Camera setup guide
Footage that gets the most out of Kickra
Kickra's tracking, jersey reading, and tactical analysis are calibrated against broadcast-grade match footage. The closer your camera is to that template, the more accurate everything downstream becomes — names, distance, speed, formations, xG.
Below 720p, jersey numbers become unreadable past midfield. 4K gives the OCR roughly 4× more pixels per shirt.
Below 24 fps, fast actions blur and tracking starts dropping IDs through tackles. Above 60 fps wastes storage with no accuracy gain.
Lower than 8 m, players occlude each other constantly. Higher than 12 m and jerseys shrink past readable. The press-box height is exactly right.
Where to mount the camera
Position: centred on the halfway line, on the long touchline, looking straight across the pitch. The whole field — both goal lines, both touchlines — must be visible at all times during static play. This is the same angle TV broadcasters use.
Lens: wide enough that the centre circle fills roughly the middle third of the frame. For a phone, that's the default 1× lens at midline. For a dedicated camera, an 8 mm wide on a 4K sensor or a panoramic stitched-camera rig both work.
Mount: fixed tripod, gimbal, or scaffold pole. Don't hand-hold — the small wobble breaks the homography (the geometric model that turns pixel positions into pitch metres) and ruins every per-player distance and speed stat.
Quick test
Pause your video at the halfway line and check both penalty boxes are in the frame. If they aren't, the camera is too low or too narrow.
Camera options by budget
| Tier | What you need | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Validation / free | Phone on a tripod at midline, 1080p/30, full pitch in frame | Works for verifying the pipeline + small-sided games. Limit: jersey OCR struggles past midfield. |
| Pro academy / $1k | All-in-one 4K stitched-panoramic camera (the academy-grade single-mount class), plug-and-play | Easiest to deploy. Resolution carries jersey OCR through the whole match. |
| Pro setup / $2k+ | Two 4K industrial cameras (e.g. Basler ace 2 + 8 mm wide lens) on a 10 m pole at midline | Sharper sensors, better low-light, more configurable. Best results for senior matches. |
Footage that doesn't work (yet)
- Aerial / drone top-down viewThe ball becomes ~6 px and the jersey OCR has no horizon line to anchor the homography. Both stages return zero useful output.
- Hand-held / close-actionNo pitch context — the calibration can't find lines, so distances and speeds are unavailable.
- Single-goal-end footageThe pitch calibrator needs both halves of the field visible to solve the geometry. Goal-line cameras alone can't be analysed.
- Cone-marked small-sided pitchesWithout proper field lines, the geometric calibration falls back to a click-six-points UI we'll surface separately for 7v7 / 5v5 setups.
Ready to upload?
Drop your footage in. Kickra will tell you straight away whether the calibration found the pitch and whether the resolution will support reliable jersey OCR.