Giles - I think lap splits of the leaders would be awesome. too often i have to keep track of that myself. for instance i had no idea lagat closed in 31 then 27. although i did estimate 58 for the last 400. but anyway, that wouldn't be overwhelming, i think it would be informative.
great stuff
hope you guys make a buck!
Are you guys working on incorporating any heart-rate data? It'd be pretty sweet to see who's hanging on by the skin-of-their-teeth and who's just cruising along.
In F1 they sometimes show RPM, G force, accelerator force and brake force in a graphic format. That might be better than numbers slot machining on the bottom of the picture. Numbers distract and you end up watching them instead of the runners.
Maybe you could show graphically if someone is accelerating, or of the gap between 1st and 2nd is growing or shrinking, or if their prior lap was faster or slower than the previous one.
Estimated finish time and splits and their relation to the prior split are the most useful.
Knowing if someone were catching up in a distance race would be interesting. For example, when Ritz ran 12:56, he was barely mentioned because he was basically DFL until he started picking off people. If a graphic showed that he was running faster splits than the leaders and that the gap was shrinking, it would have been very exciting.
good stuff sir wrote:
Are you guys working on incorporating any heart-rate data? It'd be pretty sweet to see who's hanging on by the skin-of-their-teeth and who's just cruising along.
This is a great idea.
You would want it to be as unnoticeable by the athletes as possible. I would think that any form of heartrate monitoring would be too intrusive.
With as small as it is already, do you think it will ever simply be embedded in the race number itself? This was the first thought I had when I started seeing D-tags, but this is clearly much more sophisticated than those. But, at a weight of only a couple grams, I imagine that there are better ways to attach it to the runner than the velcro pouch (though, the runners did say it wasn't noticeable, right?).
I think the only things I really like seeing are splits and distance behind. The acceleration doesn't mean all that much to me...what it tells me I can also see by just watching the race. Splits for a race in which I have 3-4 athletes would be so helpful from a coaching standpoint. Also, knowing splits of winners and losers would provide great ways to show my runners different strategies.
Here's that KB/Ritz 5000:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKMZfYn6e80
Accepting the technical limits and concern about too much information, after speed and projected time, for a road race it would be the gap (given the seeming inability of TV producers to be able to accurately measure gaps, if they get mentioned at all).
[quote]coopington wrote:
You would want it to be as unnoticeable by the athletes as possible. I would think that any form of heartrate monitoring would be too intrusive.
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Maybe, but at the tour de ski on Universal, they had HR monitors on several top athletes. I think the appeal was that that athlete was guaranteed to be on camera with commentators talking about them at least once. Sponsors like that.
Agreed that raw acceleration data can been seen on the screen - not needed
Distance behind the leader is good info to have when watching NASCAR and I think it would present well in a distance race. Notsomuch for the shorter stuff but say, 3k on up.
Also the ability to not only get lap splits but also 'interval' splits, for lack of a better term. Like knowing what the time for was the last 100m completed in the middle of the race.
Projected times are always entertaining. This is good stuff and hope it does get used in T&F and not just the big money sports.
x2 on this. Even in the BIG 5000, commentators said that the final time would probably NOT be under AR time, until Rupp took the lead and then the commentators said the race might finish under AR time. But how much had the race slowed, how much did Rupp pick up the pace, and how fast did Legat accelerate to toward the end? The graphs mentioned earlier are great ideas.
I think the best software would have some sort of 'intelligence' that would automatically pick up if something were happening somewhere in the race and let the viewer or technical analyst/director/cameraman know.
Too much information on the screen is a problem, and usually nothing extraordinary happens in a race that can't be seen. So probably the best way to use it is for info to go directly to a tech analyst who can put it on the screen if needed.
Except that estimated finish time - that should always be on, 800 and up.
good stuff sir wrote:
Are you guys working on incorporating any heart-rate data? It'd be pretty sweet to see who's hanging on by the skin-of-their-teeth and who's just cruising along.
I agree - the Tour de France did this a few years ago (don't recall seeing it in the '09 coverage). It was awesome to see how some guys were killing themselves up the hills, while others were sitting pretty. Made it fun to predict the breakaways and finishes too!
The acceleration data is probably unique because almost all prior monitoring had to viable way to collect that information. It does imply that the transmitter needs to be placed on portion of the body that stays still in a relative sense - the current setup seems a good.
This is great stuff.
I would really like to see at what point in the race an athlete hit their top speed. This would be especially useful in sprints: who gets to their top speed first, and who can hold it the longest.
In the steeplechase, what speed are the athletes holding as they hurdle? As they approach the water? As they exit the water? This is interesting to watch with the naked eye, but I think you could quantify it.
original message wrote:
Were they all made out of ticky tacky? Did they all look just the same?
sticky tack, son
Video of High School miles taken by robotic cameras now posted on YouTube:
Boys race:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhM4YUcvurs
girls race: