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The media industry, like many other sectors, is constantly changing, and changing fast! So, the DPP has published media industry predictions 2023. This is the seventh year it has done …

Media Industry Predictions 2023 Read more

What are people talking about these days? Or rather, who are they talking to? To be more precise, what are they talking to?

The most popular conversation partner these days seems to be an AI chatbot named ChatGPT.

“Talk to a machine?” I hear you cry. Why would people do that when we have so many ways to communicate with human beings?

When we think of the creator economy, we automatically think of people who create products and services that they sell online. But there are a lot of other businesses that are part of this ecosystem: companies that empower these creators, such as people who curate content and build communities, and also platforms like Overcast that enable creators to manage their content.

The growth in demand for creative content online skyrocked during the pandemic, and the good news for creators is that this demand has not dropped to pre-pandemic levels following the reopening of businesses.

The biggest UK-Ireland media event — the DPP Leaders’ Briefing 2022 — took place in London on 16 and 17 November.

DPP CEO Mark Harrison summed up the focus at this year’s conference:
“72% of companies made people-related topics — such as wellbeing; diversity, equity and inclusion; ways of working; skills — a high level or sub theme. This is very striking but it isn’t the real story of this year’s event.

That sits firmly with the determination to achieve operational effectiveness — an internal focus on simply doing things better.”

“2022 has seen video become a major component of remote work and customer engagement. Enterprise video makes a difference when it comes to better employee and customer experiences.” — Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video, 2022.

The ways in which video can be used to support business functionality is almost limitless. Instead of sending memos, we can send a short video via email or text. Instead of meeting people in person, we can exchange the same information through video-conferencing. Instead of holding corporate events, we can invite people to tune into a livestream.

“Video content management via a portal interface is a strategic imperative.” — Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video, 2022.

If you create video content, you need to be strategic about managing video content!

In a bygone era when video teams worked in the same office, managing the creation, production and distribution of video projects was reasonably doable. Not without challenges, though!

Live streaming became one of the most popular uses of video during the pandemic as enterprises needed to communicate with external stakeholders and also employees who were working from home.

In 2022 the popularity of this form of mass communication is not waning at all.

Video podcasting is also on the increase. Use cases include communicating with customers, marketing, sales, and training.

“Video is now poised to become the main form of content that’s digested in the enterprise. The huge surge in video meetings was the first wave in the shift to the visual enterprise. The second wave that is arriving now and in 2022 is about the need to organise, optimise, and deliver visual content to users.” — Aragon Research GlobeTM for Enterprise Video, 2022.

This demonstrates the need for providers to step forward with innovative technology that enables enterprises to create, manage and distribute video content. The key focus for enterprises is on customer experience and employee engagement.

The benefits to enterprises of using video are extensive. In this blog post, we will look at ways they can jump on the video bandwagon and use it to catapult them to success.

In 2020 workplaces as we knew them experienced massive unexpected disruption.

Enterprises found themselves faces with a need for rapid digital transformation when the pandemic necessitated employees to work remotely. Suddenly, colleagues and managers were not in the same room to share information or collaborate on team projects.

This led to much upheaval among workforces. However, a magic pill to cure those ills was close at hand: video!

Social media activism creates opportunities for grassroots movements to evolve and expand. Some of the best-known examples are the Ice Bucket Challenge, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, which have all involved successful social media movements.

So, how do creators and influencers with a cause go about making a difference?

James Dean was a rebel without a cause, but nowadays social causes are top of mind for creators, according to Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study.

The words ‘social media’ and ‘mental health’ are not always happy bedfellows, so it’s a legitimate question to ask, “Does being a creator make you happy?”

It takes time and effort to be create content, distribute it, and build a community so what impact does all of that effort have on a creator’s mental health?

Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study shows that creative people are happy people!

To own a creator business or to be an influencer? That is the question! It’s not as profound as “To be or not to be?” nor as difficult a choice as “Daddy or chips?” But it’s a key decision in today’s content-focused world…and the landscape might surprise you.

Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study found that, in the countries surveyed, only about 14% of creators are influencers…while approximately 40% of creators aspire to own their own businesses.

