Streamingmedia201405 DL

COLUMNS
Is That All There Is?

EDITORS NOTE ERIC SCHUMACHER-RASMUSSEN ...................................... 4
Teach the Teachers
CLASS ACT PAUL RIISMANDEL ................................................................................................ 6
Forget 3D What About 4D?
STREAMS OF THOUGHT TIM SIGLIN ............................................................................... 8
Google Glass Rides a Segway
THE INDUSTRY TROY DREIER ..................................................................................................10
UHDWhat Do We Know?
THE PRODUCERS VIEW JAN OZER .......................................................................... 104
STREAMING SPOTLIGHT
Niche Video Sites Thrive Serving Foreign Flavor
TROY DREIER ............................................................................................................................................................12
BEHIND THE SCREENS
Lowes and Vine Build Social Video Success
TROY DREIER ............................................................................................................................................................ 17
REVIEW
Vidizmo EnterpriseTube
JAN OZER ....................................................................................................................................................................57
SPONSORED CONTENT
THE 2014 ENTERPRISE VIDEO SUPERGUIDE
The Enterprise Video Platform as the Future of
Corporate Communications
MEDIAPLATFORM .................................................................................................................................................. 65
Video for Employee Communications: 5 Best
Practices From Companies Who Have it Mastered
RAMP ........................................................................................................................................................................................71
How Dell Revitalized Corporate Communications
with Video
SONIC FOUNDRY .....................................................................................................................................................77
The Evolution of Enterprise Video Platforms:
How Cloud Technologies will Change the Way
Businesses Use Video
VBRICK ................................................................................................................................................................................. 81
Video Platform Checklist: Top Capabilities
Organizations should look for when selecting
an enterprise video platform
KALTURA .......................................................................................................................................................................... 87
10 Things to Consider for Streaming Media
REALNETWORKS .......................................................................................................................................................91
Defining the Future of Video
ELEMENTAL .................................................................................................................................................................. 95
Video is ValuableSo How Do You Prove It?
QUMU .....................................................................................................................................................................................97
From OVP to EVP: How companies like uStudio are
defining the future of the video-centric enterprise
USTUDIO ........................................................................................................................................................................... 99
Table of
contents May 2014
44 20 50
FEATURES
Building a Multiscreen Workflow
TIM SIGLIN .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
How to Make Great Enterprise Video With Google Glass
SCOTT LAWSON ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................31
The State of MPEG-DASH Deployment
NICOLAS WEIL ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Video for the Long Haul
JAN OZER ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................44
The ROI of Enterprise Webcasting
JAN OZER ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................50
1 STREAMINGMEDIA.COM
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4 STREAMING MEDIA May 2014
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Is That All There Is?
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A
fter years of speculation and rumors,
it looks like well finally be able to buy
Jennifer Anistons sweater: In April,
Amazon finally released its set-top box, the
Amazon Fire TV.
The announcement was nearly as widely an-
ticipated as Apples Worldwide Developers
Conference, which is coming up in June. But
once the Fire TV was announced, the response
was a resounding meh.
The disconnect between anticipation and
response boils down to two points. The first is
that all set-top boxes are merely minor varia-
tions on the same theme: there are differenc-
es in content and interface, but fundamentally
theyre all just black boxes that help you get
video and music from your ISP to your televi-
sion. Only so much differentiation is possible,
and while the Fire TVs voice search and fast-
er processor are quite nice, its not that differ-
ent from an Apple TV or a Roku, both of which
offer a broader selection of content, at least
for the moment. And since it sells for $99, and
Amazon Instant Video is already available on
the Roku, TiVo, and other devices (though not
Apple TV), Fire TV is a hard sell out of the box,
though that could change as Amazon adds
more content partners.
The second and more important point is
that, for all of the talk surrounding Amazon
Instant Video as a competitor to iTunes or
Netflix, Amazon is and forever will be nothing
more and nothing less than the worlds larg-
est department store. So it should come as
no surprise that, even if Amazon didnt spend
much time talking about it at the launch, the
Fire TVs primary purpose is to sell us more
stuff, whether that stuff is in digital form in the
way of video, music, and games, or in physical
form in the way ofwell, just about anything
else Amazon sells.
Essentially, Amazon has released its own
Home Shopping Network. But instead of hir-
ing hosts and producing its own 24/7 infomer-
cial for the products it sells, its licensing and
delivering Hollywood content to make the
pitch. The hope, presumably, is that the Fire
TVs X-ray featurewhich currently connects
to IMDB on a companion to offer up informa-
tion about movies and TV showswill steer
viewers toward buying related products from
Amazon. Its the realization of the promise
made back in the 1990s that viewers would
eventually be able to buy the sweater Jennifer
Aniston was wearing on Friends.
Imagine, Forrester Research analyst James
McQuivey told The New York Times, Im
watching a Jason Bourne movie. Hes on the
run through Europe. The movie pauses and
lets you move into an interactive game with
Bourne. Or maybe he goes through Vienna,
and you always wanted to go there, so heres
how you could plan a trip or at least buy a book
about it. Amazon will know who to offer these
deals to because those people are already in
front of it at that moment.
Journalist Brian Raftery responded on Twitter:
Are there people who would actually enjoy
watching a movie this way?
Im with Raftery; I mightas I did recently
admire Kenneth Branaghs shoes while watch-
ing Wallander, but Im certainly not going to
pause in the middle of a car chase to look up
who makes that particular brand of brogue.
The explosion in content marketing, second
screen apps, and so-called native advertis-
ing has already exacerbated the onslaught
of product placement that Waynes World so
effectively mocked more than two decades
ago, and the Fire TV creates what amounts to
the perfect storm of content, marketing, and
retail. Rafter and I might be in the minority,
but filmmakers and showrunners would be
wise to keep in mind that theres a sizable au-
dience that vehemently objects to constantly
being sold to.
Paul Riismandel (mediageek@gmail.com) is a media producer
and consultant with 20 years of experience in higher education.
He is co-founder of RadioSurvivor.com and reports on radio and
online media.
W
hen I started writing this column sev-
en years ago, a smartphone was called
a Blackberry, most educational video
producers were shooting standard def to tape,
and YouTube had just gone from scrappy start-
up to part of the Googleplex. While video had
strong foothold in daily life, it still didnt have
the kind of ubiquity it does today.
Now most people carry around mobile de-
vices that shoot video easily. Sharing that vid-
eo has become as simple as texting or posting
to Facebook, Vine, Instagram, or any number
of social networks. So it becomes natural to
take for granted that everyoneespecially
teachers and studentsknows how to make
useful video content.
As Streaming Media readers know too well,
its one thing to shoot video. But its quite anoth-
er to shoot video that looks and sounds good, or
at least good enough. Its even more difficult to
find a workflow for making good video consis-
tently, without major hassles.
Any educational or training program that
uses video needs to consider how instructors
and students will learn to use this technology
effectively. The reasons behind this are twofold.
The first is practical. You want to make sure
technical glitches dont get in the way of instruc-
tion. By itself, teaching is a specialized skill, and
adding new technology threatens to complicate
an instructors well-honed practice.
Ive experienced this myself when teaching
my own college-level courses. While Ive been in
educational technology for almost two decades,
when the classroom projection system doesnt
function properly or my browser crashed in
the middle of class, it takes a disruptive mental
shift for me to move from my teaching brain
to my IT support brain. Ive learned firsthand
why its so critical that instructors receive both
training and practice time when any technology
is introduced into their classes.
The second, and perhaps most important
reason is that you want your instructional vid-
eo to be useful, effective, and sustainable over
the long term. An instructor who has a difficult
and frustrating time creating a class video may
decide its not worth the inconvenience. Theres
a good chance that a student who is forced to
watch boring or poorly produced lecture re-
cordings will complain, give negative evalua-
tions, or avoid them altogether. These arent
ideal outcomes, particularly for students.
When I talk to production and support pro-
fessionals who are running successful instruc-
tional video efforts, the most common unifying
factor is that their institutions have put some
kind of training in place. For instance, I talked
to instructional technology experts from public
schools in Alberta and New Jersey for this years
State of Educational Video in the Streaming
Media Industry Sourcebook. They give hands-on
assistance to teachers who shoot video in class
to support their lessons and help teachers plan
out how to use video and get them oriented and
comfortable with the workflow.
At the Rochester Institute of Technology, in-
terested faculty have the opportunity to learn
together in a community of interest, where
instructors from different disciplines meet to
share tips and discuss different approaches
for flipping their classrooms. This not only lets
faculty come up with their own best practices,
it also helps them become more self-sufficient,
permitting scarce support time to be allocated
more efficiently.
Of course, you can also use videos to pro-
vide self-guided training for those who prefer
it. Whats best is to make sure a few different
modes are available so that nobody who wants
to use video is left behind. Its an investment
that pays off with every new class of teachers
and students.
Teach the Teachers
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Tim Siglin (writer@braintrustdigital.com) writes and consults
on digital media business models and go-to market strategies.
He is chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production
company, and co-founder of consulting firm Transitions, Inc.
A
s we head towards this years Stream-
ing Forum in London in June, Ive been
thinking about a topic that brought a
chuckle every time it was mentioned during
last years Streaming Forum: 3D broadcasting
and streaming.
We all recall how 2013 was to usher in the
Era of 3D Broadcasting, as least as pitched to
consumers at the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES). Instead, the year ended with a limited
number of 3D options, in no small part because
2013 had few marquee sporting eventsESPN
even shuttered its 3D channel, denting hopes
for long-term 3D sports broadcasting.
The demise of 3D led us to the rise of 4K,
touted at this years CES as The Next Big
Thing. Its still a few years away from main-
stream adoption, although 8K is waiting in the
wings to push the envelope even further.
In the meantime, I think the streaming in-
dustry needs to thing beyond the Next Big
Thing to the next Next Big Thing. That Thing, I
propose, is 4D, not 4K.
It turns out that the fourth dimension, time,
is very much in need of compression. And
the streaming industry may be able to lend a
hand, turning science fiction into science fact.
As a self-proclaimed conservative Christian,
Ive always found it a good exercise to occa-
sionally challenge my belief structure, if for
no other reason than to cross-check my own
beliefs in God against those of others. Made-
line LEngles series A Wrinkle in Time was
instrumental in exposing me to early science
fiction, even with her widely divergent Chris-
tian worldview, and she used the tesseract to
explain both time and God.
Yes, LEngle made the tesseract popular
long before Marvel Comics put it to use in the
recent Avengers movie. Heres a bit of dia-
logue from A Wrinkle In Time that attempts to
explain the time-shifting device:
You think of space only in three dimen-
sions, Mrs. Whatsit said. Was your mother
able to explain a tesseract to you?
She never did, Meg said. She got so upset
about it.
Mrs. Whatsit and Charles, Megs brother,
go on to explain that the three dimensionsa
line, a square, and a cube, respectivelyallow
us to see things both in 2D and 3D perceptual
space. Then the kicker: 4D and 5D.
What is the fourth dimension?
Well, I guess if you want to put it into math-
ematical terms youd square the square. But
you cant take a pencil and draw it the way you
can the first three. I know its got something to
do with Einstein and time. I guess maybe you
could call the fourth dimension Time.
The fifth dimensions a tesseract, Charles
said. You add that to the other four dimen-
sions and you can travel through space with-
out having to go the long way around. In other
words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned
plane geometry, a straight line is not the short-
est distance between two points.
LEngle expands the concept of the tesser-
act, going on to talk about folding time for
both personal and divine gains. It is this fold-
ing time that allows her characters to move
through the fourth dimension at will.
Im going to suggest that folding time is
also a way to enhance streaming delivery
to narrow the delivery gap between where
we are now and where we might be in just
a few years. Next months column will look
at practical ways to fold time for streaming
content delivery.
Forget 3D What About 4D?
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Troy Dreier (tdreier@streamingmedia.com) is senior associate
editor of Streaming Media and Onlinevideo.net.
W
earable tech is supposed to be one of
the defining trends of 2014, but that
doesnt mean Google will have an
easy time selling Google Glass.
A head-mounted wearable computer, Glass
has gotten a lot of attention for its ability to re-
cord and stream point-of-view video, but the
initial buzz is wearing off. Still in beta, Glass
has at least two major obstacles facing it.
One, it doesnt feel essential. If people are
going to open their wallets for another device,
they need to know theyre getting something
useful or fun. So far, Google hasnt announced
any must-have apps.
The second problem is more serious: Wear-
ing Google Glass makes you look like an idiot.
When did techies get so sensitive? I blame
the Segway. Before its release, the Segway
generated massive hype as the transportation
of the future. It debuted to rave reviews. Then
we all realized how goofy people look riding
one and lost interest. Now, the Segway either
calls to mind Paul Blart, mall cop, or Gob from
Arrested Development.
When the Arrested Development movie comes
out, I predict Gob will wear Google Glass.
Google is well aware of its image problem.
Not long ago, the Glass site began highlighting
stylish frames to wear with the device. Goo-
gle has also tried to sway opinion by redefin-
ing the pejorative term glasshole. In a list of
dos and donts for Glass wearers, Google says
a creepy or rude Glass wearer is a glasshole.
Nice try, Google. The term actually refers to
anyone wearing Glass.
To help Google with its image problem, I
spoke to an image consultant on its behalf.
Carmen Westbrook owns Naked Fashion
Help (www.nakedfashionhelp.com) in Atlan-
ta, Georgia, and was happy to talk about how
Glass could be more appealing.
Describing the first version of Glass as
nerdy and futuristic, Westbrook says that
variety is key.
There has to be options that could fit any
face, Westbrook says. When you go to buy
glasses, ideally youre going to buy something
thats going to flatter your face and enhance
your look, not take away from it, so there has
to be options.
How many options is the right number?
When it comes to eyeglasses, people can
choose from thousands of styles. Is that the
right direction? Westbrook thinks so.
Shed also like to see Glass become more
flexible, so wearers arent limited to Googles
fames, but can use their own.
If youre given enough options and if you can
adapt it to glasses you already have, to me that
seems like it could work, Westbrook says.
Once there are a variety of styles to choose
from, people will still need to be convinced
that Glass is for them. To show Glass as a fash-
ion-forward accessory, Google needs to re-
cruit influential brand ambassadors.
If you want to get people on board with it,
youve got to get people like the beautiful peo-
ple of the world wearing it: the models, the ac-
tresses, the rock stars, the sports stars, West-
brook says.
Glass could be attractive and fashion-forward,
but still run into trouble if people arent com-
fortable around it. Well need to develop norms
and etiquette about when its okay to wear Glass
and when it isnt. That wont be easy.
I dont know that theres anything they
could do to make me feel comfortable, West-
brook says. Its more about the person Im sit-
ting down with and having some level of trust
with them.
Whether its a social or business situation,
Glass wont be welcome much of the time.
Perhaps the best way Glass wearers can im-
prove the devices image is by taking it off.
Google Glass Rides a Segway
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Learn more about how the VBrick ecosystem can work for you at www.vbrick.com or call: 800-551-2907
THERE ARE ENTERPRISE VIDEO PLATFORMS, AND THEN THERES THE VBRICK ECOSYSTEM.
Some see an enterprise video platform as a way to create,
manage and provide secure access to live and on-demand
streaming video behind-the-rewall. We do too, but we also
know that the portal is usually just the tip of the iceberg.
You still face the challenge of how to deliver high-quality
video across your network. And youll probably need a
multi-screen publishing plan.
The VBrick ecosystem solves these challenges with
integrated network distribution, digital signage and IPTV
solutions. Our enterprise-wide video distribution network
uses our own media server technology and zone logic to
multicast and transform video for delivery to the edge of
the network. Our integrated turnkey digital signage and
IPTV offerings let you use the same system for integrated,
streamline channel programming and scheduling.
CAPTURE MANAGE DISTRIBUTE DISPLAY
Will Your Enterprise
Video Platform Solve Your
Distribution Problem?
N
etflix, Hulu, and Amazon might get
all the attention, but there are more
streaming services around than just the
big three. The giants stream to the masseswid-
est audiences, offering the most content they
can provide for a variety of tastes, but they still
manage to leave plenty of room for other com-
panies to grow. Acorn TV and DramaFever are
building an audience with targeted libraries of
international content.
Acorn TV is for the Anglophile, especially
one who loves to curl up with a good mystery.
DramaFever offers a slate of mostly South Ko-
rean romances, comedies, and reality shows
ready to transport viewers half a world away.
Their histories couldnt be more different, but
the results are the same: They satisfy mostly
U.S. viewers who want to immerse themselves
in another culture.
Acorn TV Takes Root
Acorn started more than 20 years ago, long
before streaming video took hold, by import-
ing British television shows to the U.S. first on
VHS, and later on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. At
the time there were far fewer outlets for Brit-
ish programming in the United States. As a
result, Acorns catalog found a niche but en-
thusiastic audience.
Acorn TVthe companys streaming ser-
vicebegan in July 2011. Acorn works by
subscription: Viewers currently pay $4.99 per
month or $49.99 per year for Acorn Premium,
which gets them free standard shipping on
any catalog purchases, as well as all the online
content they want to stream.
The Acorn brand, as well as two other brands
owned by the companyAthena and Acaciaw-
ere purchased a year ago by BET founder Bob
Johnson. He combined the Acorn brands with
another of his acquisitionsImage Entertain-
ment, based in Los Angelesand created RLJ
Entertainment.
Business has been good at Acorn, thanks to a
certain English program that calls PBS home.
Since Downton Abbey, all of the sudden ev-
erybody loves British television, which has been
really great for all of us who work in that area,
says Jen Linck, vice president of Acorn TV.
Acorn has catered to lovers of British mys-
teries and dramas since its VHS beginnings,
and thats still the companys stronghold. The
streaming service offers comedies and docu-
mentaries as well, but those who love sleuth-
ing for clues will be happiest. While physical
media may be on the decline, Acorns custom-
erswhom Linck describes as slightly old-
erstill buy DVDs. In fact, one of Acorn TVs
prime uses is as a marketing vehicle for the
companys DVD catalog, which is the bigger
money-maker. As of this writing the service
has nearly 70,000 paid subscribers, more than
streaming spotlight
Niche Video Sites Thrive
Serving Foreign Flavor By Troy Dreier
Acorn TV
specializes
in British
mysteries and
dramas, like
Doc Martin.
streaming spotlight
three times what it had at the end of 2012,
and is adding thousands of new customers
each month
DramaFever Catches Some Heat
DramaFever started in 2009 when Seung
Bak and Suk Park, two young men who had
been friends at the University of Rochester,
noticed that a sizable online community was
building around Asian video. People were
going to great lengths to seek out and share
shows from Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, and
other countries. That might not be remarkable
if the demand was coming from transplants,
but the pair noted that millions of Americans
who werent of Asian descent were working
together, writing subtitles, creating recaps,
and sharing information on online forums.
This was back in 2008 when we started no-
ticing this, and to me that just screamed pent-
up demand, right? co-founder and co-CEO-
Bak says. I mean, how badly do you must
want to watch the content? You have to really
go out of your way to go watch largely illegal,
pirated content.
If someone could package the same content,
the pair reasoned, they could probably build
a large business around it. Since no one else
was jumping in, they decided it might as well
be them. After pooling around $300,000 in sav-
ings, they started cold-calling Korean broad-
casters hunting for rights. While it took some
time, they were soon able to launch with a
slate of around 50 titles.
People noticed, and soon the pair were
growing their site visitor by visitor, title by ti-
tle. While they had to bootstrap the initial in-
vestment, investors also noticed their success.
DramaFever raised an additional $11.5 million
from investors that include AMC Networks,
Bertelsmann, NALA, and Softbank.
Unlike Acorn TV, DramaFever shows are
free to view and ad-supported, with ads shown
every 10 minutes. A premium ad-free mem-
bership that includes HD streaming sells for
$9.99 per month. Bak says half the companys
business comes from selling ads, 30 percent
from syndicating content to sites like Netflix
and Hulu, and 20 percent from subscriptions.
The site currently gets 15 million unique vis-
itors each month. Bak did not say how many
paid subscribers DramaFever has.
Acorn TV Travels the World
Since the BBC has its own distribution in
the U.S., with the BBC America cable channel
and a DVD business, Acorn TV subscribers
wont see a lot of BBC content. Instead, Acorn
works more with ITV, DRG, All3Media, and
Freemantle.
The company also spans the globe, or at
least the Commonwealth, looking for new con-
tent. Canadas Murdoch Mysteries is one of the
services most popular shows, as is Australias
Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries.
We fudge a little bit on the British, Acorns
Linck admits. The way our acquisitions VP
puts it, its sort of a British accent test: If we
think it would work if it was set in the U.K. and
if they have the queen on their money, then we
can make it work.
Acorn has begun branching out past those
borders in its search for strong detective
tales. It currently offers a French Agatha
Christie series, Les Petits Meurtres dAgatha
Christie, which it began streaming as a test to
see if viewers would accept foreign language
content. So far, the response has been posi-
tive. Thats good for Acorns company, which
is the majority owners of the Agatha Christie
Seung Bak and
Suk Park started
DramaFever when
they realized there
was a pent-up
demand in the
U.S. for Korean TV
shows like Heirs.
streaming spotlight
estate. That series only problem is that it
can be a bit racy.
It has some mature content in it, so some
of our more conservative customers have
complained. But, for the most part, weve
gotten some really great feedback, Linck
says. Our customers love Agatha Christie,
so its a great opportunity for them to see
something that that they wouldnt normally
get that chance, because thats probably not
the kind of thing thats going to get picked
up by a broadcaster here, or even one of the
other streaming services.
Since Acorn TV competes against Net-
flix, which has several British series in its
library, getting exclusive content is import-
ant. Its not as critical as people might think,
however. Linck says that she herself has sold
rights to some Acorn content to Netflix. The
increased distribution programs get on Net-
flix helps build interest and grows Acorns
DVD business. Still, Acorn keeps dozens of
titles for its viewers alone. They can easily be
found in the Only on Acorn TV section of
the online library.
DramaFever Breaks Down Borders
The bulk of DramaFevers library is the Ko-
rean programming it built its audience on.
But just as Acorn TV has done, DramaFever
has added content from other countries over
time. The sites creators first looked to Japan,
Taiwan, and China for programs that would
please the same audience, then built up a siz-
able collection of Latin American content as
well. Bak estimates that 20 percent of the sites
14,000 hours of programming comes from non-
Asian countries. How does that fit in and why
does it satisfy the same audience?
The majority of our audience is not who
you think it is, Bak explains. Right now, for a
site thats primarily international content, the
demo looks like this: Its 40 percent white, 30
percent Latino, and the rest is split between
black and Asian. We actually have more black
people binge-watching Asian television shows
than Asians. And its not because Asians dont
like Asian content; its just that if you look at
the demo of this country, theres a lot more di-
verse audiences out there.
While DramaFever looks at first glance like
its designed to satisfy an immigrant or ex-
patriate audience, that isnt the case. What
interests Bak is finding quality content from
around the world and making it available to
mainstream viewers. People typically discover
the site while looking for shows from one par-
ticular country, then stick around and sample
shows from elsewhere.
You may come to DramaFever initially to
watch Korean content or something from Tai-
wan or various countries, but then we start
seeing a whole bunch of cross-viewing, Bak
says. Its becoming a way for people to enjoy
what they already like, but also discover things
that they otherwise wouldnt be able to find.
The future looks strong for both Acorn TV
and DramaFever, two services proving that on
a global scale, even a niche audience can con-
tain millions.
A lot of people are focused on what Netflix
and Hulu and HBO are doing, Bak says, but
theres this whole mid-tail opportunity of con-
tent that already exists and its wide open.
Troy Dreier (tdreier@streamingmedia.com) is senior associate editor
of Streaming Media and Onlinevideo.net.
Comments? Email us at letters@streamingmedia.com, or check the
masthead for other ways to contact us.
Acorns library
isnt limited to
British content;
the service also
features shows
from Canada and
Australia, such as
the Australian TV
series Jack Irish.
behind the screens
Lowes and Vine Build Social Video Success by Troy Dreier
I
s six seconds enough time to tell a story with
online video? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.
Home improvement store Lowes is using the
social networking platform Vine to create a viral
video success. But Vine isnt the only social net-
working tool in the Lowes toolbox.
The Lowes campaign is called Fix in Six, and
it combines truly helpful home tips that can be
related in six seconds with playful stop-motion
animation thats perfect for Vine. Lowes Fix
in Six tips include using a rubber band to turn
a stripped screw and using plumbers tape to
mark out where pictures will be hanged before
pounding any nails.
The person behind this campaign, and all of
Lowes social networking efforts, is Brad Walters,
director of social media and emerging platforms
for the company. When Vine launched, he saw
other companies experiment with it, but wasnt
impressed with what they were doing. They
might shoot a quick view of their office, perhaps,
or six seconds of people walking by outside.
We started looking at this saying, We want
to get involved here. We thinkwe believe that
were storytellers inside of socialthat we need
to tell a compelling story that is going to provide
some level of value or some value of engagement
or entertainment or inspiration, Walters says.
We looked at Vine and said, How do we partic-
ipate in this space, but make sure that its mean-
ingful and make sure that anybody who follows us
or anybody who happens to consume the content
we put out there are getting something out of it?
The answer was to experiment with content
that Lowes already knew worked, and that
could be told in a six-second looping video. Pri-
or to working with Vine, Lowes ran a campaign
on Facebook called Shareable Solutions, which
offered illustrated life hackssolutions that
gave people an a-ha moment. These tips drew a
strong response on Facebook, and Walters team
believed they would do just as well on Vine.
With the idea decided, Lowes needed a look.
Rather than creating simple videos in-house,
Walters chose to work with someone already
turning out strong Vine videos. BBDO, the
advertising agency Lowes uses, scouted out
Meagan Cignoli, an animator and former fash-
ion photographer known for her stop-motion
work. Walters was happy to leave the look of
the videos to Cignoli, who brought a playful
creativity to the project. Most videos were shot
at a studio in BBDOs New York City office, al-
though some were shot on location.
The Fix in Six campaign got a strong reaction
from the start.
The response to those first five or six Vines
we produced was just really overwhelming,
Walters says. People were like, This is so awe-
some. This is so great. Im watching it over and
over, and we felt like, wow, if were going to get
this kind of response, what happens if we start to
really scale it up? And so we took that approach,
and were still working on it today.
