Latest / PlayBetter's Golf Tech Weekly / We Recap Our Biggest Golf Simulator and Launch Monitor Production Ever
Transcript
- PlayBetter: Welcome back to Golf Tech Weekly. Thanks to everyone who keeps showing up week after week. If you haven't already, hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And remember, promo code GTW gets you the best pricing on qualifying products at playbre.com. This week's a good one. Playbetter just flew a full crew out to Baltimore for the biggest video shoot the company has ever done. A couple days, cameras rolling nonstop. Filming assembly videos for all four Sim Studio sizes and product overviews for nearly every launch monitor we sell. Danielle was right in the middle of all of it. Let's get into it. This is Golf Tech Weekly, presented by Playbed. Daniel, have you recovered? Slowly but surely. Yeah. It it was a wild week. It was a lot of fun. But yeah, it was man, there were so many moving parts. It was it was impressive to see how organized everybody had things flowing. So it was it was awesome. Busy week though. Yeah, very coordinated effort. ⁓ just as you said, a lot of people ⁓ pull in to to bring this ⁓ together and I think we'll identify as we go today why this content is going to be so powerful and ultimately why it's going to be so useful to our customers. But let's just get started here with something of an overview. Why don't you kind of tell us ⁓ kind of what the the vision for this project was and and a little bit about ⁓ what it entailed. Yeah. So we we basically wanted to create ⁓ not only some videos for customer service, but also for some pre-sale to maybe ease some intimidation factor ⁓ of setting up all of these play better sim studios, as well as the different types of launch monitors, ⁓ provide some education maybe to customers who are just getting into the space or thinking about a golf simulator. So we could really give them some comfort or maybe, you know, like I said, kind of ease some intimidation to understand like, you know, here's what this package looks like, here's what comes included. And this is kind of what you can ex expect from an assembly point of view, but also like a space point of view, ⁓ just kind of what the footprint of everything looks like. And then once maybe those are available, then it it kinda eases the conversation of of getting into building your home golf simulators. So ⁓ it was definitely from what I understand one of the biggest shoots we've ever done. But even even like what Chris said, I mean it he Yeah, we truly feel like there was n there's never been a production shoot like this where we covered like thirty launch monitors, all ceiling photometric camera systems and radar products and four different studio sizes all in in like two and a half days. So it was it it was so crazy. Yeah, you guys were hustling. and ⁓ just as you said, this is really going to be ⁓ some incredible content, ⁓ very unique in the industry. And I think you really hit on it. ⁓ you know, we all, everybody out there that's into golf, certainly everybody that's watching ⁓ programming like this, is interested in having a sim studio set up in their own space if they if they have enough room in their in their house. ⁓ but I think that oftentimes it's the intimidation of the unknown. How long does it take to set up one of these sim studio enclosures? What is involved with that? What kind of tools do I need? Do I need help with this? How much space do I really need to pull this off? ⁓ how does it all work? And those are things that are just difficult to describe adequately ⁓ with just text or with just pictures. And so video content becomes extremely powerful. And then as you said, the bonus material of ⁓ as long as you guys are all there and as long as we got the cameras and the lighting and everything set up, why not rifle through some of the ⁓ some of the products themselves, the launch monitors, the star of the show, ⁓ to show how those devices work in this space. so we'll dive into kind of all of that stuff. But Daniel, tell us just a little bit, give us a little peek behind the scenes on kind of what this setup looked like. There was lighting, there was audio, ⁓ what was going on there? It was like you were in in Hollywood or something. Yeah. So we we were fortunate enough to ⁓ to use a huge warehouse area. So we we kinda had unlimited space to do all of this. And we basically had, you know, a couple camera angles. We had a floating camera. ⁓ we had ⁓ person taking pictures, we had people with phones taking social media content, ⁓ we had lighting in there, we actually had ⁓ you know, things to block. lighting in the ceiling because there was LED lighting in the ceiling which was causing too much light in certain areas. ⁓ you know, sound was certainly a a challenge at times because of how big the space was and how things echo, that we had to kind of tune some things audio wise to make sure that worked. ⁓ we even had a a sim studio expert in there who showed us how to build everything so that way we didn't miss a step during the assembly process. ⁓ Man, I mean we we had an actual like ⁓ we had Olivia there who who was producing things and kinda organizing things. ⁓ we had multiple people from our warehouse delivering things to us at a moment's notice if we needed something. I mean, it it was literally a full blown operation. ⁓ that wasn't just planned overnight, obviously. I mean, we we had multiple, you know, meetings and and sessions planning all of this. We had we had people like Going through the launch monitors, connecting them, registering software, getting that all prepared so that way when we went launch monitor to launch monitor, that it was a seamless process. I mean, it's just so many areas and points of potential failure when we're doing a shoot like this that we we really had to make sure we had all of our boxes checked and and be prepared for the unknown because certain things did go wrong and we had to adjust on the fly and it was it was fun though. I mean, it was you know, to call that work is is pretty relieving for me, honestly. Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. ⁓ yeah, he even got to hit some golf shots throughout the process, I'm sure. yeah, we had a lot of golf balls. ⁓ we did some sessions where we obviously we we tested all the launch monitors kind of live and got some footage of using ⁓ almost all of them. We couldn't do the ceiling mounted ones, but almost all the rest of ⁓ we were able to get to get content shooting those. So that was also kinda interesting 'cause we had cameras in some s kind of some sketchy spots and it was warm in there and the palms were already a little sweaty under the lights. So it was, you know, making sure we didn't hit the dreaded shank shot or something like that. But it it was it was fun to be able to to do all of that. And obviously it was, you know, even great for me to get my hands on every launch monitor. Not that I hadn't before, but it was almost kinda like a refresher to just kind of doing some quick comparisons from device to device. So it was all around just like a a cool experience. I want to ask you about that. ⁓ you and I have both used all of these products, but I think there's something to using them back to back in in quick succession that really gives you a unique perspective. Can you kind of talk about maybe some of the takeaways that ⁓ that that you came away away with? Yeah, certainly. ⁓ and I think that's part of you know, one of the biggest parts of of my job dealing with customers is comparing these launch monitors. And we kind of did them by category as we were testing them so that way we didn't have change our camera angles too much. ⁓ but to like jump in to go from like, you know, the Square Home Edition to the Square Omni to the Bushnell Launch Pro and then the Garmin R fifty. And it's like, you know, the setup is pretty much the same. You know, might have to change some club stickers, might have to use a special golf ball. But ⁓ you can really see the differences in the quality of the software. You can see the differences in shot lag time. you can see just the differences all around that you can compare these products really quickly. I mean, as you know, Mark, like a lot of the time that we personally get to test these things is at the PGA show. And we're we have to walk sometimes like across the show floor just to test different products or or make our content or or things like that. This was totally different. I mean we had everything right there. So it was like within, you know, 10 minutes of each other, we're going from launch monitor to launch monitor and seeing in real time like the user experience, not only like pulling them out of the box, but turning them on, connecting them to software. And you can quickly identify like, okay, this one, you know, has some has some friction points. This one was like, holy cow, that was easy. ⁓ and it's not to say like it's hard to do all of them, but just sometimes there's a few extra steps you have to do to get things started and fired up with different devices. Sure. So ⁓ any kind of highlight takeaways from ⁓ using all of those different products. ⁓ each one of these products has ⁓ has pros and cons. ⁓ I think that's likely one thing that that you would have realized. but ⁓ kind of ⁓ not to go through every single product, but are there any ⁓ any things that maybe stood out to you? Yeah, I think the first thing you notice is like, you know, you get to the landing pages of the software and some of them are very basic, like the Square software, not to not to harp on them. It's very basic. ⁓ you know, there's not a lot of practice features within it. ⁓ and then you jump onto devices maybe like you know, like the Skytrack Plus or Skytrack Max, and you see, ⁓ man, I have like five different things I can do just from the landing page, and then you open that and then there's like a whirlwind of options inside of that. And it actually intrigued me so much, Mark, that I I actually brought one home with me. so I'm I'm gonna do a bunch more testing with their software and and try to get more familiar with that device just because I I do think that it impressed me right off the bat. ⁓ even even other devices like Unicore and Foresight, like super fun, super accurate. ⁓ but it just felt like okay, there's probably more there that that might be hidden or maybe more hard to find, or maybe you need accessories like cameras and things around the space to to really get the full benefit of it. but yeah, it it I mean that's kind of what stood out to me. I you I I just like ⁓ it's like a kid in a candy store, right? Like we when we get to test all this stuff and see it all in a short amount of time, it's like It's like, ⁓ man, I want to stay here for for two or three weeks and and keep doing this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I say a lot in in ⁓ in a lot of the content that that I create, ⁓ that, you know, there really is no one correct launch monitor for for every type of user. It and I know that that can be, you know, it it sounds like a a cop out type of line, but I really do mean it sincerely. And I wonder if that's what you found, Daniel. It's it it it's it so often comes down to What is your, you know, your individual use case and what do you value most? You know, what are you most interested in? Because ⁓ the answer for what's best is going to be different for, you know, different ⁓ different value systems or different budgets and everything else. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, totally agree. And I think that's what a huge benefit of what we have with our golf advisor forms and the ability to go through that process. You don't have to do it just, you know, for a full golf golf sim, even if you just want to buy a golf launch monitor. We have a section where you can just choose that. And you know, we've said it on a few episodes, but I I feel like we truly fit people for their golf simulator. You know, you can get fit for golf balls and golf clubs and things like that, but you know, we're one of the few that actually fit you for a golf sim. And it's not to say, hey, we're gonna maximize your budget, we're gonna maximize the value and get the device that works best for you. And like you mentioned, I mean, it could be different between every customer. ⁓ there are certain launch monitors that fit an array of of people, but it's it's awesome to have all these options because everybody kind of wants something different from my experience. Yep. Yep. Yeah, very good. ⁓ well let's get into the sim studios because I do think that that's an area that again we talked about kind of at the outset is ⁓ a little bit intimidating for some people. ⁓ I'll be the first one to raise my hand and say that I'm not the most handy person. I I'm not completely ⁓ incapable. ⁓ maybe I'm maybe I'm average, I don't know, but I don't consider myself up to the level of a carpenter or ⁓ or a contractor. ⁓ and so, you know, ⁓ I'm I'm I I I empathize with the user out there that's potentially intimidated by what's involved in putting these things together. Talk about the products that you used, the various sizes and and what was involved in that. Yeah, sure. So Honestly, like that that was a big part of our shoot was just trying to ensure that people didn't feel intimidated by the assembly process and honestly, even just like how it's received, like how many boxes does this come in? Like a lot of people seem to think like it comes in these massive, massive boxes, and they really don't, honestly. ⁓ so we were setting up our complete package, which basically includes ⁓ hitting turf, landing turf that goes under the screen, the enclosure. And the projector and projector mounting that you need. ⁓ and we set up four different sizes. So we set up an eight foot wide enclosure, a ten foot wide, a twelve foot wide, and a thirteen foot wide. ⁓ now you'd set you'd think that that would be a whole bunch of different parts and pieces, but it really isn't. And I I tell this to people almost every day. You know, it's very similar to putting up a tent at a campsite. ⁓ it uses push button poles, you piece the frame of the poles together, and the fabric stretches around in velcro's together. So It is easy with a second person. You can do it by yourself, but it's definitely easier with a second person. And the only tool you really need is a screwdriver. So if you can put a couple screws in and follow some directions on on the projector mounting, it's very, very simplistic. ⁓ I mean we we set up the Sim Studio size 10. Again, we did have an expert and I I myself have set these up before, but we did set up the size 10 frame and fabric in a little over eleven minutes. So it is it i it is certainly fast. And we were trying to go fast obviously. ⁓ but we rate these honestly at about ninety minutes from unboxing to full assembly and hitting golf balls, you should be able to get it done in in under two hours. Two ninety minutes to two hours. Ninety minutes to two hours. Are are you quoting that time as as with somebody helping you or or solo? I would say even with somebody helping you. ⁓ there is some process with any launch monitor too that when you unbox it, ⁓ registering it, activating, downloading software. That does take some time and and sometimes you have to do computer updates or iPad updates to make sure that your software is up to date on that. So ⁓ that's probably even on the long end, but that's just, you know, to be to be safe, I would say anywhere between 90 minutes and two hours. And I would say a good portion of that is probably the projector mounting and settings of and the and the launch monitor. So that's probably ha over half of it is just getting those pieces dialed into your space. Yeah, so if you have your space cleared out and prepped, depending on what time your FedEx delivery driver arrives in the day, ⁓ you might be hitting golf balls by sundown. I mean kinda kinda cool to think about. makes me makes me want to think in terms of next day shipping. yeah, ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Did you have, Daniel, did you identify a favorite of of the sizes? You mentioned that the four sizes, again, we're talking about the Play Better Sim Studio packages and specifically the complete package. And just as Daniel mentioned, these come in a ⁓ an 8-foot, a 10-foot, 12-foot, and 13-foot ⁓ options, ⁓ that being ⁓ the ⁓ the width of the the enclosures. ⁓ assembly for each of those from the eight to the 13 ⁓ is about the the same kind of process, Daniel. Is there anything unique about the 13 that's