they're fixed as far as I know and the cameras shutter system has no bearing on the way the video is captured as far as I'm aware. I wouldn't even begin to imagine how the shutter works in relation to the video capture. But the 'Photo' capture still uses a big mechanical action with a mirror system as far as I know, so the components and capture systems for video and photo are completely seperate as far as I'm aware, but I may be wrong. But you're right about 1000 FPS and the light, in order for that to work, you would need shed loads of light. When they use the £20,000 High Speed cameras for industrial applications they have to kit up with really bright tungsten lighting kits.
 
Something to note if anyone is considering the Casio Exilim EX FC100

I bought this camera to shoot video. It was sold to me that way (I loathe salespeople and marketers). Whilst you can shoot video to put on YouTube, it CANNOT be edited. I contacted CASIO and they said an alternative editing software must be used, and they don't know what that is. I scoured the earth looking for anything that could edit this format and none exist, to my knowledge. This is a complete failure based on my needs. Everything else about this camera is great and highly entertaining (slow-mo is amazing) and the picture quality is fantastic. But I already had a camera that took great pictures. Now I have one camera that shoots great pictures and one that shoots fantastic ones. I still don't have a camera that lets me edit video. I'm a little upset about it.

http://www.shoptronix.com/Casio-High-Speed-Exilim-EXFC100-9.1/M/B001OTZR1I.htm
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Something to note if anyone is considering the Casio Exilim EX FC100

I bought this camera to shoot video. It was sold to me that way (I loathe salespeople and marketers). Whilst you can shoot video to put on YouTube, it CANNOT be edited. I contacted CASIO and they said an alternative editing software must be used, and they don't know what that is. I scoured the earth looking for anything that could edit this format and none exist, to my knowledge. This is a complete failure based on my needs. Everything else about this camera is great and highly entertaining (slow-mo is amazing) and the picture quality is fantastic. But I already had a camera that took great pictures. Now I have one camera that shoots great pictures and one that shoots fantastic ones. I still don't have a camera that lets me edit video. I'm a little upset about it.

http://www.shoptronix.com/Casio-High-Speed-Exilim-EXFC100-9.1/M/B001OTZR1I.htm
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I dont have any software for editing so I put my videos onto the the computer in full first. Then I watch them and note down where I want to edit them. Then I go back to the camera and delete the parts of the video I don't want with the cameras editing function and then put the new shortened video onto the computer. My idea of editing is just cutting out scenes though, Do you mean more complicated functions?
 
Yeah I'd probably find it easier to edit the video on the computer rather than in the camera, I also add clips together from previous video footage. For me this is a bit disappointing as I'd have expected that the file/format would have been pretty standard e.g. mpeg or avi - one of the types I'm aware of.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah I'd probably find it easier to edit the video on the computer rather than in the camera, I also add clips together from previous video footage. For me this is a bit disappointing as I'd have expected that the file/format would have been pretty standard e.g. mpeg or avi - one of the types I'm aware of.
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Its a bit of a pain editing it on the camera but its ok for my limited needs. I wasn't aware that it can't be edited if I got some software package. Dissappointing really and quite an oversight by the manufacturers.
 
If you wish to just trim, embed, add special effects, transitions and bookmarks to videos, this can all be done in Powerpoint 2010 !!

You can even share via Windows Live sky drive !

This is great for producing a presentation of youngsters' achievements* but not quite sure of the value when it comes to personal cricket videos... other than just showcasing.

*Be careful not to fall foul of restrictions put in place of certain organisations with respect to videoing children.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Ben have you got one of these Exilim's - have you tried editing it?
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Yeah mate all my videos on youtube have been filmed on the exilim. As I said it is good enough for my needs but not sure about more advanced procedures.
All my slo mo videos were filmed in 210 fps. 400 slows it down too much when looking at the general action although now Im looking at wrist position in more detail it would probably be handier. I tried to get a few 1000fps videos for youtube but they came out too dark and blurry.
 
chippyben said:
Yeah mate all my videos on youtube have been filmed on the exilim. As I said it is good enough for my needs but not sure about more advanced procedures.
All my slo mo videos were filmed in 210 fps. 400 slows it down too much when looking at the general action although now Im looking at wrist position in more detail it would probably be handier. I tried to get a few 1000fps videos for youtube but they came out too dark and blurry.
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Ben, do you reckon that with a good tripod (A big pro one) with the camera set above head and extended arm level pointing downwards at the top section of your body - Hand (release) arm, head and shoulders in the frame you'd be able to get the release action filmed so that you could see whether you were 'Rolling' or 'Flicking' the ball at the point of release? Do you have any technical knowledge e.g do you know what aperture the camera would be working in when used in full light and what the hyper-focal distance might be say at a distance of about 3 meters? Which in laymans terms is asking when you use it fairly close up have you noticed whether it has a tendency for just the point of focus to be sharp and in focus or does pretty much everything else in the picture out of focus? Sorry - another fairly technical question - does it have a manual focus optiom and when used in auto focus mode does it follow the action pretty well? For instance if I was shooting the top half of my body trying to capture sharp images of the the release will the camera initially focus on the background as I wont be in frame, but then as I come into frame is it going to pick me up and set a half decent focusing point e.g. my face or my arm coming over?

A few minutes later....... I reckon this pretty much answers my question http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6H0YeAAN0Y to some extent, although the action is going sideways so uses the depth of field in the most efficient manner, whereas if it was shot front on - the question would be - would the yo you in this clip move in and out of focus ? What do you reckon?
 
So how long can this casio record in video format for. With my crap tape digital video i could record 1 hour. I have a canon eos, so am not interested in a digital camera. I am more interested in a camcorder with capability for videoing for longish time with which i can slow the video with the software you guys(and doll) have directed me to.
 
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