Social Video: Never Stop Improving
Some Lowes Vines are more complex than
others. While the stripped screwdriver meets
rubber band video was sparse, a video about
keeping rodents and squirrels out of the garden
involved a puppet squirrel, clouds, and props on
a miniature set. And that doesnt include all the
time spent between Lowes and Cignoli creating
and developing the ideas. That sounds like a lot
of work for six seconds of video.
It is, it is, Walters says. We feel like its
worth it. Theres a lot of complexity that goes
Lowes Fix in Six
uses Vine videos
to share home tips,
such as how to
use a rubber band
to turn a stripped
screw, in six
seconds each.
behind the screens
Lowes and Vine Build Social Video Success
into shooting these things even though youre
using a camera built into an iPhone. Its still
pretty complex to complete them, but I think
if you could have differentiating content out
there that helps your customer -- inspires or
empowers your customer -- it gives them a level
of confidence that they can complete a project
or it gives them a level of confidence in you as
a brand. You are providing them something of
value, and theyre like, Man, every time I turn
around Lowes is always there to help me under-
stand how to do something or give me the knowl-
edge to do something that I didnt even know ex-
isted. Its worth that effort because weve got to
make sure that we are focusing on our customer
and putting them first in our efforts.
As of this writing, there have been over 50
videos in the Fix in Six campaign. Once the last
one posted in Januaryon creating a ribbon or-
ganizer with a coat hangerWalters decided to
give the campaign a breather.
I think the idea of Fix in Six is certainly some-
thing thats not going to go away, at least not in
the immediate future, but I think theres an op-
portunity for an evolution to make sure it stays
relevant and make sure that people are seeing
whats capable of it, Walters says. We could
stay on the past and never change it, but I think
it could get stagnant pretty quick, so we want to
make sure that its staying top-of-mind for folks.
When the campaign starts up againand
Walters wont say when that will belook for it
to have a broader variety of tips from a wider
range of sources.
This Vine campaign isnt the first time Lowes
has created online video. The company runs a
YouTube channel with nearly 40 million sub-
scribers where it posts longer content. Walters
says the combination gives his company a two-
pronged approach, posting longer videos on
YouTube and quick hits on Vine. While both
areas deal with home improvement, Walters
knew it was important to give each area its own
identity, just as it was important to give the Vine
videos a separate identity from the Facebook
campaign that inspired them.
We felt like Vine could be a place where it
would make it very easy to share that content
because it was short. It got to the point, and it
had some level of entertainment that would
keep you focused on it, Walters says.
The Right Tool for the Job
While Lowes has been tracking the perfor-
mance of its Vine videosnoting how many sub-
scribers the account has, and how many times
Vines have been shared the company is most
interested in scaling the videos and getting
them in front of as many customers as possible.
Thats why Lowes runs them as pre-roll ads for
other online videos, bundling a few Vine videos
together and inserting a bumper on either end.
The campaign is less about ROI, Walters says,
than it is about making sure that customers and
potential customers see the videos, know that
Lowes is offering them value, and remain en-
gaged with the brand.
Walters put his advertising background to
work when he joined Lowes three years ago
and began building the companys social media
presence. Before he was hired, Lowes didnt
put much effort into social media. Its Twitter
account, for example, wasnt very active and
had few followers. Walters built a six-person
social media team that gets help from about a
dozen employees in the customer care depart-
ment. Together, they create new content and
engage in customer conversations on a variety
of platforms.
Besides YouTube, Vine, Twitter, and Face-
book, Lowes is also active on Pinterest and Ins-
tagram. Each has its own approach. Every social
effort needs to stay authentic to that network,
Most of the Fix in
Six videos are shot
on location in the
offices of BBDO,
Lowes advertising
agency.
Walters says. For example, the idea on Pinterest
is to drive inspiration with high-impact imagery.
The content is diverse, representing a variety
of projects. With Facebook Lowes is able to do
several different things, but focuses on main-
taining an engaged dialogue with customers.
Every Facebook comment gets answer. No post
is left is left behind on Facebook, his team likes
to say. On Twitter, they craft short comments
that offer tips or spread the word about special
offers. Walters wants to create tweets that are
bite-sized and relevant; they should offer value
and stand out from the huge wave of content
constantly posted to Twitter.
Word-of-mouth is something thats been
around for a long time, but negative word-of-
mouth spreads further and farther than positive
sometimes, Walters says. We put a lot of effort
to make sure that our customers are tended to
and that they are having a positive experience
with Lowes, so that they continue to shop our
stores and continue to tell their friends and fam-
ily to do the same.
With that kind of creativity and commitment,
Lowes is putting all of its social media tools to
good use.
Troy Dreier (tdreier@streamingmedia.com) is senior associate editor of
Streaming Media and Onlinevideo.net.
A
round the time of my first job, Stephen
Coveys Seven Habits of Highly Suc-
cessful People was all the rage, from
the corporate boardroom to the mili-
tary war room. As a Department of Defense con-
tractor, I was one of tens of thousands shuffled
through day-long Seven Habits seminars, yet
today I can remember only one of his then-hal-
lowed habits: Begin with the end in mind.
Still, Coveys adage about pre-planning
is highly pertinent to crafting a multiscreen
workflow strategy, from acquisition to deliv-
ery. This article doesnt follow a set step-by-
step formula for each of the workflow seg-
ments, but we hope the overall advice is solid
for producers and content owners alike.
As I planned this article, I hoped to gen-
erate an updated version of basic advice that
Building a
Multiscreen
Workflow
By Tim Siglin
Understanding
the importance
of thinking
ahead when
preparing
your content
for different
screens in
different
environments
Building a
Multiscreen
Worfklow
Netflix gave on its blog back in 2008 [http://
go2sm.com/netflixencoding].
At the time, the company was only stream-
ing content in standard definition but was
experimenting with high-definition deliv-
ery. As such, the post noted that Netflix
preferred to receive HD versions of content,
even if its initial distribution was to only be
shown in SD.
Our best sources are electronically de-
livered mezzanine files, or high quality D5
tapes, wrote Neil Hunt, Netflix chief prod-
uct officer, and the highest bitrate encodes
of these sources really look as good or better
than DVDs. We get HD sources for many ti-
tles, even if we only have the rights to stream
SD. The HD sources permit a better SD encode
than working from SD sources.
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wHow times have changed. Today, much of
Hunts advice has been superseded by advances
in technology: Netflix now streams the majority
of its content in HD, and has a few tests of Ultra
HDthe consumer version of 4Kin the wings.
In addition, the companys original content is
also produced at 4K or higher resolutions.
But what if youre an indie producer who has
aspirations of getting content on to Netflix (and,
by extension, just about any over-the-top video
service)? How do you go about getting the con-
tent ready via a best-practices workflow?
Set Your Presets
Netflix these days assumes that content will
pass muster in terms of quality, and while it
hasnt yet publicly provided an update to the
2008 blog post, a spokesperson played down
the issues surrounding encoding requirements
as a major hurdle for its multiscreen workflow.
We are pretty flexible around the formats we
accept, says a Netflix spokesperson, who asked
not to be identified, and we do all our own adap-
tive bitrate encoding, so there is no need for stu-
dios to provide multiple bitrates or encodings
that are especially adapted to our system.
One area the company has pushed into is
a move to partner with companies that offer
transcoding solutions, in hopes of simplifying
the overall process for large studios and well-
heeled content owners.
Were thrilled to be collaborating with Dig-
ital Rapids, Christopher Fetner, director of
content partner operations at Netflix, said in
an April 2013 press release, to provide presets
to simplify the transformation process for us-
ers delivering content assets to Netflix.
Fetner made a similar comment regarding
Harmonic, another company that partnered
with Netflix to provide presets in its transcod-
ing solutions.
I asked Mike Nann, director of market-
ing and communications at Digital Rapids, to
share some insights into the workflow issues
faced by a large studioor even an indepen-
dent production houselooking to distribute
its content on a platform like Netflix.
Nann first noted that Digital Rapids agree-
ments meant he couldnt disclose the mezza-
nine/contribution specifications of Netflix or
any other particular distributor, as they make
the requirements available to their content
partners.
However, Nann pointed out that the presets
save both Netflix and the content owner a sig-
nificant amount of trial-and-error or just sheer
frustration when it comes to a multiscreen de-
livery approach.
If Netflix or other content distributors did
not have a spec, Nann says, content owners
might try to submit content in dozens of dif-
ferent formats with all sorts of quality varia-
tions and nuances.
As you probably already assumed, the type
of content owners/partners that weve been
involved with have been the Hollywood movie
studios, high-end television production, etc.,
so their acquisition and post-production prac-
tices were already well-defined and fully ad-
equate for the subsequent distribution trans-
formations.
Nann went on to say that, beyond just pre-
paring content for Netflix, the requirements
for content preparation can vary considerably
among the target content distributors.
The fundamental key here is that, when pro-
viding content in a B2B partnership relationship
between a content owner and distributor, the
Netflix director of
content partner
operations
Christopher Fetner
discusses the
companys complex
workflow at the
2013 Streaming
Forum in London
Mike Nann, director
of marketing and
communications
at Digital Rapids,
emphasizes the
importance of
sticking to the
presets supplied by
Netflix and other
content distributors.
content is typically NOT provided in a format
intended for direct consumer consumption,
Nann says. The deliverable is a mezzanine
master format that will be subsequently trans-
formed into whatever outputs are required for
consumer delivery currently or in the future.
Your Workflow Is All About Data
Another consideration in preparing content
for a multiscreen strategy is the complexity
of metadata. It turns out this is one of the key
issues facing anyone who looks to distribute
multiscreen content, much more so than the
acquisition or mezzanine video formats.
When asked about issues that have come up
around the idea of complexity in getting content
prepared for Netflix viewing, the spokesperson
reiterated what had been stated during last
years Streaming Forum session on the digital
supply chain. [http://go2sm.com/digitalchain]
I believe the complexity is more related to
getting everything in order, with respect to dif-
ferent episodes, audio tracks, subtitles, meta-
data, artwork etc., the spokesperson says. A
lot of people dont yet have great systems for
managing that complexity.
In other words, anyone preparing content
for Netflix or other online video delivery plat-
forms will find much of their workflow deals
with the issues surrounding metadata.
This level of complexity is also important for
those who are preparing for live multiscreen
delivery, be it corporate, entertainment, hous-
es of worship, or even education.
I put all the information into the program
for that Sunday the morning of our first ser-
vice, says Chris Chapman of CoMEDIAn En-
terprises, which runs live streaming services
for a house of worship in the Charlotte, NC,
area, as well as live streaming support for sev-
eral Southern Gospel singing groups.
When Chapman says that he enters infor-
mation into his live streaming tool, a NewTek
TriCaster, hes talking about much more than
just the basic name and title details.
I use the local house of worships order
of service, says Chapman, to add song ti-
tles, singers names, message titles, outline
points, and church information for the loca-
tion where were doing the live stream. This
can include metadata for the stream that
wont be seen by the local audience, includ-
ing a churchs email, website, address, and
contact phone number.
Entering that kind of metadata for each vid-
eo file is crucial in ensuring the content moves
smoothly through the workflow.
Mapping the Soundscape
Another area that Nann points out as a
potential pitfall is the proper positioning of
audio content.
As if acquisition formats and encoding pa-
rameters arent challenging enough, Nann
says, problems can easily occur with other
factors such as audio track mapping to speak-
er positions and multiple languages.
For a big studio, which distributes a movie in
all its surround-sound splendor into a variety
of move theaters, the idea of audio mapping
the soundscape might not be a huge hurdle,
but it turns out that both studios and inde-
pendent producers need to think about audio
mapping for a variety of products that range
from summed monoolder mobile phonesto
full surround sound and even the pseudo-sur-
round tools used in a variety of todays tablets,
smartphones, and newer smart TVs.
The multiscreen
workflow begins at
the point of capture,
which for CoMEDIAn
Enterprises Chris
Chapman is a
NewTek TriCaster,
into which he enters
metadata that might
not be seen by the
audience but is
crucial for keeping
track of assets as
they move through
the workflow.
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Sometimes, though, delivery to the set-
top box or living room television isnt the
biggest screen youll need to plan for.
In this day of doing double-duty with vid-
eo mixing equipment, theres a tendency to
think that viewing patterns in the 20-foot-dis-
tance to a giant projection screen in a venue
should be the same patterns as the 20-inch
distance from the smartphone on which a
portion of your audience may be watching
the same event stream.
Kyle Long, owner of Digital Fridge, provides
some insight on the idea that all your audience
members should walk away from the mul-
tiscreen delivery with a similar experience,
which means that the production needs to be
tailored to multiple viewing workflows.
For the last several years I have worked
with a local university to provide live IMAG
for their graduation ceremonies, says Long,
referring to image magnification, in which
the live camera feeds are mixed together with
graphics and projected to one or more large
screens for the local audience.
Recently the university requested that the cer-
emony be streamed over the Internet, Long says,
in addition to the way weve always done it, with
video being sent to 2 large LED screens on-site.
Long says the seemingly simple request
added additional complexities: I quickly real-
ized that there would now be two distinct au-
diences. Although the demographics of these
two separate audiences would be similar, their
viewing experience would differ greatly.
The lessons learned from that one simple
request led Long to explore ways to make his
multiscreen delivery service offering better.
After the event, I kept notes on key factors
to be aware of when delivering video content to
audiences who will be viewing it in two distinct-
ly different ways, Long says. One area had to
do with audio placement. For this particular
graduation ceremony there was a symphony
performed inside the stadium. The audience
inside the stadium could hear the symphony
play just fine without the use of many micro-
phones. However, without proper mic place-
ment there was no way the audience watching
online would ever hear the symphony.
Chapman agrees, but says his biggest issues
have to do with whats shown in the venue ver-
sus what he can show on a small screen.
While we dont stream everything on the
local screens to our smartphone or tablet
audience, Chapman says, I have our local
presentation computer linked in through the
iVGA Pro plug-in to the TriCaster, so that we
can have the option of switching to whatev-
er is playing on the local projection screens.
For instance, we run PowerPoint for an-
nouncements before service across a number
of televisions and digital signage installations
around the church campus. In addition, we
have a custom video at the start of many ser-
vices. By switching over to the presentation
computer input, it frees up a camera position
to be ready for the next shot.
In addition, it keeps us from having to
do any post-production work after our live
stream, he says. If I dont have to add all the
graphics later, for our on-demand video ar-
chives, its one less thing to worry about.
Long also says that even simple things, such
as speaker placement, are important to balance.
Framing a person speaking on the stage
with an extreme close up shot may be fine
for the audience watching on their laptop or
phone, Long says, but it may be very unflat-
tering for the keynote speaker in a large venue
to have a close-up of their face displayed on a
screen that is over 10 feet wide.
Plugging In to Protect Yourself?
Blogger Nicolas Weil, also a contributing edi-
tor to Streaming Media magazinecheck out his
State of MPEG-DASH article elsewhere in this
months issuewrote about the complexities of
Kyle Long, who
owns the video
production
company Digital
Fridge in Johnson
City, Tenn., says
its important to
remember that each
audience member
needs to have a
similar quality of
experience, whether
on a smartphone
or a giant IMAG
production screen in
a venue.
Learn from experts in corporate and commercial
video, live event video production, and conference
and educational video about technology,
techniques, and strategies for producing and
delivering professional video
See firsthand how top producers shoot, light,
switch, and stream live events
Learn how to turn your organization into an
effective and efficient video content generation
engine and why you should start doing this
immediately
Spend time and share ideas with those who have
been successful with producing seamless live
productions and profitable and effective corporate
videos
Learn what successful producers, studios, and
in-house teams do to turn static topics and
institutional messages into engaging online videos.
Get practical advice on lighting, audio, switching
and mixing, camera positioning, camera selection,
lens selection, and camera selection for live and
online video.
November
1819
Hyatt Regency
Huntington Beach, CA
pr oducer l i ve. st r eami ngmedi a. com
PUBLISHERS OF
THE BUSINESS &
TECHNOLOGY OF
ONLINE VIDEO
ORGANIZED AND PRODUCED BY
A featured event at
#producerlive
Save the
Date!
Learn from experts in corporate and commercial
video, live event video production, and conference
and educational video about technology,
techniques, and strategies for producing and
delivering professional video
See firsthand how top producers shoot, light,
switch, and stream live events
Learn how to turn your organization into an
effective and efficient video content generation
engine and why you should start doing this
immediately
Spend time and share ideas with those who have
been successful with producing seamless live
productions and profitable and effective corporate
videos
Learn what successful producers, studios, and
in-house teams do to turn static topics and
institutional messages into engaging online videos.
Get practical advice on lighting, audio, switching
and mixing, camera positioning, camera selection,
lens selection, and camera selection for live and
online video.
November
1819
Hyatt Regency
Huntington Beach, CA
pr oducer l i ve. st r eami ngmedi a. com
PUBLISHERS OF
THE BUSINESS &
TECHNOLOGY OF
ONLINE VIDEO
A featured event at
#producerlive
Save the
Date!
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wbuilding out a multiscreen delivery solution in
2012 [http://go2sm.com/weilblog].
In that two-part blog post, Weil covers a va-
riety of topics, but one of the most intriguing
is a series of tables discussing digital rights
management (DRM) and the impact of plug-
in architectures for multiscreen delivery.
One table in particular deals with the Play-
Ready DRM scheme and how itand Smooth
Streamingare implemented across a variety
of device types.
Netflix made a substantial investment on
[HTML5] technology as it conveys a definitive
advantage as regards developments mutual-
ization and flexibility of UI repackaging, Weil
wrote. They proved that on controlled envi-
ronments, the HTML5 user experience has
nothing to envy to native apps.
I asked Weil for an update on the DRM/
plug-in tables as we enter 2014.
Probably the only change is some exten-
sion of PlayReady to new device types, says
Weil, noting that PlayReady is now available on
Xbox One, Chromecast, and some Linux-based
set-top boxes.
In addition, while noting that hes not privy to
specific information, Weil felt that plug-in archi-
tectures are moving rapidly towards the exit.
From Netflix perspective, they want to have
a maximum of native HTML5 streaming, he
says, so its basically just a question of time
before they drop plug-ins everywhere.
Monitor Yourself
Another portion of your workflow is monitor-
ing the delivery on a number of target devices.
For those who are monitoring in-house on an
enterprise-issued device, a part of the chal-
lenge will be to monitor on an external network.
During a Streaming Media West panel on
enterprise live streaming, Eric Hards, man-
ager of digital experiences at Lockheed Mar-
tin Space Systems, noted that his team would
send members to a local coffee shop to watch
the stream on public Wi-Fi as well as via cel-
lular data, just to make sure the quality of the
stream delivery was acceptable on both.
The same is true for spot-checking your
work after a live event. Chapman notes that
having an iPhone in his pocket lets him do just
that during downtime.
I love the fact that I can go to my smartphone
device and pull up any media quickly and on the
go, including my own, he says. Websites where
we host our contentsermon.net, Vimeo, You-
Tubeare becoming more mobile friendly, with
apps that allow users to reach the media readi-
ly available to video our content.
The quality watching on a mobile device is
great, and the convenience cant be beat for
monitoring the way our work looks to viewers.
In the past, once I got home in front of a desk-
top computer, it usually meant cutting into
other work or family time. So I prefer watch-
ing streaming from my mobile device because
of it being available to me when I have down
time to view.
Time And Money
The end goal of a multiscreen delivery is
to push content out to as many audience seg-
ments as possible, wherever they may be. Yet
the complexities of doing just thatwhen it
comes to content preparation and, to a lesser
extent, content distributioncan be daunting
to a content owner.
Any issues with incoming content are cost-
ly, Nann says, both in financial terms and the
timeliness of content availability. Going back
and forth with the content provider to resolve
the issues takes time, and time is money, so
standardizing on a contribution format helps
ensure a certain level of quality, compatibili-
ty and future-proofness to allow transforma-
tions for future consumer targets.
Nanns point about future consumer targets
is a mantra we heard time and again, and one
that harkens back to Coveys axiom: Its not just
about getting content to play today, but rather
about making sure the content can be played
to a variety of audiences today and tomorrow.
A content provider needs to be prepared
to provide content in as high a bitrate as pos-
sible, Nann says, while providing a compre-
hensive set of descriptive and technical meta-
data, along with all audio tracks, language
tracks, subtitles, and captions. Even if some of
those attributes might not be used initially for
consumer delivery, the distributor will want
them for potential future purposes.
Tim Siglin (writer@braintrustdigital.com) writes and consults
on digital media business models and go-to market strategies.
He is chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production
company, and co-founder of consulting firm Transitions, Inc.
Sponsored Content Sponsored Content
28 Streaming Media May 2014
Sponsored Content Sovee
www.streamingmedia.com
A Special Report from Sovee
When a record-breaking one billion people viewed the video Gangnam Style, the
song became a case study for effective internet sharing.The fact that the video
was translated in more than 20 languages was one of the contributing factors to
the videos global success.
Taking Your Video To the Ends of the Earth
How to Use Video Translation Technology To Drive New Revenue
Once a novelty, video translation has become a must-havefor businesses and
non-profit organizations to reach new audiences and increase revenue, brand
recognition, and internet SEO.
New advances in cloud-based translation technology have made the process
simple, fast, and affordable,says Scott Gaskill, President of Sovee.Todays Smart
Engine technology can learn an organizations translation preferences, creating a
high level of accuracy and brand control.
CASE STUDY: TAKING GOLF TO A SPANISH-SPEAKING AUDIENCE
Pro Golfer Jack Nicklaus has 22 grandchildrenbut only one with a passion
for golf. Nicklaus sees this disinterest as a trend among young people across the
country. Concerned about the future of golf, he worked with Terry Anton of SNAG
to create Learning Leagues and special equipment that makes the sport fun and
easy to learn for people of all ages.
Translating the content to Spanish was important, with the U.S. Census Bureau
estimating that more than 30 million Americans speak Spanish at home.
To see a sample of how Jack Nicklaus and Terry Anton of
SNAG are using Sovee video translation to take the Jack
Nicklaus Learning Leagues to Japanese, scan this QR code
or go to http://etheatershowcase.sovee.com and click on this
video thumbnail under Sports and Entertainment.
Sovee Sponsored Content
The Key Elements of Speed, Accuracy and Affordability
SNAG and the Jack Nicklaus Learning Leagues need fast,
accurate, and affordable translation, so they choose Sovee, the
trusted provider of Spanish translation for the Ladies Pro Golf
Association (LPGA) and other professional golf organizations
and vendors.
SNAG Golf is the leader in entry-level golf and player
development, and today our products and curriculum are in
15,000 schools and 42 countries, said Terry Anton, Founder
and CEO of SNAG. We recognize the importance of language
translation in communicating our message to a global
audience and so we have teamed with Sovee for our video
translations as well as our new SNAG chat translation, which
will allow kids all over the world to discuss their golf games
without any language barriers.
We have started translating our videos and website content into
Spanish and Japanese, and soon we will branch out into other
languages,said Anton.Sovee is bringing the world together and
helping us communicate with golfers in every country.
Smart Engine technology makes the translation affordable,
because there is no longer a need for voice talent and studio time,
which can cost ten times the cost of video translation today.
A CASE STUDY: TAKING A NON-PROFIT MINISTRY
TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
Dr. John Ankerberg is an American Christian Evangelist, the
author of 91 books and host of a weekly, half-hour nationwide
television program that is rapidly becoming a global resource.
Before our introduction to Sovee, we were skeptical whether we
could ever broadcast in ten or more languages in any reasonable
time frame,says Dr. Ankerberg.Today, we are talking about
producing programs in several languages within days rather than
months or years.
This is the breakthrough we have long sought,Dr. Ankerberg
adds.We are now using it to reach new audiences seeking out
content from around the world.
To see a sample of the Chinese video translation
of the JA Show, scan this QR code or go to
http://etheatershowcase.sovee.com and click
on this video thumbnail under Ministry.
CASE STUDY: BREAK THE BUFFER-FREE BARRIER
Once video is translated, how do you share it to the ends of the
earth without a buffering wheel negating its value? How can you
affordably stream it to new regions?
Sovees proprietary compression algorithms can significantly
reduce files sizes while maintaining visual quality, and provide
playback without buffering.
For example, a non-profit organization needed to send a 10-
minute 800MB HD video into the middle of the Borneo jungle.The
typical cost to share it by satellite phone would be $40,000too
expensive for a non-profit or most businesses. Using Sovees video
distribution technology, the same video was shared for just $1.80
a savings of more than $39,000.
That video is now optimized to play on virtually any device and
browser, and in regions with very limited bandwidth, without one
buffering wheel coming up and nagging you to death,notes Sovee
founder Dr. Steve Steele.
To learn more about Sovee technology, contact Sovee at
1+ 855-997-6833 or visit us online at Sovee.com
Sponsored Content Sovee
Why are video cookie-driven digital
ads so annoying to consumers?
They separate them from the
content theyre trying to engage
in, and the targeting is too vague
to be helpful.
Here are five reasons Automatic Content
Recognition is making video monetization
more effective than ever before:
1. ACR engages consumers, rather
than interrupting them.
Imagine you are sitting down to watch
your favorite football teams highlights
online. First theres a pre-roll ad about a
romance film.Then theres a creepy belly
fat ad in the margin.Youre totally turned
off.says Doug Freeman, Sovee VP and ACR
Expert.With ACR, the CDN can instead
populate an ad that offers your teams
season schedule and a place to buy
discount tickets. Now thats as engaging as
the highlight reel - possibly more so.
2. ACR is contextual, so ads can be
highly targeted.
If you sell sports drinks and want to
target consumers who compete in trail
races, your ad not only shows up alongside
relevant video - it is prompted by keywords
in the video,Freeman explains.For
example, every time the announcer in the
video mentions its a hot day - or says the
word thirstythen the ad populates.
3. ACR doesnt rely on cookies.
The recent spotlight on privacy issues
has consumers really concerned,Freeman
notes.As more consumers choose higher
levels of security, cookie-driven models will
become highly ineffective.
4. ACR is instantaneous.
Current digital ad solutions rely on
tracking a consumers behavior over time,
so weeks after youve looked into a
vacation in Holland you start seeing ads
about buying tulips,Freeman says.ACR
lets you engage consumers at the instant
point of influence, when they are most
interested in relevant, related ad content.
5. Consumers say they prefer it.
In a national survey, nearly 70 percent
of consumers said they would find online
advertising relevant IF it was tied to the
content,Freeman notes.They even said
theyd be more likely to click on an ad.
Thats a gold mine for anyone who wants
to monetize video.
Have questions about how ACR advertising
could work in your current CDN or live
stream? Call Doug Freeman toll free at
+1 855-997-6833.
