Newsletter: June 2005

News | Technical Support | Coaches Corner | Case Study | Product Updates

Thanks for the feedback on the first newsletter. It was great to see the positive way in which it was embraced. It has been an action packed month with the appointment of Mr Christophe Duchesne as Sportstec’s European Manager, the release of Stream, and Apple’s release of Tiger.

This newsletter is for you the customer, so if you have any suggestions or would like a specific question or area covered, let us know! I look forward to hearing more of your feedback this month.

Regards,
Philip Jackson, Managing Director

In this months issue:

News

Sportstec appoints a new European Manager and sets up an office in France (Click here to learn more). Click here to read more.

Technical Support

This month our technical team look at ‘How to keep your computer healthy’. Click here to read more.

Coach’s corner

Myth or Fact!
1. Importing and exporting video is too hard for athlete and team presentations - MYTH
2: SportsCode video files can only be viewed on an Apple Macintosh – MYTH
3. Using SportsCode you can create powerful video presentations in just a few minutes – FACT
(Click here to find out how you can easily integrate video into your presentations).

Case Study

The Seattle Supersonics. Click here to read more.

Product Updates

Tiger has been unleashed and all products have been updated to run smoothly on the new operating system. To find out more click here.

Sportstec News

Sportstec has expanded its global presence and Christophe Duchesne will start work with the company in France, on July 1, 2005. Christophe will head Sportstec’s movement in Europe. Expanding into an area which boasts a strong sports science community is expected to work hand-in-hand with Sportstec’s state-of-the-art products. With the company’s policy of incorporating customer feedback into the products and the European’s natural affinity for all things technological, there is a buzz of anticipation about what lies ahead on the Continent.

Technical Support

"Keeping your Computer Healthy"

It is important to do regular health checks on your computer to ensure it is running smoothly and at its optimum.

Here are 5 tips that will guarantee that your system is in top shape!

1. Reboot.

Simply restarting the computer can help clear out your system. Press the power button and choose restart. Restarting before beginning a critical project is always a good idea.

2. Always leave 10% of your drives capacity empty.

You will find as your computer's hard drives gets closer to full capacity, performance will decrease. To find out this information:
• Highlight the drive mounted on the desktop
• Press Apple+’I’ keys.

If you find that your drive is over 90% full, we recommend that you free up some space by deleting or moving some files from that drive.

This 60GB drive is at 75% capacity.

3. Repair Disk Permissions.

Repair Permissions ensures that system-level files have the correct privileges set. This is important because incorrect permissions can prevent applications from launching, cause problems with installing and printing, and even affect startup.

We recommend that you repair your disk permissions on a monthly basis using your computer’s Disk Utility tool.

To repair disk permissions:
1. Double click on your Macintosh Hard Drive
2. Go to Application - Utilities.
3. Select ‘Disk Utility’
4. Select your Hard Drive
5. Select the ‘First Aid’ option
6. Click on ‘Repair Disk Permissions’.
7. Restart the computer once the operation is complete.

Launch Disk Utility and highlight the system hard drive. Choose the First Aid option and click on the Repair Disk Permissions button. Restart the computer after the operation is complete.

4. Rebuild and maintain your hard disk directories – Using Alsoft’s DiskWarrior

We recommend using Alsoft’s DiskWarior (http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/) on a monthly basis to eliminate directory damage.

In order to rebuild your system hard drive, you must boot the computer from the DiskWarrior CD.

To do this, insert the CD and shut down the computer. Hold down the ‘C’ key and power the computer on.

You must hold down the ‘C’ key until you see the DiskWarrior program loading. This process may take a few minutes.

Select your system’s hard drive and click the rebuild button.

DiskWarrior will report damage on the hard drive and prompt you to repair the damaged directory structures. In case of serious damage to your hard drive, save the report, so you can view the entries at a later date.

5. Optimize your hard drive – Using Micromat’s TechTool

If you purchased Apple Care with your computer you should have received a copy of Micromat’s TechTool Pro software. (http://www.micromat.com/tt_pro_4/tt_pro_4.html).

TechTool comes with a variety of powerful diagnostic and repair tools.

The Mac OS X system contains thousands of files that fragment of time. TechTool quickly and safely unfragments these files so your system runs reliably and offers a higher level of performance.

TechTool is a “bootable” CD like DiskWarrior. In order to optimize your system hard drive you must restart the computer and hold the ‘C’ in order to load TechTools.

To Optimize your Hard Drive:
1. Click on the ‘Performance’ icon
2. Select ‘Optimization’
3. If your drive volumes are not showing, click on the play button beside ‘Show volumes’.
4. Select the Hard drive and click on the Play button.

This process may take some time; it depends on the state of fragmentation and the hard drive size. Therefore, we recommend doing this procedure when you will not need your system for a few hours.

Coaches Corner

Trak Performance Hot Tip

Trak Performance allows coaches to drill down to specific time zones to look at the work-rate of players.

