Watched John Schmidt's 245 run DVD last night

John Schmidt has put together a very impressive video here. One weak point is that he uses a fixed camera. However it is positioned very well at about a ¾ overhead view looking from the foot of the table. Rarely is the camera angle a handicap. Lighting is also less perfect than recent high dollar productions. The result is a large spot of glare on the foot rail and difficulty telling which ball is which. Of course that matters little watching straight pool. There are a couple of places where there is a little static in the video too, left in so that the taping is continuous I suspect. This isn’t recent television quality video but I have watched Accu-Stat videos that had worse production values. Overall I find the visual quality of the DVD more than acceptable.

Having gotten the negatives out of the way, I am free to go on to the positive things about the video. It is as advertised, a run of 245 balls shown in one continuous take, no cutaways, no swapping between cameras. Video quality is more than adequate to see how John shoots and it is very easy to understand his playing style if you wish to learn from it.

Absolutely the best thing about this video is John’s commentary, added after the video was completed. He speaks clearly and is easy to hear and understand. Also putting the viewer inside the mind of the player as he is shooting, knowing what he planned and how he recovered when he made an error is great! I would like to see many more videos made in this manner, with the one that was shooting coming back and doing the commentary later.

Nice job John, looking forward to your next video!

Hu

technical info

It isn't an instructional video but I thought it actually had a good bit of "how to" in it. He gave a good bit of information in bits and pieces, just not with every shot. If he had detailed what he was doing every shot the video would have been terribly dull and repetitious.

Videos and books that tell you to hit with a certain amount of english and a certain strength stroke always have to be adapted because no two people's strokes are the same anyway and different tables play differently.

I'm still dreaming of that one book or DVD that is the magic bullet that gets my game going but I don't think there is one. I learn a bit here and a bit there and mostly hammer out the details of what works on the table.

Hu

Jerry OC said:

John is a great player, I must say I was a little disappointed, basically you just watch him run balls.

The commentary was smooth I just expected more technical information.

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looks like a bad link

That does look like a bad link. You can find the DVD at platinumbilliards.com



Here is a direct link to the video on sale if it works.

http://www.platinumbilliards.com/product_info.php?cPath=24_26_177&products_id=1002797