,"The Impact of Contextual Advertising", an APME Online
Journalism Credibility Project in association with the Seattle
Times. 2012.
Automatic Content Recognition
5 Reasons This New Form of Digital
Advertising Makes Video Monetization
More Effective
Powered by
THE SMART WAY TO MONETIZE VIDEO
No consumer annoyance.
Just highly-targeted engagement with
Automatic Content Recognition technology.
Learn more. Call Sovee at +1 855-997-6833
M
any enterprise IT departments are
wary of consumer technology infiltrat-
ing their corporate culture lest they
weaken security, cause workplace distrac-
tions, or worse. That was the case with spread-
sheet software in the 1980s, personal printers
in the 1990s, USB flash drives in the 2000s,
and mobile phones and tablets in the last half
decade. Today, the fear is about wearables,
most prominently, the nascent Google Glass.
With its video camera, voice commands, and
record-what-you-see orientation, it is both ap-
pealing and appalling to corporate users.
The technical capabilities of Glass do not
match professional digital video cameras.
Glass captures still photos at 5 megapixels
and videos at 720p.It holds only 12GB of con-
tent and offers less than an hour of battery
when recording video. Underpowered? Not
when the purpose of Glass in an enterprise
situation is to empower any employee to cap-
ture video and to easily post it to the corporate
video servers. You dont need all that power!
In this article, I reference Sonic Foundrys
Mediasite for the enterprise video server but
systems like Qumu, Polycom (formerly Accor-
dent), or even Kaltura also work. Your media
management system must be able to automat-
ically import an MP4 media file using a sched-
ule or a file scan process, with the goal of mak-
ing the process from capture to consumption
as automatic as possible.
HOW TO MAKE
GREAT ENTERPRISE
VIDEO WITH
GOOGLE
GLASS
By Scott Lawson
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I present two methods for
accomplishing the Glass-to-
media server transport so you
can select what works best for
your enterprise. Glass is in beta
and Glassware is rapidly im-
proving, so while these meth-
ods and tools work today, I ex-
pect more streamlined methods
in the future.
How Glass Works
Glass is a system based on
lightweight connected web
services and Glassware is written in a way
that takes advantage of connections between
applications. Unlike a digital camera, Glass is
not designed to take hundreds of photos, store
them, and upload later. It is oriented to share
the content you create immediately. After re-
cording video you are prompted to say ok
glass > share with and presented with a list
of web services such as YouTube, Facebook,
and Google+ to which you send your video. Af-
ter you share, all of the hard work happens in
the cloud.
Basic Workflow Overview
The first step, of course, is to capture a video
on Glass then share it with a servicefor this
tutorial, either YouTube or a
specific Google Drive folder.
From there you need the file
copied onto your corporate
video file server to be staged
to import into your CMS. If you
are using YouTube, this trans-
fer happens with a tool called Miro. If you are
using Google Drive, the transfer happens with
the Google Drive sync client. Last, your video
CMS imports the files and publishes them to
your employees. This involves applying a tem-
plate, optional metadata, and placing the files
into a catalog depending on your systems ca-
pability and workflow.
The YouTube Glassware Method
Until March of this year, the best path was
to send the video to a YouTube account set up
specifically for the purpose of serving as a stag-
ing area. From there the video is downloaded
using Miro, an open source video processing
software, configured to scan that specific You-
Tube account for new videos. You can see that
workflow in Figure 1.
The Glass-to-YouTube path is reliable and
allows three different options that allows you
to publish in any of three states: Public, Unlist-
ed, and Private. Youll want to use Public so
Miro can get your file.
The Vodo Glassware Method
Vodo is Glassware written by Allen Firsten-
berg that connects Glass to Google Drive. It al-
lows you to select a folder in Drive to send text,
photos, and videos directly from Glass (Figure
2). Compared to the YouTube method, this re-
duces the steps involved and makes obsolete
two of the applications.
For this method, you need to install the Goo-
gle Drive client (http://go2sm.com/driveclient)
that syncs files from your Google Drive to a local
file server. Then, the videos you share with your
Google Drive folder that has been configured in
Vodo will sync to the server. Your media CMS
can be pointed to that folder and import the files.
The downside is that the server will be logged
into Google Drive to sync the files, but that is still
more secure than the public YouTube method
and removes any need to clean up after import.
Technical Setup
Both methods have some elements in common.
Follow the instructions in the following sections to
set up the parts that you need for your method.
Figure 1. The
workflow for
publishing from
Google Glass to
YouTube, then to
your organizations
publishing system
Figure 2. By
using Vodo, you
can streamline
the publishing
process from six
steps to four.
Glass
Supported Glassware is installed by going to
www.google.com/myglass and turning it on as
indicated by the blue checkmark. Unsupported
Glassware can be installed by visiting the app
makers link and connecting their app to your
Glass. You can see I have several apps turned
on in Figure 3. The YouTube app is by Google
and Vodo is one of the newest apps. ViddyEye
and VideoVoyager are two other video-centric
apps for sharing Glass video with others but
their focus is social interactions, and they can-
not be linked to a corporate file server.
In MyGlass there is nothing to set up for the
YouTube app. For Vodo, all you need to do is
turn it on and then select the folder you want
to share your videos to. In Figure 4, you can see
I have selected my images folder.
YouTube
To use the YouTube Glassware method de-
scribed above, you need a YouTube account using
the same Google account with which your Glass is
registered. In the YouTube Channel Settings page
(Figure 5), set the defaults so videos from Glass are
created with a sensible title and description to help
you identify your videos on import. Dont forget to
set the privacy to Public so Miro can find them.
Miro
Miro (www.getmiro.com) is an open source
video tool you install on your corporate video
server. The purpose of Miro is to provide an
automated way to download any video that is
newly created on your YouTube channel. In
Miro, set up a podcast for the videos that are
created with the YouTube gData API (found
at developers.google.com/youtube) URL that
points to a specific YouTube user (the one you
set up before). Essentially this is an RSS feed of
all of your videos from Glass.
After you install Miro, configure this podcast
by choosing Sidebar > Add Podcast and pasting
in an RSS feed URL from the YouTube API. The
URL looks like this: https://gdata.youtube.com/
feeds/api/users/hI3XJ-Jg2XXXXXXXXXX
Vefw/uploads?alt=rss
The boldfaced part above is the specific user
name retrieved from YouTube, redacted for
privacy. To get this unique ID for your user, go
to https://www.youtube.com/account_advanced
for your unique ID for your user and channel.
Copy the User ID and replace it in the URL
above. That is your podcast URL.
When you have the podcast created, Miro polls
YouTube periodically and pulls the videos down
to your server. There are some useful settings in
Miro that work well as shown in Figure 6. It is also
important to set the toggle button at the bottom to
Auto-Download New to ensure anything new is
copied from YouTube to your corporate file server.
Figure 3. Your
MyGlass page
shows the
Glassware you
have installed.
Figure 4. (near
right) Inside the
Vodo app, youll
need to select
which folder you
want to share
your videos to.
Figure 5. (far
right) Setting up
your defaults in
your YouTube
account so that
Miro can find
them
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Google Drive
Setting up Google Drive is straightforward.
The only consideration is you probably do not
want to sync all of the files down to your corpo-
rate server, so go into the preferences and select
Only sync some folders to this computer and
sync the same folder you configured for Vodo.
Media Server
Because there are a number of media CMSs,
I wont go into the exact settings here, but you
should set up the automatic import feature on
your system to poll for new files in the same folder
that your Glass videos are directed to and import
them. Most media servers allow this type of batch
mode processing. The advantage is that the end
user, the person who is recording the video with
Glass, does not have to spend time to learn how
to get the video published into your corporate
media catalog. Using Mediasite server, I set up an
auto-import job that runs every 15 minutes and
looks for new videos. When it finds one (from Miro
import via YouTube or in the Google Drive folder)
it imports it and puts it into a holding folder. From
there, the user can move it to appear in a catalog
or portal that is set up for your enterprise. There
are a lot of variables here depending on the sys-
tem, but the principle is the same.
Best Practices
Making great enterprise video with Glass
involves more than just getting the video from
the device to your corporate video CMS. These
tips can help you get great content.
Speak up, and ask those you are recording
to speak up, because the microphone in Glass
is optimized for the wearer, so voices may be
faint, especially if there is background noise.
The idea of this kind of video is immediacy and
authenticity, not so-called production value, so
dont worry too much about framing, lighting or
minor slip-ups. Of course, the quieter and better lit
the environment, the better the end result will be.
Glass sees things from your point of view, so
dont forget that it is on your head. In an inter-
view situation just do your thing and Glass will
do its thing. Glass makes the camera and the
anxiety that comes with it disappear.
As with most on location videos, you dont
want to record too long. Keep it under 5 minutes
and you employees will be more likely to watch.
By default, Glass only records video for 10
seconds unless you press the top button to ex-
tend the recording. My advice is to start record-
ing, press the button carefully to avoid camera
shake and then begin your introduction.
For the most instant and immediate publishing
you should plan to avoid editing. Its a roadblock!
Plan your shoot, walk through it in your head, or
even make a simple storyboard beforehand.
Be ready to speak your title/intro and go!
Glasss battery is a weak point, and for con-
tinuous video it lasts only about 45 minutes. If
you are out and about, make sure you bring
your charging cable or an external battery
pack, or wait for some battery extenders like
the GAZERglass or PWRglass, both of which
are being developed now.
Ideas for Using Glass in the Enterprise
Equipping your employees with Glass and
setting it up to publish automatically to your
enterprise servers can empower anyone in
your organization to make and publish video
content. They can communicate in a more en-
gaging format and present subjects in a new
light. Use an interview to introduce new em-
ployees to the company or spotlight someone
or a team who is working on an inspiring proj-
ect. If your company is spread out like mine,
make office and campus tours to familiarize
everyone with the locations and the local cul-
ture. Another good use is hands-on . This is
especially useful for workers who need to use
both hands, like mechanics, assembly workers,
and food preparers. Finally, you can take Glass
to your next event and post updates of the pro-
ceedings to all who could not attend.
Final Thoughts
While automatically moving Glass video
from the device to a place where it can be seen
takes some simple setup, the tools to accom-
plish it are free and freely available.
However, the most efficient, flexible and se-
cure method would be use a Glass app to send
Figure 6.
Recommended
Miro settings,
including Auto-
Download New
toggled to on
the video directly from the device to a private,
password-protected FTP server that is avail-
able on the public internet. In Glass you could
Share with FTP, and the app would log in to
the FTP server and deposit the file there. Then
your media CMS could be pointed to the same
FTP server to import the files.
However, there is not a tool at this time that
can do that. I looked at several other promis-
ing options that are based on consumer web
services. Tools like CloudWork, If This Then
That (IFTTT), or Zapier might be even more
flexible because you could then drop the file
into popular enterprise tools like Salesforce.
com, SugarCRM, or SharePoint. The good
news is that both IFTTT and Zapier now have
Google Glass connectors. The bad news is that,
at press time, they both dont quite work yet.
I tried both of those tools to see if I could get
a video file from Glass to these services, but
they are limited in what they send. For exam-
ple, IFTTT will only send a text file (HTML) with
a reference to the video on YouTube. Zapi-
er will send photos to another Zapier action
app, but at present, it only works with photos
not videos. Smart video content management
companies would do well to look into building
connecter for these services.
With Glass and an enterprise media server
recording and publishing video has never been
easier and can be a differentiator for your or-
ganization to help create a successful corpo-
rate culture. When you let go of the A/V con-
trol and dont just leave filming to the pros,
you empower your workforce to see anything,
communicate better, and learn more.
Scott Lawson (scottlawrencelawson@gmail.com) is an enterprise
architect at QAD and along with technology loves music, reading
and writing poetry, studying art, cooking at home, vegetable and
native plant gardening, biking, and fine wine.
L
ast year at the European Broadasting Unions BroadThinking conference, the DASH
Industry Forum (DASH-IF) conducted a survey of 13 major European broadcasters
on MPEG-DASH adoption. At the time, about three-quarters of them projected to
have DASH deployed by end of first half of 2014. Primary sources of concern for the
broadcasters were the availability of DASH enabled clients and packaging tools. One year
later, we havent seen many broadcasters deploying DASH in production, but the traction
seems to have shifted to over-the-top (OTT) content distributors and operators.
So, who are the actors already in production or close to production with DASH? What
are the remaining roadblocks for its adoption? How will DASH be positioned against
existing Adaptive Bitrate technologies in the coming months? What is the exact status
of the DASH standard and its most promising evolutions? What are the upcoming ini-
tiatives aiming at fostering DASH adoption? Lets get a handle on where DASH is today,
and where its headed.
DASH and OTT Services
In the larger video ecosystem, the major OTT video distributors are indeed the most active
DASH implementers. Netflix started using DASH while it was not yet a finalized standard,
and it has become the reference format for all new devices deployments and that almost
all existing applications have been updated to support it. As Netflix wants to maximize the
use of HTML5 players, DASH is in a perfect positionit can easily be handled by Java Script-
based heuristics and the Media Source Extension (MSE) mechanism that is currently
The State of
MPEG-DASH
DEPLOYMENT
By Nicolas Weil
MPEG-DASH is slowly but surely becoming the main competitor to
HLS, driven by adoption by major players and intrinsic strengths.
Heres whos using it now, whos going to be soon, and what
challenges still need to be addressed.
T
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expanding to all brows-
ers. Netflix actually uses
only a subset of the DASH
standard: the ISO Base
Media File format that is
used for the video frag-
ments packaging.
Whats most import-
ant to us is the media file
format, says Mark Wat-
son, director of stream-
ing standards at Netflix.
Our media files are ISO/
IEC 14496-12 MPEG-DASH
compliant filesthats our
strategic format. And ac-
tually those same media
files are used by pretty
much the vast majority
of devices we support right now: TVs, set-top
boxes, Blu-ray players. This format is an overall
advantage that applies to all devices we might
want to get onto: Theres a much greater chance
that the people were working with for those de-
vices already implemented the media format,
that they understand adaptive streaming, and
that the APIs we need on these platform are al-
ready present. One extremely important point
for us is the Common Encryption (CENC), be-
cause we dont want to have our media files tied
to a specific DRM, and it maximizes your cache
efficiency to have only one version of the video
library. Today there are three DRMs compati-
ble with Common Encryption, and we are defi-
nitely using two of them with CENC.
Netflix doesnt, however, use the DASH
standardized manifest format (MPD).
Our implementation predates the DASH
specification by some time, Watson says. Be-
cause the architecture we are pursuing places
manifest parsing and adaptive streaming in
downloadable JavaScript there is no need for
us to update this implementation for DASH
manifest compliance.
Hulu also began deploying DASH early for
Chromecast devices and now uses it for all
new deployments, strictly based on the ISO
base media file format (BMFF) on-demand pro-
file with demuxed essences and using CENC
plus PlayReady and Widevine DRMs.
Implementing DASH has really simplified
our workflow at all levels, and we absolutely
dont regret it. For VOD, MPEG-DASH is really
the equivalent gold standard of MPEG-TS for
the broadcast, says Baptiste Coudurier, prin-
cipal software development lead at Hulu.
When it comes to implementation effort,
Coudurier also has no complaints: DASH play-
er development on Chromecast was relative-
ly straightforward; we coded it from scratch,
based on MSE and EME. We needed this level
of control because of our heavy requirements
with ad insertion. We had more problems with
CDN getting CORS (cross-origin resource shar-
ing) enabled for all players. The results of this
implementation for Chromecast devices were
critical for Hulu, as its reference streaming for-
mat shifted from Smooth Streaming to DASH.
All our new files are 100% DASH compli-
ant; the only difference with Smooth Stream-
ing is the manifest, Coudurier says. We al-
ready moved the legacy platforms to this new
video format, and we now work with vendors to
move to a 100% DASH solution by adding sup-
port for the new manifest format.
YouTube is taking a somewhat more com-
plex approach, using a mix of ISO BMFF H.264
and WebM VP9-based DASH profiles depend-
ing on the players they are targeting, also with
demuxed essences.
Our motivations to implement DASH im-
plementation were to improve playback, en-
able interoperability, and reduce the total
number of formats. As DASH profiles, we use
ISO BMFF on demand and live, as well as
WebM on demand. In terms of codecs, we are
using VP8, VP9, and H.264, explains Richard
Netflix was one
of the first major
OTT distributors
to implement
MPEG-DASH, but
only uses a subset
of the standard, the
ISO Base Media File
Format that is used
for video fragment
packaging.
Leider, tech lead manager of YouTube Player
Infrastructure.
For premium content, YouTube is also us-
ing Common Encryption with multiple DRMs.
Transactional content uses CENC. We use
CENC VP8, and the Common Encrypted VP9
files are just coming down the pipe. We use
Widevine or PlayReady when they are available
on the device, Leider says.
DASH fits in well with YouTubes objectives.
YouTubes goal is always to give users the best
possible video playback experience wherever
they want to watch videos, says Leider. And
so the flexibility the DASH specification gives
us with profiles allows us to make the tradeoffs
as performance and user experience dictate.
Today we are in the process of rolling out
DASH-compatible formats for all of YouTube
videos. Its 98% complete right now.
So is DASH the end of the line for YouTube?
Were always experimenting, but there is noth-
ing experimental about our DASH deployment.
YouTube playback uses DASH
on TVs, game consoles, set-
top boxes, Chromecast, desk-
top browsers, mobile web,
mobile handsets, Leider says.
Our priorities are quality,
interoperability, and efficien-
cy. DASH allows us to meet
these equally. YouTube and
Google havent, however,
made any moves to stan-
dardize its WebM approach.
DASH is also used by at
least one other large media
company as an under the
hood technology to power
its VOD service and cover its upcoming devic-
es. Given this picture, there is no doubt that
DASH has already conquered the VOD market
segment, driven by big actors who have the
budgets necessary to finance R&D and early
implementations. They will not go back to old-
er adaptive bitrate (ABR) technologies, as the
benefits DASH offers in terms of workflow sim-
plification and new platforms reach are quite
significant for them.
DASH and Broadcast
Outside this VOD elite squadron, where
does actually DASH extend its reach? Weve
been waiting for the Hybrid Broadcast Broad-
band TV (HbbTV) 1.5 TV sets for a long time,
and they are finally coming to the consumer
market. In the newest HbbTV specifications,
DASH is the only accepted format when it
comes to DRM-protected content, and deploy-
ments are starting to surface.
Gilles Boccon-Gibod, Intertrusts senior
vice president of technol-
ogy and chief architect,
provides some examples:
We have the most de-
ployments in Europe,
he says. Last November,
we did our first commer-
cial DASH deployment
in France for the myTF1
VOD service on Sony 2013
TVs. We are adding more
TVs if they are TNT2 com-
patible (HbbTV 1.5 + DRM
choice), but we need to
test other TVs before
Hulu began
deploying DASH
first for Google
Chromecast
devices, but the
company is now
using it for all
new deployments.
For VOD, MPEG-
DASH is really
the equivalent
gold standard
of MPEG-TS for
broadcast, says
Hulus Baptiste
Coudurier.
YouTube is
using a mix
of ISO BMFF
H.264 and
WebM VP9-
based DASH
profiles, and
uses DASH to
deliver 98%
of its videos
to all devices.
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whitelisting them as we dont want the users to
debug for us, as we have seen in our lab small
difference between the DASH implementations.
In the same Marlin DRM TV category, Philips
TVs are compatible and will be activated soon.
For PlayReady TVs, we will have models coming
from Samsung, LG, and Panasonic.
HbbTV projects are also getting off the
ground in many countries in Europe, accord-
ing to Dirk Griffioen, CEO of Unified Stream-
ing. We see a lot of broadcasters wanting to
experiment with DASH, like the Norwegian
broadcaster NRK doing a HbbTV POC with us,
or the broadcasters from the TVRing Europe-
an project with their HbbTV testbed, he says.
As regards deployment, we have a project in
southeastern Europe where broadcasters from
several countries are grouped to achieve OTT
delivery to set top boxes through DASH.
In Spain, Albertis Telecom is waiting for
compatible TV sets, according to Thierry Fau-
tier, Harmonics vice president of solutions and
strategy. The company is working with Nagra
on an HbbTV 1.5 service, but compatible TV sets
have been delayed by more than 18 months.
It has been a chicken & egg problem for a
long time, and its just starting to unlock, Fauti-
er says. As TVs are finally coming to the market,
all the efforts deployed shall now be rewarded.
DASH is also gaining traction in other, non-
HbbTV European countries. Since December
in Italy, the new Mediaset Infinity service is
using DASH with Marlin DRM to power VOD
delivery on ADB set top boxes and connected
TVs (LG, Samsung, Sony, Philips, and others)
supporting the Tivon! technology developed
by Tiv, the Italian technical consortium from
Rai, RTI, and Telecom Italia Media, says Boc-
con-Gibod. Adding TNT2 and Tiv, we shall
see 10 services deployed by the end of this
year on our side. Our clients who started us-
ing DASH on devices are also using it when it
comes to deployment on mobile. In the UK,
discussions are also engaged to use DASH as
the reference format for YouViews catchup
contents and, in Australia, Freeview is de-
ploying a HbbTV 1.5 service. These could also
be major boosters for the DASH technology.
LTE Broadcast and Pay TV
The other big adoption driver for DASH is
currently the LTE Broadcast market, which is
booming as the mobile operators finally have
the opportunity to exit the unicast bottleneck
and switch to a multicast delivery mode that
will multiply their per-transmitter capacity.
The trick here is to let the device intelligent-
ly switch between two associated DASH man-
ifests depending on the network/provisioning
circumstances: a single bitrate DASH version
for the broadcast, and a multi-bitrate version
for the delivery through unicast, with the video
fragments being mutualized between the two
delivery channels.
Claude Seyrat, Expways chief marketing
officer, explains the LTE Broadcast advantage.
At some point, when we detect several people
watching the same stream on the same cell at
the same time (usage density), the broadcast
provisioning of the unicast stream is done on
the fly, and when devices consuming the uni-
cast stream detect the broadcast stream with
the same channel ID, they switch transparent-
ly to the broadcast, he says. As regards the
broadcast version of the streams, we dont use
adaptive features of DASH but MPDs and ISO
BMFF packaging, as the bandwidth is secured
like in any managed network context.
When asked if there was another reason
than the 3GPP recommendation to use DASH,
Seyrat confirms: We could have chosen RTP/
RTSP, but its impossible to switch from uni-
cast to broadcast in a clean way. DASH is just
perfect for our use case.
According to Seyrat, Apple is whats slowing
LTE broadcast expansion. We have no prob-
lems implementing on Windows Phone and
Android, and if we had access to modem stack
of iOS we could implement our client also, he
says. When asked if it was considering chang-
ing the current iOS SDK policy to provide such
an access to low-level network features, Apple
had no comment.
Despite this problem with iOS, there are
several LTE Broadcast experiments underway
like Verizons in the U.S. (which was visible
during the Super Bowl) or Telstras in Austra-
lia, and after a first deployment by KT in South
Korea in late 2013 with BuyDRM and Samsung,
we shall see several large commercial deploy-
ments this year on all continents.
There are at least eight operators trials
running right now, and as we go through this
year you will hear more and more operators
seeing the advantage of LTE Broadcast to add
revenue streams and more efficient use of
their networks, says David Price, vice presi-
dent of business development at Ericsson. We
still have to finalize some aspects of the LTE
Broadcast DASH profilewe should expect
the DASH-IF to take the lead in that space
and after that there will be no more factors
that could possibly deter operators from de-
ploying the solution.
What About Apple?
In a different market segment, adoption of
DASH by pay TV operators is slow, according
to Lionel Bringuier, product manager at El-
emental Technologies. In two years nothing
has moved in terms of commercial deploy-
ments in this field, seen from our window, he
says. What has changed is the number of labs:
all U.S. pay TV operators have DASH in lab
now. There is a huge traction in the U.S. But
conversion of lab DASH to production DASH
takes a long time.
Almost all interviewees agreed that the
lack of native DASH support on mobile devices
has hindered the broadcasters deployments.
While this is changing with the Android 4.4 Me-
dia Framework, the Apple world remains fo-
cused on HLSand this is flagged as the num-
ber one factor slowing DASH adoption.
DASH takes so much time to be supported
natively on devices that today we can see peo-
ple try to hack HLS to support HEVC, Bringui-
er says. But its a problem as it not described
in the norm and the day Apple decides to do it
differently..., he trailed off, implying that we
could end up in the same chaotic situation that
crippled PlayReadys interoperability on HLS.
Assuming Apple pushes ahead with HLS and
doesnt move to DASH, Netflixs Mark Watson
says iOS device users could see a drop in qual-
ity of service. The really important thing is the
cache efficiency: the files which are popular
are pushed right to the edge of the network,
close to the user, so the bigger the population
using one set of files, the more efficient that is,
Watson says. And eventually well get to the
state where the only files on the edge caches
are the DASH format ones. There might be oth-
er format files in the system but they will end
up not on the edge caches but rather more on
the central caches. If HLS traffic is a small frac-
tion of the overall traffic and still using a sepa-
rate format, that format doesnt make its way to
the edge caches. And if that files are not on the
edge caches, then the quality of experience that
the users of these devices will get will not be as
good. When asked for their official position on
DASH, Apple also refused to comment.
DASH-Compatible Players
From a wider perspective, the lack of an ac-
cessible solution to develop players is clearly a
problem, and the open-source dash.js project
supported by DASH-IF is starting to solve it, at
least for HTML5 (combined with MSE and EME)
use cases.
Will Law, chairman of the promotion work-
ing group for DASH-IF, calls for volunteers to
strengthen the project: In March we released
the live support in dash.js. This player allows
the common person to do quite sophisticat-
ed adaptive delivery for live and VOD, and in
the future for ad insertion. It is crucial for the
industry, and we want more industry partic-
ipation, we need more full time people on it.
There is a really great case to do media differ-
ently this time around [now] that we have this
open source player that can really be a stable
and production-ready playback vehicle.
Other companies are also working on com-
patible playback solutions. For example, Ash-
ley Still, Adobes director of internet video
product and experience, confirms the compa-
nys interest in DASH.
We think that DASH is a natural evolu-
tion point for customers who are on HTTP Dy-
namic Streaming (HDS) today, but we have no
plans to end of life anything, neither RTMP nor
HDS, she says. But certainly we see DASH as
a great promise of support across many differ-
ent platforms.