different from the From the eight, other than that it's just ⁓ larger larger poles potentially? Yeah, it's larger, obviously. So it's ten foot tall, ten foot wide. So there's there's more different poles in some of the enclosure sizes. So you have to kind of pay attention to the poles you're piecing together. But everything is clearly marked. ⁓ there is one massive difference with the size eight studio in the fact that it's the only size that you can't mount a projector overhead with really. ⁓ The size 10, 12, and 13 come with projector mounting to the enclosure. And we're one of the only enclosures on the entire internet that you're going to find that capability with. Now, the size eight, we don't offer that. And that's the reason that it's only seven and a half feet tall and it's only four feet deep. So if you're mounting a projector to that, there's two things that could happen. It could be struck by a golf club, or it could cause it to have so much weight that it might tip over. ⁓ so what we include instead is a protective housing for that projector and the projector sits on the floor. Now some people might say, Well, why can't I just mount it in my ceiling? I could just put a drop pull in my ceiling. It's like, Well, you could, but you need that projector to be dropped down below the top edge of the enclosure and it's gonna put it in that same dangerous spot where it could be hit by a golf club. And most people are still gonna say, Okay, I'm not gonna hit it with my club. You can certainly do that, but it's not something we would advise. ⁓ So outside of that, I mean they're they're very similar. ⁓ obviously the the size eight, because it's smaller, it comes all packed in one box, whereas the others come in in like three or four boxes ⁓ just because there's more poles and pieces that need for assembly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is there a sweet spot? Did you identify what you think might be the most appropriate size for maybe the widest sector swath of golfers? Yeah, I mean obviously it depends on your size of space. ⁓ I was always personally in love with the Sim Studio twelve, but after I saw them all lined up, like I I kind of quickly changed to thinking that the Sim Studio ten is really the perfect size. ⁓ not just because of its height and width, but honestly, like once you hook up the projector and get everything z you know sized up, it fills the screen beautifully when you're using a gaming PC, the visuals look really good. And like honestly, like for personal use, if I was mainly using it by myself, it's it's the perfect size. You know, it's like it for me, it's like looking at like, you know, you go to a room and like for me, like a sixty-five inch TV is the perfect size. It's the same feeling that I get with the Sim Studio size ten that once I was you and it was the one that we used for for all of our shooting and it didn't feel too small or anything like that. Now, if I had a huge warehouse space, sure, maybe you'd you'd jump in and get maybe the twelve or the thirteen. But for most people that size ten is gonna be perfect in your garage. Yeah. Awesome. Well let's ⁓ let's look ahead as to ⁓ kind of how this information is going to be disseminated. again, a ton of footage. You guys shot for I ⁓ I mean, l actually tell us more about that. You you were just rolling for like what, like two straight days, pretty much the entire day. and you got a ton of content. So we've got Content specific to each of these sim studios. We also have content specific to each of these launch monitors, the two of them playing together. What's the plan from here? How are we going to share this information? Sure. So we sell the launch monitors separately. We sell them in packages with the simulation studios. So we'll have videos that'll be combined, but we also took like just launch monitor videos, like showing what's in each box, explaining unique points of each launch monitor. And Then kind of talking about like, you know, what how is this different versus, you know, camera versus a radar product or things like that. So that was a good portion of it, obviously, because we at Play Better sell pretty much every launch monitor that's on the market. ⁓ and that was probably for me the most difficult part of the video shoot. is that, you know, come you know, just looking at some flashcards and then and then taking, you know, three or four takes of each launch monitor and talking about the highlights, what's in the box, ⁓ I'm kind of excited to see some bloopers there because I'm sure there there's a few mess ups and and some swear words cussing myself out or something. but no, i I mean, you're gonna see them on the product pages. ⁓ so that way if you click on a launch monitor, you're gonna get an overview of what's there, what's inside the box. ⁓ not that that's not already there in the listing, but it'll be in a a really quick like one to two minute video that you can just simply watch and see the product as well. ⁓ which I think is good because it kind of shows the size of the product in my hands so you can get, you know, some size understanding as well. Cause you know, like you know, Mark, like the Bushnell Launch Pro is far more petite than like the Garmin R50. ⁓ and so it's just nice to kind of see some of those differences, you know, firsthand. ⁓ and then also like social media marketing. You're we're probably gonna use some of the content in our podcast shoots and stuff, like when we're talking about products, we'll certainly have some some content showing that. And