Digital video files are HUGE.

Each second of pure digital video takes up 3.4 MB of space. That is about the same amount of space that three, typed, double spaced pages of text take up on your computer. Three pages for each SECOND of video. File sizes can get out of hand. Every season we add at least one external hard drive for all the new game film we expect to acquire. We want, we need, to keep game film for at least three years. It is usually more important to look at how a team defended you last year and the year before then it is see how they defended a different opponent last week.

Laptop computers do not have very large built-in hard drives.

As the price of laptop computers have decreased, the desire for coaches to use a laptop to watch game film has increased. Most coaches would like to keep every one of their own games on their laptop's hard drive as well as last year's games and any scout films from this year. This number might easily reach sixty games. The solution until this year was to simply move games on and off your laptop or attach some type of external drive. Both of these solutions work but neither one is very efficient.

Solution: Pack the game film.

This year we began to "Pack" the game film. Don Green, co-owner of Braintree Athletic Systems coined the name this fall and it has stuck. The term "pack" is a great verb in two ways. In terms of video, it describes the squeezing or compressing the computer applies to each clip. In terms of data, it describes how we bundle the data and game film together so that it can be used on any other computer running Coach's Video Assistant.

The downside ... time.

The process of packing the game film, compressing each individual clip to ten percent of its regular size takes time. The time of course varies upon the speed of the computer's processor. Processors have gotten much faster these last few years, and in general, the newer the computer the faster the processor. But even the fastest processors can spend three hours "packing" a game film. In order to accomplish this fairly lengthy task we will "pack" our game films at night when we're getting some sleep. Over three nights you will be able to "pack" three game films.

The downside ... film quality.

When scrubbing a clip, (moving the slider underneath the video window) you will occasionally see little "jaggies". The less the camera moves, the less distortion you might see. These "packed" game films can also be made into DVDs, and again, you may find a few, very tiny "jaggies" on your video screen.

Weekend Protocol - One Laptop Computer

This protocol assumes you have one computer, a laptop. Click on the link below to read and print the step by step process.

Click here to download a one page .pdf document with instructions on how to "pack" a game film.