What Mintonix does today, and where I'm taking it

I started Mintonix because I wanted to watch badminton better. A broadcast gives you the whole evening: the walk-ons, the towel breaks, the replays. I wanted the rallies, and then a closer look at the shots inside them.

This note is where things stand. I'll be clear about which parts you can use today and which are still plans, because I'd rather you know than guess.

What you can use today

There is one match in the library for now, a men's singles semifinal. Open it and you'll find two views.

Watch gives you the match without the waiting. It plays the original video from YouTube and moves from rally to rally, skipping replays, other camera angles, and dead time. You can also pick any point by its score and go straight to it. For the demo match, that turns a broadcast of 1 hour 25 minutes into about 27 minutes of play.

Analyze is for looking closer. It lists every rally and the shots in it. Pick a shot and you can replay it in 3D, turn the court, and slow it down. You'll see its speed, its height, how far it cleared the net, and where it ended. Each shot is named by stroke type and set against the same player's other shots of that type.

It also shows a few patterns from the match: what a player tends to answer a given shot with, what the opponent tends to reply, and how often that stroke ends the rally. A match summary puts the rallies, each player's shots, where they ended, and the mix of strokes on one page.

How much to trust the numbers

Please treat them as estimates. Everything is reconstructed automatically from one broadcast camera, and the stroke types are a model's best reading of the players and the shuttle. Nobody has checked them by hand.

So I show how many shots sit behind each number, and I don't state a pattern unless it happened at least eight times. A pattern from one match is also just that: one match. And the flight-path drawing on the homepage is a sketch, not a measurement.

What I'm building next

• Your own match. You'll paste a link and get the same views for it. This isn't available yet, which is why the field on the homepage is switched off.
• Rally search. Ask for something like "long rallies with a crosscourt finish" and get those rallies back.
• Saving and sharing. Keep the rallies worth revisiting, and send one to someone with its context.
• More matches in the library.

Where I'd like this to go for players and coaches

The questions I care about are specific ones:

What do they usually play after a deep backhand clear?

One match can hint at an answer. Many matches could give a real one, and could show whether a tendency changes at close scores, late in a game, or against a different opponent.

I'd also like to look past the winning shot to the one that set it up, and to give the serve and the return their own view, since so many rallies are decided in the first few shots.

Comparing shots is only fair in similar situations. A lift played under pressure and a lift played with time are different problems. And a professional's shot is an example to learn from, not a target everyone should copy.

For coaches, I picture collections: the clips behind a recurring weakness or an opponent's habit, gathered so you can walk a player through them before training or a match.

None of this exists yet. I'm writing it down so you know the direction.

What I'll keep doing

Every finding should lead back to the video, so you can see the rallies behind it and judge for yourself. I'll keep showing the sample sizes. And I won't claim that a pattern won the point just because it showed up before one.

If you watch a lot of badminton, try the demo match. It's the best way to see what I mean.