How to pull every play by one player out of a game recording
Give Vizard Agent the game footage and the player's number and kit colour. Vizard Agent gets the file however it can, probes it, surveys the whole game into contact sheets, then works through the footage finding the plays that player is in — on both sides of the ball if they play both.
What is the short version?
A full game is an hour of wide shots in which one player is a small figure among twenty-one others. Finding all of their plays is a search problem, and the search needs the number, the kit colour and where on the field to look.
- Go to Vizard Agent and give the game footage or its link.
- Say the player's number and which team's colours.
- Say the positions they play so both sides are covered.
What do you need before you start?
The footage and enough to identify the player. Vizard Agent needs the number and the colour because that is what is legible in a wide shot, and knowing the positions tells it whether to look at the offence, the defence or both.
- The footage. A link or an upload.
- The number. As worn on the shirt.
- The colours. Which team they play for.
- The positions. Where they line up.
- What counts. Scores, long runs, tackles.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Give the identifying details and the play types together. Vizard Agent uses the number and colour to find the player and the position to know where to look, and naming the play types stops a reel that is only the obvious highlights.
Prompt
Variants worth knowing:
- Both sides of the ball. Offence and defence in one pass.
- Every play, not just highlights. For a coach or a recruiter.
- Numbered clips. So the order survives the download.
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
Here is the order Vizard Agent worked in on a real single-player cut-up from a full game recording. Most of the first half is simply getting hold of the footage, which with game recordings is very often where the difficulty actually lives.
- Tries to download the game footage from the supplied link.
- Checks the download options and alternatives when the first route fails.
- Retries with the full link, then searches for the video's details.
- Searches for alternative links or sources for the same game.
- Reads the download log to find out what actually went wrong.
- Switches to the shared-drive copy and checks whether the file is accessible.
- Verifies the file permissions, then tests a direct download approach.
- Downloads the full game footage and probes its technical specifications.
- Inspects the frames and the real duration, extracts survey frames across the entire game and builds contact sheets before hunting for anybody.
Step 9 is the part that makes the search tractable. A survey of the whole game shows where the play actually is — which end, which camera angle, how the sides swap — and hunting for one number without that context means scanning an hour of footage blind.
What does the result look like?
A set of clips, one per play, covering every appearance that player makes across the whole game: their carries, their tackles and the scores, in the order they happened. Nothing else from the game is included in what Vizard Agent returns.
For a highlight reel this is the raw material rather than the finished thing. Coaches and recruiters generally want every play; a social edit is a second pass over the same clips.
When does this not work well?
Finding one player in a wide shot depends entirely on being able to read their number, and game footage is very rarely filmed with that in mind. These are the cases where Vizard Agent runs into the recording rather than the request.
- Numbers must be legible. A distant sideline camera may never show them.
- Similar kits confuse it. Two teams in blue is a real problem.
- Getting the footage is half the job. Streaming links often cannot be downloaded.
- Pile-ups hide people. A player at the bottom of a tackle is not visible.
- The footage is somebody's. A league stream may not be yours to download.
How do you fix a result that came back wrong?
Point at the time or the play. Vizard Agent keeps the survey contact sheets, the footage probe and the located plays, so a missed play can be added or a wrong one removed without re-scanning the whole game.
- "You missed the play at 34 minutes." Located from the survey sheets.
- "That is number 3, not 33." Re-checked against the kit colour and number.
- "Only the defensive plays." Filtered from the same set.
How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?
By hand this is the job every sports parent knows: scrubbing an hour of wide-angle footage for your own child, pausing at every whistle to check the number, and exporting each clip separately. It takes an evening per game.
| By hand | Vizard Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting the file | Give up on the stream | Several download routes tried |
| Understanding the game | Watch it through | Surveyed into contact sheets first |
| Finding the player | Pause at every play | Searched by number and kit colour |
| Both sides | Two passes | Offence and defence in one |
Common questions
What do you need to identify a player? The shirt number and the team's colours. Vizard Agent works from those in the wide shot.
Can it cover offence and defence? Yes. Say the positions and Vizard Agent looks on both sides of the ball.
What if the footage will not download? Vizard Agent tries several routes; a shared-drive copy usually works where a stream will not.
How long a game can it handle? A full game. Vizard Agent surveys the whole recording before it searches any of it.
Does it only find the highlights? Not unless you ask. Every play is usually what a coach or a recruiter wants.
Why survey the game before searching for the player? Because a survey shows which end the play is at, how the camera moves and when the sides swap — and hunting for one number without knowing any of that means scanning blind.
Can it make a highlight reel afterwards? Yes. Vizard Agent builds one as a second pass over the clips it has already found.
What if two teams wear similar colours? That is the hard case here. Vizard Agent reports where it could not tell them apart.
Am I allowed to use the footage? Check. A league or school stream is often not yours to download and republish.
How many games can this cover? As many as you have. Vizard Agent handles each recording separately, and a season's worth of one player's plays is the usual reason anyone asks for this.
Should the clips include the whole play? Yes, with a little either side. Vizard Agent keeps the snap and the aftermath because a coach watching wants the context, and a clip that starts mid-run tells them less than nothing.
Does Vizard Agent check the clips? Yes. It verifies the player is in each one before delivery.