The Secret To Great Remote Working Video Collaboration

Remote Working Video Collaboration

Innovation is essential in today’s fast-changing technology-dependent business environment. An ever-increasing number of companies are using video for marketing, sales, internal communications, training, tutorials, and many more business functions.
But video requires collaboration and we’re in an age where remote working is more the norm than the exception. So, how can teams collaborate effortlessly on video if they are in separate locations? Introducing

DPP Innovation Week

At DPP Innovation Week 2021, Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur made a presentation about Media Workflows — in a line-up that included Red Bee Media, Reuters, PBS, BBC, RTÉ, ZDF (German broadcaster), BT, Signiant, and A+E Networks.

In just 3 minutes, Philippe explains how your team can collaborate on and manage video easily and cost-effectively. 

Get in touch

Overcast provides services at all budget levels. So, to find out more and get a demo, contact us on  info@overcasthq.com or click here to get in touch. We look forward to making your life easier!

DAM! Enterprise Video Is So Popular — Part 2

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.

DAM! Enterprise Video Is So Popular — Part 1

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.

Why Video Is Critical for a Digital Enterprise

While video growth is largely organic, there’s still a need within the enterprise to have a comprehensive, measurable video strategy. An ad hoc approach just won’t cut it. In developing and implementing a video strategy, two groups of people are very important: your employees and your customers. Video can be a key tool in streamlining their respective experiences, if done strategically.

Enterprises need to evaluate their video strategy based on both customer and employee experience.

Video Powers Customer Engagement

Long gone are the days when you had to entice potential customers to your workplace in order to work your sales magic on them. Nowadays, you can convince them with a virtual video sales presentation or a webinar. But, this means enterprises need a video platform to manage this growth and deliver video to users through a variety of means. 

The Battle for Talent 

Since knowledge workers have more opportunities than ever before to work internationally, the battle to attract and retain talent is intense. But video can get employees engaged and keep them engaged — from the recruiting stage, during which videos can be used to entice candidates through what’s said about the company, to employment, during which they can learn more about the corporate culture through video. It’s also a fantastic training tool and is being leveraged by many companies to ensure consistency of learning for all of their employees, no matter where in the world the knowledge workers are based.

In Part 2 of this blog post series, we’ll explore how video DAMs facilitate global collaboration and we’ll reveal the secret weapon for enterprises who are using video.

Content: The Localisation Challenge

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. A key challenge is the versioning and localisation of that 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. 

“The scale of the localisation process is immense. For every asset we create, we can have up to 16 different versions to cover all the regulatory requirements of our various markets. Now, across our consumer-facing international brands alone, we create thousands of hours of original content a year. Multiply that by up to the 16 versions; then multiply that by the number of languages, and then by the different audio dubbing and subtitling requirements. Add in the internal video editing that may be required to make the nuances of storytelling work in different territories: it quickly becomes millions of assets. And that’s before we get into promos and short form.”

— James Crossland, SVP International Operations, Warner Media.

So, what’s being done to address this immense challenge?

The Digital Production Partnership (DPP), a media industry business network, brought together twenty-two senior executives in a special roundtable event titled ‘The Localisation Challenge?’ at IBC 2019 in Amsterdam. The companies represented were: A+E Networks, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Deluxe, Disney, Eluvio, ITV, NHK Archives, PBS, Pixelogic, Prime Focus Technologies, SDI Media, SDVI, SES Video, Sky, UKTV, Videomenthe, Vubiquity, WarnerMedia, Zoo Digital and ZDF Enterprises. 

The roundtable generated the following three key insights.

1. Maturity in internal business relationships 

There’s lots of content being delivered, but…oops!…it’s not compliant with delivery requirements. And…double oops!…it’s not suitable to be prepped for versioning and localisation. Is this because there are no clear standards for deliverables in the media industry? Well, partly, but it’s mostly because people don’t want to upset the apple cart among the creative and commercial teams. 

Solution: Companies need to incentivise and build more productive relationships between different parts of their business.

2. Building trust into what we receive

We’re naturally inclined do business with people we know, like and trust. But when a piece of content is passed from one content provider to another, the receiving company may find that it’s technically inferior to what was promised. This means that even well-established, high-quality media companies don’t trust each other.

Solution: Use a cloud-native central library and agreed specifications for assets.

3. All content should not be equal 

All content is, in effect, tiered at the point of commission. In the pre-streaming world of linear distribution, tiering was based on the schedule: ‘daytime’, ‘peak’, ‘post-watershed’, and so on.

In this new world of on-demand, tiering is more difficult to identify. But, in reality, budgets alone still create tiering. 

Solution: Media companies should reflect the reality that all content should not be equal in the way they manage the onward processing of content. Some content is simply more valuable and should be treated as such.

DPP Tech Leaders’ Briefing

The who’s who of the media industry will converge on London for the DPP Tech Leaders’ Briefing. Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur will be there on 13th and 14th November and is be delighted to meet you and illustrate how your company could save time and money on more effective media asset management and internal collaboration.

Why Meet With Overcast?

A) Cloud Native

We get it. You want your applications to run more effectively together. You want this workflow to elevate the productivity of your team. So you sign up with a cloud provider and use it to run your existing applications. Problem solved, right? Not necessarily — like content, not all cloud solutions are created equally.  

So why is cloud-native important? Each part (applications, processes, etc) is packaged in its own container — this means your activities, actions and workflows are optimized for the cloud. And that ultimately means less cost and less time fussing about with legacy technologies.

(B) Managed Software as a Service

Managed SaaS is all about being able to create a tech stack. It allows you to integrate best-of-breed solutions, which ultimately allows you to manage your digital assets with maximum flexibility.  

SaaS, while it incurs a subscription charge, is significantly more cost-effective since you’ll save on hardware, licences, tech support, and scaling up.

(C) Tech-enabled services

On a cloud-native platform like Overcast, we segmented our application into microservices. This means they are significantly more agile and maintainable. Crucially, a tech-enabled service empowers you to redesign your workflows for speed and cost reduction. Oh — and it means you can pick and choose what you want so there’s no need to buy a whole tonne of software you would never use.

Contact Us

Please email Philippe on philippe@overcasthq.com if you’d like to pick his brains in London.

Creative Services: How A Collaboration Platform Can Make Your Life Easier

A Challenging Remit

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 because 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.

Ease of Collaboration

Every project is unique, requires different deliverables and involves the collaboration of your creative team. Some projects may involve the input of creatives who haven’t collaborated with each other before. Each user is used to their own way of working, so it falls to you to ensure the workflow is efficient and problem-free. 

A technology platform that facilitates a seamless process will be your best friend. You can then be confident that creatives can collaborate on their drafts, including large video files, in a shared private cloud space where each version is saved. This allows you to ensure that everyone is adhering to the remit and is ‘on message’. 

Fast Review and Approvals

Once the creative services team has agreed on a close-to-final draft, you’ll need to get feedback from stakeholders, management and clients as quickly as possible. Since some of these may be on the road, they need to be able to share their comments from any device anywhere in the world. Instant commenting — like instant messaging — facilitates real-time feedback. Oh, we need to stamp all comments with timecodes from the video so your team knows exactly what part of the video the feedback refers to. 

All of these features of a digital asset management (DAM) platform ensure your reviews and approvals save lots of time — up to 75% time-saving if you use Overcast HQ.

Search and Ye Shall Find

How much time is lost through searching for a clip or an asset, only to discover that it was in the DAM all along but not tagged? This can significantly delay the delivery of a project and compromise your relationships with clients. A powerful filtering system should also allow you to find your content in other ways: by date, file type, project, keyword, image or phrase. 

On top of these two fab functions, the secret ingredient is AI! Using artificial intelligence, you can search your video clips for words, objects, colours, events, settings, sounds and facial recognition. So now you’ll have no difficulty locating that clip where your top client endorses your services as “sensational”. 

Speed To Market

Pumping out compelling marketing content constantly can also be a challenge, especially since consumers are demanding personalized content. A recent Adobe survey showed it takes brands, on average, 17 hours to create a single piece of short-form content. This rises to 27 hours to create a single piece of long-form content, such as video. The survey concluded that it takes companies, on average, 12 days to take a single piece of content to market! 

A key way to slash that time is to use a DAM that transcodes clips at the touch of a button and publishes it in formats optimized for just about everything — from broadcast quality to Facebook or even Kindle.

Future-proof Your Workflow

Planning for future growth is likely to be part of your role and as you expand, so does your team and your content output. You may already be working with a DAM, but is it suitable for your future needs or are cracks starting to show?

We’re in an era where 4K isn’t unusual and resolutions will continue to improve. This will result in larger and larger file sizes. Not only does your DAM need to be able to store such big files, but it must also be able to transcode and render them automatically. Otherwise, you’ll have long delays and may have to engage an editor or technician to break the deadlock. 

The Brand Champion

As the champion of your brand, you inspire and lead your team. You manage relationships with stakeholders and clients. You spearhead your company’s culture through marketing materials. Why not invest in a DAM that serves your content needs and allows your talent, capability and vision to shine?

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