Introduction¶

This user guide describes LongoMatch version 0.14 and later.

LongoMatch is a free sports video analysis software to help coaches in making games analysis.

With LongoMatch you can tag the most important plays of the game and group them by categories to study each detail of the game strategy. Once you tagged a play, you can review it with a simple click, even in slow motion, and adjust the lead and lag time of each play frame by frame using the timeline.

LongoMatch has support for playlists, an easy way to create presentations with plays from different games. If you prefer, you can even export the playlist to a new video.

The most important features of LongoMatch are listed below:

Tag plays in different categories
One-click review
Slow motion review
Adjust the lead and lag time for each play
Annotations
Customizable projects using templates
Templates editor
Projects manager
Timeline
Playlist support
Video editor
Export projects to CVS
Support for the most common video formats

Understanding LongoMatch¶

Projects and Database¶

LongoMatch understands a game analysis like a Project. For each game you will need to create a new Project, that is stored in the program’s database.

A Project contains the following elements:

A set of properties that describes the match (teams’ names, final result and date)
A project template (sets the properties of each category)
A filename that points to video file containing the recorded game

It’s important to know that you cannot create two Projects for the same video file.

The file’s name is used to set the project’s name, so try to use a filename as descriptive as you can.

Project Templates¶

LongoMatch lets you tag plays in 20 categories. For each category you can set the following properties:

A name that describes the category
A lead time
A stop time
A colour to easily identify the category
The visibility of this category (lets you choose if you want to use it or not)

Each Project has a template that contains the properties of the 20 categories, which lets you customize a project just by editing its template.

When you create a new project you have to select a template to load, that can be the default template or a pre-maded one.

Once this template is loaded into the Project you can edit it to customize the Project depending on the needs of the analysis.

Projects Management¶

Create a new Project¶

To create a new project go to File->New Project. This shows a dialog to set-up the project’s properties.

Local Team: Name of the local team

Visitor Team: Name of the visitor team

Local Goals: Number of goals scored by the local team

Visitor Goals: Number of goals scored by the local team

Date: Date when the game took place (Does not work on Windows)

Template: Project template used for this project. Select a template from the available ones and edit it, if you need to

File: Video file used for this project

Open a Project¶

To show the “Open Project” dialog go to File->Open Project. This dialog contains a list with all the projects stored in the database.

To open a project, select one of them and click “Accept”, or double-click in the project you want to open.

Projects Manager¶

The Projects Manager is used to edit or delete projects. You can open it through “Tools->Projects Manager”

You can edit a project by selecting it using the projects’ list in the left side of the screen.

The project is then loaded in the editor. Once you finished with the edition, you can save the changes using the “Save” button.

If you want to remove a project, select the project and click the “Delete” button.

Templates Editor¶

The templates editor lets you create, edit and delete project templates. To open the Templates Editor dialog go to Tools->Templates Editor. To load a template into the editor, select one from the list.

New button: Create a new template

Save button: Save the opened template

Delete button: Delete the opened template

Graphical User Interface Widgets¶

Main window¶

After starting LongoMatch, the main window is displayed. This window lets you access to main functionalities, like creating a project, opening a stored one, opening the templates editor, etc...

Main window with an opened project¶

Once you open a project, the main window displays all the widgets that lets you make the analysis. There are two kind of views:

Capture view: Used to tag plays

Analysis view: Used to adjust plays boundaries

Capture View¶

To enable the capture view go to “view->Capture Mode”

Analysis Mode¶

To enable the analysis view go to “view->Capture Mode”

Multimedia player¶

The multimedia player displays the video and lets you control the state and position of the stream.

You can toggle between play and pause by clicking the Play/Pause button or by clicking the in the widget with the mouse.

You can change the stream’s position using the time scale. If you prefer, you can use “X” and “Y” keys to do frame stepping.

When a play is loaded into the media player, the “Close Play” button is displayed. Click this button to unload the play and view the full video.

You can change the play rate of the stream using the play rate scale.

The “Prev Play” button lets you go back to the start of a play. If you are viewing a playlist the “Prev Play” and “Next Play” button are used to jump to the previous/next play.

You can change the volume using the “Volume” button.

This widget is used to tag plays in different categories. You can only tag a play in a category if this category is set as “visible” in the project template.

This widget shows a list with all the tagged plays grouped by categories.

The timeline widget represent all the plays in a time line, and lets you edit them.

You can change the time line zoom using the zoom scale.

To position the time line to the current stream position click the “Auto Position” button.

Coding and Analysis¶

Tag a play¶

You can tag a play in two ways:

Clicking one of the 20 available buttons
Right click in the timeline at the desired position and select “Add new play”

The start time of the play is calculated in this way: current_time - section_lead_time.

The stop time of the play is calculated in this way: current_time - section_lag_time.

The current_time is the actual position of the video stream when you use the buttons to tag a play and the cursor’s position in the timeline when you use the timeline to tag a play.

Select View->Capture Mode to show the tagging buttons.

Select View->Analysis Mode to switch to the timeline.

Edit a play¶

Edit the play’s name¶

To change the name of a play click in the name’s play using the plays’ list.

Adjust the start and stop time of a play¶

To change the start and stop time of a play, go to the timeline and click in the borders of the rectangle defining a certain play. Drag the borders to desired position.

Review a play¶

To review a certain play you may chose one of the following options:

Clicking in the plays’row using the plays list widget
Clicking in the rectangle defined by this play in the timeline

Delete a play¶

To delete a play you may choose one of the following options:

Right-click in the play’s row using the plays list widget, and select “Delete Play”
Right-click in the rectangle defined by this play in the timeline, and select “Delete Play->Play Name”

Presentation tools¶

Playlists¶

Playlists are used to group plays from one or various projects, to replay them in the easiest way. To show the playlists widget go to “View->Playlists”. Remember that you have to load a playlist by creating a new one or opening an already saved playlist before trying to add any element. If you want to play a playlist you have to close the opened project, if any.

Create a playlist¶

To create a playlist click the “New” button in the playlists widget. You will be prompted for filename to store the playlist.

Load a playlist¶

To load a playlist click the “open” button and select the playlist to load.

Edit a playlist¶

You can add a play to the playlist right clicking in the play’s row using the plays list widget and selecting “Add to playlist”. To remove a play from the playlist right click on the play and select “Delete”. If you want to change the play order, drag and drop the plays to the desired position. To add plays from different projects to the same playlist, close the actual project and open the project you’d like to add a play from. Remember to save the playlist after editing it.

Export a playlist to a video file¶

If you prefer you can export the playlist to a video file. The video editor will cut all the segments from the original(s) video(s) and merge them into a new video file. Load a playlist in the playlist widget and click the “Rec” button.

Click the “Save” button and choose the filename for the new video file. Select the video quality and click “Record” to start. You will see a progress bar indicating the actual state of the export process.

Export a play as an images series¶

You can export a play to PGN images right-clicking on a play and selecting “Export to PGN images”.

Play: The actual play to export.

Series Name: Name of the images series used to set-up the folder’s name where the images are exported to (My Documents\LongoMatch\snapshots\Series Name\series name-XYZ.png).

Interval: Frames per second to extract. A 5 frames/second interval in a 10 seconds plays will output 50 images, 5 per second.

Projects reports¶

You can export a whole project into a CSV file to make game statistics with a spreadsheet editor (like OpenOffice Calc or Microsoft Excel). Open a project and go to “Tools->Export to CSV”. You will be prompted for the output filename.