Why this matters

The cleaner your footage, the better your tracking turns out, and the less you'll need to fix afterward. A few simple recording habits make a big difference, whether you send the match for automatic tracking or tag it yourself.

Recording checklist

Follow these and your match will track well:

• Film in landscape (sideways), not portrait. Aim for a 16:9 shape, the same wide shape as a TV.
• Record at 1080p or 720p. Both look great for tracking.
• 30 or 60 frames per second both work. 30 fps uploads faster, so we'd start there unless you have a reason to film higher.
• Record the match in one take. Don't cut, trim, or stitch clips together. One continuous video is best.
• Keep both players in the frame at least 90% of the time. We need to see the players to track the rallies.
• Play standard rally scoring. Whoever wins the rally serves the next one.

Where to put the camera

Set the camera up high and behind one end of the court if you can, so it sees the full court and both players at once. A steady camera, on a tripod or propped up on something solid, tracks far better than one held in your hand.

Why three of these matter most

The last three items on the checklist do more work than the rest. Here's what each one is protecting.

One take, no cuts

Editing your video before you upload changes more than its length. The gaps between rallies are real data: how long players took between points, how the pace shifted through a game, how much recovery each rally got. We're building analysis on top of those gaps, starting with rest between rallies. A trimmed or stitched video makes those gaps look longer or shorter than they really were, and the numbers come out wrong in ways that are hard to catch later.

If your video is too long for your token balance, use segments instead of cutting it. Upload the whole thing, then save segments during setup around the games you actually want tracked. You pay for the play you selected, exactly as if you'd trimmed the file, and the original timing stays intact. See Automatic Tracking and Tokens for how segments affect cost.

Both players visible about 90% of the time

We read each rally from what the camera can see. When a player drifts out of frame we lose their movement and their court position, and sometimes the shot itself. A little drift is fine and no camera catches everything, so aim for both players in view through the large majority of the match. Setting the camera high and behind the court is the easiest way to get there, since it keeps the back corners in shot.

Standard gameplay

You tell us who serves first in each segment. From there we follow the serve through the match to work out who won each rally: in standard play the winner of a rally serves the next one, so the serve is a reliable signal of who took the point. That signal is a large part of how we tell winners apart from errors.

If your group plays differently, that chain breaks. The common cases:

• The serve alternates every rally regardless of who scored.
• The loser of the rally serves next.
• Nobody is really keeping score, so the serve order drifts through the session.

Play a normal match whenever the camera is running, even in a casual session.

If your video doesn't fit all of this

Upload it anyway. We can still track footage that's been cut, that loses a player for stretches, or that doesn't follow standard scoring, and you'll still get useful data out of it. What to expect:

• Cut or stitched footage. Shots and rallies still track, but anything that depends on the time between rallies will be off.
• Players often out of frame. We may miss shots during those stretches, so there's more to fix afterward.
• Non-standard serving. The split between winners and errors is the part most likely to come out wrong.

If you know a match has one of these issues, walk through Project Review before you rely on its numbers.

A few extra tips

• Good, even lighting helps us see the shuttle and the players clearly.
• Try to keep the whole court in view, especially the back corners.

What's next

• Add your video in Match Tracker.
• See how to lower your token cost.
• Learn our manual tracking workflow.