Right now our plans are to implement
DASH only into Primetime players, says Rick
Wisher, product manager for Adobe Prime-
time. It wont be available in the mainstream
Flash player. DASH is additive for Primetime.
As we start to add DASH were not taking away
support for other streaming formats. The im-
plementation schedule takes us sometime in
Q3 where we will have DASH cross-platform
availability with the use cases we support to-
day; definitely this year. In terms or support-
ed profiles, so far we have been looking at the
DASH-264 spec from the DASH-IF, but we will
also be working with our customers to figure
out what their needs are as well. In the future as
it becomes widely adopted we will also support
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DASH-265, as we want to
support to UltraHD and
the highest encryption
standards. Adobe cur-
rently supports CENC
in Access DRM, and Still
confirms that will be the
case with DASH.
Microsoft is also work-
ing very actively in the
DASH player area through
a combination of initia-
tives aimed at making
DASH available every-
where, with support for
PlayReady wherever possible. Smooth Stream-
ing SDKs and porting kits enable DASH play-
back on XBox, Windows Phone, and most Win-
dows and Mac platforms, says Kilroy Hughes,
senior digital media architect at Windows
Azure Media Services. The Smooth Streaming
Porting Kit can be used for Smooth and now
DASH streaming on TVs, set-top boxes, disc
players, and other devices. Internet Explorer 11
and other current browsers (such as Chrome)
that support W3C Media Source APIs (MSE) on
Windows 8, Android, etc., provide DASH play-
back in a web page using DASH.js or similar
script. A Flash OSMF plugin is available for
simple applications that run on most legacy
browsers. It supports time addressing of DASH
Segments, but not DRM. At the time of this ar-
ticles writing in early March, Hughes said Mic-
rosoft cant speculate on deployment dates for
XBox and WinPhone in advance.
This methodical work on DASH players is done
to provide a seamless support of Azure Media
Services DASH streams on the maximum of plat-
forms. But it also reflects Microsofts priorities for
the move towards DASH: the absolute respect of
standards and the quest for interoperability.
Azure Media servers produce a DASH ISO
Media Live Profile that conforms to DASH In-
dustry Forum guidelines and UltraViolet Com-
mon File Format, optionally including MPEG
Common Encryption, Hughes says. These
media segments and MPD manifests are ex-
pected to be compliant with specifications in
DLNA, DTG, DVB, EBU, HbbTV, and other or-
ganizations defining interoperable DASH ap-
plication formats and players.
Regarding formats strategy, Microsoft is very
clear: The transition to DASH is irreversible.
DASH will be the preferred format moving for-
ward, Hughes says. Smooth, HLS, and DASH
will all be supported to various degrees. A grad-
ual transition to DASH is likely, but that decision
will be made mainly by services and content
providers adopting DASH. But its definitely a
smooth transition: Smooth Streaming will be
supported as long as there is customer demand;
no end of life date is being considered.
There are many other commercial players
available on the market, but their cost, added
to the cost of the overall migration to DASH
and workflow transformation, is often too high
for existing H.264-based services. This is why
some vendors are providing DASH playback
solutions as part of their product/service of-
feringlike Intertrust, with its Marlin SDK and
ExpressPlay client.
We have seen in the last two years that it
was a missing piece in the puzzle for many cli-
ents, Boccon-Gibod says.
The most noteworthy evolution since IBC
2013, at least in terms of delivery, has been the
progression of the StreamRoot peer-assisted
delivery solution, which relies on HTML5 and
WebRTC, and now supports both VOD and live
streaming in ISOBMFF profiles.
We use MPEG-DASH to do ABR in browsers,
especially Chrome and soon Firefox and Inter-
net Explorer. We chose DASH because its the
easiest to implement with MSE, says Stream-
Root co-founder Nikolay Rodionov. And we
dont regret it, as this is an emerging technology
which we see growing in the upcoming years.
How does this choice relate to the current
state of upstream workflows? Many pure play-
ers use Wowza, so its very easy for them to switch
to DASH, Rodionov says. For TV channels using
Microsoft is working
actively to make
DASH available on all
devices, with support
for PlayReady DRM
wherever possible.
This table shows the
current interoperability
status for DASH,
Smooth Streaming,
and PlayReady.
other solutions, we wait for them to upgrade.
Still, we have one ongoing VOD deployment and
several tests ongoing for live in Europe.
On the delivery side, Akamai is also releasing
a new live DASH ingest service this spring that
will allow broadcasters to overcome the need for
origin servers if they want to stream DASH. In
the packaging area, Intertrust will soon release
an open-source MP4 VOD packager (for Smooth
Streaming and DASH) based on Node.js. EBU is
also working on the MPEG-DASH Reference Test
Platform. This is a reference software workflow
(for both live and VOD use cases) that integrates
open-source solutions like GPAC MP4Box/
Dashcast, FFMpeg, and the Dash.js player, with
support for an extensive features set, including
several subtitling formats and multi-audio.
As all the reference files are coming from en-
coder companies, I thought it would make sense
to craft a reference workflow allowing you to see
whats happening and how files are generated, to
have an always up-to-date reference implementa-
tion when the DASH specification is evolving, says
Bram Tullemans, project manager at EBU. We
want to create some more momentum around the
whole implementation of DASH, a space where
the people could meet and discuss settings and
best practices on the platform. We made it mod-
ular, so we can create new workflows by adding
new modules. Thats what we do for HEVC.
HEVC with DASH is precisely the next step. In
fact, it has already started, says Unified Stream-
ings Griffioen. We have an ongoing project
based on HEVC, DASH, and PlayReady for a Eu-
ropean telcoand its not a lab one, he says.
There are respectable people who dont
see a commercial output for DASH, says Brin-
guier. They think that the day we do HEVC/4K
it will not be in DASH.
But the general opinion is rather positive,
according to Watson. If someone writes a spec
for HEVC and MPEG-2 TS, I guess that could
work with HLS, but for us theres definitely no
reason to explore that. Well be using DASH
with HEVC as well, he says.
Bringuier agrees. One major advantage
of DASH is that it provides a bridge between
AVC and HEVC: it allows you to reuse the
same workflowincluding DRMs and probes
while making the codec evolve. It makes the
workflows future-proofed, he says.
Indeed, DASHs momentum seems unstoppa-
ble. There is no more need to convince people,
Fautier says. DASH-IF has done a good educa-
tion job. Up to now DASH was a soft revolution,
but actually it will transform into a real wave
with HEVC. DASH-IFs Law says the DASH-265
guidelines should be ratified at the organizations
spring meeting and released soon afterwards.
In the near future you will see a lot more
public large scale deployments of DASH,
Law says. It wont be a sudden take-over, but
DASH will dominate in terms of deployments
in 3 to 5 years. Its accelerating already.
Nicolas Weil (nicolas@streamingmedia.com) blogs about innovation
and digital media on blog.eltrovemo.com. He has worked in the
online video industry for more than 13 years and is currently a senior
solutions architect for Akamai.
The European
Broadcast Union
(EBU) has instituted
the MPEG-DASH
Reference Test
Platform, using
the workflow
demonstrated here.
Y
oure streaming a high-profile event in
the not-too-distant future, and youre
wondering about your options for trans-
mitting your video to your streaming
server or service provider. Youre concerned about
quality, reliability, and perhaps redundancy. Youve
read about satellite and fiber, as well as multiple
options for efficiently transmitting over IP net-
works, but youre not sure what they require in
terms of equipment and cost. If this in any way
describes your situation, youve come to the right
place, because these backhaul options are pre-
cisely what Ill be covering in this article.
Lets start with some assumptions. First, you
wont be encoding the streams youll actually dis-
tribute onsite. Instead, youll be sending the sig-
nal elsewhere for encoding, either in the cloud via
live cloud transcoding or to a remote facility with
a bank of hardware encoders that can produce
multiple Flash and HLS streams. Second, your
primary interest is streaming, not broadcast. So
the goal is delivering a reliable 4-8Mbps 1080p
stream to your encoding facility, not a broadcast-
quality signal.
If you asked large event producers to choose a
transport technology even two or three years ago,
fiber and satellite would likely have been first and
second on most lists. Today, however, the avail-
ability of live cloud transcoding, the maturation
of internet connectivity at hotel and conference
centers, and the availability of tools that enhance
IP transport all come together to push fiber and
satellite to the rear for many producers.
For example, Mark East, iStreamPlanets ex-
ecutive director of live event operations, says
his preferred transport method for many live
events changed to IP transport when iStream-
Planet launched its Aventus live video workflow
VIDEO
FOR THE
LONG
HAUL
By Jan Ozer
platform, which includes live cloud transcoding.
Before Aventus, he would have to route the live
signal to one of the companys broadcast opera-
tion centers to encode the stream into the multi-
ple formats and variants necessary for most cli-
ents. Though costly, this is the high-bandwidth
routing that satellite and fiber are designed to
accomplish.
Now, if he can deliver one high quality stream
at 3-5Mbps to the Aventus server in the cloud
(Figure 1), East says he can produce the same
viewer experience at a fraction of the cost. If your
workflow involves live cloud transcoding, say with
the Wowza Transcoder or a service provider like
Brightcove, YouTube Live, or Aventus, you should
explore IP transport techniques first.
Will There be Ethernet?
While sourcing bandwidth from a hotel or con-
ference center used to be problematic, things
have changed.
Most of these internet services are now managed
by third-party service providers who worked the kinks
out years ago, East says. Its been a while since we
had an unrecoverable issue with bandwidth sourced
from a hotel or conference center. However, East
strongly recommends obtaining dedicated bandwidth
rather than broadcasting via a shared connection.
When public IP just isnt
reliable enough, its time
to turn to backhaul options
such as cellmux, satellite,
or fiber to get your video
signal where it needs to go.
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For high-profile events, East
advises having a representative
from the hotel or conference
center on site or on call to swift-
ly resolve any issues. He also
recommends producing two
outgoing streams for redundan-
cy, each pointed to a different
CDN data center. That way, if a
hop between you and one CDN
data center goes down, or if the
data center itself goes offline,
the CDNs back-end can auto-
matically switch to the backup stream and the
show will go on.
Of course, for true outbound bandwidth re-
dundancy, your backup signal needs to use a
different medium than your primary. In this
case, you might consider using a 4G cellular
multiplexing, or cellmux, device, discussed next.
These are also your least expensive options
when your broadcast point doesnt offer Ether-
net but does have 4G/LTE connectivity.
4G/LTE Cellmuxers
A typical scenario for cellmux devices might
be a broadcast from a company off-site event, or
a sporting event where Ethernet isnt available
but one or more cellular towers are closeby.
While you can use a single 4G modem with most
on-camera encoders, this enables a single con-
nection only, and no redundancy, which is why
cellmuxes are preferred.
As the name suggests, a cellmux can use mul-
tiple modems connecting via multiple 3G and
4G services to provide a higher bandwidth and
built-in redundancy. For instance, if youre in a
Verizon dead zone, ATT might have a signal. If
the Sprint circuits get clogged with other traffic,
perhaps its T-Mobile to the rescue. Some devic-
es, such as the LiveU LU70, can deploy up to 14
cellular modems, while less expensive models
from companies like Teradek and LiveGear use
six or fewer, which should be more than enough
for a 3-5Mbps stream. When other signals are
available, some units can also integrate Wi-Fi,
WiMAX, Ethernet, or even satellite connectivi-
ty into the mix to enhance both throughput and
signal redundancy.
Most cellmux units either incorporate an
H.264 encoder or work with a sister product that
provides these encoding functions. You plug
the HD-SDI output from your camera or mixer
into the unit (or combined units), which encodes
your video, divides it up into chunks to distrib-
ute via the different connections and sends these
chunks on their way (Figure 2).
At the other end, these chunks need to be
reassembled into a cohesive stream. If youre
transcoding in the cloud, most cellmux provid-
ers offer a cloud-based service or server, like
Figure 1. The live
cloud transcoding
feature in
iStreamPlanets
Aventus service
makes IP delivery
the preferred
technique.
Figure 2. The two
sides of the cellmux
solution, shown
here in LiveUs
configuration.
Teradeks Sputnik, that can de-mux the stream
and send it to your server. If youre using a
standalone hardware encoder, cellmux provid-
ers typically offer decoder hardware, such as the
LiveGear LGR-1000 receiver, that can demux the
stream and output an HD-SDI signal to feed into
your encoder.
Either way, to utilize cellmux technology, you
need to figure out both the encode and decode
sides of the equation. So you need to buy the cell-
mux and any required modems, sign up with the
various cellular providers, and figure out what
you need on the back end to decode the stream.
For occasional use, you may be better off leasing
the entire package from the manufacturer or a
third-party service provider.
Beyond simple H.264 encoding, these cell-
mux systems offer advanced techniques such as
adaptive bitrate encoding, which matches the
bitrate to the available bandwidth, and forward
error correction to minimize error in the signal.
One competitive and complementary technolo-
gy thats gaining widespread acceptance is Zixi,
which provides an enhanced quality of service
layer over the H.264 stream to reduce latency,
jitter, and packet loss. You can use Zixi to solve
the first-mile problem of getting your video into
the cloud over IP-based technologies, or deploy
it throughout the entire encoding and delivery
workflow. While it might not be appropriate for
a one-off event, it should be on your radar screen
for more regular events.
Meet Zixi
Implementing Zixi involves three compo-
nents: Zixi Feeder, Zixi Broadcaster, and Zixi
Receiver. Zixi Feeder wraps the H.264 encod-
ed stream in the Zixi format and delivers it to
Broadcaster. Feeder is available as either a
standalone program running on a computer
or as a feature in other companies encoders.
Broadcaster, which can run on premises or in
the cloud, can push the stream to your stream-
ing server or transcode the incoming stream
into multiple HLS, HDS, or DASH streams for
delivery to your CDN.
Like Feeder, Receiver can run as a compo-
nent of a decoder product, with both Ateme and
Teradek offering Receiver in several of their
products, or on a separate computer with the
appropriate output card. Receivers job is to un-
wrap the Zixi transport layer and deliver it ei-
ther to the decoder card, say for HD-SDI output,
or as a standalone MPEG transport stream for
transcoding or other deployment.
Zizis pricing depends upon how and where
you acquire the separate components. For ex-
ample, with the Teradek Cube, Zixi costs $1,000
annually. JVC, which is including Zixi in its new
ProHD Broadcaster option for several of its new
cameras, will charge $1,995 for the service (and
necessary hardware) plus a monthly subscrip-
tion. Charges for the Broadcaster component
depend upon a number of factors; contact Zixi
for more details regarding pricing.
Satellite
For the most part, the solutions weve dis-
cussed have required IP transport, either via
Ethernet or 4G. What are your options when this
isnt available, or when you want to supplement
IP transport with another medium for complete
redundancy? This is a situation which Corey
Behnke, head of global production & services
at Livestream, faces frequently, particularly in
New York City, where Livestream produces and
distributes many live events (Figure 3). In these
instances, Behnke typically turns to satellite,
beaming up the signal from the broadcast loca-
tion and routing it back to Livestreams Manhat-
tan offices for encoding.
There are three types of satellites used for live
streaming or broadcast applications: C-Band,
Ku band, and Ka band. The first two, C-Band and
Ku band, are traditional broadcast technologies,
designed, in essence, to input the HD-SDI signal
from the source location and deliver that to the
output location via satellite. For example, your
roving reporter with a satellite truck uplinks the
video signal to the satellite, which is downlinked
via those huge dishes at the local TV station. In
most instances, the output from that signal will
be an HD-SDI feed that can be input into tradi-
tional broadcast equipment, or, in the case of
Livestream, into a real-time encoder.
In contrast, Ka band is an IP-based system.
You encode your stream on location, beam that
up to the satellite, and the satellite service down-
links the signal and can transmit it directly to
your streaming server via the Internet. Though
the 10Mbps signal bandwidth is lower than
C-Band or Ku band, its more than sufficient for
a high-quality 720p or even 1080p stream.
Chances are an established provider such as
Livestream use Ku band satellite, as opposed to
Ka band, because they have the infrastructure
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in place. Livestream uses a satellite fa-
cility owned by All Mobile Video in New
Jersey for its satellite downlinks and
maintains a fiber connection between
the downlink facility and its Manhattan
headquarters. This is both efficient and
affordable when producing multiple
events around the country, but would be
cost prohibitive on a one-off basis.
So if youre thinking about satellite for
a one-off event, Ka band is the natural
first choice. According to Lenny Laxer
from All Mobile Video, you can rent a Ka band
truck, with an operator, for around $2,000 for a
10 hour day, which is the minimum rental peri-
od. The truck includes all necessary equipment,
and upload bandwidth costs $400 an hour. When
budgeting, note that Behnke recommends test-
ing the stream a few hours before the event, and
then going online about an hour before the event
to ensure connectivity. He also advises that when
booking the satellite time, you should reserve 15
to 30 minutes of time at the end of the program
in case the event runs over. Without this reserva-
tion, theres no guarantee that the satellite time
will be available if the show does go long.
Note that All Mobile Video resells the Quick-
SPOT satellite service (Figure 4) from On Call
Communications, which you can read about at
http://go2sm.com/oncall. For occasional use,
renting from a provider like All Mobile Video is
probably the best option. For more frequent use,
you can buy an antenna directly from On Call
Communications.
As with all satellites, youll need line of sight
between the antenna and the satellite, which
can be a problem if youre in a valley or in mid-
town Manhattan. However, there are fewer Ka
band satellites than either Ku or C-band, so if
Ka isnt available, you may have to use Ku or
C-band. In particular, both Ka and Ku are sus-
ceptible to rain fade, or poor performance in
rainy weather, which might leave C-band as
your only alternative.
As mentioned above, with Ku and C-band,
you have to plan for both uplink and downlink.
According to Laxer, C-band trucks, which use a
much larger antenna, cost $4,500 per day for the
uplink truck and $3,500 for the downlink truck,
if necessary. In addition, if broadcasting from a
new location, youll have to survey both sites to
make sure you have line of site; that costs $500
each. Since C-band can interfere with aircraft,
you may have to order an RFI survey to ensure
that your transmission wont; this costs $700.
This is in addition to uplink charges of between
$200 - $600 per hour depending upon bandwidth,
plus downlink charges of around $200/hour.
Ku band trucks cost $3,500 for uplink and
$2,500 for downlink, with the same survey
charges for line of sight, but no survey fee for air-
craft interference. Uplink and downlink charges
are about the same. With both bands, if your con-
tent needs to be secured, tack on another $500
for BISS encryption and $200 for decryption. If
youre considering satellite transmission, East
recommends checking several options, since
pricing can vary greatly among the different ser-
vice providers.
What About Fiber?
Perhaps the most secure method of transmit-
ting video is via fiber, which can carry a signal
as high as 1.5Gbps. The only major issue is avail-
ability, and perhaps cost.
To get the skinny on fiber, I spoke with Derek
Anderson, senior product director for Level 3s
Vyvx (pronounced Vi-vix) business unit. Briefly,
Vyvx is a portfolio of products and services, all
involving video distribution over fiber (Figure
5). Most relevant to our discussion is the broad-
cast fiber component, which lets you transmit
Figure 3.
Livestream
encodes many
live events a year
in its Manhattan
headquarters, many
sourced via satellite
or fiber.
Figure 4. The
QuickSTOP
satellite
transmitter: the
ultimate SUV
accessory
compressed or uncompressed video
from your venue to any destination also
connected with fiber. Though the service
is available for full-time use, such as the
permanent fiber connection discussed
above between Livestreams Manhattan
office and All Mobile Videos satellite
farm in New Jersey, you can also deploy
the service on a one-off basis.
According to Anderson, Level 3 has
fiber it can use in hundreds of high-use
locations and venues. In these instanc-
es, you can book the service just days in
advance. Otherwise, if there is no ex-
isting fiber connection, Level 3 can install one,
either directly or via another fiber provider, but
that adds to both lead time and potentially cost.
To use the service, connect the output from
your camera or switcher to a rack-mounted
appliance, typically called a codec, that Level
3 supplies. Level 3 encapsulates the signal be-
fore it hits the fiber, then transfers those pack-
ets across its global network to the destination
point, where its unencapsulated and output
from a second codec into a broadcast switcher
or encoder. Alternatively, Level 3 can route it
directly to your streaming server for transcod-
ing, or transcode it for you and deliver the
streams to your CDN, or serve as your CDN.
Compared to satellite, fiber has fewer mov-
ing parts, no line of sight requirements or sur-
veys, no trucks, and no bad weather to worry
about. Compared to IP solutions that use the
general internet, working within a managed
network should avoid the packet loss and jitter
that sometimes results from the multiple hops
endemic to the internet. Its the closest thing to
a direct cable connection between your source
and destination locations.
Level 3 is generally mum on pricing, which
in any case depends on the duration and band-
width of the broadcast, as well as whether fiber
is already available on site or needs to be in-
stalled. Their only statement was that basic fi-
ber services are generally comparable in price
to satellite, while pointing out that fiber offers
multiple value-adds that satellite doesnt pro-
vide, like high-speed data and telephony.
iStreamPlanets Mark East says the last time
he used Vyvx, the occasional use fees were a
bit pricier than satellite transmission charges,
but noted that the added costs of site surveys,
truck rental, downlink, and other satellite-re-
lated charges often tip the scales in fibers fa-
vor, unless you have to pay to get the fiber in-
stalled. Behnke says there are likely cheaper
alternatives to Level 3, including The Switch,
Hibernia Networks, and Encompass. He also
noted that while hes only used Vyvx a hand-
ful of times because its not generally available
from his broadcast locations, it worked very
well when he had access to it.
Even with a fiber connection in place, dont
forget about redundancy. As All Mobile Videos
Lenny Laxer points out, if a backhoe comes
through at the wrong time, youre toast. For
the high-profile events that his clients pro-
duce, like the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament,
Laxer recommends fiber for the primary signal
and satellite for the backup.
To summarize, if youre pointing your
stream towards a server in the cloud, as in the
iStreamPlanet Aventus workflow, consider
IP transport mechanisms first, whether sim-
ple Ethernet, cellmux, fiber, or Ka satellite. If
your final target is an HD-SDI signal you can
input into a standalone encoder, the typical
Livestream workflow, consider fiber first, as
the easier to implement solution (when avail-
able), then Ku/C-band satellite. Irrespective
of your target, the best backhaul option for
you depends upon factors like availability and
cost, and you should always check with multi-
ple providers to make sure youre getting the
best price.
Jan Ozer (jan@doceo.com) is a streaming media producer and
consultant, a frequent contributor to industry magazines and
websites on streaming-related topics, and the author of Producing
Streaming Video for Multiple Screen Delivery.
Figure 5.
Level 3s
Vyvx
Network
Operations
Center runs
24 hours a
day.
E
nterprises have been delivering video
over the internet since around 1997,
and were well past the phase of de-
livering video for videos sake. If your
CFO asked you, Has all this streaming video
even remotely paid for itself? could you an-
swer in the affirmativeand back it up? We
went hunting for use cases where streaming
media was clearly financially justified.
Obviously, this can happen in multiple ways.
First, streaming media can provide a cheaper
alternative to an existing practice. Second, it
can open new revenue opportunities. Finally, it
can allow you to extend your marketing reach
beyond what was available using traditional
technologies. Here are six mini-case studies that
are examples of these practices.
Lockheed Martin: Cutting Travel Costs
Eric Hards is the manager of digital media
services for Lockheed Martin. He runs an in-
ternal group in the company that
supports multiple business units,
primarily producing executive- and
director-level all-hands webcasts as
well as internal and external train-
ing events. Hards team produces
between 40 and 60 live events per
year, with an average audience size
of around 1,800 viewers and a peak
audience of around 4,000 viewers.
Hards uses the Sonic Foundry Me-
diasite to capture and deliver live
and on demand presentations. Inter-
estingly, Hards chose Sonic Found-
ry because it was one of the few systems that
didnt require him to install software on the
locked-down computers in conference rooms,
or to ask presenters to deliver slides a day or
two before the event. Instead, the Mediasite
capture stations accept and capture the graph-
ics output from the presenters computer in
THE ROI OF
ENTERPRISE
WEBCASTING
Cost savings, new revenue opportunities, and
extended reach all come into play when determining
whether or not webcasting is worth the investment
By Jan Ozer
real time, so theres no need to install software
or bug the presenter for slides in advance.
Before implementing the Mediasite solu-
tion, most meetings were face-to-face, which
meant lots of expenses. Hards rule of thumb
estimate of travel cost for each attendee of a
two-day event was around $2,000, so a 50-person
event started at around $100,000. Thats be-
fore you add the cost of facilities and other
associated expenses.
Hards wouldnt disclose the costs of the Medi-
asite system itself, which probably would be ir-
relevant anyway because pricing depends upon
a number of factors, including company size.
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He did note that Lockheed
Martin considers the Media-
site system a centralized
enterprise service with the
cost spread over the vari-
ous business units.
Beyond the allocated costs,
if a business unit wants to
host a webcast, it needs to
buy and maintain its own lec-
ture capture station from
Sonic Foundry, which costs
$25,000 for the desktop ver-
sion and $27,000 for the
mobile version, according to
the company. Most business
units already have cameras
and related audio and lighting gear, so the ad-
ditional investment in hardware was minimal
in most cases. They also had knowledgeable
shooters and audio technicians, and since
webcasts are only held about once a month in
most business units, they didnt need to add
personnel to run the units. Overall, Hards esti-
mated that most business units would easily
recoup the costs of the capture station in 18
months or less.
Though Hards has never calculated the hard
return on investment from the Mediasite system,
he knows its saving Lockheed Martin money be-
cause he often gets requests from different busi-
ness units to convert an existing live event to a
webcast. As travel budgets get cut, an increasing
number of business meetings, and particular-
ly training sessions, are going virtual or hybrid,
where local employees attend the meeting in
person while others attend via Mediasite.
Hards noted that Lockheed Martin is also
saving significant money by replacing man-
aged teleconferencing services with a Medi-
asite webcast. Specifically, Lockheed Martin
hosts many audio-only events where partic-
ipants used to dial in over a third-party con-
ferencing service, resulting in a significant bill
for a one-hour event. Since most participants
really didnt need live interaction, however,
Hards can produce an audio-only webcast at
no real incremental cost to Lockheed Martin.
Centerplate: Cutting the Cost of Intercompany
Communications
Centerplate is a hospitality company that
handles concessions and fan services at
approximately a quarter of NFL stadiums, in
addition to other venues across the globein
2014, the company will serve more than 115
million guests over 350 venues worldwide. If
you had a burger at Mile High Stadium in Den-
ver or a beer at Qualcomm Stadium in San Di-
ego, chances are it was served by Centerplate.
