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The Demand for Remote-Enabling Video Technology

Posted on June 1, 2022August 21, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

The democratisation of video

Practically everyone owns a smartphone these days; therefore, we all carry a mini computer with us every day. 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 in our pockets.

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

Wrong!

Not as easy as “point and shoot”

Over the past few years, the popularity of video has exploded as the preferred communication channel for enterprises — both internally with employees and stakeholders, and externally with customers.

But, despite everyone having free access to video production tools through their smartphone, content creation remains a challenge for enterprises.

Original content is king

The first question enterprises must ask themselves is, “What do viewers want to watch?”

The streaming wars provide a valuable insight into this. When consumers sit down in front of their TV in the evening and flick on Netflix or Apple TV or Disney Plus or Prime Video or Hulu or any other streamer, the choice of programming is almost overwhelming!

Silverwood Partners’ Media Technology: Strategic Industry Analysis 2022 shows that original content is a hit with viewers! When an original show is released by a streamer, the number of subscribers goes up significantly.

This exponential demand for original content is fuelling investment in media technology, which will also benefit enterprises who are struggling to create their own content.

The move to remote working enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic generated difficulties for teams who had, up to that point, collaborated on video in the same physical space. Suddenly, they discovered that finding particular clips, accessing shared footage, exchanging feedback, getting approvals, and delivering video in different formats was slow, clunky and expensive.

The thirst among consumers for immersive, engaging, superior-quality content is elevating the demand for innovative technologies that make video collaboration, creation and delivery easy.

Such technologies will be digitally-native solutions, which OTT providers might be better positioned to support than traditional broadcasters.

When COVID-19 necessitated people en masse to work from home, the remote-enabling technology that emerged was a “quick fix”. But now, as we exit the pandemic, the accelerating demand for optimised solutions is firmly paving the road to permanent remote-forward production workflows.

Get ahead of the game

Want to know more about remote-forward workflows? Get in contact and we would be delighted to show you our platform to enable you to easily leverage video to grow your business.

Trends in the Acceleration of Video Management Technology

Posted on May 11, 2022August 21, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

Trends in Media Technology

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, as outlined in Silverwood Partners’ Media Technology: Strategic Industry Analysis 2022.

Video Production in a Remote Working Era

The COVID pandemic jump-started an era of mass remote working, which meant that content creators — who rely on collaborative processes — struggled with video management: 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.

The Streaming Wars

The confinement of people to their homes led to another disruptive influence: audience numbers for streaming content skyrocketed. En masse, viewers cut the cord with traditional broadcasters and turned their eyeballs to Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Hulu and other streamers.

Upsurge in Video Marketing

Throughout 2021 the demand for content seeped into almost every industry and, in response, the creator economy became more sophisticated.

We’ve seen a significant increase in recent years in the numbers of digital-native ‘influencers’ and professional video creators as they build their personal brand through video. Add to that the rise and rise of video marketing among enterprises, and you get the picture: technology had to ‘fly fast’.

So, it was time to wave goodbye to video files stored on hard drives and face-to-face teamwork — it was time to embrace the cloud! Remote collaboration became a reality and will need to be a key part of enterprise strategy going forward.

Video Technology Innovation

Top-tier broadcasters and OTT providers require innovative media technology to differentiate themselves and fight for market share. The battle of the streamers is red hot after Netflix recently announced that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 and expects to lose two million more in the second quarter.

Enterprises and video creators are also operating in a very competitive environment. Broadcast-grade technology such as Overcast’s video management platform — which facilitates effortless collaboration and an efficient workflow — will be essential to their survival.

Request A Demo

We’d be delighted to give you a demo of our platform — please click here to request one.

Cloud Storage: How To Stop Paying Ridiculous Margins

Posted on February 15, 2021August 28, 2024 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.

DAM! Enterprise Video Is So Popular — Part 3

Posted on December 10, 2019August 22, 2024 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 December 10, 2019August 27, 2024 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.