Reply to "Preferred fomat for video?"

I can't speak for how well college coaches have used this ... but what I've done is shoot my own video in digital-8, load it onto my home PC, then distilled it down to 7-8 minute long sequences by eliminating "dead time". I create different videos based upon activity, i.e., hitting, pitching, fielding, using video editting SW. I then generate a streaming-video file and upload it onto a website I built as a "player profile". Then, for specific schools that have contacted my son via US mail or e-mail, I simply send them a URL link to the website and videos section any time I add new content. I always put the URL on the school questionaires.

Since the videos are streaming, coaches can view them relatively quickly without having to wait for the full file download. If they want a local copy of their own (e.g., if they have a slow Internet connection), they can simply "right click" on the file link and "save as" the file to their local hard drive. This makes it easy for me to add new video over the course of a season, and solves the lost tape or DVD problem. If a coach specifically wants a DVD, I can simply burn the same videos onto a RW DVD and send it.

So far all the videos I've done are from actual games. In the pitching videos, I show every pitch of every at bat ... it's important to show how he deals with critical situations when runners are in scoring position, not just K's. I found I can get about four full innings of pitching into eight minutes of video. I haven't done a 'training' video yet as I've felt that seeing performance under actual game situations shows a lot more beyond just basic mechanics or physical attributes, e.g., mental approach, his pitching & hitting approach with bases empty vs runners in scoring position. I tend to set the camera up on a tripod and just walk away and let it run, editting it down later on the PC ... this way I'm too far away for it to pick up my own voice , and I don't want to be the distracting dad standing behind the backstop.