Your highlight reel is only as good as your raw footage. The good news: one phone and a cheap tripod are enough — if you put them in the right spot.
Center-back, above the glass
The single best position: centered behind the back glass, roughly 2.5 meters up, tilted slightly down.
Why this works:
- Both sides of the court stay in frame — every rally is captured no matter which side wins the point.
- The ball stays visible on lobs — a low camera loses the ball against the lights; height fixes that.
- The whole match stays in one clean take — which gives the AI the best possible footage to find every highlight in.
Most padel clubs have a ledge, fence bar, or wall mount behind the court where a phone tripod or clamp fits. If you can only choose one thing from this guide, choose the height.
Settings that matter
- 1080p at 30fps is plenty. 4K looks nice but quadruples your upload time, and the AI doesn't need it. 60fps also isn't necessary.
- Landscape, always. Vertical video cuts off half the court.
- Lock the exposure if your phone supports it — indoor courts with bright lights make cameras constantly re-adjust, which hurts visibility.
- Wipe the lens. Thirty seconds of effort, visibly sharper footage. Court glass fogs phone lenses fast.
What to avoid
- Recording through the side glass — one side of the court gets blocked by the players closest to the camera.
- Handheld recording — even a patient friend drifts, zooms, and misses points. A fixed camera beats a human operator for full-match recording.
- Cutting the recording between points — just let it run. Finding the good parts is literally our job.
That's it
Set it up once, press record, play your match. When you're done, upload the file and CourtCut finds every highlight for you — the first video each month is free.