Go to Edit - Select Time Range, you can drill down to the specific range that you think needs reviewing.

You can now view each report for the selected time range. A very powerful tool!

For example by selecting a given time range you can view:

• Distance covered
• Speed activities (were they coasting or giving 100%)
· Game activities (were they actively involved in the game or just recovering)

Creating Powerful Video Presentations

When a user combines the power of SportsCode and Microsoft PowerPoint, feedback sessions can come alive!

Myth 1: Importing and exporting video is too hard for athlete and team presentations

Myth 2: SportsCode video files can only be viewed on an Apple Macintosh

Getting video files out of SportsCode is simple. Follow these simple steps and you will be making powerful video presentations within a few minutes.

The movie will appear on your blank slide. From here you can use the features of PowerPoint to add headings, simply text, arrows etc. For more information about the features of PowerPoint go to the Help menu in the application.

B. Creating Presentations with SportsCode and Microsoft PowerPoint on a PC

Phase One: On Your Mac

Phase Two: On a PC with Microsoft Power Point

The movie will appear on your blank slide. From here you can use the features of PowerPoint to add headings, simply text, arrows etc. For more information about the features of PowerPoint go to the Help menu.

Hot Tip:

Create a new folder on you desktop. Inside this folder you should store: the original captured movie, the standalone movies and the PowerPoint presentation. This will ensure that files do not get lost.

For more information on the above contact your local Sportstec Representative.

Case Study

The Seattle Supersonics (USA) - Walt Rock

Video coordinator Walt Rock knew from the minute he laid eyes on the Sportstec range of video analysis equipment that it was the system he wanted and needed to empower the Seattle Supersonics. Two years later, the Supersonics reached the NBA play-offs.

"It wouldn’t have mattered what other products cost,’’ he said. "This is what I wanted from everything else I saw and I knew how I could integrate it with my coaching staff and how it would work for me to most effectively service that. I love this system and wouldn’t use anything else.’’

Having been in the NBA for 11 years and with the Supersonics for seven, Rock previously used a digital system which could only take one hour’s worth of video on it at a time. There was no capacity to capture a whole game or to break it down and nothing could be saved.

There have been revolutionary changes since those days and there is now a structure in place at the Sonics club where Rock can, with a minimum of fuss, give the coaches the information they want on any given game or player.

"What I enjoy most about the system is the fact that if you log in stuff right the first time around there’s nothing better than when a coach comes in and says, `hey, can you get me this, you take about a minute to click on a couple of things and there it is.’ The joy for me comes when the coach says, `this is unbelievable’,’’ he said.

"I can’t believe where we’ve come, from deck-to-deck,’’ (three years ago). Those were the days of fast forward and rewind to find specifics, now certain game or player related details a coach wants are a finger touch away.

Rock has a wide-ranging role at the club and over the past two years has become the most efficient and effective user of the new technology. "I use it all the time. I’ve got to keep the system organised in order for my coaching staff to be able to utilise it,’’ he said.

"Most coaches around the league don’t understand the power of the system.’’ For that reason he has been an invaluable resource for the coaches.
Since establishing the system into the club’s framework, Rock has logged every game live as it is being played by the Sonics.

"I’ve never really got to utilise the system like I am right now during the playoffs,’’ he said. "This is the first playoffs that we’ve been in since I’ve had the system. I’ve got 125 code buttons that I use to log the games so I’m logging tons of stuff. You wouldn’t believe the information I’ve got.’’

At playoff time, Rock gathered the year’s information, not just Sonic’s games but other games and opponents as well. "I knew it would pay off when we got to the playoffs,’’ he said. "I had never done it before but I was trying to figure out how I could combine my data in such a way that it was simple for the coaches.’’

He put all the information together on one file and made it available to the five coaches, who in turn had to simply click on whatever game or particular aspect they wanted to view. Once it had been made readily available and in a simple form, the head coach was moved enough to say, `this is unbelievable’. The more the coaches are getting to know about the system, the more they like it and will readily use it. "They just needed to understand how it worked a little better,’’ Rock said.

All teams in the NBA have some form of video analysis and without it, Rock said it would be impossible to keep up. His simple philosophy is, "You can do things because you have technology.’’

Product Updates

Apple unleashed Tiger last month and as with all new operating system releases there were some problems. We have provided workarounds for all of these Tiger generated problems and product updates for all our products are now available on our website. Please regularly visit our website ‘Application Support’ page for product updates and information. If you have not registered on the Application Support web page please do so by sending us an email with your dongle number or the first 7 digits from your dongle registration code. In the interim you can log on with “support” and “user” as the login details.

Current Sportstec Product Versions

These product versions are available for download here.

TrakPerformance 2.2.23 
SportsCode Elite, Elite Review, Pro, Player 5.4.33
SportsCode Gamebreaker 5.4.32
Cronus 1.0