Innovator of the Month - Conversion therapy
Media systems specialist OCSL has won the latest Innovator of the Month award for Game ReVu, a video capture and edit suite it designed for Leicester Tigers rugby club.
In the competitive world of top-flight rugby union, any small advantage that a team can gain over the opposition can be crucial.
Leicester Tigers have a proud history and over the past few years the club has been tremendously successful, not least for its willingness to look at new techniques and ideas, both on and off the field.
It was this insight that first brought together the Tigers and Sussex-based bespoke media solutions and Hewlett Packard (HP) specialist OCSL.
The club had been in touch with HP and OCSL soon became involved.
Jane Ayres, director at OCSL, said: "I spoke to Graham Long at HP and he mentioned that the Tigers wanted to capture and use footage from games but no one had been able to create a solution.
"There was no spec at all. We sent a technical consultant to the Tigers and created a solution from scratch. This involved commissioning software development internally and the entire solution was created here at OCSL."
The end result was the development of a robust digital video capture, playback and editing system that gives the Tigers the ability to capture key moments of each game, review them immediately and take action to change tactics on the field.
In addition, the team are able to give press and coaching staff access to detailed footage of every key move in the game.
It is this solution that has been selected as the May winner of the CRN/Syscap Approved Technology Innovator of the Month award.
After the initial build, the system was reviewed during four matches. OCSL modified the design, adding cameras and adapting the software for the next match.
"We needed to show evolution in the design so it matched their needs," Ayres explained. "It was important to complete the pilots before the end of the season, and there were only a few matches left that year."
OCSL began the project at the beginning of April 2002 and spent the summer making adjustments to the specification. The solution is now fully live and in use by the Tigers.
The solution deployed at Welford Road enables the coach, John Wells, to review any element of the game - such as a line-out or a scrum - in real time and without hampering play, to identify specific weaknesses or opportunities. He can then relay this information to the other trainers around the ground.
Dean Richards, director of rugby at Leicester Tigers, is in no doubt that the system has been a great help to the team over the season, but believes that the full potential of the system has not yet been realised.
"With today's technology it is realistic to say that anything is possible," he said. "We are still developing and improving the system. It is portable, so we can use it at away games as well, and we are now looking at putting times and speeds into it."
This would give the Tigers more detailed information about how individual players have performed and how quickly moves are executed. There is also potential for further development and customisation to suit the needs of other sports.
The Game ReVu system, as OCSL has named it, was developed using the Perl development language and is running on Linux on HP servers. It has delivered several benefits to the team, Ayres said.
"The Tigers now have a bespoke solution that captures content from the games in a format that can be used immediately by the coaches. Before, they would have the occasional game captured on a handheld video camera," Richards said.
"This new system allows changes to be made during play. They also have content ready at the end of the game for the press, players and coaches to review."
Lisa Little, head of marketing at awards sponsor and financing specialist Syscap, said the system is a great example of how technology can be used in a practical way in all types of businesses and organisations.
"This is a simple solution on the face of it, but there is a lot of complexity behind it," she said.
"It's got everything. It has to be reliable and deliver the uncompromising performance demanded by video applications, and it meets the exact needs of the customer while masking all that complexity from the users who, in this case, simply want to get on with playing great rugby."
This year there are 11 monthly Innovator awards. The winners will go forward as candidates for two annual awards, to be presented at the CRN Channel Awards in November.
HOW TO ENTER FOR AN AWARD
The CRN/Syscap Approved Technology Innovator of the Month awards are sponsored by technology financing company Syscap and backed by CRN and Computing.
The 11 monthly winners selected by the judging panel will be short-listed for two annual awards, one for a project in the public sector and one for the private sector. Winners are profiled in both CRN and Computing, and receive a trophy, a wall plaque and marketing materials to promote their product.
To enter for the award resellers, or their customers, should fill in the online entry form, which they will find at www.technology-innovator.co.uk.
You can also request a postal entry form by calling Mark Coles on (01883) 621 083 or sending an email to [email protected].