A creator “isn’t afraid of experimenting and expressing themselves,” — that’s according to Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study, which found that freedom to express oneself is the number one motivator for creators.

“It looked fun” was the second reason, followed by a desire to explore an interest or passion.

So, it seems the desire for feelings of happiness and fulfilment is the driving force that fuels the creation of content.

In our last few blog posts about the creator economy, we delved into the size of the creator economy, which countries are creating the most content, the age profile of creators, how much income you could generate, and becoming an influencer — all based on data from Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study.

Now we’re getting into the fascinating stuff in relation to creator economy trends! How happy are content creators? What influences this state of mind? Do happier creators make more content? And where are all of these content-happy campers?

Anyone who creates content will know that it takes absolutely ages to produce quality content, so is there enough moolah from that content to make it a full-time activity?

Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study shows that an average of 6 in 10 creators devote all of their working hours to creating content. South Korea boasts the highest percentage of full-time creators at 75%, with France close behind on 71%.

Australia has the lowest percentage (55%) of people working full time on content creation.

What size is the creator economy?
Boom! The creator economy grew exponentially between 2020 and 2022. More than 165 million people have started creating their own content since 2020, according to Adobe’s ‘Creators In The Creator Economy’ global study. Brazil showed the highest increase at 69% with Korea a close second at 62% and Spain in third on 57%.

But who are the creators, where are the operating, and what kind of content are they creating?

Is the creator economy the best thing since sliced bread?

Good question! Adobe decided to find out. It conducted a study to understand how creativity is changing around the world, getting insights directly from those at the front line of online creativity: creators in the Creator Economy.

The study shows that, aross the globe, the Creator Economy is booming!

Marketing has always been a core element of business success and it continues to evolve as social media expands with new social platforms being added to the mix.

The benefits to enterprises of using video, for both internal and external business functions, are boundless. Video has emerged as a very critical element of a company’s content marketing strategy.

The Creator Economy has generated a video-first approach for creators. This offers a wealth of opportunities to enterprises. However, it also creates several challenges. The first one relates to the creation of the video content: interest outpaces ability.

In our last post, we looked at the rise of the Creator Economy. Now, let’s take a look at its impact.

This revolutionary phenomenon means that people who create content — from filmmakers to musicians — get funded directly by their audience. This has the disruptive impact of removing the traditional middlemen like record labels, film/TV commissioners, and publishers.

This has created amazing opportunities for content creators.

There was a time when the phrase “Lights, Camera, Action” was only heard within the exclusive walls of Hollywood studios. Not so these days!

The past two decades have seen the rise of the Creator Economy…the lowering of technological barriers facilitates anyone to generate an income through delivering content to an audience.

Social media enables access to audiences without the need to go through a broadcaster or publisher.

But creators need access to technological tools to streamline the process of making fab content.

Practically everyone owns a smartphone these days; therefore, we all carry a mini computer in our pockets. But, more than that, phones can record video clips and you can edit that footage through apps; so, effectively, we are all walking around with full video production capabilities.

So, armed with this portable video technology, it must be a piece of cake to make professional-looking videos, right?

Wrong!

Enterprise video has long been one of the key tools for small to medium-sized companies to fulfil their business objectives. But when the pandemic dispatched us to our homes to work remotely, suddenly it wasn’t so easy to create, collaborate on, and broadcasting video. Work had changed. Leveraging video for business was about to change too.

There’s no denying the domination of video with more than two billion monthly active users on YouTube and one billion on TikTok.

In our last post, we looked at trends in the acceleration of video management technology, which is driven by factors such as remote working, the ever-increasing demand for streaming content, and the rise of video content creators.

However, the ‘players’ — streamers, creators, and enterprises — have had to face the reality that the old way of working with video simply isn’t viable any more.

Are digital natives planning to take over the world? You may well think so if you look at the media technology industry, where trends support an increasingly digital-native economy.

The COVID pandemic jump-started an era of mass remote working, which meant that video creators — who rely on collaborative processes — struggled with searching for clips, reviews and approvals, tracking assets, transcoding, etc. This accelerated technological innovation…as tech companies raced to meet the needs of a broad range of video creators and media companies.

