ALLSPORTSTUBE, LLC (AST)
My story begin's with “how do I get my sports video online…”
I was holding a digital video camera during a high school baseball game. As I recorded our son making a double play, I said to my wife Kristie, "I wish our parents could see this". Later that night I started to sketch our and develop an idea. Thinking outloud with my wife, I started down a design path. My prototype design idea was to help bring parents and grandparents of young athletes together online.
At first glance, what seemed difficult was in fact easy or so I thought. The video I made using a 8mm camcorder, needed to be converted into a file format like .mov, avi, .mpeg, .wmv so I could edited it with some video software. I discovered many hurdles with this method. For example, size of the video files were very large, resolution and audio were hurdles. Lucky for me this was about the time the first YouTube videos came out. In turn this helped me start to understand how video was being streamed over the internet.
I began researching the ffmpeg multimedia framework technology that I learned about on a Linux IRC community site. I soon discovered some ideas which helped me convert full length DVD recorded events into manageable flash files called flv's. I soon learned that these files were very manageable for viewing over the internet when played with any open source flash player embedded in html code.
To my advantage, I had spent many hours in my basement installing Linux and learning how to troubleshoot software so I built an Apache web server to run my own website. For help with this, I turned to some friends who developed their own Linux distribution called ‘Decebal’. We built a secure web server to handle these web pages with video streaming capabilities. We installed a CMS called Joomla and deployed the server on the internet . Joomla enabled me to develop the framework for the allsportstube.com web pages. There were many software bugs and database errors along this journey, but I was determined to work hard to achieve a goal. My computer skills could only take me so far. I had developed this proof of concept to "do it better then the next guy."
Over the next several months I worked on various page layouts for the following pages: landing, profiles, payment, and teams pages. Once I was satisfied with the pages, I began working on embedding the open source video player (jwplayer) into the Joomla code. My goal was to keep all player video in house as well as the custom profile page for my clients.
Front Page
The need for player video on demand was in my mind crucial to coaches and this was why I developed AST, the site that could bring the high school baseball world together online. I wanted a popular way for players to showcase their skills to college coaches nationwide. The way it worked was pretty simple.
I designed the landing page to attract interest and increase client visibility. The top of the front page provided client login's for registration and payment pages as well search functionality. The navigation bar provided numerous pages to view content about the site. (ie. newsflashes, showcases, and featured players) As soon as the viewer landed on the page, a video of one of our affiliates started playing. This video player was embedded into the web page and was designed to play a different file weekly. I also thought this was a nice area for other clients to market a product or pass on details to parents and players.
I later added an image slider page, more showcase announcements, and new player video with an embedded video player.
Below are a few examples of some highlight videos I created. These videos were used for advertisment to prospective clients. Both video and editing was done in-house. Some of the players in the videos are now playing on Division I baseball teams. As you are about to see, my knowledge of video and editing have come a long way since we launched AST.
Sketching The Wireframes
I sketched out some mock templates to organize the players legend, academic, and acolade information. After I figured out how to embed the player video with the other information, it was now time to sketch out some wireframe ideas for the three main parts of the player profile: the dashboard, the video highlight, and the landing page. The function of the dashboard was to simply list the players current information and allow users to get a first look at their skills - kind of a tire kicking test. The difficult piece here was how to validate the numbers and student information.
The page needed to be quick and easy so our client could distribute the link to potenital coaches. The biggest challenge was how to keep the branding all same, as we wanted to design something very different for each player.
As I worked on the wireframes, I also started planning the build. My initial goal was to get a basic version of the page working so that the client could working on promoting himself. I used the initial wireframes to help write out other players profiles and prioritised them to ensure I stayed on track with its development.
The page below started with a template to be filled in as players and parents submitted their sign-up forms.
Below are some short highlight videos of our clients. The video below is of Logan Shore (14yrs old) who is now one of the top NCAA Division I pitchers in the SEC.
Minnesota Baseball Academy was one of our first clients. Our business relationship lead to detailed knowledge of college baseball recruiting.
A typical high school profile video.
Discovered the following:
https://www.bizapedia.com/sd/allsports-tube-llc.html
Company Name: ALLSPORTS TUBE, LLC
File Number: DL015198
Filing State: South Dakota (SD)
Filing Status: Cancellation Pending
Filing Date: December 5, 2007
Company Age: 9 Years, 4 Months
Registered Agent:
Darrell A. Jesse
711 Sioux Point Rd, Ste 200
Dakota Dunes, SD 57049-5081
711 Sioux Point Rd, Ste 200
Dakota Dunes, SD 57049-5081
www.southdakotacorp.org/beyond-the-benches-llc
BEYOND THE BENCHES, LLC was formed in South Dakota and is a Domestic LLC under local business registration regulations. Its registration number is ...
Comments, feedback, likes and follows are welcome
