High-Speed Pool and Billiards Video Clips | Hacker News Reader

High-Speed Pool and Billiards Video Clips

billiards.colostate.edu

56 pointsTomte12 comments

I randomly watched a few of these... and they just seem to be what I'd expect, a cue hits a ball or a ball hits a cushion.

Are there any that are particularly noteworthy or counterintuitive? Without context or guidance, I'm not sure what the value is supposed to be here... would love to understand what I'm missing!

The author was a mechanical engineering professor who loves pool. These slow motion videos are more physics demonstrations than instructional.

Not many people know how to jump the cue ball legally, and even fewer know how to control the spin on a jump shot, so I thought these different jumps were interesting: https://billiards.colostate.edu/high-speed-video/hsv-7-23/ https://billiards.colostate.edu/high-speed-video/hsv-7-24/ https://billiards.colostate.edu/high-speed-video/hsv-7-25/

If you're looking for more instructional videos, check out the normal speed ones on https://billiards.colostate.edu/normal-video/

They appear to be good videos for seeing the real time physics at play. If you want to cue ball to not fall into the pocket on a direct shot then it needs to be spinning backwards from the direction you push it, for instance. That particular video showed the needed spin and actions at play well.

To really appreciate this content might need a little basics course on billiards. It’d probably be really useful for someone practicing a hobby and trying to get tactics practiced and analyzed.

The double hit videos such as https://billiards.colostate.edu/high-speed-video/hsv-b-6/

Are very useful for understanding fouls.

As a middle ranked amateur league shooter (APA) and someone who shoots in pool halls and bars a lot, this website is INVALUABLE towards removing the unprofessional and not true witchcraft tips people give. Once you get into the slow motion of videos, or for example the same author tested a slew of other variables people to claim make a difference, he concludes that many of these things are just not proven and not true. Example is: what chalk to use on a shot. He tests and find it does not matter, as long as one applies chalk correctly before each shot (should be second nature). Pool is a game mostly taught by more experienced players to less, and so a lot of things are wrong or passed down incorrectly. Sometimes even people will be correct, but for the wrong reasons.

Slo-Mo shots are great for explaining things like "double taps". That's when your cue contacts the cue ball twice while following through. It happens in situations where you are followng through into an object ball at a close distance, and so the cue ball bounces back into the cue while the cue is moving forward, giving two taps. this is an illegal move and results in a foul in most play besides casual bar rules. Showing someone in slow motion, it makes a lot of sense.

Useful context from the subtitle:

> Super slow motion clips supports "The Illustrated Principles of Pool and Billiards"

Down that rabbit hole a bit further:

https://drdavebilliards.com/videos/high-speed-video/

> The HSV DVD contains numerous narrated super-slow-motion video clips filmed with a special high-speed video camera.

Given that there are at least ~25 other instructional DVDs included in various sets for sale, I get the impression that these videos are essentially online for free because they're not really useful without either having purchased the coursework or being enough of an expert that you don't need the coursework anyways. Still neat, though.

Dr. Dave is awesome. If you like this, you might also like "Amateur Physics for the Amateur Pool Player" -- http://www.sfbilliards.com/Misc/Shepard_apapp.pdf

Dr. Dave is an absolutely fascinating resource about the mechanics of pool, in an incredibly niche way[0]

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrDaveBilliards

I took a quick look at a few of the videos. While they do provide insight into cue ball/target ball behavior, they don't seem to show how to achieve the shots in the first place.

Are there videos that also show how the cue hits the ball?

these are excellent. Now I just need the same series of videos but for https://wildlifestudios.com/game-tennis/

FWIW: Above link is to a tennis computer game.

Shame the quality is so low.

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