The very nature of Centerplates business
means that its workforce of more than 45,000 is
scattered around the world, which complicates
important communications. Last December,
the company had an important announcement
that significantly impacted global operations.
In the past, upper management would have
travelled around the U.S. and Europe for ma-
jor company announcements and briefed em-
ployees in centralized locations, which was ex-
pensive, time-consuming, and failed to deliver
the message quickly.
For example, to announce their recent merger
with a U.K. company, 10 Centerplate executives
flew to London and employees were brought in
from around Europe, at an estimated cost of over
$50,000. For other events, they tried audio-only
bridge lines, which the company found unwieldy.
For the recent announcement, it was im-
portant to give everyone the same informa-
tion all at once, in a personal manner, direct
from the CEO. Centerplate broadcast the
event live using Livestream. After consider-
ing several options, Bob Pascal, Centerplates
chief marketing officer, chose Livestream
because they had the technology platform
that could handle the bandwidth and speed,
and because we were impressed with their
personnel, particularly in customer service.
Lockheed Martin
uses webinars
to cut travel and
the other costs
of face-to-face
meetings.
Centerplate staffed the announcement with
its own crew of three, with an interviewer chatting
with the CEO, and on-demand clips interspersed
through out. The company handled all produc-
tion, with Livestream encoding and distribut-
ing the stream. Pascal estimates that produc-
ing the live event cost less than $15,000, a
significant savings over their previous events in
cost as well as other non-monetary expenses like
travel time.
Pascal was quick to note that the merger-re-
lated travel was money well spent. Oftentimes
you really do need to be face-to-face. Howev-
er, for major time-sensitive announcements
in which it is imperative that everyone has an
opportunity to see and hear the information at
once, he wanted a solution that delivered as
close to the live event experience as possible.
In a choice between personal,
face-to-face delivery and time
sensitivity, the phased deliv-
ery of a road show style tour
often diluted the impact of the
message.
Our business depends upon
getting people to live events, and
we believe in the power of the
gathering, he says. But when
assembling our entire team to-
gether in person proved imprac-
tical due to numbers, geography,
and time, we found Livestream
was able to add a sense of im-
mediacy, energy and excitement
that we were seeking. In short, Livestream most
closely replicated the live event experience.
AICTC: Cutting Travel Costs and Reducing the
Carbon Footprint
The American Institute of Certified Tax
Coaches (AICTC) trains and certifies tax pro-
fessionals with the Certified Tax Coach (CTC)
designation. To gain and retain certification,
members must attend an initial three-day
training session followed by 25 hours of con-
tinuing professional education each year.
The organization was founded in San Diego
in 2009 by CPA Dominique Molina. Initially, the
organization conducted all training, continu-
ing education, and support at centralized lo-
cations around the country, which meant that
she and her instructors had to travel to these
meetings, as did members not locat-
ed in that particular training loca-
tion. Not only was this costly in terms
of time and money, but it also limited
their ability to perform these activi-
ties and deliver other benefits of the
organization, like networking. After
several years of this status quo, Mo-
lina wanted to find a way to increase
these services without additional
travel and expense.
After evaluating several web con-
ferencing systems, Molina chose Ci-
trix GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar
for several specific reasons. First, the
AICTC had to document class partic-
ipation to award CPE credits, which
GoToWebinars polling and reporting
capabilities enabled.
Centerplates
business is
about delivering
the best live
experience;
it chooses
Livestream
because they
felt the service
most closely
replicated that
experience.
The American
Institute of
Certified Tax
Coaches uses
webinars to
reduce training
costs and provide
other services to
its members.
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Second was the ability to share the present-
ers screen in real time, which is one of the
major differences between most webcast and
conferencing systems. Specifically, with most
webcast systems, you upload a PowerPoint
deck that gets displayed during the event, usu-
ally without any animations or transitions. In
contrast, conferencing systems like GoToWe-
binar broadcast whatever is showing on the
presenters screen. Molina obviously favored
the second approach. It is imperative to our
business that we share our screen and go
through our slide presentation, she says.
Overall, Molina estimates that the AICTC
has reduced corporate travel costs by more
than $100,000 per year, while saving their
members the time and expense of travelling
to the meetings. While Molina wouldnt discuss
her webcasting costs, GoToWebinars standard
pricing for up to 500 attendees is $399/month,
or $3,828 when paid in one lump sum for a year.
That said, Molina makes it clear that GoToWeb-
inar is not only about cost savingsits allowed
her to offer more services to existing members
and extend the AICTCs marketing reach. For
example, while on-site meetings have been cut
to three or four per year, she now offers weekly
training webinars to groups of 50 to 75 members.
Shes also added a new service called master-
minding where groups of six to eight members
can meet to share ideas, plans, and goals, which
provides a group accountability thats pro-
duced amazing results.
On the marketing front,
Molina uses GoToWebinar to
offer free introductory train-
ing courses to prospective
members, so they can test
drive the key benefits of the
organization. This market-
ing vehicle has proven so ef-
fective that AICTC no lon-
ger exhibits at trade shows,
since she can meet pros-
pects in a classroom envi-
ronment, which is what we
specialize in.
GoToWebinar also allowed
Molina to meet another goal:
reducing the carbon foot-
print of her organization
and its members by more
than 200 tons per year. To
calculate that figure, she took the average
number of webinar attendees and multiplied
it by the average emissions associated with
travelling to an AICTC event. We are a very
green company, and the reduction in our car-
bon footprint with web conferencing has been
tremendous, she says.
CommPRO.Biz: Finding New Sources of Revenues
Looking beyond cost savings, there are
many instances where online video enables
new revenue channels that couldnt otherwise
exist. One example is CommPRO.biz, an on-
line media platform for business communica-
tions professionals. Founded in October 2010,
the company has six employees in its offices on
midtown Manhattans Park Avenue South.
According to co-founder Fay Shapiro, Com-
mPRO.biz is like the Huffington Post for B2B
marketing professionals, with six content ar-
eas stocked almost exclusively with sponsored
content. Website visitors include more than
75,000 C-suite executives, who visit the site to
read the content, share their opinions and col-
laborate with others.
CommPRO.biz grew by 72% in 2013, and one
growth area is sponsored webcasts, which ac-
counts for about 30% of the companys reve-
nue. Though CommPRO.biz does collaborate
with brick and mortar events, Shapiro says
that 99.5% of our events are virtual. The obvi-
ous reason is reach. Our audience is global,
Shapiro says. Some recent webcasts pulled
Webinars like
this one produced
using the TalkPoint
system became
a major source
of revenue for
CommPRO.biz.
over 11,000 viewers from the U.K., and over 5,000
from Australia. You cant reach that kind of dis-
tributed audience at a traditional live event.
CommPRO.biz produces three or four web-
casts a month, most using the Onstream Media
Platform. Shapiro, who had worked with multi-
ple webcasting systems in previous jobs, chose
Onstream because theyve got great technology
and pricing, and the Onstream team, which
helps us coordinate and produce events, is abso-
lutely five-star, a critical component of their
overall value proposition.
Even when participating in traditional events,
Shapiro strongly advocates a live online pres-
ence. You have to use webcasting to carry the
live event beyond the brick and mortar; its not
either or, its both.
SiliconANGLE: Monetizing New Eyeballs
SiliconANGLE.com is another example of
a business that uses online video in ways that
would not be affordable with traditional tech-
nologies. By way of background, SiliconANGLE
was founded by John Furrier in 2009 as a re-
al-time news site focusing on technology and
related companies.
One of the companys principal audience ac-
quisition tool is broadcasting live from industry
conferences that are large enough to generate
a significant worldwide audience but not large
enough for traditional broadcasters. In 2013, the
company broadcast from conferences such as
Amazons AWS Summit, Accel Partners Sympo-
sium, IBM Flash, and EMC World, often stream-
ing live from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for multiple days.
Furrier estimates that
live consumption of con-
tent from these events
outnumbers on-demand
by about 10-to-1, with
David Pogue and other
techno-celebrities draw-
ing more than 100,000 live
views when he spoke at a
recent IBM conference.
We focus on events that
otherwise dont get cov-
ered, Furrier says, like
ESPN back in the day
with the NCAA Tourna-
ment.
While the company
uses its own homegrown
appliance for productionFurrier boasts that
they can roll in and be ready for a six-camera
shoot in under and hourthe company quick-
ly eschewed developing its own live streaming
service, opting first to go with Justin.tv and lat-
er switching to Ustream for conferences. When
youre streaming 13 hours a day, the transit costs
alone would have killed us, Furrier says.
Though SiliconANGLE still uses Justin.tv
for some broadcasts, it switched to Ustream
for conferences because of Ustreams superior
analytics and quality, which Furrier felt helped
take their broadcasts to the next level. He
sees Ustream as the DevOps for media com-
panies like SiliconANGLE, providing both the
software production and distribution environ-
ment and the distribution structure that few
companies could afford on their own.
According to Furrier, affordability is key.
Though some costs of the live webcasts are
covered by sponsorships, the company primar-
ily monetizes the audience through their blogs
and research organization. Our live broad-
casts have synergy with other areas, he says,
but without Ustreams ability to make it af-
fordable, we probably couldnt make it work.
Experian Data Breach Resolution: Dramatically
Expanding Marketing Reach
Experian Data Breach Resolution, powered
by the nations largest credit bureau, is a lead-
er in helping businesses plan for and mitigate
consumer risk following data breach incidents.
Traditionally, the company has marketed its
services through email, direct mail, website,
SiliconANGLE
captures
thousands of
eyeballs at
conferences
like the AWS
Summit that are
too small for
traditional news
organizations.
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and event marketing. Accord-
ing to brand management coor-
dinator Brandon Tarnow, these
methods had some significant
limitations.
Our integrated mix of tra-
ditional marketing could only
generate so much awareness
with our opt-in list, and we
wanted our event and engage-
ment to live well beyond our
standard reach of in-person
show attendees, he says.
Accordingly, the last few
times an Experian executive
spoke at a privacy conference,
Tarnow decided to stream the
event live. We were seeking to amplify the
impressions from a presentation by our ex-
ecutive, and gain more brand awareness with
other potential clients that didnt attend the
conference, he says.
Experian turned to Ustream for several rea-
sons. First, Ustream offered a completely turn-
key service, bringing in all necessary equip-
ment and personnel. They handle all of the
production, and we simply show up with our
computer to present, Tarnow says.
Second, because of Ustreams social me-
dia support, they were able to add live Q&A
for those watching the broadcast, enhanc-
ing interactivity and engagement. The live
broadcast also allowed Experians PR team
to leverage the presentation among the press
and other media via a press release with the
stream URL.
Finally, Ustreams LiveAd feature allowed
Experian to meet greatly expanded view-
er targets for the event. Heres how LiveAd
works: Before the event, Ustream meets with
Experian to identify their target audience and
set viewer targets. Then, Ustream creates a
media plan that identifies websites that align
with those targets. Ustream distributes the
content to these websites during the event,
spilling over to rebroadcasts or on-demand
broadcasts if the targets arent met. To har-
vest leads, viewers who click the player in the
embedded website are taken to an Experian
page where they can enter contact and other
information.
While Experian declined to share cost in-
formation, its obvious that none of this came
cheap. On the other hand, with a high-value
service like Experians, the ability to extend
their message beyond the 200 attendees in
the room to a guaranteed relevant audience
seems like a wise investment. As Tarnow con-
cluded, Their syndication efforts really help
inject life into the panel in a big way. An event
can quickly go from a few thousand views to a
few hundred thousand views.
Hypothetically, if the proverbial CFO hap-
pens to sit at Tarnows desk, and asks whether
his investment in streaming media expense
has paid for itself, youd have to think he could
say yes, and back it up with evidence. After all,
Experian has produced multiple events with
Ustream using this schema. While its not for
every company and every product, Ustreams
services would likely have been fully funded
and more if even a handful of the hundreds of
thousands of impressions that Ustream deliv-
ered converted into a client.
As I said at the start, justifying streaming
media isnt all about saving money, though
obviously thats a meaningful component. Its
also about opening up new revenue or cus-
tomer acquisition channels and expanding the
reach of traditional brick and mortar events. I
hope these stories have given you some direc-
tionnow the ball is in your court.
consultant, a frequent contributor to industry magazines and websites
on streaming-related topics, and the author of Producing Streaming
Video for Multiple Screen Delivery.
Experian
leverages
trade show
presentations
into thousands
of affiliate views
via Ustream.
L
et me be up front about this. Vidizmo
EnterpriseTube is the first corporate
YouTube product that Ive reviewed.
So if youre looking for a comparative
analysis detailing how the product stacks
up with other options, this, unfortunately,
isnt it. On the other hand, if youre curious
about what a corporate YouTube does and
how it works, well, we can take that journey
together. You in? Lets get started.
At a high level, the term corporate You-
Tube says it all; its a mechanism for em-
ployees, customers, and other partners to
upload and share video-related content. The
very nature of corporate life, of course, intro-
duces some particular concerns. For exam-
ple, you probably need a very tight moder-
ation function so the C-level execs dont see
those videos from the last sales retreat. Yeah,
those. You probably also need to moderate those
comments that seem so funny on YouTube, but
could be career-limiting inside the firewall.
Beyond that, you need to manage who gets to
see what, both inside and outside the organiza-
tion. You want the videos to play on the patch-
work of platforms and devices that your viewers
will attempt to watch them on. You probably
also want single sign-on and integration with
your existing corporate portal, plus the ability to
track the performance of all videos, and whos
been watching which videos and for how long.
Vidizmo EnterpriseTube does all this, and a
whole lot more.
Vidizmo EnterpriseTube is the productiza-
tion of a discrete set of features from a compre-
hensive media management and distribution
platform created by Vidizmo. Other products
carved out in a similar fashion include Media-
Tube, which lacks functions like the ability to
work with SCORM content; MediaLMS, which
adds SCORM back in; and Media Commerce,
which includes monetization via a paywall,
shopping cart functionality or advertising sup-
port. Complicating these product comparisons
even further, MediaTube and EnterpriseTube
have standard and premium versions with dif-
ferent feature sets. Vidizmo has a features table
that shows you exactly whats what at http://
go2sm.com/vidizmo.
I worked with the premium version of Enter-
priseTube, but focused most of my attention on
core features. For example, the premium version
can import SCORM content, produce live events,
produce interactive video with quizzes, polls and
surveys, and edit video within the media man-
agement system. As youll see, I had my hands
full figuring out the content upload, moderation,
and approval workflow, plus testing playback
functionality, so I spent no time on these extras.
You can see the fruits of my efforts in Figure 1,
the Streaming Learning Center EnterpriseTube
with two channels and about 30 total videos. As Ill
explain in more detail below, each viewer sees a
different view of the home page depending upon
their rights. Figure 1 is the administrators view
of the Streaming Learning Center channel, with
complete access to all channel options (on the
left) and other administrative options via the Ad-
min menu option at the top of the image. Users
with view-only rights see very little of these con-
trols, with videos presented as three categories;
Most Recent, Most Popular, and Most Viewed.
In terms of architecture, you can access En-
terpriseTube as a hosted cloud application or
review
Vidizmo EnterpriseTube By Jan Ozer
Figure 1.
My Vidizmo
EntepriseTube
review
on premises in a private cloud. Pricing ranges
from $5,000 to $100,000 or higher depending
upon the number of users, channels and fea-
tures. If you scan the aforementioned features
table, youll note that some functions, such as
moderation and integration with SharePoint,
SiteCore, WordPress, Drupal, and other CMS,
are optional. So if you get into a pricing discus-
sion, be sure to understand whats included in
the system youre purchasing, and what isnt.
Lets start with a look at how content is orga-
nized and secured, then move into the content
production workflow.
Content Organization
Content is organized by channels, each with
its own membership type, which can follow one of
four preset configurations, or be completely cus-
tom. For example, public channels can be viewed
by anyone, even anonymous viewers on the in-
ternet. Internal channels can be accessed only by
authenticated viewers, while restricted channels
can only be viewed by authenticated viewers with
permission to view that channel. Finally, hidden
channels can only be viewed by administrators
and are hidden from the directory. Beyond ac-
cess and membership, channels can be branded
differently for a completely different appearance.
As the name suggests, channels provide a
simple way to direct videos to certain groups,
or to configure groups of videos in certain ways.
For example, you could have one channel for
sales that only sales personnel could access,
and another for human resources that all em-
ployees can access. You might decide to enable
viewers of these internal channels to add com-
ments and ratings, but not spread the word via
social media functions.
You could also create a channel accessible
over the general internet, but let viewers embed
those videos, rate them, and share them through
Twitter and Facebook, but not leave comments.
Though you can customize some features within
a channel on a video-by-video basis, its simplest
if you just create a channel so you can assign
rights to multiple videos at one time.
You set viewing rights and these video-relat-
ed features in the General Settings tab shown
in Figure 2 (set for Restricted membership).
Assuming you have the required authorization,
you can override these selections for single vid-
eos, but in most instances, youll simply default
to these settings for all uploaded content. As you
can see on the left in Figure 1, all channels can
also have categories, which allow further seg-
mentation of the channel content.
Further to the right in the tabbed menu in
Figure 2, you see the Login options tab, which is
opened in Figure 3. Here you choose how view-
ers can log in to the channel: directly into the
Figure 3.
(near left)
The features
accessible
in the Login
tab of the
Settings
control
Figure 2.
(far left) Setting
high-level
configuration
options for the
entire channel
EnterpriseTube system, through a
shared corporate login for single sign-
on, or through a third-party login from
accounts like Google, Twitter, or Face-
book. You also set options for restrict-
ing how and where channel videos can
be embedded or shared, as well as as
how long a user can remain logged in
without any activity.
Managing Users
There are five defined user roles
that you can customize as desired.
Starting with users with the least
rights, Viewers can watch published
content and perform functions such
as ratings and comments. Contribu-
tors can view and upload content but it must be
approved by a manager or moderator before
publication. Moderators can view, upload, pub-
lish, and moderate content, but cant change
channel settings or invite new users. Managers
have complete control over a channel, includ-
ing viewing, uploading, approving, creating or
scheduling a live or on-demand presentation,
setting embedding options, viewing analytics,
and managing users. Administrators can man-
age branding, create new channels, and man-
age users, though they cant upload or manage
content within a channel; thats owned by the
moderator and managers.
If youre using EnterpriseTube within a com-
pany with an existing login and security infra-
structure, you can work with Vidizmo to inte-
grate your existing users into the system and
then assign rights and channels within which
they can view content. Otherwise, you invite
participants to join the party by sending emails
within the system with a typical login and pass-
word selection workflow.
As mentioned above, when users log in, their
main channel page is customized for the activi-
ties that they can perform and the content they
are authorized to view. So a Viewer sees only
content, while a Contributor also has Add New
and My Media buttons to upload and manage
new content. Administrators see all the controls
shown in Figure 1.
The Content Creation Workflow
The typical workflow starts with a Contribu-
tor uploading a video (Figure 4). After selecting
the video, the Contributor chooses a category
for the video, adds a title and description and
presses Upload. In my workflow, a Contributor
doesnt have the right to publish a video, just
upload it, so it has to be approved by a Mod-
erator, Manager, or Administrator. As you can
see, Contributors have no ability to set config-
uration options that dictate usage rights, such
as who can watch the video.
Note that the screen shown in Figure 4 is
the upload screen used when Silverlight is
installed. If Silverlight were not installed, the
contributor would see an HTML5 upload screen
with only the ability to browse for the file, se-
lect the category, and enter a description and
tags (all these functions are in the Basic Set-
tings of the screen shown in Figure 4, accessed
via that tab on the upper left). So contributors
can upload files with or without Silverlight in-
stalled; they just have more access to features
with the plugin. However, for full access to me-
dia management functions, moderators, man-
agers and administrators will need Silverlight,
Figure 4.
Step 1 of
the content
creation
workflow
review
though the company is working to
implement HTML5 controls over
these functions.
On my Windows test stations, all
Silverlight-related functions worked
perfectly. On my MacPro, I suc-
cessfully uploaded files in Firefox,
Chrome, and Opera, but not Safari. I
performed a lot of testing on the
MacPro, however, and the Safari-
related upload problem was the only
one I encountered. Im not particu-
larly fond of Silverlight, but it worked
very well in these tests.
To complete the Silverlight-related picture,
on the playback side, viewers do not need Silver-
light for simple audio/video playback. But if you
create rich media presentations using Vidizmos
tools, say integrating PowerPoint slides and vid-
eo, viewers without Silverlight will only be able
to see the audio/video component. Mobile view-
ers also only see the video portion. All this will
change when Vidizmo implements HTML5 play-
back, but thats not here yet.
OK, back to the narrative. Once the Contribu-
tor uploads the file, it gets sent to encoding.com
for encoding; though EnterpriseTube is built
on top of Microsoft Azure, the encoding func-
tion within Azure is not used by default. With
encoding.com, you get your choice of playback
station-specific presets to enable and disable,
but you cant adjust the specific encoding con-
figuration options. Encoding was very fast; I was
uploading very small files and they usually were
transcoded by the time I moved from the contrib-
utor-upload role to the manager-approval role.
What happens next depends upon how the ap-
proval and notification process is set up. Specif-
ically, you can configure Moderators, Managers,
and Administrators to receive an email when a
video is ready for review. Then they enter Media
Management module (Figure 5) where they can
watch the video, if desired, then approve or re-
ject the video, or review its settings. All these op-
tions are controlled by the eponymous buttons
on the left of Figure 5. If no email notifications
are set up, someone with approval authority will
have to open this view to moderate the videos
from time to time.
When anyone with review authority clicks
Settings, that user sees essentially the same
controls the contributor does with Silverlight
installed, as shown in Figure 4, which they can
modify and then approve, except for options re-
lating to who can watch the video. Again, these
can only be changed by modifying the member-
ship type in the General settings field shown in
Figure 2. Since only Administrators or Managers
have access to these controls, once high-level
access-related options are set, those with lower
management rights cant change them, by acci-
dent or on purpose.
Note that if you do decide to change the ac-
cess rights to videos in a channel, this change
automatically flows through to videos already
uploaded, in addition to all videos uploaded after
the change. This will likely be very convenient in
practice, since having to manually change access
rights to previously uploaded videos one at a time
could be catastrophically time-consuming.
While on the subject, note that in Figure 4,
were allowing viewers to share and embed the
video, which seems at odds with the restricted
viewing. In both cases, however, before a viewer
can actually watch the embedded video or the
video linked via social media, theyll have to log
in to the system with the necessary access rights.
So, the restricted viewing is maintained even
though the video can be shared via social media
sites or embedded.
Figure 5.
Heres where
Moderators,
Managers, and
Administrators
go to review
and approve
videos.
Viewing the Content
Once a video is approved, it transfers
into the general library where it can be
viewed from there, or embedded into a
web page via standard embedding con-
trols. There are three players available
within the EnterpriseTube: Silverlight,
Flash, and HTML5, and administrators
and managers can select their priori-
ty. For example, if the order is HTML5,
Flash, and then Silverlight, the playback
device will try HTML5 first, then fallback
until it finds a compatible player. This is
the order I used during my testing and
the HTML5 player is shown in Figure 6.
Within the Manager or Administrator
interface, you can choose or customize
a theme for your Silverlight player (but
you cant customize the Flash or HTML5
players). Customization options are limited;
for example, even though you can change the
colors of player controls, you cant control the
controls actually used in the player.
The HTML5 player itself is functional, but not
exotic, more Prius than Jaguar (Figure 6). Still,
it gets the job done. The only real complaint is
that you dont have typical playlist controls to
determine which videos get shown on the right
of the player. When I mentioned this to the
company, they responded that this feature was
in the pipeline.
During playback, EnterpriseTube supports
adaptive streaming via Smooth Streaming
to Silverlight, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) to
Flash via the JW Play-
er, HLS to iOS devices
with fallback to a single
MP4 file for Android. On
computers and Android
devices, you can also
choose a stream manu-
ally, so if youre willing
to wait for absolute top
quality, you have that
option.
On both Mac and
Windows workstations,
playback was flawless, as was access to com-
mon controls such as full screen mode, adding
comments, and flagging contentand the like.
On mobile devices, the results were mixed. To
test mobile, I ran through a two video test that
involved playback of a 2-minute and 48-minute
video; its not exactly the Iron Man of mobile
testing, but I wanted to simulate a typical use
case. Specifically, with each video, I started at
the beginning, watched for a few seconds, then
tried to go to full screen. Then I dragged the
playhead to the middle of the video to see how
long it would take the player to respond. The
results are presented in Table 1.
Overall, playback performance was very
good; given the problems Ive seen with other
Figure 6.
Heres the
HTML5 player;
functional,
but not the
most exotic
around.
New
iPad
iPhone
4S
iPad 1 Nexus 10 Toshiba
Thrive
Play rst video Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass
Drag to one minute Pass Pass Pass Audio starts immediately,
short delay before video plays
Pass
Go full screen Pass Pass Fail Pass Pass
Return to regular Pass Pass NA Pass Pass
Play second video Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass
Drag to 20 minutes Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass
Full screen Pass Pass Fail Pass Pass
Table 1.
Mobile
playback
performance
services playing reliably on Android devices,
I was impressed. The only absolute fail was
on my ancient iPad 1, which refused to go full
screen.
Otherwise, during playback, the equally
ancient Thrive and iPad 1 were also sluggish
in the controls; sometimes you had to tap the
screen multiple times for the controls to ap-
pear, likely the result of too much CPU being
consumed during playback. On the Android
tablets, you can choose the desired stream,
and both units were much more responsive
with 360p than 720p.
Comment Moderation
Speaking of comments, you can choose
to moderate them or not, but the com-
ment approval workflow isnt as efficient
as the video approval process. Leaving a
comment is straightforward; the viewer
types in the comment (Figure 7), and if its
moderated, theyll see a message inform-
ing them that the comment is being sent
for moderation.
One or more Moderator, Manager, or
Administrator should elect to receive an
email notifying them that a comment has been
made and identifying the channel and video.
When they click the video, they jump to me-
dia management area, where they first have
to find the video, then edit, approve, reject, or
delete the comment.
Unlike approvals, there is no single screen
like the one shown in Figure 5 where you can go
to review all comments; you have to hunt and
peck in the videos in the media management
area. Though Vidizmo plans to add a comment
administration feature similar to Figure 3 in
the near term, working with lots of comments
will be frustrating until its available.
Similarly, users can flag inappropriate con-
tent, resulting in another email to a higher au-
thority which links to the media management
area, but not the specific video or an adminis-
trative panel with all flagged content. For high
volume use, Vidizmo needs to streamline deal-
ing with comments and flagged content.
Wrapping Up
On the analytics side, Vidizmo offers a com-
prehensive list of video and user-based ana-
lytics as shown in Figure 8. These let you track
the performance of each video, and also which
users, or groups of users, watched which videos
and for how long. I scanned many of the reports,
and the only major gap I found was the lack of
an engagement graph showing how long users
watched a particular video. This too, is in the
works. Beyond the internal reports, you can also
send the data to Google analytics and export
data for crunching in Excel.
Also in the works is documentation for the
product, which has been outlined but not yet
written. With all this, and the transition from Sil-
verlight to HTML5, Vidizmo has a lot on its de-
velopment plate, though I guess products of this
scope are always somewhat of a work in process.
Overall, I found the product very functional and
reasonably useable, though my pokings and prod-
dings were admittedly focused and limited. Every
organization will need different features and dif-
ferent workflows. Before considering any corpo-
rate YouTube product, you should spend a few
hours mapping out the content insertion and cre-
ation workflows, and viewing scenarios, as well as
security and analytics requirements. Buying a cor-
porate YouTube is a major investment of cash and
particularly time, and the more time you spend
on needs and requirements up front, the better
chance you have of choosing the right system. And
if youre considering a corporate YouTube system,
Vidizmo should definitely be on your list.
consultant, a frequent contributor to industry magazines and websites on
streaming-related topics, and the author of Producing Streaming Video
for Multiple Screen Delivery.
Figure 7.
Adding a
comment to
a video
Figure 8.
Reports
available
from the
EnterpriseTube
PUBLISHED BY
THE ENTERPRISE
VIDEO SUPERGUIDE
PLATINUM SPONSORS
GOLD SPONSORS
SILVER SPONSORS
VOLUME 1, NO. 3 OF A SERI ES OF BUYER S GUI DES TO PRODUCTS AND SERVI CES
WP64 Superguide 3: THE ENTERPRISE VIDEO SUPERGUIDE MAY 2014 SPONSORED CONTENT
It would be hard to argue that enterprise video wasnt the saving grace
of the online video industry when the dot-com bubble crashed. With all
the speculation that online video promised for an internet TV revolution
back as early as the 1990s, it didnt take long for corporations to realize
they could increase their own bottom line with online video easily,
by reducing travel for training staff and customers. 14 years later, we
can pretty much say the same thing. While OTT video is still the Wild
West with sporadic monetary successes, online video has permanently
transformed the way business operates and will continue to do so.
Collaboration, communication, and documentation have been the
mainstay of use by large organizations, but uses continue to evolve
and quickly. Pervasive use of video throughout an organization is
certainly the current affair, and finding the ROI for investing in a strategy
that allows everyone to capture, organize, and share the content is being
hammered out on boardroom tables across the world. IT departments
are thrilledits providing job security. With the moving target of mobile
playing such a dominant force in content consumption and even
acquisition, getting everything to play nice in a technology sandbox,
while minding the bottom line, is as challenging as pushing an elephant
through a keyhole.
Its going to get worse before it gets better, too: Storage issues, indexing,
searchability, closed captioning, translation, security, and of course the
looming corporate censorship process are all major ongoing issues.
The good news is that for the most part, the enterprise still sees the
greatest value in on-demand video, save those live webcasts and
real time meetings, of course. But latency, to use the term loosely,
is still a big issue. Just how fast can your video workflow be from
capture to consumption? That is the challenge, technologically, and
administratively. So, how are you going to fine-tune your enterprise
video strategy to be on the cutting-edge as the world around you
accelerates?
While all these questions are most likely already on your mindand Ive
probably done more harm to easing your mind than goodthe purpose
of this Superguide is to give you direct access to significant companies
that build enterprise solutions and have proven track records with real
customers. Theres enough data out there to show that the enterprise
video spend is going to double within 5 years from where it is today,
but just read Tim Siglins recent The State of Enterprise Video 2014 at
http://go2sm.com/stateofenterprise if you have any doubts. The real
question is how are you going to keep up with the Joneses? This is where
Ill leave it to the pros
Joel Unickow Publisher
65
MEDIAPLATFORM
The Enterprise Video
Platform as the
Future of Corporate
Communications
71
RAMP
Video for Employee
Communications:
5 Best Practices From
Companies Who Have it
Mastered
77
SONIC FOUNDRY
How Dell Revitalized
Corporate
Communications
with Video
81
VBRICK
The Evolution of
Enterprise Video
Platforms:
How Cloud Technologies
will Change the Way
87
KALTURA
Video Platform
Checklist:
Top Capabilities
Organizations should
look for when selecting
an enterprise video
platform
91
REALNETWORKS
10 Things
to Consider for
Streaming Media
95
ELEMENTAL
Defining the Future of
Video
97
QUMU
Video is Valuable
So How Do You
Prove It?
99
USTUDIO
From OVP to EVP:
How companies like
uStudio are defining the
future of the video-centric
enterprise.
101
CLASSIFIED LISTS
TV Pro Gear
Reducing Latency
in the Enterprise
Table of Contents
SPONSORED CONTENT MAY 2014 streamingmedia.com WP65
A recent survey of corporate
communications professionals by research
and training organization Melcrum
revealed that 93% of respondents believe
video has become a vital tool for internal
communications. Additional research
from the leading business associations and
publishers for corporate communicators
shows that medium and large corporations
across all industries are actively searching for
ways to leverage video to enhance executive
messaging, improve the effectiveness of
training, connect the distributed workforce,
and enable knowledge sharing.
With the inevitable increase in use of
on-demand video and live webcasting
inside the enterprise, organizations
will need to select an enterprise video
platform that can serve as an engaging
social portal, as well as a content
management solution that simultaneously
solves the unique distribution challenges
associated with streaming content across
corporate networks. The current situation
at many companieswhere videos for
marketing, HR, internal communications
and sales live in disconnected silosmust
give way to a centralized approach with
a single, easily-managed repository that
provides robust analytics and enterprise-
grade controls.
At MediaPlatform we frequently
encounter companies leveraging separate
solutions for internal presentations,
marketing videos, internal webcasting,
and external eventswith no integration
between the tools and no single interface
for managing the content. MediaPlatform
provides a suite of fully integrated
technologies designed to serve as the
single location for all streaming media
content inside the enterprise, while
simultaneously solving the challenges of
managing, creating, and distributing video
across corporate networks.
MEDIAPLATFORM PRIMETIME
MediaPlatform PrimeTime is the best-
in-class enterprise video platform, a.k.a.
enterprise YouTube. PrimeTime is the
industrys most advanced enterprise rich
media management and video portal. It
is the central place where your employees
and partners can search, view, manage,
rate, and share streaming video through
an intuitive, channel-based portal.
MEDIAPLATFORM WEBCASTER
MediaPlatform WebCaster gives your
organization the tools to easily produce,
broadly distribute, and monitor deeply
interactive live, mock live, and on-demand
rich media webcasts to audiences of
unlimited size. MediaPlatform WebCaster
lets you stream live video presentations to
anyone, anywhere, on any device.
MEDIAPLATFORM SMARTPATH
MediaPlatform pioneered a unique
approach to webcasting that enables a
pervasive delivery of presentations across
virtually any type of delivery scenario.
MediaPlatform SmartPath provides a
framework to define the particular set of
media distribution and failover rules that
makes sense for your organization.
MEDIAPLATFORM SMARTEDGE
MediaPlatform SmartEdge is an
enterprise-grade CDN (eCDN) that is
focused on the acceleration/optimization of
HTTP(S) video delivery within the enterprise
network. SmartEdge provides enterprises
with a cost-efficient solution for deploying an
eCDN specifically catering to videos served
from MediaPlatforms applications, namely
PrimeTime and WebCaster. MediaPlatform
SmartEdge contrasts with generic HTTP
optimization devices such as those from
Riverbed and Bluecoat, which focus on
generic caching of all HTTP(S) traffic, are not
generally focused on video traffic, and have a
very high implementation cost.
THE MEDIAPLATFORM
ADVANTAGE
DEPLOYMENT FLEXIBILITY
MediaPlatform was built for the cloud
and requires no hardware installs. We also
support on-premises and hybrid-SaaS
deployments. MediaPlatform has spent
years developing and deploying a world
class, enterprise-grade video platform
for live and on-demand video streaming,
webcasting, and video asset management.
We offer complete deployment flexibility
to suit the varying needs of small, medium,
and large enterprises.
While SaaS and hybrid SaaS deployments
for an enterprise video platform have become
the preferred architecture for most enterprises
today due to the many benefits including
lower costs and accelerated deployment,
MediaPlatform understands that for some
customers an on-premises deployment is
still the only viable option. MediaPlatforms
systems can be installed as virtual machines
and deployed on virtual servers. Each
component of the MediaPlatform application
is its own virtual machine.
The Enterprise
Video Platform as the Future
of Corporate Communications
SECURITY
MediaPlatform provides enterprise-
grade security and governance by
authenticating users via enterprise
single sign-on (ESSO). The first layer of
security is at the application sign-on layer.
MediaPlatform will integrate with the
enterprise Active Directory system and
require the user to authenticate with the
enterprise itself prior to being allowed
into the MediaPlatform environment. This
integration is accomplished via the SAML
2.0 standard.
FULLY INTEGRATED RICH MEDIA
WEBCASTING FROM THE CLOUD
MediaPlatform is the only leading
enterprise video platform that can deliver a
pure SaaS solution for peer-assisted multicast
streaming of live video without requiring
client installs. This breakthrough technology
makes it possible to securely reach thousands
of employees with high-quality video without
installing anything behind the firewall.
Peer-assisted multicasting, or P2P
multicasting, is 100% browser-based. It
requires no client installs, and in many
scenarios requires no media server behind
the firewall. The value of leveraging peer-
assisted multicasting from the cloud includes
all of the benefits of a SaaS solutionnothing
to install or manage, a very low total cost of
ownership, and a rapid return on investment
(ROI). Additional benefits include moving the
video streaming traffic off of the wide area
network (WAN) and onto the cloud, which
minimizes network impact and eliminates
the need for additional media servers or
network infrastructure to support streaming.
PRIMETIME
MediaPlatform PrimeTime is a
robust, fully customizable, enterprise
video platform with an intuitive portal
interface for managing all video assets
inside the organization. PrimeTime is
fully integrated with MediaPlatform
WebCaster to form a cohesive video
content management solution.
PrimeTime is an excellent way to
manage corporate, or employee contributed
content, while building community and
user engagement with friendly video search
and browsing, video upload, video capture,
annotation, sharing, and more. This media
management software allows you to create
your own online enterprise video platform/
portal for delivering media content used
for corporate communications, training,
collaboration, and marketing.
PRIMETIME BENEFITS
Portal interfaceEmployees can
easily navigate the platform and start
uploading, searching and curating
content.
Makes all media content accessible in
one placePrimeTime eliminates the
risk of material getting lost in multiple
repositories.
Increases the reach of video and
webcasts in your organization
Employees can time-shift and watch at
their own convenience on PC or mobile.
Increases the impact of video-based
trainingEmployees can comment
and share, generating views of the most
useful training media.
Enables intelligent sharing and
preservation of knowledgeChannels,
playlists, and social networking features
let employees help one another find
valuable organizational knowledge.
Uses Web ServicesIntegrates with
third-party portals and applications.
Employee generated video content
Allows easy sharing of knowledge from
desktop, tablet, or mobile device
PRIMETIME HIGHLIGHTS
EASY ON-DEMAND CONTENT CREATION
MediaPlatform PrimeTime is the
central repository for all your enterprise
video content. Video can be added to
PrimeTime via upload, webcam capture,
embed code, URL (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.),
or MediaPlatform WebCaster URL.
PrimeTime has built-in customizable
transcoding profiles and options to meet
all of your considerationsbitrate, file
formats, devices, and browsers. PrimeTime
also gives you the option to re-transcode
your video content when needed.
MOBILE STREAMING AND UPLOADING
Todays information workers are
increasingly demanding the ability to
view and create video content on a variety
of mobile devices. MediaPlatform is the
leader in providing solutions that support
on-demand and live video consumption as
MediaPlatform PrimeTime
well as the creation of employee generated
content on iPad
, iPhone
, Android
and
Windows devices. MediaPlatform supports
adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming for HLS
and HTTP streaming for MP4.
ADAPTIVE BITRATE STREAMING
MediaPlatform provides optimal playback
by using adaptive bitrate technology that
automatically selects the most appropriate
flavor asset for playback, based on the viewers
specific connection and other parameters.
SOCIAL FEATURES
MediaPlatform supports social sharing,
rating, tagging, and commenting. Custom
embed code can be generated, and deep
linking through the URL can be achieved
as well. Downloadable attachments can
also be associated with on-demand and
live video content.
PLAYLISTS
Users have the option to create playlists for
organizing and sharing content relevant to a
particular topic. Playlists can be viewed inside
PrimeTime or embedded on a web page.

SEARCH
MediaPlatform makes it easy to organize
all of your video assets with functionality that
lets users search content by type, channel,
contributor, rating, playlist, date, or duration.
CHANNEL-CENTRIC ASSET MANAGEMENT
Asset management has a channel-centric
approach. With channel management
permissions, users with the appropriate
authorization can create and edit new
channels or add content to existing channels.
MediaPlatform gives administrators the
ability to grant or deny access to specific
pieces of content.
MediaPlatform provides options for
corporate and user channels.
ANALYTICS
Analytics are available for uploads,
embeds, archived MediaPlatform
webcasts, and URLs hosted inside
the platform. Available information
includes top videos, top contributors,
top viewers, browser, and
operating system.
CAPTIONING/TRANSCRIPTION
MediaPlatform offers automated or
full-service captioning and transcription
services. Subtitles and captions are fully
searchable. Interactive transcripts are
available to supplement captions and
subtitles by enabling users to navigate,
search, and interact with the video in any
language. Captions and transcripts also
increase video SEO.
ROLES-BASED PERMISSIONS
With role-based permissions,
MediaPlatform gives enterprises the ability to
control who can create and manage content
and view channels, content and analytics.
LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
Life cycle management is a workflow
feature specific to the enterprise and
typically not available in online video
platform (OVP) solutions. As the amount
of video content increases so does the
complexity of managing the media.
MediaPlatform gives administrators the
ability to schedule asset lifecycle events.
Once these events are scheduled they will
execute automatically, which allows for
easy management of an assets full lifecycle.
Asset lifecycle events include activation,
deactivation, delete, feature, or unfeature.
AUDIT LOGGING
This is a critical feature for the enterprise.
MediaPlatform provides a graphical interface
that allows your organization to access the
activity around video assets. Events include
settings events, asset life cycle events,
representation events, and login events.
WEBCASTER
The need to communicate and connect
with employees and customers has driven
the evolution of presentation technologies.
Fueled by an ever-greater demand for a
richer, more engaging, interactive multimedia
experience, organizations are increasingly
moving away from older web conferencing
technologies and towards solutions
that incorporate video and rich media.
MediaPlatform WebCaster is fully integrated
with PrimeTime.
With WebCaster you can reach
audiences in excess of hundreds of
thousands of live concurrent viewers
with presentations that feature streaming
video, PowerPoint
slides, audio, surveys,

polls, and screencasting. WebCaster is
designed for demanding, live webcasts
with multiple presenters in remote
locations or sophisticated pre-recorded
presentations. MediaPlatform WebCaster
is fully integrated with MediaPlatform
PrimeTime.
WEBCASTER BENEFITS
Powers TeamworkWebCaster is
designed for media professionals tasked
with designing, building, and running
webcasts in demanding production
conditions.
PrimeTime Social Features
Enables Simply Perfect Presentations
Webcast to internal or external
audiences.
Integrates with Enterprise Systems
Web services architecture facilitates
broad application connectivity.
Delivers Enterprise-Wide Deployment,
Scalability and Redundancy
WebCaster is suited for stand-alone
as well as large-scale webcasting
operations.
Handles Multiple Webcasts
Administrators can simultaneously
operate multiple events.
WEBCASTER HIGHLIGHTS
EASY WEBCAST CREATION
Events can be created, deployed,
and managed by a single webcast
producer. WebCaster makes teamwork
easy by giving users the ability to assign
production roles to separate individuals,
matching the makeup of your production
team. Multiple administrators can also
simultaneously operate one or more
webcasts.
CUSTOM PLAYERS
AND SKINS
Webcasters
portfolio of
templates allow
for branding and
customization.
Polls, surveys, Q&A, and social media can
be embedded in the player.
MULTIPLE REMOTE PRESENTERS AND SOURCES
Feature multiple presenters in-studio,
on webcam or the phone. Mix in pre-
recorded video or audio streams. Support
for screencasting.
LIVE CONTROL
WebCaster provides an easy-to-use
interface for controlling and monitoring
the elements of your live webcast, such as
video, slides, Q&A, polls, and attendance.
MOBILE COMPATIBILITY
Create live and on-demand webcasts that
can viewed on any tablet or smartphone.
AUTOMATED NOTIFICATIONS
WebCasters built-in email functionality
facilitates easy automation of registration
notifications, event reminders, and archive
availability.
AUTO-ARCHIVING
Webcast recordings are available
immediately following the event.
Archives live at the same domain as the
live broadcast to make it easy for your
audience to view webinars they could
not attend or for sharing recordings with
their colleagues.
SOCIAL
Easily share, rate, tag, and embed
archived webcasts. Twitter feeds can
also be embedded on the viewer
interface to allow the audience to
engage with your content via the
popular microblogging site.
REPORTING AND ANALYTICS
Reporting and analytics
functionality gives you dynamic,
graphic displays of attendance, length
of viewing, operating system, and other
indicators of audience engagement.
Analytics also provides a graphical
display showing where your audience is
viewing your presentation.
CERTIFICATIONS
WebCaster is able to automatically
generate a certificate of attendance to
confirm that an audience member has
viewed a webcast. This functionality
is perfect for training programs and
continuing education.
WebCaster Templates
The WebCaster Production Interface
VIDEO DELIVERY
MEDIAPLATFORM SMARTPATH
MediaPlatform offers enterprises the
unique ability to webcast to virtually
any end user, regardless of location or
content distribution technology. We call
this MediaPlatform SmartPath.
SmartPath provides an overlay
network which combines all of the
media distribution technologies that are
applicable in different situations. For
instance, audience participants on the
general internet may be good candidates
to receive their stream from a content
delivery network (CDN) such as Akamai,
while other viewers may be good
candidates for Adobe Multicast Fusion.
Each audience participant will receive
the media stream that makes sense for
them (e.g. HTML5 over HTTP streaming
or Flash video over RTMP) delivered
over the most efficient and network-
safe technology possible (e.g. a CDN or
eCDN or WAN Acceleration device, and
so forth.)
MediaPlatform SmartPath solves the
challenges of delivering live content
to all audience members through an
abstraction layer which leverages all
necessary distribution options when
appropriate. This approach, which
we call pervasive webcasting, uses a
rule-based IP address analysis to assign
a compatible stream to each delivery
technology dynamically.
To illustrate how SmartPath works,
consider how you would efficiently
webcast a presentation to a dozen
locations behind the firewall, some of
which are multicast enabled, others
that are accessible to an enterprise
CDN (eCDN)and still others that not.
You would need to reach people in the
public, as well as those on iOS devices.
Using MediaPlatforms SmartPath, you
could leverage all existing delivery
solutions in tandem with suitable
delivery mechanisms where needed.
For example, for locations that lacked
eCDN service, you could do peer-to-peer
webcasting from a cloud-based media
server. MediaPlatforms WebCaster
can be configured to match streams to
deliver solutions by IP address range and
other factors.
MEDIAPLATFORM SMARTEDGE
As enterprises increasingly leverage
video for corporate communications,
training, knowledge sharing, and
collaboration, the ability to deliver
streaming media content without
negatively impacting corporate
networks is increasingly important.
MediaPlatform SmartEdge is an eCDN
that provides network-friendly delivery
of secure, high-quality, on-demand
video and live rich media webcasts to
any desktop, tablet, or mobile device.
MediaPlatform SmartEdge works in
conjunction with cloud or on-premises
deployments of the MediaPlatform suite
of products, which combine to form
the leading enterprise video content
management solution on the market.
SmartEdge lets you distribute video in
multiple formats and enables delivery
of content to your global workforce with
support for adaptive bitrate streaming.
SmartEdge provides a network with
advanced streaming and dynamic
caching features to optimize your
existing infrastructure, and can function
as the sole video distribution platform
or integrate with other CDNs. Minimize
network load and maximize cost savings
by pre-positioning on-demand video
content and maintaining a single stream
across the WAN or LAN for live webcasts.
SmartEdge nodes can be deployed at
as many edge locations as desired. With a
central location for tracking distribution,
running reports, and managing your
SmartEdge topology, SmartEdge lets you
easily manage your infrastructure.
MediaPlatform includes a security
framework that ensures enterprise-grade
control over delivery of your corporate
video. This security overlay allows
administrators to govern privileges
throughout the supported workflows
to only allow authorized users to
request, receive and publish content.
Authentication and access control is
provided via integration with a corporate
user directory such as Active Directory (or
any LDAP compliant directory system).
ENTERPRISE SECURITY
Security is where an enterprise
video platform really differs from the
more consumer-focused online video
platform or OVP. Security is paramount
inside the enterprise and the key is to be
sure your content is protected at every
layer of the stack. MediaPlatform allows
organizations to apply enterprise-grade
security in any deployment scenario.
MediaPlatform provides enterprise
grade security and governance by
authenticating users via enterprise
single sign-on (ESSO). ESSO has many
advantages related to improving the
security of video content inside the
organization. With single sign-on,
authentication is handled by the
enterprise, so there is no need to manually
change permissions inside the video
content management solution. The first
layer of security is at the application sign
on layer. MediaPlatform will integrate with
the enterprise Active Directory system
and require the user to authenticate with
the enterprise itself prior to being allowed
into the MediaPlatform environment. This
integration is accomplished via the SAML
2.0 standard.
The MediaPlatform integration
method not only helps keep the content
secure but also provides the most
efficient method for passing information
regarding employment status changes.
If a new hire is brought on board at an
enterprise, one of the first steps is to
add the user to the enterprise active
directory. When the employee is put
into the active directory they will also
be able to log into MediaPlatform. If
an enterprise has channels in their
MediaPlatform instance that require
a certain career level or department
to access, when an individual is
promoted or joins that department
that information will be updated in the
enterprise directory and the next time
the user signs into MediaPlatform the
permissions related to the promotion
will be passed to MediaPlatform and
the user will automatically have access
to the correct channels. The same is
true when an employee leaves the
company; when the active directory is
updated the user will no longer have
access to the MediaPlatform application.
Authentication is handled on the
enterprise side and after authentication
attributes for the user are passed to
MediaPlatform. Taking this approach
allows the enterprise to maintain the
level-one security on the enterprise side
where it will be kept the most current
and up to date.
MEDIAPLATFORM SHAREPOINT
INTEGRATION
The MediaPlatform integration
for Microsoft SharePoint transforms
SharePoints basic media functionality into
an engaging internal communications
solution with advanced media management
features. MediaPlatform provides a superior
video streaming experience for desktops,
the web, and mobile devices; sophisticated
video transcoding; customizable video
channels; advanced integrated search; live
video streaming; and more.
Users can upload videos directly
from the SharePoint user interface and
link to other SharePoint content, such
as related documents, from the same
publishing screen. Users can assign tags,
select or generate thumbnails, allow
ratings, and set permissions. Videos can
also be recorded directly from a webcam
to capture presentations, sessions, and
meetings.
Videos can be added directly to
channels created in MediaPlatform and
departmental permissions can be set
to allow or restrict viewing of content.
Individuals can also be given permission
to create their own channels for sharing
user generated content.
KEY BENEFITS
Centralized management of all media
Optimal video delivery to desktop,
tablet and mobile device
Integrated video search
Distribute rich media webcasts to all
employees inside SharePoint
Enables employee generated content (EGC)
Files stored outside of SharePoint, no
limit on video size
MEDIAPLATFORM FOR
SHAREPOINT HIGHLIGHTS
Secure - User access based on viewer
permissions
Easy uploading - allows users to add
video in any file format. MediaPlatform
transcodes multiple output formats to
support all browsers and devices
Superb video playback quality -
Use of adaptive bitrate streaming
technologies and Tier 1 CDNs
Mobile - Video for mobile devices is fully
supported with automated transcoding
for iOS, Android, and Windows
Custom Web Parts - Users can add
videos, playlists and channels to any
SharePoint page
Link to SharePoint - Documents and other
files can be included when adding videos
Social video - Functionality allows
commenting, rating, tagging and sharing
MediaPlatform SmartPath - Reach any
user, anywhere on any device
ABOUT MEDIAPLATFORM
MediaPlatform, Inc. is an enterprise
video platform enabling on-demand
streaming and live rich media webcasting
for corporate communications, training,
collaboration and knowledge sharing.
MediaPlatform provides organizations
with the tools to deliver streaming content
to internal or external viewers anywhere
on any device, regardless of location or
content distribution technology. MediaPlatform for SharePoint
Video for
Employee
Communications
5 Best Practices From Companies
Who Have it Mastered
We make video valuable
Brought to you by:
VIDEO IS THE NEW DOCUMENT
Video is everywhere. Virtually
everyone carries a device with them
that can capture, edit, and publish video
content, making it instantly accessible to
anyone around the world.
For enterprises, the promise
of video as a platform for internal
communications is strong, and getting
stronger everyday. People connect with
videos: According to the people we
surveyed, employees remember videos
better than they do other channels like
newsletters and documents.
Enterprises have seen a dramatic
increase in the use of video as a
communication tool for everything from
online training to employee research
and corporate announcements. But not
every company gets video. We wanted
to find out why some companies have
been so successful in adopting video
for internal communications, while
others continue to struggle. To do this,
we initiated a research effort to extract
best practices from companies who have
proven themselves to be masters.
This report will discuss the power
of video, best practices that can help
communicators successfully use video to
reach employees, and how to overcome
some of the obstacles that companies
commonly experience as they ramp up
the medium.
To see who we surveyed and understand
the maturity model that was developed,
check out the Appendix of this report.
WHY VIDEO MATTERS
People are choosing to consume information via video more and more. In
fact, according to Cisco, the sum of all forms of video will exceed 86% of global
consumer internet traffic by 2016. And according to Gartner, the amount of video in
organizations is increasing at rates varying from 50% to 200%, annually.
Why the trend? Messages can be presented in a way that is not possible with text
or static imagery alone. According to research by h.engage, a company that runs
employee programs, videos had an engagement range of 40% to 69% the highest
out of all the channels they studied, including newsletters and posters.
Our research participants had their own compelling thoughts about why video matters.
1. Video gets the point across quickly.
Critical and time-sensitive information
is the primary driver
of our companys support for the
use of video.
VP Business Strategy, Citigroup
Images are the best form of
communication. They greatly reduce
the time to get a point across.
Vice President, HSBC
2. Video makes messages
more consistent.
It is easier to get the same
communication out to everyone
at the same time.
Training Specialist, Amerigas
We embrace it because it provides a
uniform and consistent message.
HR, Amazon
3. Video helps people remember
a message.
They understand that people are used
to watching TV and might retain the
information better.
Executive HR Manager, Coca Cola
[Video is] more interactive and real.
Recruiter, Staples
4. Video engages younger employees
more effectively.
Videos allow organizations to target
and communicate effectively with
generation Y employees.
Sales Manager, Liberty Mutual
5. Video captures viewers
attention better.
Who doesnt enjoy watching a video?
Gap, Inc, HR Manager
More people take the time to watch
a video than take time to read
something.
Social Business Subject Matter
Expert, PepsiCo
Compliance Training
CEO/Executive Talks/
Town Hall Meetings
HR Policy Training
Product Training/
Overview
Sales Enablement/
Field Staff Training
Marketing Training/
Overview
IT Training/overview
Financial overview
TOP USES OF VIDEO FOR
INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS
5 BEST PRACTICES FOR USING VIDEO IN INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
As part of our survey, we developed a maturity curve for the use and consumption of video within an enterprise. The most
mature organizations were most likely to employ the following 5 best practices around video:
Use videos for many different types of internal
communication.
The most mature companies use video for
an average of 7.9 different types of internal
communication, compared with the least mature
who use video for less than three purposes. That
means the most advanced companies have found
almost three times as many ways to use video to
communicate with their employees!
Make it easy to organize and find
The most advanced companies have great
processes and technologies in place for tagging
video and for searching through those tags.
According to Gartner, in 2017 the best results for
more than 50% of searches will not be a textual
document. Between 65% to 80% of companies with
the most mature video ecosystems make it easy for
their employees to find the video content they need.
Encourage employees to create their own videos.
60% of leading companies encourage their
employees and departments to create and publish
their own video content. These companies have
worked through concerns around consistency
and production quality to discover that the end
of the day, video is such an effective format
for communicating ideas that the benefits of
democratizing video within their organizations
outweigh the risks.
Create a culture that values video content.
80% of the c ompanies who are most advanced
with their use of video have a culture that
embraces video. At these companies, employees
regard video as a natural and accepted way to
communicate, supported by management as well
as cultural norms.
Create fun, short videoseven if it lacks polish.
In todays society, people only pay attention
in short bursts. But they still want to be engaged.
One way to engage them is with fun videos. Our
survey found that mature companies would
rather make fun videos than serious ones.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO BETTER VIDEO
Many companies still struggle with the adoption of video for internal communication. As part of our research, we asked them
why. The five most common barriers are as follows:
TIPS FOR ACHIEVING BETTER VIDEO
Video creation costs can be slashed by empowering individuals to create
videos with the equipment they carry with them. Look for video management &
distribution solutions that eliminate time-consuming and costly manual tagging
and transcription to ensure videos can be searched for and discoverednot just
by their title but also by the rich audio text within the video.
Look for video management and distribution solutions that integrate into
your existing content management systems and assume their methodology for
access and authentication. Preventing your video from escaping the corporate
walls is critical to preserving sensitive information. Some solutions provide
short-lived URLs that prevent unauthorized video sharing.
Cultivate a video-based culture by starting smallpick one department or
region to be the test unit for rolling out more aggressive use of video, and promote
their success to other groups to gain alignment and traction. Having a video
management and distribution platform that delivers deep analytics on video
discovery, usage, and consumption gives you data to convince the skeptics.
A SaaS model for video management and delivery solutions provides a highly
attractive Total Cost of Ownership while providing the reliability and flexibility
traditional software models offer. With SaaS, you always run the most current
version of the application, and there is never a need to worry about hardware,
bandwidth, operating systems, etc. These solutions can often integrate with
your existing infrastructure.
The learning curve for creating and distributing video has dropped
dramatically with decent video recording capabilities on smartphones and
distribution via YouTube. As for managing video-related infrastructure, as
mentioned above, SaaS greatly eliminates the requirements & skills needed to
manage and distribute video broadly across the organization.
BARRIER
Cost and Time
Security
Conservative
Culture
COST FOR
SYSTEM UPGRADES
REQUIRES TECHNICAL
KNOWHOW
CONCLUSION
Using video helps employees absorb and remember key messages. A strong video culture is one that both encourages
video creation but also reduces the actual and perceived costs of video production. Video allows the organization to share
a very consistent message across a very large and geographically diverse organization.
Once a culture is established for creating video, the ability to quickly find relevant information is vital to creating
widespread adoption of video within an organization. Having a centralized, searchable video database allows employees
to access the information companies have spent valuable resources to create.
APPENDIX
How This Survey Was Conducted
To understand what those companies who have mastered video as a medium for employee communications are doing
really well, we reached out hundreds of people at brand name companies and asked them to complete a simple survey.
The survey focused on two key areas:
How mature is the use of video at their
company?
To assess this we asked questions about the types
of videos being created, the process for creating
videos, and the ease of access to content that was
produced. We used this information to generate a
maturity score for each respondent.
What are the practices, attitudes and
resources in place to support video?
The second portion of the survey asked about
everything from the cultural support for creating
video, to the methods available for people to create
videos, to the training and infrastructure available.
Then, by correlating the behaviors of companies with their assessed level of maturity, we identified a set of best
practices that set the video power-users apart from their peers.
WHO WE SURVEYED: BY
THE NUMBERS
90 Participants
67 Companies
8 Industries
6 Key Job Functions
29 Questions
KEY ROLES
Corporate Training
Human Resources
Marketing
Sales
Operations
Information Technology
KEY INDUSTRIES
Financial Services
Retail
Consumer Products
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Business Services
Pharmaceutical / Biotech
Energy and Mining
ABOUT RAMP - WE MAKE VIDEO VALUABLE
RAMP has developed the next generation of search & video experiences to make video more valuable. Using RAMP, clients are able to fully leverage
the value of all of their video content by driving increased discovery across search and social sites, enhancing user engagement through dynamic
search and publishing solutions across web, mobile, and connected devices, and maximizing revenue through sophisticated advertising capabilities.
For more information about how RAMP can help your company use video in internal communications, with metadata and tags to enable proper
discovery, please visit our website at http://www.ramp.com or call us at +1 857 202 3500. Our team would be happy to answer your questions
and help your company achieve better internal communications.
Companies are increasingly engaging
employees with video for corporate
communications and trainings. Theyre
fast-tracking their sophisticated
enterprise video strategies and putting
the power of content creation into the
hands of their employees.
Find out how Dell achieved return on
investment, increased communication,
and realized efficiencies by championing
a small video project and turning it
into a large-scale, mission-critical,
transformative communication platform.
BUILDING DEEPER CONNECTIONS
It all started about two years ago at
Dells annual sales meeting in Las Vegas,
where remote employees gather for
training and corporate strategy sessions
as well as to learn about the latest Dell
products in a giant expo center.
Some of our sales team located
around the world made videos about
their success stories, which were played
throughout the day at the expo. While it
was fascinating to see how Dell products
were making it into customers hands,
the videos left a lot to be desired,
recorded with laptops at awkward angles
and poor lighting.
I stayed up all night editing the
videos, and I started becoming familiar
with these individuals. The next day as
I took the finished video to be played
at the expo, I walked right into one
of the people in the video. I said, Hi
John, hows it going? Congratulations
on the big deal that you had with that
hospital in Canada. I hope it went well.
By the way, love the house! The family is
wonderful. How are things going?
Because of the power of video, I had
created a personal relationship with this
person I had never met. Thats called
para-social interactionwhen one party
knows significantly more about the other
in a conversation.
It made me realize just how powerful
video is. I thought, Wow, this is how
video is going to start getting people
to connect with trainers. Its no longer
just a voice over slides. You can actually
see the faces and expressions and how
they get their messages across and build
relationships.
I thought, Wow, this
is how video is going to
start getting people to
connect with trainers.
Its no longer just a
voice over slides. You
can actually see their
faces and expressions
and how they get their
messages across and
build relationships.
How Dell
Revitalized Corporate
Communications
with Video
By Lawrence Grafton
Lawrence Grafton is the creator of DellTV,
a communications medium that utilizes
Mediasite by Sonic Foundry and Dell
infrastructure to create a collaborative
network facilitating cooperation with multiple
organizations within Dell, including external
customers. Lawrence is also a eld marketing manager in
Dells Global Division working to develop the data center
strategy in some of the worlds largest companies.
A new idea was formulating. I knew
Dell had Mediasite gear, trainers, and an
audience. I just had to figure out how to
put it all together.
TALK ABOUT AN ELEVATOR PITCH
Before I knew it I
was saying, Hey, Ive
got this great idea
about how we can
use video with Dells
infrastructure to solve
a lot of the corporate
communications
problems weve been
having.
The expo had 3,309 rooms stretched
across 44 floors and dozens of elevators.
So imagine my surprise when my elevator
door opens, and theres Michael Dell.
Before I knew it I was saying, Hey, Ive
got this great idea about how we can use
video with Dells infrastructure to solve
a lot of the corporate communications
problems weve been having.
I knew that rich media was being
created all across Dell. But it was coming
from all directions without a centralized
distribution solution. Nobody knew
where to go to get that one critical piece
of information they needed, which
resulted in chaos in our messagingand
in business, chaos equals burning money.
For example, our training
organizations were doing weekly live
video presentations to about 4,000
employees. That cost $750,000 annually.
Other departments were doing live
presentations to smaller groups of
employees, which drove the price up
astronomically. We needed to bring
everybody together into one single video
solution to significantly reduce costs.
ENTER DELLTV
We built the enterprise video
initiative DellTV with Sonic Foundrys
My Mediasite, the personal video
capture tool to encourage user-
generated content among employees.
The Mediasite Desktop Recorder within
My Mediasite is really what drove the
adoption of DellTV.
DellTV unifies corporate messaging
to the more than 100,000 Dell
employees and ensures that everyone,
no matter where they are in the world,
is speaking the same language. In the
past year its taken on hockey-stick
growth within the organization.
Dell built the enterprise video initiative DellTV with Sonic Foundrys My Mediasite, the personal video capture tool to encourage user-
generated content among employees. This is an example of what the DellTV video portal looks like to employees.
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Dell employees can access video trainings from any desktop or mobile device. This is an example of what a DellTV presentation within
Mediasite looks like.
We built the enterprise
video initiative DellTV
with Sonic Foundrys
My Mediasite, the
personal video capture
tool to encourage user-
generated content
among employees.
The Mediasite Desktop
Recorder within My
Mediasite is really what
drove the adoption of
DellTV.
Employees can access it via Dells
VPN, and can search by topics, such as
global marketing or Dell social media.
DellTV has specialty channels, such
as the Solutions TV channel, which
explores services, storage, networking,
and software, and how we combine
all that to make a turnkey solution
for our customers. Theres a channel
that consists of on-demand training
programs for our employees. Content
also includes key messages and technical
deep-dives from our engineers for our
salespeople to watch to better explain
to customers how products work. This
allows all of our content to be in one
searchable, secure place.
Employees can
access video
trainings from any
desktop or mobile
device, whenever
and wherever they
are. With training
available on-demand,
employees can easily
retrieve and review
the information
theyre looking for.
Employees can access video trainings
from any desktop or mobile device,
whenever and wherever they are.
With training available on demand,
employees can easily retrieve and review
the information theyre looking for.
The Mediasite search
tools are also absolutely
fantastic. Mediasite
indexes everything,
making entire video
libraries searchable
and saving viewers
immeasurable time.
RECORDING THE VIDEOS
In Dells world, things move very
fast. At times video production was
taking up to eight weeks, and we
wanted to cut that down considerably.
My Mediasite gives everyone the ability
to create, manage, and distribute rich
media. Individuals can sit at their desk
and import their existing videos, record
their voice over a slide show, or even
use their webcam. This allows them
the flexibility to create video anytime,
anywhere, and edit and upload it
instantly for employees to watch.
My Mediasite videos are
automatically synced to Mediasite
Enterprise Video Platform, a secure
video management system that
Sonic Foundrys Mediasite Enterprise Video Platform
is the trusted cornerstone of any enterprise or campus
video strategy, helping transform education, training,
communications, and online events. The Mediasite
Desktop Recorder in My Mediasite empowers faculty,
trainers, staff, or students to create and share video,
training modules, lectures, or assignments wherever they
are. Its a friendly launchpad for users to record, upload,
manage, and publish their own video content using their
laptop or computers camera and microphone. The videos
automatically publish all recordings to Mediasite Enterprise
Video Platform, a secure video management system. Learn
more at www.sonicfoundry.com/mediasite.
provides comprehensive user analytics
that show us who watched what video
and when. This helps the person
recording a video shape their message,
because they can see where people
were engaged the most.
The Mediasite search tools are
also absolutely fantastic. Mediasite
indexes everything, making entire video
libraries searchable and saving viewers
immeasurable time. Mediasite search blows
our internal search tools out of the water.
100% RETURN ON INVESTMENT
We saw a 100 percent
return on investment
within 30 days.
Weve been working with Sonic
Foundry for about two years to roll out
DellTV. In that time adoption has gone
through the roof. Overall, weve made
about 750 presentations350+ hours of
content with more than 17,000 views. Plus,
we saw a 100 percent return on investment
within 30 days.
Our travel and training costs have
also significantly dropped, and were
seeing increased employee morale and
productivity. Now, in a huge corporation
like Dell, employees voices can be heard
in a very real way.
Weve also seen improved
communication among departments.
For the first time ever, we have sales
talking directly to marketing, and
engineering collaborating with training.
While DellTV started out as a small
video initiative, it quickly grew to a large-
scale enterprise video program that allows
us to spend our development dollars more
wisely, cut down on the messaging chaos,
and ultimately revitalize our corporate
communications.
ABOUT SONIC FOUNDRY
Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO) is the
trusted leader for video capture, management
and webcasting solutions in education,
business and government. The patented
Mediasite Enterprise Video Platform
transforms communications, training,
education and events for 2,800 customers
in 58 countries. The company empowers
organizations to reach everyone through the
power of video; accelerating knowledge-
sharing, preserving valuable content, building
stronger teams and getting results.
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Dell employees record a training via Mediasite.
In April, NPR broadcasted a story
about the Good Judgment Project
which enlists the help of average citizens
to accurately predict geopolitical events.
The project is looking to scientifically
prove the accuracy of crowd wisdom,
a theory first posed by an English
statistician at a country fair where a prize
was offered for correctly guessing the
weight of a bull. While peoples individual
guesses varied wildly, the aggregate guess
was shockingly accurate: 1197 versus the
bulls actual weight of 1198.
Businesses are beginning to leverage
the crowd wisdom within their own
organizationsusing social media
platforms to facilitate collaboration
and innovationand this is not by
happenstance. The first wave of millennial
managers has crowdsourcing in their
DNA, and they default to using visual
media in their communications knowing
that its the best and fastest way to share
information, connect, or make a point.
What does this have to do with
enterprise video and cloud computing?
Maybe everything. If smartphones
and broadband drove the BYOD
phenomenon into the workplace, and
millennials drove the use of social
media technologies into the workplace,
whats next? The increasing ease of
video creationwhether its wearable
technology, robots, cars that drive
The
Evolution
of Enterprise
Video Platforms
How Cloud Technologies will Change the Way
Enterprise video use expands, from video creation to multi-screen publishing.
themselves, and who knows what
elsemeans that the future will clearly
be video-enabled and everywhere. The
video tsunami that weve all heard about
is cresting right before our eyes.
To leverage the glut of video,
enterprise solutions need to evolve
from todays single-server approach
to an infinitely scalable, cloud-
focused architecture that allows for
organizations to handle the impending
video wave.
Lets take a look at one part of this
puzzle, the enterprise video ecosystem,
to see how these trends impact the way
that video-savvy organizations make,
distribute, and manage video-rich
applications.
ENTERPRISE VIDEO USE GROWS
Historically, enterprise video was
a highly controlled and complex,
television-like production. CEO
webcasts took place in well-equipped
professional studios, where producers
had a great deal of control over the
content, the environment and the
speaker and aimed for high production
value. This approach was highly
centralized.
Today video creation solutions
are widely distributed. Enterprise
video capture now originates from an
ever-widening array of sources: studio
cameras, videoconferencing end points,
desktop webcams (Microsoft Lync,
virtual videoconferencing services,
web conferencing services), and user-
generated content from tablets and
smartphones.
While historically video was used
for one-way, push communications,
video today is increasingly interactive
and used for information exchange
and collaboration. Executives still use
video to get the word out, but they are
also encouraging peer-to-peer video
knowing that it boosts productivity,
accelerates innovation, decreases
time-to-market, and facilitates crowd
wisdom via social sharing.
Videos success for internal
communications may soon be
surpassed, however, by its quantifiable
success when used for external
Viewers expect enterprise platforms to have a responsive design that just works on mobile devices.
marketing. One study, for example,
found that 72% of B2B viewers
researched a project after watching a
technology-related video (IDG). As
enterprise video platforms begin
to leverage the scalability and
analytics of cloud technologies,
silos between internal and external
communications will erode,
enabling internal product launch,
training, and social videos to be
used for marketing, and external
promotional videos to be used to
unify messaging and mission, create
a common culture across languages,
and spur competitiveness and
innovation.
VIEWERS EXPECT THE SAME
EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE FIREWALL
Next-generation enterprise
video platforms must deliver
a consumer-grade website
experience in order to meet
employee expectations. Viewers
may not know how or why
consumer sites behave the way
they do, but theyll immediately
recognize service or platform
deficiencies when their
organizations video platform
requires a page refresh to see
new comments or ratings, when
it doesnt work on their mobile
devices, or when their office was the
only one unable to view the live, all-
hands webcast.
Unlike open consumer sites,
however, enterprise video traverses the
enterprise wide-area network (WAN)
where it can be securely delivered
behind-the-firewall. Live webcasting,
which CEOs increasingly use to engage
and connect with geographically
dispersed employees, poses the greatest
network distribution challenge for the
enterprise. In order to ensure that all
users can simultaneously access the
stream, network operations teams often
enable a multicast technology across
the WAN to deliver content to edge
caching devices closest to end users.
This requires centralized management
not only of viewer privileges, but also
of viewer locations. It also requires the
ability to remotely manage devices and
establish automated failover, storage,
and expiration rules.
The ability to deliver video over the
corporate WANwhether live or on-
demandis table stakes for the next wave
of enterprise video platforms, particularly
as video traffic grows and video quality
improves. The best of these solutions
enable a set and forget approach
to managing video delivery over the
network, extracting the complexity of
network delivery while enabling viewers
at any location, using any device, to be
served media in the format and data rate
ideal for their environment. This requires
not only transcoding capabilities but also
sophisticated device management paired
with intelligent content routing. The best
management systems auto-detect when
new encoders or media servers come
Cloud-architected EVPs enable organizations to leverage infinitely scalable cloud compute resources and to dynamically prioritize
and reassign additional resources to services as required, such as user authentication at the start of a webcast, and to monitor
devices in real time.
online, assure their availability for live
or on-demand video, index and ingest
media from those devices and other VOD
servers, and use an intelligent zoning
system with load balancing and failover
between available servers.
Once viewers log in, the same
management system should pair
knowledge about the users location
with permissions for video viewing.
Taken together, the management
system ensures quality and availability
by routing the end user to the closest
video source and delivering content in
the format and data rate appropriate for
their device.
Continuing with our comparison
to consumer services, an enterprise
webcast should be as easy to set up as
any commercial conferencing service,
with one-click webcasting and features
that tell presenters, in real time, whos
watching and whos dropped off. And,
like consumer sites, modern enterprise
platforms will use a responsive design
so content is resized and re-ordered so
viewers can use all elements, whether
logging on from laptops, tablets or
smartphones.
The next wave of these platforms
must also simplify the multi-vendor,
multi-system management challenge
facing IT departments. Through frequent
mergers and acquisitions, many large
organizations have multiple vendors
for eCDN, videoconferencing, digital
signage, and IPTV systems, each with
their own management systems,
administration requirements, transport
protocols and media formatting, and
publishing workflows. Overcoming
this system complexity and enabling
IT to have a scalable platform that
leverages their existing infrastructure are
mandatory requirements.
Other IT challenges include how
to manage the organizations existing
video library, which can be a large and
unruly set of video assets captured from
multiple sources and recorded in a wide
range of formats. According to Frost and
Sullivan, solutions that help enterprises
to accommodate such video from
outside the platform itself and to more
efficiently store and manage all this
video are in greater demand today.
VIDEO MOVES ONTO THE CIOS RADAR
From the CIOs view, enterprise
applications are increasingly delivered
via the cloud. Fortune 500 companies
which have adopted cloud offerings
for such mission-critical functions as
customer relationship management
(CRM), enterprise content management
(ECM), database management software,
productivity software, collaboration/social
platforms, management information
systems (MIS), and enterprise resource
planning (ERP)are likely to have
a favorable view of enterprise video
management solutions that can deliver
the same operational efficiencies of their
other SaaS applications.
CIOs have embraced cloud
computing for its obvious advantages:
The ability to access elastic, virtual
compute resources that can burst as
required without the risk and expense
of under- or over-procuring server
capacity;
The ability to manage enterprise
applications as a predictable, monthly
expense with pay as you go charges
based on actual usage;
The ability to reallocate resources away
from deploying, managing, maintaining,
and upgrading dedicated, on-premises
hardware systems to work on revenue-
and innovation-focused technologies.
Traditional EVP Cloud Architected EVP
Server-based pricing User-based pricing
High cost for high availability without
a risk of data loss, requires significant
HW investment
Built-in high availability
HW resources dedicated to each
service (database, web server,
middleware, storage)
Dynamic use of HW resources across
services, anatomically processed on service-
by-service level
Single point of failure with centralized
database
No single point of failure with fully distributed
infrastructure
One tenant per server Multi-tenant per same platform
Requires maintenance and possible
outage windows
Highly distributed, does not require outages
Pre-defined resource allocation at
install time
Dynamic resource allocation
Difficult to change topology after
installation
Easy, real-time redeployment of components
at runtime
Difficult to deploy across multiple sites Designed from ground up to deploy across
multiple sites including cloud and on premise
locations
Traditional versus cloud-architected EVP.
This trend is so pervasive that Bain
& Company and Gartner project that
software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-
based business application services will
grow to $32.2 billion in 2016, and IDC
projects that cloud application revenues
will reach $67.3B in the same year.
ARCHITECTING FOR THE CLOUD
Despite these trends, enterprise
video platforms have largely failed
to evolve and take advantage of the
inherent capabilities of the cloud so that
video communications can be managed
like other mission-critical enterprise
applications. Most solutions are still
based on a single-server architecture
that has a maximum capacity for any
single application, such as transcoding
or user authentication. Putting a single-
server application with a relational
database in the cloud may take some
of the administration burden off your
hands, but it wont improve your
scalability or system performance.
Within the cloud on an application
level, the differences further compound.
Video, images, and social media,
considered unstructured data, have
driven the development of non-relational
databases (like NoSQL) that allow data
to reveal its own structure and patterns
(IDC). Utilizing approaches for self-
analyzing data, this enables information
from enterprise video platforms to be
captured at an event level and shared
across distributed hardware.
When a cloud-architecture EVP
application leverages these technologies
it enables unparalleled scalability. A
cloud-architected application enables
the distribution of individual models
such as databases, middleware, and
operating systemsso they can run
on any available resources. Since
dedicated resources for each function
are no longer required, the application
dynamically uses infinitely scalable
compute resources as a common pool.
HYBRID MODEL FOR ENTERPRISE VIDEO
Organizations get the best of all
worlds when leveraging an enterprise
management system that not only lives
in the cloud but that also leverages cloud
architecture for limitless scalability
and high availability. When it comes
to enterprise video management, large
organizations often prefer a hybrid
approach where the video and device
management takes place in the cloud,
while video is distributed on premises,
behind the firewall where organizations
can use the infrastructure that they
already have and seamlessly burst into
public or private clouds. Additionally,
with a growing number of remote
employees, organizations will also need
to publish to a content delivery network,
since mobile users cannot be served via
multicasting.
Finally, when we consider an EVP, we
should focus on the need for a best-of-
breed solution that supports the most
common use cases for enterprise video,
including:
Highly scalable live webcasts capable
of reaching the laptop or mobile device
of thousands or tens of thousands of
employees located anywhere;
Many enterprises prefer a hybrid approach, where one, or several, management systems are hosted on the cloud but video is delivered through an on premise eCDN.
Centralized video access, or
Enterprise YouTube, providing a
destination that enables authorized
employees to access live webcasts
and video-on-demand via a web
browser from any device;
Mass audience streaming from
unified communications sources,
such as a videoconferencing end
point or Microsoft Lyncto create
highly scalable live webcasts via the
Enterprise YouTube channel;
eCDN distribution, the backbone
that enables video to be scalably
delivered across the corporate WAN,
whether using a system of dedicated
media servers to transrate, transmux
and relay live video, or a software agent
partitioned off an enterprise WAN
optimization solution;
Integrated multi-screen publishing,
leveraging the same, cloud-architected
management system in a hybrid model
using on-premise publish points to
stream live video to screens from
corporate lobbies to lunchrooms.

WHATS NEXT?
Once enterprises begin to harness
the power of video and cloud-based
video management, whats next? If
theyre serving video for external
applicationssuch as marketing, sales,
or ecommercetheres no reason why
the same platform cant be used across
these historically stovepiped domains.
Using the same platform as an EVP, or
an online video platform, will enable
organizations to streamline their
management, use, and application
of video assets, leveraging the same
content publishing and webcasting
workflows, metadata, database
structures, network infrastructure,
and cloud services. In fact, its outside
of the firewall that the benefits of a
cloud-architected solution really come
into play, supporting applications
that require 100% availability such as
syndicated content, online transactions,
virtual reality/simulations, and more.
