Video Files You Can Import and Play

You can bring existing video into the software and work with it alongside footage from your own cameras. This page lists what it accepts and what to expect from older material.

Formats it accepts

Swing Catalyst takes, .take, import as recordings rather than as video. A take carries its data with it, so importing one brings the force and timing information too, not just the picture.

Why an accepted extension can still fail

A file extension names the container, not what is inside it. An .mp4 can hold video compressed in several different ways, and the software has to be able to decode that too.

So a file with an accepted extension can still fail to open. One reason is compression the software cannot decode. Another is a damaged file. The steps at the end of this page tell the two apart.

The fix for the first is to convert the file with a general video tool, exporting to .mp4 with H.264 video. H.264 is the compression the software’s own GPU encoders record, so playback handles it. Anything that plays in an ordinary media player will usually convert cleanly.

Interlaced footage

Older camcorders, many broadcast sources and some security cameras record interlaced video. Each frame is stored as two halves, called fields. One field holds the odd lines of the picture and the other holds the even lines, captured a fraction of a second apart.

You can tell interlaced footage by the comb-like stripes along anything moving quickly. A club head or a bat mid-swing shows it clearly.

The software imports and plays interlaced files. Two things to expect:

It will not look as sharp as progressive footage, and no setting changes that. A single frame of fast motion genuinely holds two slightly different pictures of the same thing, because the two halves were recorded at different moments.

It costs more to decode, so scrubbing can stutter. Turning on buffered playback helps. See Playback and buffering settings .

For measuring a swing, interlaced footage is usable: the frames step cleanly and the timing is right. For studying a still image of the club at impact, it will always be the weaker source.

If you are choosing a camera now, choose one that records progressive video. Interlaced support is for footage you already have.

Frame rate matters more than format

For swing analysis, how many frames per second the source recorded is the thing that limits you, far more than which format it is in.

A club head near impact moves tens of centimetres between one frame and the next at 60 frames per second. Footage shot at 30 tells you much less about impact than footage shot at 240, whatever container it arrives in.

Video from a phone or an ordinary camcorder is fine for showing a student their posture and sequence. It is not a substitute for a high speed camera when you need the moment of impact.

Motion capture and imported video

Importing a video file gets you playback and the drawing tools. It does not get you motion capture, and there is no way to add motion capture to it later.

Motion capture works from the camera angle stored on a video. It accepts Down the line, Face on left, Face on right and Freehand. It does not accept Top down or Unknown. A video imported from a file carries no camera angle at all, so motion capture has nothing to work from.

You can still run Process Mocap on a recording like that. It runs, finds no video it can use, and tells you:

Motion capture needs a video with a supported camera angle (for example Face On or Down the Line). None of this take’s videos have one.

The camera angle belongs to the camera, and you choose it for each camera before you record. You cannot set one on a video you have already imported. The motion capture camera list shows each video’s angle as plain text. Saving a video from there stores rotation, mirroring and whether motion capture is switched on, but never the angle.

Swing Catalyst takes, .take, are the exception. A take keeps the camera angle each of its videos had when it was recorded, and importing the take keeps it too. So motion capture works on an imported take whose videos were recorded at an angle it accepts. A take whose videos had no angle does not gain one by being imported.

The camera angle is not the only thing motion capture needs. The video file has to still be where the software can read it, and the tracking models have to be installed. The software offers to download a model it needs and does not have.

So motion capture is for footage you record in Swing Catalyst, and for takes brought in from another Swing Catalyst installation. For a plain video file, use playback and the drawing tools instead.

If a file will not open

1. Check the extension is in the table above. If it is not, convert the file to .mp4 with H.264 video.
2. Try playing it in another player on the same machine. A file that fails everywhere is damaged.
3. Convert it to .mp4 with H.264 video if it plays elsewhere but not here. That replaces compression the software cannot decode with one it can.
4. Tell us if conversion does not help. Say what recorded it, and send the file if you can.

Related

• Playback and buffering settings
• Improving camera image quality
• What’s new in 26.1