With the rise in global data storage seen in the past and predicted to continue over the coming years, we look at how Overcast is helping enterprises to reduce their carbon footprint and staying sustainable through growth.

2021 was a challenging year for us as well as many of our clients. However, we kept pushing – grinding – and we managed to achieve some impressive results despite …

Overcast HQ Ranked #76 in Latka500 Fastest-Growing SaaS Companies Read more

What is Serverless Architecture?

Serverless architecture, cloud services, cloud-native, big data, are all terms that have been thrown around over the last few years. With claims of faster speeds, better security and overall improvement in your business processes!

In simple terms, we will break down what being “serverless” means to us and, more importantly, what it means for you when you’re using serverless platforms.

Overcast was featured in the DPP Media Supply Festival Demo Zone over the 7th and 8th of September.
We presented our demo alongside the best media providers from around the world and you can find our Media Pipeline Management demo video below.

Video editing is where the story really comes together.

The first step is to lay down your audio: this could be interviews or voiceover. If you plan to edit the video to the beat of a piece of music, it needs to be laid down first, but if your soundtrack will be in the background rather than driving the narrative then it’s best to leave it until last.

Once you’re happy with the audio edit, then drop in footage that matches the spoken narrative. 

It’s said that video content is made three times: once in the scripting, once in the filming, and once in the editing.

In the first part of this blog post series, we delved into the planning stage of video production: identifying your audience, scripting and shoot prep. 

In this second part of our blog post series on video production, we’ll give you tips and tricks for a successful shoot.

Adobe Premiere Pro is video editing software that has been widely in the film/TV industries for many years — now it’s increasingly being used by enterprises too as they use video to grow their brand.

Overcast has added brand new features to our Premiere Pro integration, to save you time and effort when working on your video projects.

In this news article, we outline the new features and show you where to download our integration.

Video production is arguably one of the most effective and powerful video tools available to businesses these days.

Consumers watch a lot of videos. A lot! Which makes video an invaluable business tool! It used to be primarily employed by the marketing department, but it is now used to fulfil key functions throughout organisations.

In this series of blog posts, we’ll give you insights into how to create great videos!

We are in a golden age of video as a business tool — it’s no longer used just for marketing but for many other business functions too: sales, corporate communications, training, testimonials, and much more.

Combined with this proliferation of video benefits for enterprises, the democratisation of video has made video a “must have” rather than a “nice to have”. 

Video, until recently, was a very specialised craft that was handled by editors and engineers. They traditionally used a MAM — Media Asset Manager — to store, share and manage their content.  MAMs are different from DAMs — Digital Asset Managers — in that they deal only with video content.  

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a new AWS Media & Entertainment initiative to simplify cloud workflows. Overcast’s Future of Work Video Platform is built on AWS and we are delighted to be a partner in this initiative!

AWS for Media & Entertainment is an initiative featuring new and existing services and solutions from AWS and AWS Partners, built specifically for content creators, rights holders, producers, broadcasters, and distributors.

One of the first things anyone asks when they are moving workflows to the cloud is, “How much is this going to cost me?”

It’s a fair question. And we can all go to the AWS or Azure calculator, plug in 25TBs and understand what it will cost to store that content for a month.

But what about the ingest cost, the egress cost, the transcode cost… and what are all those other parameters that the cloud providers list that can affect the cost?

A ginormous amount of business is conducted online these days and most of it requires us to provide personal and corporate data. We know that our health and banking data needs to be encrypted but what about our corporate assets?

Video is one of the most commonly-used digital assets. It’s predominantly used for marketing but in recent years it’s been widely adopted for use in HR, training, tutorials, corporate communications, products and many other business functions.

Most of these functions involve teams collaborating on videos. Up until now this has been difficult with a number of shadow IT solutions creeping into the workplace.

Remote editing is now a reality for most film and video editors.

The good news is that pro film/video editing software operates on domestic computers.

The craft of editing is the same: view, assemble, cut, pace, review, re-cut, trim, grade, output.

But, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s no longer advisable for the director, producer or funders to visit the cutting room to give feedback on edits. So, a remote editing solution is needed.

What is Orchestration and why do you need a cloud-based CMS (content management system)?

I could throw around terms like “RESTful API” and “transcode queue” and “headless” but I’d run the risk of stumbling into a rabbit hole of terminologies that often mean different things to different people. So, in the spirit of trying to keep things as straightforward as possible — which is one of our guiding principles here at Overcast — let me do my best to explain it in layman’s terms.

Video asset management is a reality for most enterprises today.

That’s because video is a phenomenal tool in so many areas of business: marketing, training, live streaming, HR — to name but a few.

Therefore, it makes sense to use a video asset management platform to put manners on this collection of big, complex files and to facilitate seamless collaboration.

However, not all UIs are equal…for instance, when talking about different industries.

AI image recognition is one of the new-fangled terms being bandied around. So, what does it mean and what can it do for you?

In today’s media landscape, there’s a vast volume of unstructured content that organisations are trying to manage. Let’s face it, we’ve all been there: spending hours searching through content for an outstanding soundbite or a stunning shot that we know we filmed but, alas, it eludes us.

Max Recognition uses the latest AI and Machine Learning to identify people, objects, places, and events in videos and images. It’s like magic!

Wondering how using AI to automatically transcribe audio to text could rock your world?

Remember when transcription jobs meant typing out every word in a video or audio clip by hand in order to add subtitles? Not our favourite memory of “the good old days”!!

It was a slow, laborious, mundane and uninteresting task. However, it had to be done.

Thank goodness AI transcription software has saved us from this nightmare!

The popularity of video consumption continues to explode and not just for marketing or brand building purposes. Video can also be used in-house for employee training and dissemination of information — this is even more valid in the current era of enforced remote working.

The possibilities that video offers your business are endless: connecting with your audience through live streaming, tutorials, product demos, promotional videos, vlogging and much more.

Video files are large — but how big is big?

You don’t need to be in the media and entertainment industries to grow your business through live streaming. It can be used for in-house trainings, public events, town hall meetings, etc. — in fact, anything you can think of. But you need a simple, high quality, secure way to do it: say hello to Max Live Streaming.

If you’ve tried live streaming before, you may have experienced low quality streaming due to limitations in the available bandwidth — it’s a common problem with free services. No such worries with Max Live Streaming!

New year, new products!

It’s been a long year of working from home for most of us and we’ve had to grapple with the unexpected challenges of remote working.

For teams collaborating on videos, most have found that sharing/downloading video content is problematic, reviews and approvals are slow, workflows are clunky (at best), and speed to market isn’t speed at all (quite the opposite!)

Enter Overcast MAX, a suite of next-generation cloud applications for production, collaboration, storage and distribution that makes remote video collaboration effortless.

It’s been a long year of working from home and that doesn’t look likely to change any time soon. Since the unexpected and abrupt transition to remote working was thrust upon us, we have all had to adapt our work practices. 

We previously looked at how video production and remote working can be easy bedfellows by using a cloud-based platform to facilitate efficient collaboration, simplify tasks through automation and speed up reviews and approvals.  Now, let’s take a whistle-stop tour through other key considerations.

In 2019 we were all working side-by-side in our workplaces: brainstorming ideas in the boardroom, solving problems at team meetings and enjoying chats with colleagues at the water cooler.

But in 2020 the world changed. The coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe and we suddenly had to embrace remote working.

We are delighted to say that we have just released the Overcast Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro – the perfect tool for editors working from REMOTE locations.    The panel …

Overcast Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro is now available! Read more

Overcast recently went head to head with some of the best tech companies in Europe on a tender for SVT – Sweden’s national broadcaster.

The big news is that Overcast was the only company to score 100% on the technical requirements of the tender, beating Sony, Frame.io, ioGates, Dalet, Limecraft, Spotterfish, and Klash.

Check out the AWS Blog Post too.  Check out some other Overcast Blog Posts similar to AWS Media Webcast. Serverless Architecture… what’s the point? Video Production (Part 3): Editing Your …

Overcast features in AWS Media Webcast Read more

Check out the Amazon Media Web Series Find our other news updates.

Introduction To Overcast | Upload, Comment and Share your first video.

Watch: Learn how to add new metadata in 23 secs

Watch: Learn how to move a video (or any asset) between projects in Overcast

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technologies into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how that business works. Video is core to digital transformation.  It changes the status …

Digital Transformation: 8 Principles of Video Content-as-a Service Read more

Businesses need to keep changing and innovating in order to be competitive. Such transformation in the digital age involves the integration of digital technologies into all areas of an enterprise, fundamentally changing how that business works.

Video is one such fundamental: it provides many opportunities to improve how you communicate internally with staff and externally with partners and clients. But, even with the democratization of video, it’s still expensive and time-consuming. So how can you future-proof your processes while enabling both speed and scale?

In 2018, the global Enterprise Video market size was US$3.68 billion and it is expected to reach US$10.4 billion by the end of 2025 (MarketWatch). Staggering, eh?

When teams in an organisation produce video content (and it really doesn’t matter how much), they need to be able to easily access it, re-use it, collaborate on it, and share it on various platforms in different formats. But video content is complex so existing content management systems don’t cope with it well and can be very problematic when you want to scale your operations.

Scale your operations to be able to deliver video content to new channels from a single point of truth. Use simpler tools so that more employees can manage the content.

The explosion in video creation and distribution brings significant challenges in terms of managing it, including storage, collaboration, encoding formats, file size, duplication, distribution, integration and scalability.

The answer to all of the above — and the secret that will save you from major headaches — is VCaaS: Video Content-as-a-Service. In this blog, we look at what VCaaS is and how it can solve your problems.

StartUp Grind Global 2020 We’re delighted to have been selected from start ups all over the world to exhibit at the StartUp Grind Global Conference 2020. 10,000 people from around …

Overcast to Exhibit at StartUp Grind Global 2020 Read more

We’re delighted at the media interest in our recent announcement that we, in collaboration with Kinsense, have been granted €1.5 million under the Irish Government’s Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund to develop VISP: Video Intelligent Search Platform. This platform will use artificial intelligence to categorise and understand content for the security and entertainment markets. The three-year collaboration is expected to create 46 jobs.

As the use of video in business continues to increase, enterprises need to have a growth strategy in mind in addition to fulfilling their current needs. So, they need to look for a platform that provides extensive management capabilities to streamline their process, combined with the facility to scale up video production in the future. The Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video 2019 identifies the key capabilities of a DAM identified in this blog post as essential.

The Netflix generation is consuming media almost incessantly during their leisure time and they expect the same user experience from media delivery at work. The content must be compelling, it must be ‘of the moment’, and it must be effortless to access. So UX is critical. Companies that are publishing content, whether that’s podcasts or videos, need to ensure the platform they choose to deliver it provides a streamlined experience.

Live event capture is one of big trends now, whether it’s a town hall meeting, a university lecture or a corporate event.

Enterprise video is proving to be a critical asset to the digital enterprise and is on a collision course with digital asset management — that’s one of the key findings of the Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video 2019. 

Video is proving its value to the enterprise in nearly every department and every use case. However, many enterprises are still struggling to make the shift. But with video use continuing to expand and more devices capable of capturing video, there’s an increased demand to manage video.

Irish tech companies, Kinesense and Overcast announce €1.5m in funding under the Government’s Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund. The companies are jointly developing a cloud-native platform that uses Artificial Intelligence and …

Dublin Tech Companies Kinesense and Overcast announce €1.5m in funding for disruptive AI video platform Read more

In this world of streaming video, the demand and opportunity for content targeted at global markets is continuing to skyrocket. But the total money available in those markets is lagging behind. One of the key challenges is how the media industry versions and localises content.

What do these terms mean? Most of the content produced has to be versioned for the various platforms and services on which it will be distributed. Most of it will also be ‘localised’ — that is, prepared for consumption in another territory — this can include adding foreign language subtitles and soundtrack, and re-editing to comply with regulatory and cultural requirements.

Being the Head of Creative Services isn’t an easy remit. It involves managing a team of people, all of whom have their own ways of creating visual and graphic content. It also involves meeting tight deadlines, which can be tricky on a project that requires a lot of input from different people. And it demands leadership since the buck stops with you in terms of delivering projects to your clients — on time and within budget — that are aligned to corporate goals.

While juggling all of these challenges, you’re aiming to deliver top quality content, cultivate a strong brand voice through that content, and ensure consistency of brand messaging through digital marketing channels.

Your business is complicated. It has many different people in many different divisions doing many different things. Unsurprisingly, they all have unique ways of interacting with your products, services, clients, and assets.

A DAM provides an effective, streamlined way to manage your digital assets. But is yours future-proofed? Here are three of the key considerations when assessing if your DAM will stand the test of time.

It used to be when you went to a broadcasters’ conference like IBC or NAB you would meet vendors who sold cameras, graphics, encoders, transmission systems and even satellites. But that has all changed since video started migrating to the cloud.

As the use of video becomes ubiquitous, so too does the creation of video tech solutions to help you create videos efficiently and distribute them. But a quick walk around IBC this year and it’s clear that the messaging is anything but clear.

The use of video as a business tool is exploding in popularity, but what’s also constantly expanding is the range of ways in which video can serve a business to foster more engaging communication with workers and share business intelligence with co-workers, customers, partners, prospects, vendors and shareholders. The video revolution is here and the time to invest is now!

We can’t wait for the IBC Show (13–17 Sept) this year, particularly because we’ve been chosen by AWS to exhibit in their booth. You can meet with our CEO to discover how to make video collaboration effortless. You can also see a demo of our video collaboration software — and enjoy a free breakfast — during an exclusive Avid event at IBC on Saturday 14th September. We have 25 tickets to give away for this event.

Size matters. And when it comes to video file sizes — things are just getting bigger. Over the last decade, we’ve graduated from standard definition to high definition, 2K, 4K and now 8K. Combine that with image enhancement technologies and we are talking about file sizes ballooning. But it’s not just the media and entertainment industries that are chasing higher quality; businesses and brands are jumping on the bandwagon too. So just what are the implications for businesses?

We want to make content creation easier for you, your clients and your bosses. And by that we mean that we want you to spend more time being creative and less time fiddling around with technical tasks.

So, we are delighted to announce two improvements to the Overcast HQ platform: annotations and a dark UI.

At NAB 2019 and Avid Connect 2019, we rocked Vegas! Well, maybe not in the traditional sense but we rocked it our way since we’re not as famous as Celine Dion (not yet, anyway).

At these two global events in Nevada, we unveiled partnerships with two of the world’s top technology companies: Avid and Amazon Web Services.

8 days, 100+ client meetings — what a buzz!

It’s tech heaven in Nevada this week with two of the key global media, entertainment and technology conferences taking place back-to-back. Las Vegas doesn’t do things by half so it’s the ideal place to host these phenomenal events.

We could feel the excitement among the crowds as soon as our plane landed and we couldn’t wait to get to our stand at Avid Connect to start chatting with other tech enthusiasts.

Overcast will be demonstrating their video collaboration platform at NAB Show 2019 and Avid Connect 2019 both in Las Vegas in April.

Global adoption of streaming TV accelerated with viewing hours up 89% year-over-year, and up 165% in Q4 as compared to Q4 2017. But there was a 7% increase in abandonment across all content worldwide in a year that saw the convergence of heightened viewer expectations and waning patience. That’s according to the State of the Streaming TV Industry 2018 from Conviva.

Digital technology has revolutionised the film and video production industries, confining celluloid to a handful of highly-funded Hollywood movies. But more importantly for the business sector, it has democratized video production: now it’s as common for enterprises to make videos as it is for film studios to make movies. However, this is not just the video age, it’s also the era of personalization. But it takes brands, on average, 12 days to get a single piece of content to market.

The digital age has introduced lots of new lingo: tweep, instagramming, fintech, etc. SaaS is one of the fancy new words, but what does it really mean for you and your business? The acronym SaaS stands for Software as a Service, which means subscribing to a cloud-based solution. It facilitates teams to work and collaborate anywhere in the world where they have an internet connection.

Video streaming is booming. When it comes to SVoD, most people think of Netflix. But in recent years Amazon has laid down the gauntlet with its own Prime Instant Video service. Amazon’s ‘Best of Prime’ list for 2018 spotlights what consumers shopped for, watched, listened to, read and played in the last year. The top show they watched on Amazon was ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’.

For anyone involved in any aspect of sports production, content creation or distribution, the SVG Summit 2018 is the place to be for the latest in digital sports video technology such as augmented reality, machine learning, workflows, digital ad insertion, security, the impact of 5G, and the business opportunities behind social media platforms.

With the number of enterprise videos being filmed significantly increasing, there’s a need to manage assets in a smarter way. DAMs speed up time to value, reduce costs, lower risk and increase productivity. Here are our top 5 traits of a video asset management platform.

Pop that champagne! Overcast HQ is named in Streaming Media Europe’s top 101 companies lighting up the online video industry. Every year Streaming Media shines a spotlight on the 101 most interesting, important and influential companies in online video. This year it includes Google, Apple, Sky and Amazon as well as Overcast.

Tech Stack During tech awards season in Ireland one technology award that you may not have heard of is the Stackies. The what? The Stackies! They are described by Scott …

How Does Your Technology Stack Up? Read more

Can you really use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to create video content faster? To be honest, the more I hear and read about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning the …

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning = Faster Video Creation? Read more

“Video consumption grows 100%+ every year” — YouTube. The global online video platform in media and entertainment market is projected to grow at an annual rate (CAGR) of 17.5% from …

Does Size Matter? Read more

“83% of marketers said they’d create more video content if there were no obstacles like time,resources and budget.” — Buffer The good news — no, the great news! — is …

Video Content: Hard Drives Akimbo…So Last Decade! Read more

“By 2022 video will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic” — Cisco When video started becoming a key communication channel for enterprises, many people thought that creating content …

Finding Video Clips Is Easier Than Finding Nemo Read more

Have you ever been sold an end-to-end video software solution? Just look online at how many sell themselves as that. So you buy into that promise, try it out and …

Partner For Success (Bold Statement Alert!) Read more

Bye bye, hard drives underneath my desk. Hello, cloud-based digital asset management! Video management is very tricky if you are relying on a small group of people working in an …

Scaling Up Your Video Strategy Read more

As we head into September, the International Broadcast Conference (IBC) is just around the corner. But it’s not just for broadcasters anymore. With content creation now a crucial element of …

The Internet Is Now The Videonet Read more

What’s so special about the number 234 in today’s world? Is it the number of times you’ve viewed your favourite movie? Would it the number of times you’ve forgotten what …

234 Is The Magic Number Read more

Overcast won “Best In Show” at NAB 2018. Sponsored by Sprockit, the award went to Overcast for its innovative video collaboration platform. Overcast’s Video Content-as-a-Service platform is the simplest, fastest …

Overcast Wins “Best In Show” at NAB 2018 | Las Vegas Read more

Video is awesome! Everyone says so. But have you ever tried to make one? The cost. The time. The pain. Why does it have to be so difficult? Time wasted …

A Guide To Better Video Collaboration Read more

Managing video can be a difficult: different formats, file sizes, embed codes. But it doesn’t have to be. If your business is working inefficiently with video or if you’re not working with video yet, here’s a simple guide to getting the best out of your video management platform.

Enterprise Ireland is the Government agency in Ireland responsible for supporting Irish businesses in the manufacturing and internationally traded service sectors. Specifically, Enterprise Ireland helps businesses to start up, innovate …

Enterprise Ireland Read more

Amazon just released some super-advanced voice recognition technology, and it’s creepy as hell. Here’s how your company can use it.

As the Digital Asset Management Los Angeles conference gets underway this week (#damla) there will be plenty of chatter about the best ways to organise digital content. And there will …

5 Cloud Solutions to help you manage your video better Read more

Recorded live from IBC, Philippe Brodeur speaks on the future of video streaming. Listen here: Transcription:

Europe’s largest broadcaster conference IBC 2017 ended last week with more questions than answers. We are only just scratching the surface of what is going to be a disruptive few …

Disrupting The Video Market – How Cloud Based Digital Asset Management Is Changing Broadcasting Read more

When executed well, 360 degree images are a great way of demonstrating your company’s practical wisdom, and making the customer feeling better equipped to make a purchasing decision. If you’re a Tour Guide, you could embed a 360 degree image of the Eiffel Tower. If you’re a realtor, you can get more enquiries by shooting great 360 degree images of your properties. If you’re trying to make your brand more friendly and attractive, post to Facebook an image of your staff behind the scenes at your business.

Broadcasters from all over converge on Amsterdam this weekend for the one of the broadcast conferences in the world – the International Broadcast Conference (IBC). And the main theme this year is going to be digital asset management. You could put 10 of them in a room and none of them would say that to you – but it is the underlying truth. It’s all about how to manage digital and media assets in the age of internet connected TV.

In 3 years, 82% of all internet traffic is going to be video. You might think that it is all down to Netflix and Amazon. But you would be wrong. Enterprise now creates more video in a day than Hollywood makes in a year. Here’s our guide to the DOs and DON’Ts of video asset management for Enterprise companies.

There are only 3 words you need to know when it comes to scalable infrastructure:  Digital Asset Management.  The first step in managing the new content is simply using old technology or “adequate” technology until the concept is proven.  The next step is to stand back and think how it will all come together in a scalable workflow.  And the final step is to put some industry standards around what you have so that everyone can move in the same direction.

So instead of a single solution, there are many software industries that all support video to some extent. There are digital asset management platforms, media asset management platforms, online video platforms, content management systems, ERP systems, workflow tools, CRM solutions… I could go on, but I think you get the point.

There are a number of really good workflow apps on the market like Teamwork and Slack. They perform their own functions and they integrate with loads of other apps. They try to help platform-agnostic business users to integrate the apps they like and use into a new, more efficient workflow. The promise of saving time or money or both is what motivates business people to try new apps.

So what are you supposed to do if you are relatively new to video yet you know that you want to put video at the heart of your content strategy?
There are 2 options.  1. You take charge of the situation or 2. You let the technology dictate the situation.

Tired of using email to work on creative video projects? We all are. Read on to see why email is terrible at this, and what companies are doing to fix it.

This is my mixed reality.  It’s a reality that has washed over me without so much as a pause to acknowledge it.  It’s a mixed reality that fuses physical life with digital.  If someone had showed it in a presentation on the Mad Men Series, the brands being pitched would have looked on in disbelief.

Ok – so we all know that millions and billions of people watch videos on Youtube. And we know that more and more people are watching video on Facebook and other social platforms like Twitter and Instagram. But there is so much noise around what we should all be doing to create video that the question remains: how can brands create video cost effectively to reach their audience.

“We’re like an enterprise YouTube. Videos are big, complex files. When YouTube solved video sharing and viewing for the consumer, we were all able to watch video on our PCs and phones,” said Brodeur.

I had a potential new client turn me down the other day. It’s not the first time and won’t be the last. But of course, as an evangelist and someone selling a product, it is always difficult.

For some reason, content creators and the brands they work for think that reviewing video needs to be hard work.

Learn the 5 biggest challenges of using 360 video in a news setting, and why it makes storytelling hard in 2017. Not for amateurs.

I think AR and VR will have greater longevity. But it won’t happen overnight and it will take a great deal of investment to create the ecosystem to support them. One of the key challenges is around managing the massive files that are created and how the images are stitched together.

For men on Madison Avenue and Fleet Street, TV was the easiest business going. The world changed. The world moved on. This is how and how to adapt.

Think about it – how often do you come across text on the web that looks like a squashed wet page of a book? And how often do you continue reading when it becomes clear that the site is committing you to an essay?

Online video companies, marketers and publishers need to stop using duct tape and bubble gum to solve their technical issues around collaboration and transcoding.

Everything is searchable. In fact, our platform is storing every comment you make on the actual file. That enables you to search the storage based on your comment.

Much of the metadata management is automated and standardised.
But different businesses have different ways of storing their content so if you want to add custom fields we allow you to do that too.

If you and your team need advanced metadata fields, you can customize the platform for your own needs.
Make your own system – if it works for you then it works for us too.

Detailed metadata management that fits everybody’s needs.
Our system pulls information directly from your uploaded file. All of the info is presents it in an easily navigated interface.