i2c rate the most popular video apps used by coaches

We’re big fans of filming a player to analyse their technique, or to demonstrate a problem with their contact point, footwork or shot selection. It lets us give the player immediate feedback during a match or practice session so that they can work on the problem straight away.

We’ve got our trusted favourite, but we were wondering what other video tools are out there and which is best? Is it worth paying for an app – or are the free apps just as good? So we decided to review a few apps and share the results with you!

We’ve had a look at 4 popular phone apps; Coach’s Eye, Hudl Technique, Tennis Australia Technique App and the Apple iPhone Video. We tell you the features and give you our verdict!

Coach’s Eye

Coach’s Eye is a feature packed video app that is popular with tennis coaches – and it get’s our vote too! It’s easy to use, but has some excellent functionality; it absolutely lives up to it’s own promotional description. The Coach’s Eye site boasts that it is “the world’s leading video platform for coaches and athletes who need to review athlete technique and game film.”

While it’s a bit off-putting that a lot of the promotional shots feature U.S. baseball, it is great for all sports and the advanced features are just what you need; you can film and review in slow-motion, you can annotate a video to highlight technique with easy to use drawing tools, you can import student videos sent to you, you can share videos. You can zoom and pan videos during analysis and also create analysis videos with audio commentary, annotations, and variable-speed, slow-motion. Our favourite feature is the ability to link and delink the variable speed play-back of side-by-side videos. Maybe that sounds massively complicated… but trust us – it’s great! and easy to do!

£3.99 is not a lot to pay for the extra features that this app gives you beyond your phone’s free video functionality.

Features:

• Drawing tools ✓
• Slow motion ✓
• Import videos ✓
• Video zoom ✓
• Android ✓
• Apple ✓

How to get it: Start at the Coach’s Eye website to select the version you need; https://www.coachseye.com/home/purchase
How much it costs: £3.99
We rate it: overall we give it 8/10
Easy to use? YES
Good value? (Worth paying money for) YES

Tennis Australia Technique App

We really like this app! It’s hard to say which is our favourite – Coach’s Eye or Tennis Australia Technique App. In addition to the regular features such as side-by-side video comparison, video voice over, and annotation tools (to that let you draw lines, measure angles, insert text and shapes to highlight aspects of a players stroke, technique or game) – this app also lets you overlay two videos to compare them and it includes an extensive library of coaching shots that you can use to demonstrate technique for mini-tennis.

The Tennis Australia Technique App is inexpensive and it’s very easy to use. The only real criticism we’ve got is that the interface isn’t quite as polished as Coach’s Eye. But otherwise, this is a great app and well worth the £4.49 purchase price.

Features:

• Drawing tools ✓
• Slow motion ✓
• Import videos ✓
• Video zoom ✓
• Android ✓
• Apple ✓

How to get it: Start at Tennis Australia’s website to get both the Android and Apple versions; http://www.tennis.com.au/coaches/tennis-australia-apps
How much it costs: $9.99AUD (£4.49 …we know that the current conversion rate is closer to £6 but you don’t have to pay that!)
We rate it: overall we give it 8/10
Easy to use? YES
Good value? (Worth paying money for) YES, ABSOLUTELY

Hudl Technique: Slow Motion Video Analysis

We hadn’t looked at this app before, but it’s got some good features. Hudl Technique allows for multiple play-back speeds and frame-by-frame video progression. In addition to the valuable drawing tools the app lets us add audio commentary and track and compare player progress over time. Recordings are in HD which is more than you really need if you are playing back on your iPad or phone – but if you want to project and watch the video on a bigger screen, the HD recording is brilliant. The easy option to post videos to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Dropbox is nice too. Lastly, being able to manage videos by player (or shot and technique) is really useful. Where we felt this app falls short is that it’s simply not as easy to use as Coach’s Eye. There also appears to be a strong focus on sharing the videos with your team or on social media which isn’t what we were looking for.