Dartfish

[sk8ryellow]

Does anyone here use dartfish? I personally love it, it is so helpful!:)

[PinkLaces]

They just started offering this at our rink about 1 month ago. My DD has been to 2 sessions and is very excited about it. Everyone here who has tried it loves it.

[Skittl1321]

Our club has a dartfish system that is free for any skater to use but I've never used it. My coach is not a club coach, so she can't, and I don't feel like I'm good enough to have another coach bother to tape me.

[SkatEn]

From someone who hasn't seen dartfish...

How's it like? Is it any different from those video analysis on the web?

[Skittl1321]

From someone who hasn't seen dartfish...

How's it like? Is it any different from those video analysis on the web?

I think many of those video analysis sites use dartfish to make the slow-mo video.

I think that the dartfish system will either playback video that you can analyze or you can print out a picture that is divided by time (so you appear like 15 times) in different stages of the jump (like this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/images/bank/programmes_tv/sport/winter_olympics06/300stromotion_skate.jpg)

They also sell videos and "stromotion" pictures of top skaters so that you can compare your own.

And based on that BBC article, Dartfish owns the technology that was used on olympic broadcasts such as diving to do those "stromotion" pictures.

[sk8ryellow]

I like dart fish much better than just filming normally. Dartfish, you can slow yourself down and time how long it takes for you to get in the air.

[Skate@Delaware]

Dartfish can be used for moves besides jumps! I have used it before to break down crossovers, stroking, and a waltz jump.

I wish my rink would incorporate it, or a seminar nearby used it-I would go. I think it's a nice educational tool.

[sk8ryellow]

lol, I think as it becomes more afordable ppl will use it more

[Skate@Delaware]

lol, I think as it becomes more afordable ppl will use it more

Maybe people would use it more if it were more affordable?

[sk8ryellow]

Ya thats what I am thinking...

[Skate@Delaware]

I only used Dartfish that one time because it was included in the cost of a skating seminar. I would LOVE to utilize it but the $$$$ is way over what I can afford and I'm not driving just to get what few things I can do analyzed (that's what I pay my coach for).

However, if my rink had it and they charged a reasonable amount, then I might be persuaded....

Otherwise, I video myself, and slo-mo the video and compare myself with someone else. tedious. time-consuming. free.

[sk8ryellow]

I only used Dartfish that one time because it was included in the cost of a skating seminar. I would LOVE to utilize it but the $$$$ is way over what I can afford and I'm not driving just to get what few things I can do analyzed (that's what I pay my coach for).

However, if my rink had it and they charged a reasonable amount, then I might be persuaded....

Otherwise, I video myself, and slo-mo the video and compare myself with someone else. tedious. time-consuming. free.

Ya, well my coach went to a seminar on dart fish and bought one for the ice rink, she is the manager of the rink so she just took the funds out of the budget and then we are going to pay a fee every month to use it so we can use it whenever we want. Maybe your rink could try that?

[LWalsh]

Does anyone know how much it costs?

[sk8ryellow]

It starts at $980 just for the software, I found the price here http://coachingtech.blogspot.com/2006/06/motion-analysis-software.html

[PinkLaces]

You're lucky that you can use it for free. We have to pay either $22 for 20 minutes or $33 for 30 minutes, but that also includes analysis. Then the skaters get drills to fix whatever is not working.

[Skate@Delaware]

Ya, well my coach went to a seminar on dart fish and bought one for the ice rink, she is the manager of the rink so she just took the funds out of the budget and then we are going to pay a fee every month to use it so we can use it whenever we want. Maybe your rink could try that?

I don't think my rink is in any position to try that yet (we just had a major change of management personnel and are in a budget crisis). That, coupled with transitioning from a recreational to a "training" type of rink....things are a little complicated. Maybe down the road.

[Query]

Dartfish does nothing more than slow down video, and overlay two video sequences?

That's trivial.

I don't see how can they can charge that much for something so simple.

I used to do that sort of thing for scientific application image processing, long before Dartfish. I could write a toy like that in a few hours, spend somewhat more time wrapping it in a slick user interface. The hard part would be making it read the most common video formats.

