poor sports? badminton is poor sports? a 85grammes badminton racquet is more expensive than 300grammes tennis racquet.
just add 1 free challenge per game per player using the normal camera slow-mo... how hard is that... they waste more time scrubing the floors
while racquet prices between badminton and tennis is comparable. i'd wager that theres more expensive specialized tennis racquets than there is badminton. theres more customization done in the realm of racquet production for tennis players than there is in badminton. professional players in badminton use OEM equipment, meaning everything they use, you can buy right off the shelves at a store. tennis is sponsored, endorsed, and supported by a huge network of individuals and companies. badminton is fledgling, barely scraping by tournament to tournament. the prize money at one big tournament for one event for tennis equals that of the entire prize money purse for a few badminton tournaments. that is what people mean by saying tennis is a "rich" sport, while badminton is "poor" rich people play badminton and tennis jsut like how poor people can play too.
Perhaps the hawkeye system is overkill for badminton... reviewing replays is so much simpler. The human eye can tell pretty accurately if the shuttle dropped in or out after looking at the slow motion
If you are ONLY talking about baseline-calls, then Yes.. but Smashes on or close to the sidelines can be very tricky to see from angled cameras slo-mo... /T
fortunately we currently have a couple over-head cams at most tournaments that are run along the trams, do we not?
What you are forgetting is that only the TV court is camera equipped. BWF would have to equip all courts (generally 4) if they were to implement the "replay/challenge" rule
I think more cameras (especially high-speed ones) would be great addition to the sport.. The investment would not be staggering (they could be used at all BWF tournaments), and besides the benefit of making the game more fair, it would be able to make for great reruns, faster cuts and more action when presenting the game for a TV-audience imop. /T
after the korean open debacle i thought i'd reopen this one.. after reading thru the posts something came to mind... while we see the action replays almost instantaneously i'm under the impression that these replays are managed by a team of people in the background. they cue up the video replay for the main screen... obviously if you've got one of these camera's to replace each line judge (perhaps more because some lines could be too long to resolve sharply enough) thats a lot of people to watch.. and then if you multiply this by the number of courts playing your start running into problems... i think the tennis circuit only allows the challenge system on later rounds (less courts obviously) perhaps this could be the way to do it for badminton, perhaps introduced at tournaments that are televised (so tournaments like the SS) but it will still come down to $$$$'s :S
Placing cameras at the courts is inexpensive and a much more feasible and easy alternative to implement.
I think we're getting there. Having gone through many threads ad nauseum and reading BC member's thoughts/suggestions, I believe the challenge system on TV replay would be the most feasible. I think the NFL style challenge probably works better at this point where ONLY the umpire talks to the TV replay people directly and views all the necessary angles. 2 challenges per game (ie 4 or 6 per match), regardless of correctness of call, to keep interruptions to a minimum. The extra expense would be to set up TV cameras on all 4 courts from several vantage points. The BWF would have to set water tight rules for challenges and the rulings must be accepted unequivocally. There must be NO DISSENT after a challenge ruling, otherwise the system would be rendered useless. (watch the clowns at BWF bugger this up royally ) It's a start anyway, and certainly a more affordable alternative to implementing hawkeye. That said, what's considered affordable to cash strapped BWF?
You'll need at minimum 4 cameras, at maximum 10 cameras to cover all angles. In official BWF matches, they put somewhere from 3 to 8 linesmen, depending on the match. Generally, from QF to finals, they put all the linesmen there. You can use an inexpensive small camera like a CCTV surveillance camera. Just put them on the ground, and that's it. Record the footage and when a player challenge, just instant replay. CCTV cameras aren't expensive, for 50$ each, and considering you'll need only 6 cams per court, for two courts, that's 600$ investment which is well worth it. Here is a diagram of the maximum number of cameras, but you can use much less, since most controversial calls come from the side and back lines, not the midlines.
one problem with action replay camera's... players foot in the way of the camera? if the line is called 'unseen' the point is played again - this would allow a 'dishonest' player an advantage - if the shuttle landed near the line he could get between the linejudge and the camera. once the umpire called for replay he wouldn't be able to call it either and the point would be replayed.. this would be ideal for shots left at the back ie, flick serves. we also have to consider the amount of time it takes to use these replays - if you have 10 camera's it could take some time to cue up the exact fractions of a second that the shuttle landed in - not something the umpire wants to waste time doing, so you need a backroom staff to manage the replays so that they could be available at short notice.. tennis manages this by having the hawkeye system - a combination of 3d modelling and camera's built into the individual venues (at substantial cost i'd imagine) and then using the machine to decide what to show. this doesn't work for badminton because the shuttle is an irregular shape and difficult for the computer to resolve against the rest of the image.. on top of that it's rare to get courts in arena's on their own apart from on finals day.. and then the mounts for the camera's would end up between the crowd and the court.. not ideal. i fear there is no really satisfactory solution to this problem until software that can resolve the shuttle in 99.9% of cases is developed.. anyone fancy a project? Coops
A Solution? The recent unfortunate incident involving Badminton Men's Singles World Number 1 Lin Dan's outburst in Seoul clearly signals for a change in the Badminton World Federation's (BWF) adjudication system. The allegedly biased line calls, that subsequently caused much controversy in the badminton community obviously needs to be addressed to suite the growing demands for accountability and fairplay from not only the player, but badminton fans worldwide. Understanding that the BWF has limited funds and resources, as this has been the reason given by the BWF for not wanting to install the immensely popular 'Hawkeye' system, the solution might lie in using and manipulating existing technology. Taking a leaf out of the sport of Cricket, which have implemented the 'Third Umpire' adjudicating system, where a disputed line call can be reviewed by another umpire by using video replays, the BWF can easily modify the existing technology to improve the adjudication system. If viewers in front of the television watching the badminton broadcast can clearly see whether the shuttlecock landed 'in' or 'out', it shouldn't be an overly tedious task for another umpire to do so. Additionally, the BWF can follow what the Tennis Authorities have done, which is to give each player a set amount of incorrect challenges. The fine details, I am sure can be easily implemented and decided by the BWF. Full article: The Badminton Blog - A Solution? ps: I plan to send this letter to The Star newspaper editor tomorrow. Any comment is largely appreciated.
NST already commented along similar lines. Take a look at their points & see if you want to add any : http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/Sport/2144325/Article/index_html
I am suggesting that they use existing technology. If you suggest them to use Hawkeye, they will just say tht they don't have enough funds etc etc.
I suggest playing at Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, or some neutral country. Or sack IBF president & top management for not doing their job. Taufik already complain about that long time ago, but no action taken by IBF.
Imagine how the linesmen do it. They only put one linesmen for each line on the same court. For example on the backline, there is only one person watching. So same number of linesmen, same number of camera, and that's 6. Realistically, there will only be 6 of them at most. Hawkeye system also takes some time to replay the shot. How long does it take for the TV broadcasters to make an instant replay? Very little. And of course, there will be a backroom staff. You can transfer some of the linesmen to work into the media room. That is easily done. You don't need a computer with 3d modeling to judge a line call, human eyes are still the best at judging that, especially for birdies. CCTV cams are small, just like a webcam. Just fix them on the ground, and that's it. What more do you want? We're not talking big semi-pro camcorders. You only need a cam with average quality at 30 fps. You seem to put a lot in computing technologies. As much as a tech freak that I am, I still believe human judgement is still the best for now. At most, for all the necessary equipment for two courts, it won't be more than 2,000$. BWF can invest in it and avoid some serious bad badminton marketing due to bad linecall... And can even attract more sponsors.