then we were able to actually test the units, like we said, and get really cool, unique videos with really good lighting and showing the units in action. So ⁓ basically anywhere that you're gonna be consuming content from Playbetter, you're gonna you're gonna be seeing these videos ⁓ one way, shape, or another. I'm sure that they'll even be still images that are used with the articles that you write, Mark. ⁓ so if people don't know, we have a full learn section of our website where Mark writes articles and reviews on a lot of these products. ⁓ which is another great place to consume content. So it's just kind of a full three hundred and sixty degree you know, overview and capability with the with this content that we're gonna be able to use for virtually everything. Yeah, I think it's gonna be really, really powerful. And just as you said, I think one of the things that's really cool about what Play Better does and kind of the vision from the the leaders of our company is ⁓ they're really invested in trying to provide the consumer with every which way they may want to consume information. And so we have everything from, you know, shorts or reels to as you said, very ⁓ kind of long form, in-depth, ⁓ hands-on ⁓ written reviews and and now kind of what might might serve as a really nice ⁓ middle ground sweet spot with these ⁓ videos of varying lengths and in configurations and ⁓ you know so much of this information is best shown visually and so I think this is gonna be ⁓ just extremely powerful and ⁓ very very unique in the space. ⁓ and so just another reason, I suppose, to ⁓ consider ⁓ subscribing to our channel here, ⁓ to subscribe to our email newsletters and to to really stay informed with what Play Better has to offer because we're trying to get the most in-depth content out there ⁓ hands down, bar none, on the entire internet. And ⁓ so ⁓ that really positions us as the leaders in this space something that we're proud of. ⁓ let's wrap it up by talking about ⁓ kind of ⁓ the the team effort here, Daniel. I know one thing that you and I talk about ⁓ kind of offline is you know we're very proud to to work with ⁓ with Playbetter, mostly because it's just a really, really good group of people. They treat us very well, ⁓ they treat us fairly, everyone gets along so harmoniously. And I know that that had to have been reflected in a shoot like this. Can you kind of talk about the team effort? 100%. Yeah. So I mean, even from the the pre-planning stages of of getting everything prepared in the warehouse, ⁓ testing the units to make sure that they're functional before we got there, making sure that all of like, you know, we talked about the launch monitors, what comes in the box. We even we even took like the accessories you can add on. like on the product pages so you could see like what the alignment stands look like and the or the protective covers and stuff like that. So it's like all of that pre planning and and preparing and then literally transporting every one of those pieces from our warehouse over to where we were shooting content at. getting them ready between shoots. We had people that were unboxing and and organ and keeping things organized obviously was a huge, huge part of this thing. you know it was it was truly a team effort and We had people behind the scenes also that were, you know, providing us food and drinks and stuff so we were staying hydrated. you know, we it it was literally insane how many ⁓ how many hands really touched every piece of this. ⁓ and then there was the breakdown. I mean that that's just the setup and and the shoot. Then there's the full breakdown where we had to take everything down and put everything back in boxes, transport it back to our warehouse. People were picking me and other people up at hotels and driving us around town, getting us to places. I mean, it it was it was truly a team effort. And if I started naming names I would certainly forget somebody, but I think it was literally every person within the Play Better team had had a piece of this puzzle and it was it was truly unique and I'm thankful that that everybody was there because it it made things really seamless from my end of things. So Yeah. Great. Well, we can't wait to see some of the content rolling out. Everyone keep an eye out for that. Just as Daniel said, you're gonna find it everywhere. And I think you're going to find it to be extremely useful. ⁓ thank you everyone for watching and listening. ⁓ a reminder, please, to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Another reminder to use promo code GTW for the best pricing on qualifying products over at playbetter.com. Any final thoughts, Daniel, before we ⁓ before we jump out of here? Not really. I mean, I'm excited to see the footage. I'm excited to see how it all ⁓ is used and and kind of, you know, layered throughout the website. I'm you know, it was it at times it felt like, ⁓ man, did we do everything? Do we get everything? It's like holy like it was so much in in two and a half days. incredibly thankful, obviously, like we said, Mark, to be part of the team and and to get to be fortunate enough to to call this work. ⁓ but yeah, just really excited to kind of see how it all turns out because From what I could see of the way the visuals and the lighting looked, like it it looks so, so, so incredible. So just excited and and motivated to to see what we have in in store next. Awesome. Can't wait. ⁓ all right, everyone, thank you again. And please join us next week for another episode of Golf Tech Weekly.