I assumed it did Ice Princess style physics analysis. I.E., if you move this hand there and then, and release that muscle, you will rotate .53 rotations in the air more, or stabilize that spin, etc. That would be much less trivial. It would need detailed numerical anatomy and ice physics models, good AI style computer vision software, and the user would need to take a lot of measurements on the skater, skates and blade.

Does it at least do the slow motion right, and interpolate between frames, or does it just show video frame by frame?

Or does it includes proprietary video sequences and/or advice by famous skaters... That would cost money.

Maybe it all goes to liability insurance.

But if I wrote it bare bones - just the slow mo and the video overlay - what would be a reasonable price for it, sold over the internet? Could I get a few hundred customers, at, say $10 each?

[Skittl1321]

Dartfish does nothing more than slow down video, and overlay two video sequences?

< snip >

Or does it includes proprietary video sequences and/or advice by famous skaters... That would cost money.

But if I wrote it bare bones - just the slow mo and the video overlay - what would be a reasonable price for it, sold over the internet? Could I get a few hundred customers, at, say $10 each?

One would think it does something more than slowing video down because BBC and NBC and other stations used Dartfish for their video analysis at the Torino Olympics and Beijing. Surely these places would be capable of slowing down their own videos.

It does not include proprietary video, but they are available to buy- where you can see good examples of how different elements should look. And not just skating. Many many many sports use dartfish. (One article I found on BBC said 60% of olympic athletes had utilized the system at some point in their training)

If you can make the same thing for $10 per customer, go for it. But I think you are pricing yourself a bit low. Something like this you can't make up in volume, because there are only a limited number of people who can buy it. Since your closest competitor :) is at almost $1000, I think you could charge $100 and call it a steal... but something tells me there is a bit more to dartfish then that, but maybe not. Maybe they really did just market the basic idea first and get name recognition in the market. Sometimes that's all you need.

[Skate@Delaware]

I assumed it did Ice Princess style physics analysis. I.E., if you move this hand there and then, and release that muscle, you will rotate .53 rotations in the air more, or stabilize that spin, etc. That would be much less trivial. It would need detailed numerical anatomy and ice physics models, good AI style computer vision software, and the user would need to take a lot of measurements on the skater, skates and blade.
It would be funny-everyone skating in black jumpsuits with those little glowing golfballs placed over their joints.....so the computer can integrate them into the AI world! But it would be an interesting concept!

Not sure if it would help people like me, I can't remember 3 things when I skate (2's my limit....;))

[sk8ryellow]

Well it has a lot of unique features on it and I guess when there is only one peice of software like it that is so persise and exact they can charge whatever they want for it.

[Query]

I just visited the Dartfish site.

They do have some extra features - kind of basic Paint program stuff. Like you can draw circles around things you want to emphasize, and add text. They also have a way of publishing videos with paid license fees.

They show some smooth slow motion videos on their site, so I'm guessing they do interpolate inter-frame motion. There are several ways to do that, though if one isn't very careful how one cleans it up, one would see ghosting at the edges of people's bodies, as parts of the body rotate in and out of view. Non-trivial.

TV stations and networks can afford the expensive stuff. $1000 is just a drop in the bucket for them. If it happens to be the tool their people know, works faster at real time rates, or is one button click easier to use, they wouldn't hesitate.

Perhaps the average skating or dance coach or parent might hesitate to blow $1000.

It's a lot like buying the Adobe web design/image and video processing tools, which are $2500 for the full Master Collection, and is a real nuisance because it messes up disk image back-up and restore. But they are the "standard" professional tools for web design and image processing. Even I bought a somewhat lower end Adobe suite (but without the video software - I wonder if the Adobe software can do the same thing), so I can do things the way people expect professionals to do them.

[SkatEn]

Is there something that is cheaper or even free available on the net to do side-by-side slow-motion analysis?

I think Dartfish is certainly out of my budget.

I downloaded V1 which is apparently endorsed by the US Ski team, but there isn't a side-by-side analysis for the free version!

Dartfish sounds pretty interesting though. Is it used in IJS competitions?

[techskater]

Dartfish sounds pretty interesting though. Is it used in IJS competitions?

No, they use the video feed from whoever is videotaping the competition, so the tech panel's POV is from wherever the video "guy" is.