The Australian Institute of Sport is hosting Day 2 of the annual meetings of the International Association for Sports Information (IASI) and the Australasian Sport Information Network (AUSPIN).
There were three presentations in the first morning session:
- Li Guihua (China)
- Hartmut Sandner (Germany)
- Chikara Miyaji (Japan)
Li
Li discussed the development of a scientific document service for elite Chinese sport from 2010 to the present. She described an E-learning platform that was precise and easily accessible. She noted that the Chinese Sport Information Service works with sport universities to collect, edit, index, submit, store and release information for ten sports.
Six universities in the network specialise in the monitoring of a single sport. The Information Service focusses specifically on three sports: swimming, gymnastics and athletics. In all cases, subject experts verify literature. There is a strong emphasis on quality assurance.
The Information Service released 4501 items of information in 2013-2014. (There were 2800 in 2011-2012).
Li concluded her presentation with an emphasis of importance of networks and proposed international collaboration to the sharing of scientific information.
Hartmut
Hartmut’s presentation had two components:
- A discussion of the SPIKE project (a pilot database for high performance training centers and camps).
- Other work at the Institut für Angewandte Trainingswissenschaft in Leipzig.
SPIKE
Hartmut noted that there are 96 members of the Association of Sport Performance Centres. The SPIKE project has developed a user friendly database of Centres. Within the pilot project, coaches were asked to share their search needs.
Other Projects
Hartmut observed that SPIKE was a very small part of the Institut’s work. Other work includes:
SPONET.de has 40,000 documents in its archive including a document scanning project.
an individualised information service SPRINT with 2,000 subscribers.
an individualised communication network SPRINT 1:1
an upload service SPEED
aniIndividualised documentation service
an iInformation service for 27 National Governing Bodies
The Institut is keen to “Always attempt the impossible” and to contribute to a better informed elite sport system.
Chikara
I have been following Chikara’s work on his SMART system since 2002. I was delighted to see the emergence of his Smart 2.0 today.
SMART 1.0 and SMART 2.0 are versions of the Japanese Institute of Sport Science’s (JISS) video database (a streaming and meta-data platform).
The SMART 2.0 project started 2009. At present there are 4000 users of the video database. Individual access to the database is verified through National Governing Bodies. All 270,000 videos in the database are archived at JISS.
Chikara noted the limitations of SMART 1.0
- Low quality video image
- No step by step video option
- No sophisticated slow motion
- No multi-camera option
- No synchronisation with data
These have been remedied in SMART 2.0:
- A new SMART player
- Multiple camera perspectives
SMART 2.0 uses a serialising method to seek video segments and nonlinear thumbnails. The system enables precise time characteristics of the thumbnail (using sparse and fine time intervals).
Chikara presented a synchronised page and video option in SMART 2.0. This page uses scalable vector graphics and HTML to optimise the interactive potential of the page.
Each frame of the video stored in SMART 2.0 has its own unique url to get thumbnails and facilitate step-by-step viewing.
All users of SMART 2.0 have access to network videos flexibly as if they are local files.
Chikara concluded his talk with a discussion of his SMART camera project. The project is driven by the desire to develop a simple camera to record; a simple player to see; and a simple server to save.
The specifications of the camera include: 240 frames per second; High Definition; pre-triggered video; and with a SMART video server.
A 2014 prototype includes a USB3 camera (with 160 frames per seconds), and a PC box.
