Indoor Dome Soccer

General
1

Hi,

I just bought the Folocam kit and we are about to begin our indoor dome soccer season. Has anyone filmed in a full field dome? Any tips on tripod height and settings?

Thanks in advance.

2

I record hockey, so same sorta low light situation. Never really had an issue there. I can’t speak for soccer…. but in general, be ready for some “trial and error” for the first few games. First game out, just set it up and record. See what comes of it. See what works or didn’t. Next game out try cycling through different configurations. every 15-20 min try a new set up. 10 feet hight, 14 feet high. Right on the sideline. maybe back 10 -15 feet from sideline. Obviously you want to be at the centre of the field.

For hockey I’m up roughly 11-13 feet. When I’m right on the boards there’s a bit of a blinspot right underneath as players come up the sides and tracking lags a bit. I might try going back a bit further.

3

That’s good advice. I was concerned with lighting and also that I wouldn’t have a lot of space given the dome curves overhead. I’ll use my other device as backup so I can try this out. Thanks!

4

Hi everyone,

I’m the social media manager for an 11-a-side soccer club, and I also handle content for the club’s futsal team.

We currently use the VEO system for our 11-a-side team, but I’ve been looking for something more straightforward and efficient to create content for both our outdoor soccer and futsal teams.

I came across your solution and decided to join the discussion because I started using FoloCam yesterday after purchasing a subscription. I already own an Insta360 Flow 2 Pro gimbal, so I was particularly interested in giving it a try.

Here’s the setup I used:

  • Location: Indoor sports gym

  • Gimbal: Insta360 Flow 2 Pro

  • Tripod: Manfrotto

  • Phone: iPhone 15 Pro Max

  • Camera position: High up in the stands, directly overlooking the center of the court

  • Tracking mode: Soccer PRO

  • Zoom: Fixed 1x

  • Recording settings: 4K at 30 fps

  • Lighting: Good indoor lighting conditions

My experience was a bit of a mixed bag.

There were definitely some positive aspects, but I noticed that the system frequently struggled to keep up with the action.

Futsal is a very fast-paced sport, much like hockey, with quick transitions and sudden changes of direction.

One issue I noticed was that whenever an attacking play ended with a shot on goal, the camera would often fail to follow the ball. Instead, it would stay focused on the player who took the shot. As that player started running back toward his own half, the camera would follow him, completely missing the opposing team’s counterattack.

I also found the gimbal movements to be particularly abrupt. Both the panning and the stopping felt quite jerky, with little to no smooth deceleration. In some cases, the sudden stops were so aggressive that they actually caused the gimbal itself to vibrate.

Overall, I think the concept behind FoloCam is really interesting and has a lot of potential. However, based on my initial experience, I feel the system still needs some work before it’s truly ready for the fast-paced nature of futsal.

I’m currently downloading the recorded footage, and I’d be more than happy to share it with your team. I hope my feedback and the actual recording can help you identify these issues and continue improving the app.

I’d really like to see this solution succeed, as I believe it could become a great tool for clubs like ours!

5

Thanks for sharing your experience. I plan to run some tests next week at practice. Of particular interest is auto-zoom. I read from other posts that it should be 2x to focus on the ball but, in a dome, I barely have 3’ from the sideline so if the action gets close, I think it would be zoomed in too much.

6

I’ll share the footage from all three 25-minute periods tonight so you can see how the recording turned out.

7

The zoom level should be based on the size of the field: 2x for a standard full-size field, 1.5x for a half-size field, and 1x for a quarter-size field. Unless your indoor dome has a full-size field, 2x would be too much zoom.

8

it’s a full size field but there’s virtually no room on the sidelines so I’m afraid if the play is on the side of the camera that it’d be zoomed in too much. Hence my interest in auto-zoom.

9

As promised, I’m sharing the three recordings I made during the match. I think this footage could also be helpful for the developers to better understand the fast-paced nature and dynamics of futsal, and hopefully use these insights to improve the overall recording experience.

1 Like
10

@ferro780 The first two videos are much smoother than the third. I think there is something wrong with the third one. Do you still have the .srt and .log files (in the Files app under the FoloCam folder)? If you can send me those files I’ll take a look.

11

I’m sorry, but I’ve already deleted all the files from my phone because I’m running low on storage space.

Tomorrow is our first league game of the season, and I’ll try recording the match again. Afterward, I’ll see if I can upload the videos and share the logs with you as well, so you can take a closer look and investigate any issues.

12

@gchen I recorded the second match and sent you a private message with the videos and logs. Let me know what you think!

13

I recorded our practice scrimmage tonight so some feedback (similar to others).

  1. Very good at tracking the ball in play. We had balls scattered around the pitch and it didn’t get distracted by them.
  2. Using iPhone 16 Pro Max. Battery drained 30% in an hour. Screen stayed lit the entire time. Dimming it would help with battery life and prevent phone from getting too hot.
  3. Gimbal follows even when not recording. I was trying to test various settings and it kept moving. Perhaps disable tracking when not recording and certainly when settings window is open.
  4. Using Folocam kit gimbal (Comitok), phone seems slanted on the tripod. Add digital leveler so we can adjust tripod.
  5. On a 1/4 field for practice so I used 1x with auto-zoom. It doesn’t seem to zoom when play gets to the far corners.
  6. Tracking a bit jerky at times
  7. Focus went back to centre field after a missed shot instead of staying on the goalkeeper for goal kick. Missed a bit of the play.
  8. Cannot connect to another iPhone when remote control is active. I suspect they’re both using Bluetooth so it’s one or the other. When you hit broadcast, it shows the other device but when you click Connect, the device disappears. It worked when I turned off the remote control. Remote video is very clear!
  9. On 2nd iPhone, the controls disappear when not in use. The up arrow is somewhat lost to the white banner. The control arrows are at the edges of screen and it may be better together like a joystick.
  10. The 2nd iPhone suddenly disconnected. Not sure if I was too far for stable connection. I couldn’t reconnect. I suspect there’s a popup on the recording phone but it’s up on a tripod. Enable memory of the last phone connected to it and re-establish connection without having to prompt. It doesn’t make sense to have to bring down the camera to press the approve button.

Again, very impressed with it so far. Look forward to seeing further feature updates.

14

Hi FLY!

Could you explain how connecting a second iPhone works? I currently use my iPhone 15 Pro Max for recording, and I also have an iPhone 11 available.

I’d like to understand how I could use the iPhone 11 to remotely control the iPhone mounted on the gimbal.

Next Monday, I’ll be recording our second league match, and I’ll use 30 fps as @gchen recommended. Hopefully, this will help improve some of the issues I’ve previously reported. We’ll see how it goes!

My next test will be recording a youth 11-a-side soccer match, since our club has both traditional soccer and futsal teams. I’m curious to see how FoloCam performs on a full-size soccer field compared to a futsal court.

15

The user guide says iPhone 13 or higher is recommended so I hope you can download the app on your iPhone 11. Assuming you can, here’s how to connect it.

  1. Open Folocam on your iPhone 15, swipe right. It will say “No Stream Video”. (Swiping the other way shows videos you have previously recorded.) On the top left it will show your device name (eg. IPhone1234). Swipe left to get back to main screen.
  2. Open Folocam on your iPhone 11, swipe right. Your device name should be different (eg iPhone5678)
  3. On iPhone 11 hit the broadcast icon on the top right, a popup window will appear and show the other device (eg iphone1234) with a Connect button. Press Connect.
  4. On iPhone 15, a popup will appear for you to approve connection
  5. You should now see on your iPhone 11 what the iPhone 15 sees.

I hope this helps