The Pac-10’s game-film swap meet takes on high-tech methods, making lives a lot easier for video operations departments
By Ben Malcolmson
USCRipsIt.com
Times sure have changed.
Just ask Eric Espinoza, USC’s video operations director who oversees all the film the coaches watch on a day-to-day basis.
Thanks to groundbreaking technology, schools within the Pac-10 conference swap game film through cyberspace, allowing for quick and painless exchanges — especially compared to how the process used to work.
For years, schools would send their game tapes via courier, which would take several hours and cost hundreds of dollars per trip. Several conferences still rely on this method today.
Now, with the Pac-10’s FTP site (or internet server), the conference’s 10 schools can trade game film in minutes without leaving their video offices. The site is governed by the Pac-10 but housed at UCLA because it was the first school in the conference to have a 100-gigabyte broadband connection.
Game files are roughly 20 gigabytes each, and through the speedy server, Espinoza can download and upload an entire game film in about 20 minutes.
Each Pac-10 team’s video department has agreed to have its game film uploaded by 10 a.m. every Sunday after a game. Espinoza said the Pac-10 is the only conference with 100 percent success rate on exchanges.
“Everyone in the Pac-10 works well together,” Espinoza said.
It’s a much improved system from what Espinoza used to have to do. The former video operations director at UNLV, Espinoza had to send game film via couriers to places such as Laramie, Wyo., and Fort Worth, Texas.
“This is so much easier, faster and better,” Espinoza said.
