OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Our new PIPS has made me very interested in making some short video clips on the different strokes and such.

I've only made some home videos of the kids and such, so i know the basics. Recording table tennis videos is of course a little different, so i'm looking for some tips before I have a go...

I've got an old JVC video camera with 640x480 resolution, with a firewire interface, and also a fairly new still camera, which can do 30fps, not sure what resolution...

I guess to do it really profesionally, you'd need a higher frame rate, so that slow motion scenes can are still clear... I don't see the resolution being a problem, as long as the pictures are clear...

Note that for these clip, it's mainly important to see the strokes clearly, not so much the person or the table. This is quie different from recording a match...

I'd like some tips on

1. what basic equipment would do the job,
2. how and where to position the camera (tripod?, height? position? distance?, etc...)
3. what background is best
4. free or cheap software that's easy to use...

Cheers!

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I'm not sure if 30fps will be enough. You might need a camera capable of 1000fps. In order to get the slow motion shots.

_________________
Blade: Dr N. Firewall
BH: Swing Back
FH: Pronte

1000! You wanna be able to measure the spin on the ball do you ?

That's going to cost a small fortune...we're talking professional equipment if they even exist...

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Hiya,

In terms of cheap software, Windows Movie Maker should do the trick. If you have a Firewire card plugged in you should be able to download the video and burn it on a DVD if you wish.

Problem is the resolution. I have a similar camera and I find the video quality to be really bad.

I find that using white balls is best.

For background it isn't really that important as a long as the subject (player) is visible. Different angles is best and you don't need to keep the entire table visible.

I agree with gundam, I'm pretty sure windows movie maker has all you need to make a short video like you described.

_________________
Grab my game-changing new book and take your game to the next level!

Personalized Online Performance Coaching for Table Tennis now available!

1000fps do exist at 1280 x 1024

http://www.adept.net.au/news/newsletter ... 1000.shtml

Couldn't find a price on the website, but I imagine it might be pricey.

_________________
Blade: Dr N. Firewall
BH: Swing Back
FH: Pronte

You're thinking camera shutter speeds. Frames per second is a different animal. 15 fps where each frame is sharp (ie shot at 750th sec) will give a more clinical result than 30 fps where each frame is blurry (ie shot at 10th sec shutter speed, due to low light).

Haggisv, image quality, not the nubers is what really matters. Do a brief test with both cameras and compare image quality.

My advice would be a dark (or just unlit) background, with good lighting on the table

_________________
Custom Re-Impact OFF
Hexer HD 1.9
Hexer Pips 1.9

Member of Anastasia's Fan Club

Last time I looked up high FPS cameras, the 100-200fps stuff were in the tens of thousands.

Also, it's not possible to achieve 30fps at 1/10s shutter Shoebox

_________________
Chasse Patate

Have a read of this post:

http://digg.com/videos/sports/High_Qual ... ires_Start

There is a good example of slow motion at work with a regular camera.

I also remember the Australian Open Tennis this year, had some great slow motion shots. I imagine that sort of technology will be out of reach of the average person.

_________________
Blade: Dr N. Firewall
BH: Swing Back
FH: Pronte

For an example of what was pretty good technology 3 years ago (around $3000 for the camera, a Canon MVX3i), check out the photos and videos at http://tabletennis.about.com/od/howtoserve/ss/fhpend_bs_ss.htm

The high def video has been compressed a bit via Windows Movie Maker - the original is DVD quality. The photos are taken from the original DVD quality video, running at 25fps. You can see that there is a bit of blurring in the photos, although sometimes that is handy since it shows the difference in speeds between different body parts, and can also show the path of the bat at times.

It's possible the technology has improved over the last 3 years though.

_________________
Perth Table Tennis Club

Thanks Greg!

I was hoping you'd stumble upon this post...

What do you use for your videos?

Considering I only want to do some basic clips showing closeups of some strokes, etc, do you think some basic video cameras would do the job?

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I use the Canon MVX3i to shoot the video - just using automatic settings.

I connect to the PC using a Firewire cable, and use Windows MovieMaker2 to capture and convert the video to my hard drive at 2.1 Kbps PAL format .wmv files at the same time.

For the photos - I use Windows Media Player to play frame by frame, then ctrl-c the player. Then I use The Gimp (an image editor) to paste the still in and remove the windows media player surrounding, which is easier than it sounds. Then use the Gimp to resize to 400x300 and I'm done.

For the videos - I use Windows moviemaker2 to edit out the rubbish, and add the titles, then save to lower definition file sizes. Takes longer than you might think.

I'd say a modern basic video camera would do the job as well as my older camera. I shudder to think what it would cost to get quality still photos of the stroke. About the only way I could think to do it at a reasonable price would be to use my digital camera - a Canon 350D - and photograph the same stroke multiple times - at 3 fps max I would eventually get enough videos to put together a whole stroke - provided I could keep my own stroke fairly similar each time. But as I said - I actually like the blurring in some cases, since it shows when, where and how fast the various body parts are moving - which can be handy.

_________________
Perth Table Tennis Club

They're excellent tips Greg, thank you very much!

I think I'll just have a go with my current video camera...even if it won't do the job, I would have learn lots of lessons along the way.

Cheers!

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

I had a go with my camera... After taking a few mins of chopping against topspin (ball machine), I download to the computer and edited with window movie maker.

I was surpirsed how few frames I got per stroke... probably only about 3-4 frames, and they were quite fussy...

The lighting was definitely not good enough, so I'll work on that... but there's not much I can do about the frame rate.

Still you can see the basic stroke action, expecially when put in slow motion (nice and easy feature in this package...

I'll have another go since I've learned a few things...

Any further tips appreciated!

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Are there some reasonably prices video cameras out there that CAN offer higher frame rates? Any one know? it would be so nice to have

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide