Tag: AI

Overcast Industry Insights: The Evolution of Media Creation

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

Ever-increasing demand for content. Ineffective legacy technology. Remote
collaboration challenges. Difficulty scaling up. These are just some of the
big issues facing the media industry today.

MovieLabs
— a technology joint venture of the major Hollywood studios, including
Walt Disney Studios,
Universal Pictures,
Warner Bros,
Paramount Pictures
and
Sony Pictures
— says that our industry is at a crossroads. There is a time-critical need
for executives to become more aware of supporting the future of media
creation and to invest in it. So, they have written an
Urgent Memo to the C-Suite: Investing In Production Technology and
Cloud Centricity Is No Longer An Option — It is Table Stakes.

MovieLabs has already developed a roadmap to creating the next-generation
ecosystem for media creation. Its 2030 Vision describes technological
advances that will enable seismic changes in media workflows and proposes
ten foundational principles as keys to that future. MovieLabs published case
studies of technology solutions that fulfil one or more of those principles
from
AWS,
Skywalker Sound, Walt Disney Studios, Sony, PFT, Overcast and
ProductionPro. Overcast provides Full Stack Video Management that radically improves
cloud production and post-production workflows through automation and
simplification.

This article delves into the trends and strategic imperatives outlined in
MovieLabs’ Urgent Memo to the C Suite and reveals how the Cloud MAM
solution that Overcast designed for Britain’s
Royal Opera House
fulfills those strategic imperatives.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the five key trends that MovieLabs identifies
as having a significant impact on media creation and that underpin the need
for commitment, support and investment in cloud-centric production
technologies and secure, interoperable workflows.

Trend 1: There is a growing urgency for scaled high-quality global
content production.

Traditionally, Hollywood content was distributed in overseas territories.
However, streamers have tapped into a growing appetite amongst viewers for
local language and local cultural content. Such content is created by local
production companies, but the streamers’ workflows and quality requirements
are foreign to many of these companies, which creates problems.

Trend 2: As release windows are evolving, distribution models are no
longer one size fits all.

The success of a movie used to hinge on its opening weekend box office.
However, the pandemic ushered in a new era of hybrid release strategies,
such as ‘day-and-date’ (where a film is simultaneously released in cinemas
and on streaming platforms), shorter exclusive theatrical runs, and
direct-to-consumer distribution. These have a major impact on production,
post production and delivery supply chains.

Trend 3: Productions are becoming more complex — what we did in the past
won’t work in the future.

With a wealth of cameras, creative tools and new production processes (such
as virtual production), film/TV/video production is becoming more complex.
We’re in a new era of “snowflake workflows”, whereby technological and
creative innovations make each workflow unique…like the individual shape of
a snowflake. While this is fantastic for content creators, the increasing
complexity of workflows coupled with the challenges of global distribution
and teams working remotely means that current practices just won’t and can’t
scale.

Trend 4: Connected, creative remote collaboration has become the new normal,
and it’s here to stay.

The pandemic was a baptism of fire for film, TV and video teams who were
accustomed to collaborating in purpose-built spaces but were suddenly thrust
into a situation where they had to work from home and collaborate virtually.
But, despite the initial shockwaves, it has turned out to be a positive
change. Creatives have more flexibility in where to work and this production
style will drive efficiency. Cloud-enabled collaboration tools will be the
key to scaling global productions.

Trend 5: Technology is evolving extremely fast, and the vendor landscape is
being disrupted.

An increasingly-connected production ecosystem is migrating to the cloud
while traditional methods of post production are consolidating and
contracting. Virtual production technologies and the democratization of
tools have created new “pop up” services, thus disrupting the vendor
landscape. Cheaper cloud-based business models are enabling new start ups to
avoid the enormous capital expenditure required in years gone by and
facilitates the ‘rental’ of tools, tech and talent as needed.

How is media creation evolving?

How is media creation evolving?

The future of content creation is full of exciting opportunities! But,
according to MovieLabs’ Urgent Memo to the C-Suite:

“We must design, create and implement a future-facing technical
pipeline to address the real challenges and opportunities to produce
content at quality, scale and across production locations and global
markets.”

So, back to the MovieLabs 2030 Vision. As we move towards realizing it,
there are three strategic imperatives that underpin the operational,
financial and strategic planning at all media organizations. Let’s unpack
them and examine how Overcast’s Cloud MAM solution for the Royal Opera House
(ROH) fulfill those imperatives.

1. Planning a multi-cloud strategy

Moving to the cloud is the foundation of achieving media creation at scale.
Benefits include almost unlimited storage and computer resources, a
pay-as-you-go business model, and a creative collaboration environment that
eliminates the unnecessary duplication of media assets. This “single source
of truth” principle is central to Overcast’s media management platform.

But MovieLabs deems that cloud is not enough anymore. It’s time to move to
‘multi-cloud’ (multiple vendors and a vast number of interconnected tools
and workflows). This is essential to complex content creation at scale and
the ability to pivot creative and distribution strategies and choices.

One of the foundational principles of MovieLabs’ 2030 Vision states that
assets go to the cloud and stay there, with applications coming to the
media. Today’s workflows span multiple facilities and move assets between
organizations and public/private clouds. To benefit from scalability, speed
and flexibility in a multi-cloud world, studios must collaborate with
industry stakeholders — including cloud providers — to create open
interfaces that connect silos.

Overcast enabled ROH to adopt a cloud-first strategy, which has delivered
more efficient ways of working: reviewing live rehearsals in real-time
remotely; automatically time-coding editorial reviews and approvals for ease
of decision-making; providing secure role-based permissions for freelancers
and ad-hoc users; and the integration or phased shuttering of legacy
on-premise technology solutions.

Through Overcast’s Cloud MAM solution, ROH created a single repository for
video content across all of its constituencies (the Royal Opera House, The
Royal Ballet and the ROH Orchestra). All of the ROH editors and producers
work from that single repository and can stream content to both internal and
external audiences by publishing links to it. A major advantage is that the
system is easy to use for non-technical collaborators (dancers, singers,
clients, sponsors).

2. Adopting a new approach to security

Erecting a fence and installing CCTV at your premises is a logical approach
to security…except if all of your content is hosted in the cloud by third
parties. So, how do we protect cloud-native workflows? We need a new
security mindset.

Overcast’s Cloud MAM enables ROH to give authorized users searchable access
to their library of assets and the ability to share retrieved content by
emailing links to other authorized users, such as dance notation experts who
work all over the world. The ability to share assets securely has enabled
new remote workflows that save on in-person or travel costs.

3. Enabling flexible workflows with increased automation and
interoperability

Time is of the essence when turning around creative projects. But precious
time can be wasted if your teams’ remote collaboration isn’t optimal.
Production workflows must become more flexible, extensible and easier to
assemble.

Automating simple tasks saves production oodles of time. Overcast has
integrated AWS AI tools such as Transcribe, Translate, and Recognition for
metadata tagging and subsequent search and retrieval. In its Cloud MAM for
ROH, these tools automate metadata tagging for bulk ingest, including
tagging of musical scores, leading players, and video attributes, freeing up
editors from these mundane tasks and allowing them instead to weave their
creative magic into the edit.

Future-proofing media management

Overcast believes that managing video files should be as easy as managing a
Word document. Its cloud native Full Stack Video Management is simple to
use, secure, and empowers teams to make, share and publish more content,
faster. Overcast echoes MovieLab’s call for commitment, support and
investment by C-Suite executives and also its vision of a studio and
industry ecosystem that will more readily enable future content forms and
business opportunities.

Get a free demo

Whatever challenges you are having with managing your media projects,
especially video, Overcast can improve your workflow and save you time and
money. We would be delighted to give you a free demo of our platform.
Click here to request a demo.

Media Industry Predictions 2023

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

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 so.

The predictions are business focused and they explore the themes that are expected to dominate the boardroom agenda this year.

“This will be the year to control what can be controlled, and make yesterday’s spend the basis for today’s income.”

The report’s predictions emanate from the five key topics outlined below.

AI and Automation 

ChatGPT hit the ground running in November 2022. Within five days, it already had one million users. Generative AI can be applied to computer code, graphics and image generation as well as text. 

Overcast uses AI to transcribe the audio content in a video and to identify people, places, things and events in videos and images.

“People want as many processes automated as possible. And sometimes it requires AI and other pattern recognition to ensure that things are automated successfully — because the number of people who need to touch content and work on it is a huge operational problem.”

While the speed of adoption will be determined by issues such as regulations, privacy and accuracy, the overall prediction is:

Content aggregation and monetisation 

FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming Television) channels are not new, but were predicted in 2022 to grow in significance. This year, some contributors to the report believe that the traditional linear broadcasters will become more engaged in FAST. One commented, “FAST will grow up.”

“FAST does tick the economics bucket, but it also ticks adaptability: what have I got, what can I reuse? It’s going to be something that the linear broadcasters explore more and more as a way to monetise and to begin their transformation into a future of converged platforms.”

At Overcast, we are big fans of re-purposing content. Our video management platform allows your entire team to effortlessly find, access and edit every video asset for reuse. 

Two predictions came out of this topic:

Organisational transformation 

One of the new themes for this year was transformation — with the focus on the way technological innovations of the last few years are now becoming business as usual. 

“Transformation is continuous. It’s not a thing. It’s the thing that you’re always doing. We’re never going to climb that mountain. You think we’re climbing and we’re going to get to the top. But that’s never going to happen. That mountain will only get longer and further away. That’s just the reality of business today.”

So, the key takeaway is:

Environmental Sustainability 

Sustainability is very important to us here at Overcast. We have removed the need for hardware in the compute and storage elements; therefore, there are no carbon increases due to manufacture, utilities, shipping, air conditioning and physical security.

The DPP report says that there’s been a shift in emphasis around sustainability: it is now regarded as a desirable benefit of reducing costs — not as a strategic imperative that must be delivered even if it adds to cost.

“This is the year where we’re finally going to have an adult conversation about how we deliver environmental sustainability in an economically sustainable way, because to date, we’ve paid lip service to it. We’ve been ticking the box of sustainability. And the only way to move beyond that into actually delivering real change is by focusing on actions that have an economic impact, and the environmental impact will come along with that.”

In other words:

Cloud-enabled consumer engagement 

We’ve been banging the drum about the superiority of cloud-based video systems being easier, faster, cheaper, more efficient and more secure for years…since we launched, in fact — since we provide a cloud-native video management platform.

The contributors to the DPP report discussed how cloud technology is now enabling deeper consumer engagement. 

“Cloud-based video production has completely dropped the barrier for direct to consumer [D2C] and fan engagement. It’s enabling sports teams to go D2C. So D2C has become more accessible with cloud based technology.”

The DPP prediction for 2023 is:

Find out more

There are lots more fascinating insights in this report. You can read the DPP’s media industry predictions 2023 in detail here.

Get a free demo

If you’d like to accelerate your transformation towards more agile video production, collaboration and management, get in touch today for a free demo of our platform.

Serverless Architecture… what’s the point?

Posted on by Overcast HQ

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.

Before “serverless”, there was just “server storage”, which meant that
businesses and enterprises kept their files, images, videos, systems on
physical servers. There were sorted in server rooms on-site at the business
premise or in designated buildings near your business locations.

With serverless architecture, your assets are stored in cloud servers
managed and owned by a cloud service provider such as AWS (Amazon Web
Services). This allows you and your team to access your files from anywhere
in the world, quickly and securely.

How does Overcast use Serverless Architecture?

The Overcast platform is built cloud-native and serverless. It consists of a
number of microservices – a major differentiator in the video asset
management market. Overcast is a proud member of the
AWS partner network.
Overcast also deploys a suite of AWS Elemental services,
including MediaConvert, MediaPackage and
MediaLive.

We use
AWS services
to:
– Transcode your content into any format you require.
–
Storing your content with fast upload and download tools.
– Build our
platform to be as

What are the benefits of being Serverless?

Business Benefits

Quick deployment

Doing business in today’s constantly changing environment means that
enterprises need to move fast and be agile to take advantage of
opportunities as they appear. Adopting a serverless architecture streamlines
the setup process and allows you to deploy new projects quickly.

Easy scalability

Serverless platforms enable businesses to quickly scale up services as
demand grows as they are not limited by server capacity. At Overcast, you
can store an unlimited amount of content but only pay for what you’re
currently planning on using. It also means that increasing your capacity by
1TB, 5TB, 100TB is as simple as one request to our technical team!

Better user experience

User experience (UX) greatly benefits from serverless architecture. By the
nature of serverless platforms, there is no distance between the different
“serverless” servers. This reduces the latency between them interacting with
each other. This translates to a much faster and reactive experience for the
final user.

Cost Benefits

Efficiency

It’s also possible to drastically reduce infrastructure and operational
costs because you don’t have to maintain and service physical servers. One
of the key benefits of serverless architecture is that you don’t have to pay
for idle resources, which you would if you owned the servers yourself.

Accurate resourcing

Serverless models like Overcast also allow you to monitor usage in
real-time. This will enable you to tailor your use with your business
requirements. This greater level of transparency will enable you to monitor
your spending and improve the accuracy of budgets and resource allocation.

Environmental Benefits

If you have environmental goals on the cards, you’re in luck! The data
centres are built at scale to be energy efficient to achieve optimal
utilisation and temperature. This leads to fewer carbon emissions than
traditional data centres.

Another drawback to traditional data centres is the constant waste of
resources while the servers are idle. Serverless computing becomes a
solution to this matter by running on-demand.

Bottom Line – how Serverless helps you?

  • Cost savings
  • Increased agility and instant scalability
  • Faster recall of assets
  • More reactive UI for all users

Overcast:

Overcast HQ provides a white-label, fully intuitive User Interface (UI) to
allow operational staff to exploit the power of the solution and the
underlying serverless cloud infrastructure.

We deliver media pipeline management solutions configured
to optimise existing video tech stacks, optimise complex video workflows,
and allow all stakeholders (not just editors and engineers) to manage video
content. 

Our platform allows customers to collaborate, search, review & approve,
transcode and therefore spend up to 90% less time managing content. We
are one of the very few solution providers built post-2015 to be able to
take advantage of the latest suite of cloud-native, serverless technologies.

We’d be delighted to talk you through all of this, so please feel free to
reach out to our CEO Philippe Brodeur on info@overcasthq.com or click here to contact us to find out how Video Content-As-A-Service will save you time and
money while increasing revenue opportunities.

Image of cloud based programming to represent the move to Serverless Architecture.
Cloud Infrastructure image to represent Serverless
Architecture

How to comment and annotate in Overcast

Posted on by Overcast HQ

In the below video, Stephen will go through how to comment and annotate in Overcast.

Step by step how to Comment and Annotate: 

  1. To make a comment on or add an annotation to a video or image, click the comments tab on the left.
  2. To add a comment type it into the box and it will appear on the right. You can do the same thing for annotating.
  3. If you add an annotation, it will appear on top of the image or video.
  4. For videos, if you add comments while watching the video, the comments and annotations will be timecoded.
  5. You can also use the “Cycle markers” button to cycle through the comments and annotations on the video
  6. If required, you can also download the comments in many different formats.

Check out our other tutorials below: 

If the above video doesn’t solve your problem, check if there is a solution in our General Tips section.

Or look at our other “Learn Overcast” guides available in the Learn Section.

Overcast Featured in DPP Media Supply Festival 2021

Posted on by Overcast HQ

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:

Check out our Blog Posts.

Check out our New Updates.

Get in touch with us

If you are looking for a bespoke video workflow solution and want to learn more, please get in touch with Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur — he’s always happy to talk! You can reach him on info@overcasthq.com or through the contact form on our website.

Zahra – a case study

Posted on by Overcast HQ

The following is a brief introduction to our Zahra Case Study which can be viewed in full below.

Zahra is a full-service content agency with owned media in the Food and Parenting verticals. Their mission is to connect brands with audiences through the creation and distribution of purposeful content.

“The review and approval process within Overcast has made it a lot clearer for everyone who is working on the project: clients, videographer, our team. It’s so helpful being able to compare older to newer versions side-by-side using timecodes.” 

— Alan Breslin, Production Coordinator, Zahra Media Group.

The Challenge 

“Content was stored in multiple locations which meant that things were difficult to find. This wasted SO MUCH TIME. It made collaboration (within the team and with clients) difficult because so much time would be spent trying to transfer enormous files. 

— Gina Miltiadou, Managing Director, Zahra Media Group

We needed a space that we could use internally and have versions 1, 2, 3 — and a place for continuing versions to be easily accessed by clients. If we are in a V3 stage and they decide if we want to use something from V1, we need to be able to access it.

— Alan Breslin, Production Coordinator, Zahra Media Group.

The Solution 

Overcast was able to help them with their folder management and metadata taxonomy. Then we trained up the various teams — client services, editorial, etc. — to show them how they too could manage the content in the cloud.

The Result 

After a few weeks of adapting to the new workflows, more people have been able to become part of the video creation supply chain. Editors now get to spend more time working on what they want to work on — great content. 

Perhaps the biggest surprise has been how it has helped client relations and experiences. By getting access to centralised content, an easy-to-use interface, semantic search and a well-defined audit trail, they are also able to engage in a clearer and more productive manner.

You can read the full Zahra case study here.

You can also view our other case studies here. 

Image Recognition: Artificial Intelligence Is The Secret Sauce

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

Overcast MAX #4: Max Recognition

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

[Drum roll, please] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Max Recognition. Not only will it save you time, it will also rescue you from frustration. 

Max Recognition uses the latest AI (artificial intelligence) and Machine Learning to identify people, objects, places, and events in videos and images. It’s like magic! Take a bow, Max!

Image recognition case studies

TV Broadcasters

Television broadcasters, by their nature, create huge amounts of content. But they are subject to strict broadcasting guidelines in relation to sensitive content. 

The traditional method of identifying such content was for people to painstakingly view hours and hours of tapes. But now, broadcasters can save hundreds if not thousands of hours a year by automating this moderation of inappropriate content using image recognition. 

Online marketplaces

An online marketplace is a website or mobile application that connects buyers and sellers. Its success depends on adeptly assessing the suitability or compatibility of those traders in order to match them up. 

For example, an influencer marketplace could use object and scene detection to segment its influencers based on what media they publish alongside their social media posts.

Benefits of Max Recognition

Automation

The great news is that you don’t have to input anything manually. That’s because your content is automatically identifiable and searchable.

Multiple use cases

Max Recognition empowers you to find what you need quickly and accurately; for example, identifying a celebrity, providing health analysis, finding sensitive data, enriching metadata or accessing events.

Big Data accessibility

We’re all creating and amassing a lot more content that is possible to consume. As a result, we’re building up archives of material. Max Recognition allows you to log and manage your archive effectively.

Get in touch

Image recognition is one of nine Overcast MAX products that facilitate easy video collaboration. If you’d like to learn more about this fantastic suite of solutions, please contact Philippe on info@overcasthq.com or click here to get in touch. 

Use AI To Transcribe Audio To Text: It’s A Game Changer

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

Overcast MAX #3: Max Transcribe

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!

Transcribe audio to text using AI

Nowadays, transcription is automated and effortless via the magic touch of artificial intelligence (AI). 

Max Transcribe uses the latest AI and Machine Learning (ML) to transcribe the audio content in a video, generating subtitles on the fly.

Case studies: transcribe audio to text

Call centre

Imagine how many hundreds of millions of minutes of customer interactions each year a call centre has. Now imagine how long it would take a typist to manually transcribe those calls. Using AI and ML, you can quickly generate accurate call transcriptions while also redacting sensitive data.

Multilingual video content

It’s not just movies that need to be translated into other languages. Nowadays, most enterprises are producing vast amounts of video content — and many want to reach potential customers in other countries. By using AI and ML that can translate content into many different languages and customize speech recognition, you’ll save your team a lot of time and yourself a lot of money.

Podcasts and radio

So, you have a great podcast or radio programme and you’d like as many people as possible to benefit from the content. But many listeners want to consume it in short segments. Plus, you need it to come up in search results. You can use AI / ML transcription to convert your audio streams into text for a reasonable cost. This allows you to quickly process live talk audio into consumable segments — as a result, you’ll get higher engagement.

Benefits of Max Transcribe

Automated metadata enrichment

By automating audio transcription, your content is immediately searchable and findable using time-stamps. No need to create tags manually. More time to make cups of tea.

Auto-captioning

The auto-captioning function is compatible with lots of different formats, including VTT, SRT and Avid Subcap TXT.

Easy-to-use UI

Editing the captions on your video is as easy as editing a Word document. Therefore, even peeps who are not technically-minded can do it. 

Speed to market

Regardless of which distribution channel you choose — social media, broadcast, the web or CCTV — you can get your content to market faster. You can also be confident of its accuracy, which is essential in sectors such as news and broadcast.

Get in touch

We offer a whole suite of solutions to make video collaboration easier and more cost effective: Overcast MAX. If you would like to know more, please drop Philippe a line on info@overcasthq.com or you can click here to get in touch.

Cloud Storage: How To Stop Paying Ridiculous Margins

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

Overcast MAX #2: Max Storage

Why use video?

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, creating interactive videos to engage your followers, explainer videos/tutorials, product demonstrations, communicating with stakeholders, promotional videos, broadcasting live events, vlogging and much more.

Size matters

Video files are large — but how big is big? 

  • 1 bit (b) = only capable of storing a single binary digit: either a 1 or 0.
  • 1 byte (B) = 8 bits … about what you need to store a single character of text. 
  • 1 kilobyte (KB) = 1,024 bytes … it takes around 10 KB to store a single page of plain text.
  • 1 megabyte (MB) = 1,024 KB … the equivalent of a 400-page book.
  • 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1,024 MB … streaming Netflix Ultra HD video uses about 7 GB per hour.
  • 1 terabyte (TB) = 1,024 GB … equivalent to 500 hours worth of movies.
  • 1 petabyte (PB) = 1,024 TB … one year of CCTV video for an average police department amounts to 1.5 PB.
  • 1 exabyte (EB) = 1,024 PB … 5 EB is equivalent to all the words ever spoken by humankind.

— How To Geek

So, the more videos you create, the more storage you’ll need (although you don’t need to worry about exabytes unless you are Amazon, Google or Facebook).

Max Storage

In light of these unwieldy sizes of video files, the traditional method of handling them on premise is no longer viable. So, if you want to make your teams’ video management and collaboration much more efficient, you can either manage your workflows in the cloud or use a hybrid solution that conforms to your workflows.

Benefits of Max Storage

Cost Optimisation

As we mentioned in an earlier blog post outlining Overcast MAX, Max Storage is like a BYOB (bring your own bottle) party. BYO Storage means you keep your unique account with AWS and our software will help you to manage your content! 

Our hybrid solutions will sync with your on-premise servers: you can automatically upload your content to your account and be guaranteed secure cloud workflows.

Intelligent tiering also allows you optimise your costs based on your user actual activities, so you’ll save oodles of spondulicks!

Metadata Enrichment

Artificial intelligence is the new sliced bread…although you can’t put chocolate spread on it! 

But you can benefit from AI functions such as Transcribe and Image Recognition to add metadata — this will ensure you can search your content quickly and accurately using time-based parameters.

Future-proofed content

Technology is changing so fast these days that it’s hard to keep up and even harder to future-proof your content. But Max Storage is on the case. We will store your originals and create proxies that can be viewed on any device. 

No problem with codecs either: your content will be available over any network.

Get in touch

If you have any questions about storage, live streaming or any of the Overcast MAX solutions, please do get in touch. Philippe would be happy to chat through your video collaboration and management needs — you can reach him on info@overcasthq.com or you can click here to contact us.

€1.5m Funding for Overcast’s AI Video Platform To Make Videos More Searchable

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

We’re delighted at the media interest in our recent announcement that, in collaboration with Kinesense, we have been granted 1.5m Funding for Overcast, 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.

The following news articles give more details about the new technology and our plans for global expansion:

AI video platform nets €1.5m from Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund — Tech Central

“Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur said: “The entertainment market is consolidating and there is a massive demand to make it easier to manage video content. As the company that is leading the development of solutions for all video workflows, we are delighted the Irish Government has backed us to develop a global standard for video asset management. The investment will help us to hire new people and move faster into a market under disruption.”

Tech Central

Video tech firm Overcast makes media plans — Irish Examiner

“The new Video Intelligent Search Platform (Visp) will, according to Overcast chief executive Philippe Brodeur, be used by his company and Kinesense to target a €50bn global market and generate an estimated €9m of sales by 2024.“

Irish Examiner

Different angles: why Overcast and Kinesense are teaming up to revamp video analysis using AI — Fora

“There’s such a volume of content that they need to be able to search it and find what they’re looking for without having to scroll through it all. There just aren’t enough man-years to be able to do that,” Philippe Brodeur, the Overcast chief executive, said.”

Fora

Look at our other News reports.

If you’d like further information, please contact Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur on philippe@overcasthq.com

DAM! Enterprise Video Is So Popular — Part 3

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

What Do You Need In A DAM?

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 following key capabilities of a DAM as essential:

1. Capture/Recording and Publishing 

  • – Ability to capture, tag, and edit a video recording 
  • – Ability to publish

2. Video Content Management/Portal 

  • – Ability to store video content and display it in different modes for users 
  • – Ability to deliver video content to multiple devices (includes transcoding) 
  • – Ability to provide delivery of video content to global locations (via content delivery network capabilities)
  • – Ability to search for content 
  • – APIs for integration

3. Live Video: Streaming and Integration 

  • – Ability to deliver a live broadcast to a large number of users 
  • – Ability to record the live broadcast for later use 
  • – The ability to connect with existing video conferencing systems for capture or for broadcast federation 

4. Content Analytics 

  • – The ability to analyze what is happening in a video, either live or after the fact 
  • – The ability to recognize people and images in a video or image 
  • – The ability to recognize sentiment of people talking in a video 

Why Use Overcast?

Overcast is specially designed for enterprises. Our streamlined process means that your team will be able to collaborate effortlessly on video. You’ll be amazed at how fast reviews and approvals are, no matter where in the world your team is. AI-powered search enables you to find whatever clips you’re looking for in the cloud-based repository. You’ll save lots of time with speedy file transfer and no-one will be tearing their hair out trying to format videos for various channels: our platform will do that for you at the click of a button. And since it’s encrypted, you can feel secure in the knowledge that your files are protected. So why not contact us today for a free trial to make your life easier and save you time and money?

DAM! Enterprise Video Is So Popular — Part 2

Posted on by Fiona Ashe

In Part 1 of this blog post series arising from the Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video 2019, we explored the critical importance of enterprise video to the digital enterprise but discovered that it’s on a collision course with digital asset management.

Here, in Part 2, we’ll examine the need for streamlined UX and collaboration, along with the huge benefits of AI. 

Get With The Cool Kids

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.

Video management is not just about pre-recorded narrative content that’s shot and edited. Live event capture is one of the big trends now, whether it’s a town hall meeting, a university lecture or a corporate event. Advances in capture technology, auto-tagging, and the ability to upload content to a cloud repository can enable quicker access to captured video. And in this age of instant gratification, that speed of access and search is critical.

Global Collaboration

The constantly-expanding functionality of video DAM (digital asset management) platforms facilities geographically-dispersed teams to collaborate on videos. Such platforms also make it easier for the average knowledge worker to edit and publish videos with little or no technical knowledge, thus lowering the barrier to entry to enterprises to leverage video. 

The architecture for enterprise video and DAM is evolving

Storage is a big concern for enterprises in this age of big video, however, a platform that provides a central file repository can facilitate a high-volume production company to meet its ambitions to scale up.

Analytics: The Secret Weapon

We’ve all been there: searching hard drives for a fabulous shot that we remember filming but cannot locate. Enter artificial intelligence. AI enables you to search your video clips for objects, events, settings, colours, words, sounds and facial recognition. Think of the implications for the healthcare, security, and insurance sectors (to name but a few). The transcription of video audio also enables better search. 

Aragon Research forecasts that this means enterprises will be able to predict activities and then react in real-time, whether the situation involves transportation, corporate meetings, university classrooms, or large sporting events — and that this is a space to watch closely. 

In Part 3 of this blog post series, we’ll delve into the essential components of a video DAM platform.

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