Video Review and Sharing
in Youth Football

An Inexpensive Alternative to Services like Hudl

 

It would be hard to argue that services like Hudl are not a tremendous help to Youth Football Coaches and their programs when it comes to simplifying the process of video review and sharing.  Unfortunately, due to the nature of Youth Football many coaches have to pay for such services out of their own pocket.  This has become even more difficult with recent price increases.  In the following article we are going to outline a process using a relatively inexpensive video utility from AVS4YOU called Video Remaker and free Google Drive storage as a relatively inexpensive option.  It should be noted that it is not a perfect process, but we believe for many coaches this would meet their needs.

Step 1 – Detect Clips/Cutups Using Scene Detection

AVS Video Remaker has the capability of performing “Scene Detection” which when used with Football video can detect the start and end of plays.  In the example video below, we show you how we import a video file into the Video Remaker utility and start the Scene Detection process.

Step 2 – Clip/Cutup Editing

The Video Remaker tool does a nice job of automatically detecting the beginning and end of plays, but occasionally you will have a clip that either contains multiple plays or no video at all.  In the case of no video, you can simply delete that clip.  In the example video below, we show you how to split one video clip containing multiple plays into multiple clips/cutups.

Step 3 – Creating Cutups for Upload

Now that the video has been edited for situations listed in Step 2, we are ready to create the individual cutups for upload into our Google Drive.  In the example video below, we show you how to prepare the cutups for upload.

Step 4 – Upload Cutups

The next step to prepare the video for sharing with other coaches is to upload individual files/cutups created in the Step 3 to our Google Drive.  In the example video below, we upload our cutups to our Google Drive and rename the directory to something more meaningful.

Step 5 – Sharing Video Cutups

Once Step 4 is complete you are ready to share the video with other coaches.  In the example video below, we show you how to create a shareable link that can be emailed to other coaches.  Note:  There are other more secure ways to do this, but for ease we chose to creat a shareable link anyone can view.

  

Step 6 – Viewing Video Cutups

In the example video below, we show you what it would look like from the perspective of a coach that has received the email sent in Step 5.

You will notice that you can easly go to the next clip, as well as return to the previous one.  Also, because Google Drive leverages the youtube player to play video clips you also have the ability to speed up or slow down each clip.

Summary

There is no doubt that tools like Hudl have much more functionality than the process we have outlined.  With that said, using the above process we can do the following:

• Break videos down into manageable cutups.
• Easily share and access video with nothing other than a web browser.
• Slow down and speed up video playback.

AVS Video Remaker is part of a suite of tools from AVS4YOU that can be purchased at the time of this article for $39 – $59 depending on whether you purchase a 1 year or lifetime subscription.  Google provides 15 gigabytes of free Google Drive storage and depending on the quality of your video should easily be enough for a seaons worth of games.

If you decide to try this process, we highly recommed that you get comfortable with the process before the season starts.