Enterprise video platforms
architected for the cloud will further
enable businesses to tap their
organizations crowd wisdom by
streamlining video-based employee
collaboration and communications.
They will also provide unprecedented
insight into how an organizations
crowd wisdom works by tracking
massive amounts of information
that can be compiled into predictive
analytics that tell users not only how
rapidly video usage is growing, but
why people watch, drop, or interact
with video as well as how to harness
those engagements for innovation,
engagement, and productivity. With
the ability to truly leverage cloud
scalability, the skys the limit for
enterprise video.
ABOUT VBRICK
VBrick is a leading provider of enterprise
video platforms with thousands of
customers worldwide. Its solutions enable
organizations to create, manage and
distribute rich media information from
virtually any source from tablets, unied
communications clients or cameras, to
virtually any screen from desktop to
digital signage. Customers use VBrick for
automated, integrated live and on-demand
video in executive webcasts, online
training, distance learning, communications
and marketing.
VBricks Cloud Architecture
More than two years ago, VBrick realized the potential of a cloud
deployment but, like many companies, experienced the limitations of
single-server based platforms to handle our customers exponentially
growing video requirements.
We embarked on developing the EVP of the future, one that could readily
match the efciencies, scalability and high availability of other, enterprise
cloud-based applications like CRM and ERP.
The results of this effort will be unveiled in summer 2014, when VBricks
next-generation, cloud-architected enterprise video platform becomes
commercially available.
Putting a single-server application with a relational
database in the cloud may take some of the
administration burden off your hands, but it wont
improve your scalability or system performance.
Video is the most effective
way for enterprises and brands to
communicate with customers, users,
and partners. It is key for training,
knowledge sharing, and collaboration
within enterprises. Video is engaging,
interactive, and fun to watch. It
conveys a powerful message, and
sense of trust. Video is a formidable
marketing and product marketing
tool, as well as a productivity tool for
learning, training, and collaboration
by todays leading corporations.
Many enterprises are finding it hard
to navigate through rapidly evolving
video technologies and applications to
implement the solution that best suits
their needs. This is further complicated
by the need to integrate effectively into
existing enterprise tools, infrastructure
and portals. There are numerous
types of solutions, best of breed
focused on different aspects of content
capture, upload, transcoding, media
management, publishing, syndication,
streaming, access control, security, and
analytics. There are comprehensive
solutions also, which aim to simplify
rich media management across the
enterprise for both internal and external
purposes. It can be daunting to identify
the right solution for your business.
If you are an organization looking to
centralize a video implementation
strategy, or expand certain capabilities,
we recommend that you review the
list of key features and capabilities we
have assembled below. These should
be part of your evaluation and decision
process, and are essential for a long
term video solution.
Several key features are important
to have regardless of whether you
are looking to use video within the
enterprise for training, learning, and
knowledge sharing or as a public-
facing tool for product and corporate
marketing as well as social sharing.
Features and capabilities
recommended for all video use cases:
1. Ability to create a central
media repository: In order to avoid
siloed implementations of media
platforms, choose a solution that
effectively supports multiple types
of input from a variety of sources
(recorded training sessions, webcasts,
product videos, webinars, executive
messaging, and more) and centralizes
rich media content into a single
manageable repository. You should
be able to upload video, audio, and
images manually, in batch or via an
API. Content should be available for
viewing and searching from within a
Video
Platform Checklist
Top Capabilities Organizations should
look for when selecting an enterprise
video platform
variety of public-facing and internal
enterprise sites.
2. Effective media and metadata
management: As your media collection
rapidly grows, you need an effective
way to organize media so that
relevant content is easily accessible to
employees and customers. The solution
must allow grouping of content into
meaningful categories, support sorting
and searching, and allow for search
beyond basic metadata into custom
metadata and include in-video search
for transcribed content.
3. Analytics and metrics: Whether
youd like to evaluate the effectiveness
of your video marketing or require
internal compliance capabilities for
tracking purposes, the solution you
choose should allow you to answer
a wide variety of questions using
relevant reports and analytics. Select
a solution that allows you to track
not only your storage and bandwidth
usage, but also monitor content
on the individual video and user
level, e.g. discover which product
videos or webinars are most popular,
track whether a specific employee
completed a required video training,
or see how effective the CEOs latest
address was.
4. Friendly user interface: Your
platform must provide an intuitive
user experience. End users should
be able to easily understand how to
include rich media in their work and
day-to-day interactions, whether it
is a marketing manager publishing
a product video and moderating
comments, an engineer creating
a video of a product prototype,
a training manager categorizing
training videos into media
collections, or an executive creating
a video announcement at her desk.
All users should be able to start
using video without the need for
extensive training.
5. Enterprise grade performance,
scalability, and stability: Users are
easily frustrated by unresponsive
and slow sites - make sure your
platforms applications and players are
responsive. As you increase in volume
or viewers, can the system scale to your
needs? Is it able to handle the spikes
in usage during peak time and live
streaming events? Look for platforms
deployed with high availability
architectures, with complete failover
and redundancy, as well as clear
Disaster Recovery in place.
6. Device support: A growing
percentage of your customers
and employees now access the
internet from smart phones and
tablets on the go. They expect their
viewing experience to be flawless
and consistent across mediums
and devices. Make sure your video
platform supports your target devices,
both with HTML5 and native mobile
applications, can automatically detect
and optimize delivery to the device
type, and is poised to quickly support
new technologies. Additionally, ADA
508 compliant players with support
for multi-lingual captions, will help
you reach international audiences and
users with disabilities.
ESSENTIAL CAPABILITIES WHEN
USING VIDEO FOR INTERNAL
KNOWLEDGE SHARING,
COLLABORATION AND TRAINING
If you are looking to use
video internally for training,
knowledge sharing, and
collaboration you should
also consider the following
features and capabilities:
1. Internal corporate
tube: Launch an internal
corporate YouTube-like video portal to
unleash video-centric enterprise-wide
collaboration, and to take advantage
of the ways employees have grown
accustomed to connecting, sharing,
and communicating using video
outside of the workplace. Your video
platform should provide you with an
internal video portal offering out of
the box, including full customization
options, maximum control, and
logical segregation of content.
2. Video content creation,
capture, and editing tools: In
a true many-to-many model of
video-centric communication, a
substantial amount of content will
be generated by employees without
background in video production.
You should choose a solution that
empowers your employees to
easily create and edit videos
from their desk or on the go. This
includes creating content using
webcams, screen recordings,
mobile smart phone and tablet
capture, and synchronized
video presentations. End users
also require simple and
powerful editing features
like trimming and
clipping.
3. Security and governance:
Enterprises need to balance
innovation, social knowledge
sharing, and video-centric online
conversations on one hand, and
control and governance on the other.
A solution should do the following:
Authentication and authorization,
including easy integration with your
existing SSO
Moderation flows to control content
uploading and publishing by your
employees
Varying levels of granular
access control, and creation
of private channels with
user entitlements
On-premises deployment
options, behind your
firewall, for maximum
control and security
4. Platform flexibility
and ease of integration with
existing enterprise systems: Many
enterprises have already invested
substantial resources in developing
and procuring technologies to manage
content (e.g. SharePoint), collaborate
(e.g. Yammer, Jive), manage training
(e.g. Blackboard, Moodle), and more.
Rather than having to adapt and
re-train your users, look for a video
solution that easily integrates with the
systems you have in place to seamlessly
support your current workflows. Look
for solutions with extensive APIs and
a plug-in architecture that will allow
you to extend the platform with new
features. Look for platforms with an
extensive partner ecosystem, as an easy
way to add functionality that is not part
of the core product.
ESSENTIAL CAPABILITIES WHEN USING VIDEO
FOR MARKETING, PRODUCT MARKETING, AND
PUBLIC-FACING MESSAGING
If you are looking to use video on
your website, as part of marketing
campaigns, for partner and customer
training or illustration, or for any
other public-facing purposes, you may
also want to consider the following
features and capabilities:
1. Tools for increasing video views
and viewers: To reach your audience
wherever it is, generate more leads,
and improve brand awareness, your
video platform should help you make
the most of your content with the
following instructions:
SEO best practices and syndication
The platform should allow you to
syndicate MRSS feeds of your video
content to major search engines and
other sites, and use unique video
URLs and other SEO best practices
to allow easy discovery of your
videos across the web.
Distribution Distributing your
videos to third-party platforms
and partners such as YouTube,
Facebook, and other social video
sites helps you reach audiences
beyond your corporate site.
Your video solution must be
flexible enough to support various
media and metadata formats
to feed content to external
applications, and deliver a media
package instantly to a variety of
partner sites.
End user sharing To spread your
video content fast across the web,
allow users to instantly share
content on all social sites such as
Facebook, Twitter, etc., as well as
to use embed codes for embedding
your videos on personal blogs and
news portals.
Video Discovery/Recommendations
Create a sticky experience and
increase views by recommending
additional videos to watch during
and after video play.
2. Easy integration into your
websites/CMS: In addition to
centralizing all your media content
in a single repository, you also need
to be able to easily publish your
videos on your public-facing sites
in order to use them as part of your
brand and product promotion.
Make sure your video platform
provides you with an out-of-the-box
customizable public facing video
portal, as well as easy integration
with your corporate site and the
CMS that you are using (Drupal,
WordPress, etc.)
3. Content monetization: If selling
video content online is your business
model, your platform should provide
you with pay per view, digital rights
management, and other monetization
capabilities.
4. Click to action: Achieve
conversion to action, such as
purchase, and form fill prior to or
following video views.
ABOUT KALTURA
Kaltura has been working with hundreds
of enterprises around the world, helping
them navigate the multitude of options
for addressing these requirements. The
points above demonstrate some of the core
capabilities to consider, however a long list
of specic features and functionalities should
be checked as wellspecic transcoding
methodologies, delivery protocols, video
player functionality and many more. Kalturas
platform has been transforming the way
millions of employees and customers engage
and communicate, providing next-generation
enterprise video technology that is more
interactive and social. For more information,
and to consult with our team of video experts
regarding your specic needs, contact us at
http://corp.kaltura.com/company/contact-us
Much has been said about the
growing popularity of video in the
enterprise. Consumers love YouTube,
and this behavior has followed them
to work. Whats surprising is that more
enterprise organizations arent embracing
video with open arms. Today, 71% of
enterprises use video, with only a portion
of those enabling video on tablets and
smart phones, according to a Ragan
Communications study. The likely barrier
to wider adoption? The complexity of
video in the enterprise environment.
Todays IT director makes far-
reaching decisions every day about new
capabilities. When it comes to video,
there are a number of questions. Is the
content secure? Will content be available
to employees on their laptops, tablets, and
personal mobile devices? With so many
pieces to the puzzle, can a streaming
media program remain manageable and
cost-effective?
Its enough to make anyone throw up
their hands. But the benefits of video in
the enterprise are extraordinary. It may
be the most cost-effective, compelling
method for enterprise communication
and collaboration. Among the many uses
for video are information sharing to a
distributed workforce, company-wide
and public announcements, employee
and partner training, social collaboration,
and marketing. Each of these on their
own offers enough value to make an
investment worthwhile. Together, they
demand that an enterprise start planning
for streaming media today.
Here are the top ten things to consider
as you take the next step.
1. REACHING EVERY SCREEN
Its a BYOD world. If your video doesnt
work on all devices, then your strategy
has failed. Think that your employees are
only using IT-issued devices? Think again.
o
Does your streaming media
solution address multi-screen delivery?
Will videos play well on tablets, smart
phones, PCs and Macs, Android and iOS?
One example of multi-screen delivery
is a company meeting streamed on big
screens within corporate buildings via
IPTV, on employee desktops, and on
mobile devices through over-the-top
(OTT) streaming.
o
Does the solution deliver all of the
different formats required for delivery to
desktops and mobile devices?
10 Things
to Consider for
Streaming Media
* Source: 2014 Ragan Communications survey of 713 communicators across a range of company sizes.
2. PLAYING WELL TOGETHER
Managing multiple vendors and systems
can get expensive, not to mention time-
consuming and potentially disastrous. If one
link in the chain goes down it can topple
your entire system. Consider interoperability
as you make your decisions.
o
What capabilities do you need in
your streaming media solution? These
may include live event webcasting
and presentation, encoding, security,
content management, delivery, and client
experience/video playback.
o
Does each component easily
integrate with the others and your
existing infrastructure? Ideally, all of the
capabilities are provided by one or two
vendors for maximum interoperability.
3. CURING MANAGEMENT HEADACHES
Not only does it help to have an encoding
solution that works with your media
server, but the whole solution should
be easy to manage. Look for a company
that offers an end-to-end solution, and
everything becomes simpler.
o
Does your solution have a
centralized management system and an
intuitive GUI? It may seem obvious, but
this isnt always included and can make
the difference between a well-used system
and one that gathers dust.
o
Does your solution require training
on multiple systems? If you can use one
vendor it will streamline your training
requirements.
o
Do you have one person to call
if something fails? Look for online,
phone, and email support in the time
zones you require.
4. SECURING CONTENT
A hot topic for sure, security and privacy
shouldnt be ignored. With streaming
media youll want to make sure that access
to your content is controlled and that your
network is secure.
o
Does your video solution integrate
with your corporate directory, such as
Active Directory, for authentication and
access control? By integrating with your
directory, employees can use their corporate
credentials to view approved content.
o
Does your solution use digital rights
management (DRM) to secure content?
DRM lets you enforce policies and rules
for usage of your content and protects
your content against unwarranted sharing.
o
Are you able to deliver content over
secure protocols? Content streamed over
a secure connection is encrypted to avoid
unauthorized access.
o
Are you able to secure the
application that plays video within your
enterprise?
5. ENSURING QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE
Video in the enterprise requires the highest
levels of quality and performance. There
are a number of factors, from latency to
video resolution, that influence what your
users see.
o
Have you considered how to best
manage bandwidth? Consider a streaming
solution that supports live stream
optimization, dynamic VOD content
caching, and variable bitrate encoding.
Make the most of your bandwidth when
streaming from the cloud or over your
internal CDN.
o
Is multicasting part of your
solution? If, like most organizations, you
have bandwidth constraints, youll want
to make sure you can multicast to allow
you to stream high-quality video to a
large number of viewers while preserving
network bandwidth for other processes.
o
What are your latency goals? End-
to-end latency includes the entire process
from source file to eyeballs including
encoding and streaming. There will be
some inherent latency, especially when it
comes to HLS, but some providers offer
better results than others.
o
Is HEVC (H.265) on your providers
roadmap? While it will not be widely
adopted for a while, this successor to the
H.264 codec will provide better compression
efficiency and higher video resolution,
further reducing network demand.
6. ACCESSIBILITY
Whether you are required by Section 508
or simply want to improve accessibility,
adding closed captions to your videos is
the right thing to do and can support your
business goals.
o
Are you required by law to provide
closed captioning for your videos? Federal
agencies or those receiving federal funding
or under federal contract must comply with
Section 508, which details the use of closed
captioning for greater accessibility. Even if
you arent required by law, it makes sense
to use closed captioning in a corporate
environment where users may want to view
video with the sound off.
o
Does your video solution provide
the ability to extract closed captioning
data and make it part of your live or
on-demand stream? Look for a solution
that provides standard definition and high
definition closed captioning.
7. CLOUD INTEGRATION
Todays capacity may not be enough for
tomorrows demands. Your media solution
should have the ability to scale up or down
as needed using the cloud.
o
Will you need to scale your
solution for occasional large-scale
events? In this case, a hybrid cloud and
on-premises solution may make the
most sense. For example, a quarterly
shareholder meeting with thousands
of viewers may require more capacity
than you normally have. With a hybrid
solution, you can leverage cloud servers
for mega-capacity and only pay for
what you use.
o
Can you utilize a third-party CDN
if needed? A CDN can offer additional
services such as player creation,
advertising, and analytics. Confirm
that your streaming solution supports a
variety of CDNs such as Akamai, Level 3,
Tulix, and others.
8. FUTURE-PROOFING
Nothing stays the same when it comes to
streaming media, but a strategic vendor
will ensure that you are well-positioned
for the future.
o
Do your media vendors support
MPEG-DASH and have definitive plans
for HEVC? MPEG-DASH, or Dynamic
Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, is an
adaptive bitrate streaming technique
for high-quality streaming. HEVC, or
H.265, is a new video compression
standard, a successor to H.264/MPEG-4
AVC designed for better compression
efficiency and high quality on ultra-high
resolution displays. Deploying DASH
solutions may not be particularly easy
yet with existing browsers and players
but its important. Your provider should
also have plans to support HEVC in the
future when devices are available to
support it.
9. RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Its important to measure the success of
your video program. Quantifying your
return on your investment will drive
future investments.
o
How will you measure success
to ensure adequate ROI? Both video
downloads and viewing statistics are
important, along with penetration into
specific audience groups. Youll want to
make sure the enterprise is embracing
streaming media before you expand
your efforts.
10. OVERALL COST
The cost of a streaming media solution
may seem prohibitive, but there are
certain ways to reduce the financial
burden.
o
How many simultaneous content
channels do you have, and what is
the cost per channel? A solution that
reduces your cost per channel will lower
your overall investment significantly.
o
Do cloud services make sense to
reduce your initial investment and
ongoing costs? Using cloud services can
allow you to pay only for what you use
and quickly scale up or down as needed.
o
Can you use an end-to-end
solution from one vendor to meet
your needs? Consolidating vendors will
reduce your deployment, management,
training, and maintenance costs
along with reducing middleware and
integration costs.
HELIX MEDIA DELIVERY
ANY SOURCE, ANY SCREEN
From RealNetworks, the
creators of streaming media,
Helix is the affordable, end-
to-end streaming solution
designed to simplify video
in the enterprise. From
content creation to content
management and delivery,
Helix provides a one-stop,
affordable way to encode,
manage, and securely deliver
media to users on a wide range of players,
platforms and devices. With the ability
to ingest multiple file types and deliver
to any device, Helix makes sense for
complex enterprise deployments.
AFFORDABLE
Helix lets you reduce your costs
in a number of ways. First, the cost
per channel for encoding media is
significantly less than other providers.
Second, with a full range of capabilities
from webcasting and encoding to
content management and delivery, the
cost of managing multiple vendors and
training employees on multiple systems
is eliminated. One vendor equals less
overhead and more resources to invest in
your core business initiatives. Third, Helix
is available as a cloud solution run in the
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2),
which means there is no contract or
license fees, no hardware infrastructure
to set up or maintain, and services are
billed at an affordable hourly rate.
EASY TO USE
Not only are Helix solutions interoperable
and easily integrated with your existing
infrastructure but you can also centrally
manage multiple Helix Broadcasters from
one location. And Helix solutions are easily
scalable. From local-scale unicasting to
massive-scale multicasting using cloud
servers or a CDN, you get exactly the
capacity you require. Best of all? Helix does
not require extensive expertise to manage.
The intuitive GUI allows you to make
changes, scale, and modify operations
without having to edit XML files.
THE HELIX ECOSYSTEM
HELIX BROADCASTER
The turnkey appliance to encode
and deliver the highest quality live and
on-demand media with extremely low
latency and high content security, all at
an affordable price.
HELIX WEBCASTER
Create interactive, professional events
with this easy-to-use webcasting solution,
capturing multiple media sources into a
picture-in-picture format for easy online
streaming of live and on-demand events.
HELIX MEDIA LIBRARY
This easy-to-use content management
system gives organizations the simplicity
of YouTube with the sophistication of
an enterprise solution for encoding,
managing and delivering media across
players, platforms, and devices.
Learn more at www.realnetworks.
com/helix. 800-444-8011
ABOUT REALNETWORKS
RealNetworks creates innovative
applications and services that make it easy
for people to connect with and enjoy digital
media. RealNetworks invented the streaming
media category and continues to connect
consumers with their digital media both
directly and through partners, aiming to
support every network, device, media type
and social network.
Shifting demands in consumer
behavior, portable devices, streaming
formats, and encoding standards have
raised the bar on what it takes to compete
in the video marketplace. Traditional video
processing solutions must give way to
those that are flexible enough to address
new requirements that are dramatically
different from those of the past.
Software-defined video is an
infrastructure-agnostic approach to
implementing flexible, scalable, and
easily upgradable video architectures.
This advancement allows enterprises
to deploy software across an optimal
combination of dedicated and virtualized
resources in both private and public data
centers. A software-defined approach to
video processing frees enterprises from
the constraints of dedicated equipment
by allowing for the best architecture
and processor combination to be used
for a particular application, even if that
application changes over time. Support
for new services and video formats can
be integrated seamlessly through simple
software upgrades.
SCALING UP AND TO THE FUTURE
A video processing platform built
upon a modular software design allows
for significant flexibility and scalability. In
dedicated hardware environments, trying
to integrate third-party ad messaging
or forensic watermarking capabilities
means enabling communication with
legacy video processing equipment. By
supporting third-party integrations, a
software platform can allow other video
functions to be fully integrated into a
unified system. Modular software-based
platforms can also support a multitude
of optional add-ons including video
processing specific to device profiles, just-
in-time packaging, or audio transcoding.
Perhaps most significantly, software-
based platforms can be easily upgraded
to support new encoding standards
such as HEVC, also referred to as H.265.
HEVC promises bandwidth efficiency
gains of more than 50%, enabling new
video formats such as 4K Ultra HD or
LTE Broadcast. Since it is too early to
predict with precision how quickly and
successfully these new formats will be
adopted, those who decide to purchase
dedicated HEVC processing equipment
early in the game take a huge risk.
ADDING MULTISCREEN LINES OF BUSINESS
As demand for traditional terrestrial
and STB-based TV viewing shifts,
multiscreen video presents an opportunity
for enterprises to expand their video
offering and build new revenue-generating
services. However, a primary challenge
that enterprises face is how to best address
many different types of viewing devices
and players simultaneously, including
tablets, PCs, smartphones, and connected
TVs. To address the need to support
multiple codecs and streaming formats to
accommodate multiscreen viewing, video
providers can adopt software-defined
video solutions.
Though fixed-function hardware may
provide high performance and good
picture quality once it comes to market,
a long product life cycle means that the
technology has a low likelihood of keeping
pace with market changes. A hardware-
based encoding solution, typically based
Defining the
Future of Video
on ASICs, can take between two to three
years to develop and relies on custom
components that require significant time
and investment resources. Enterprises that
choose software-defined video solutions
can continually update and enhance
their platform in line with technology
advancements with simple code changes.
Instead of lagging behind consumer trends,
they can quickly innovate and create new
revenue generating video services.
LEVERAGING GROUND AND CLOUD RESOURCES,
VIRTUALIZING IN PRIVATE CLOUDS
Software-defined video solutions can
mitigate the risks and costs associated
with future system expansion by allowing
continual updates and upgrades
with minimal impact on physical
infrastructure. By using software-based
video processing, enterprises can take
advantage of the continually improving
price/performance ratios of off-the-shelf
computing hardware as well as virtual
cloud resources.
Because software-defined video
solutions are built to run on general
purpose processors that can reside in
public or private cloud infrastructures,
integrated cloud platforms can ramp
resources up and down depending on
demand, preventing overinvestment in
infrastructure. By using both ground and
cloud-based resources, enterprises can
fine tune the balance between CAPEX
and OPEX in deploying video processing
capabilities.
ELEMENTAL SOFTWARE-DEFINED VIDEO
Elementals video processing solutions
are built from the ground up as a software
stack of functional layers capable of
running on dedicated infrastructure,
virtualized machines, and cloud-based
deployments. With the Elemental
platform, portability of algorithms from
generation to generation means that
systems used to process MPEG-2 video
today can migrate seamlessly to H.264
or HEVC in the future. The Elemental
platform currently offers full frame rate 4K
Ultra HD video encoding with its HEVC
codec, ensuring that customers will be
able to continually support new video
compression standards as they arrive.
The flexibility of Elemental software
means that the costs associated with
adding new revenue-generating services
can be kept to a minimum as existing
data center or cloud-based resources can
be utilized. In addition, enterprises can
enhance core services with multiscreen
video delivery and add value to back-
catalogues with VOD offerings.
Elemental software-defined video
solutions offer an optimal balance
between hardware performance and
software flexibility. Customers can
leverage a unified workflow to execute all
live and on-demand video processing,
packaging, and delivery functions across
ground and cloud-based resources with
the full assurance that they will be able
to adapt to new requirements without
incurring the costs of forklift changes in
hardware infrastructure.
ABOUT ELEMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES
Elemental Technologies is the leading supplier
of software-defined video solutions for
multiscreen content delivery. Founded in 2006
and headquartered in Portland, Oregon, the
company pioneered the use of software-based
video processing to distribute video over IP
networks. Solutions from Elemental provide the
exibility, scalability and performance required
to deliver high quality video via turnkey, cloud-
based and virtualized deployment models.
Powering video experiences for more than
400 leading media franchises worldwide,
Elemental helps pay TV operators, content
programmers, broadcasters and enterprise
customers bring video to any screen, anytime
all at once. The company has ofces in the
United States, the United Kingdom, France,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, China, Russia,
India and Brazil. To learn more, please visit
www.elementaltechnologies.com and follow
@elementaltech on Twitter.
Video usage is expanding across the
enterprise. A recent study found that more
than two-thirds of companies are currently
using some kind of video communications
within their organization and that 72% of
those businesses plan on increasing video
usage in the next year. With this rapid
expansion, a versatile medium like video
ends up being used in a wide variety of
ways in different parts of the company,
which can make quantifying the value that
video brings to the enterprise a complex
and cross-functional task.
There are many ways to analyze the
value of video in the enterprise. Here are
three categories of benefits that can help
to identify the elusive but very real ways
in which video can bring business value to
your organization:
SAVE MONEY
Identifying the financial benefits of
enterprise video is the clearest way to
quantify return on investment (ROI).
Bringing video into your business can save
money in a variety of ways:
Reduce Travel Expenses
Lets say the CEO of a global business
would like to do a quarterly address to
communicate with department heads
around the world. In the past this required
all of those people to travel to a single on-
the-ground location to meet with the CEO.
Now the CEO can connect with distributed
employees around the world via webcast,
eliminating travel expenses while reaching
more employees at the same time.
Quit Paying For Webcasting
Oftentimes, businesses will use outside
providers to capture and distribute the
webcast. Paying these outside providers
can be a significant expense, sometimes
reaching tens of thousands of dollars
per event. An enterprise video platform
will securely control and distribute those
webcasts at a fixed cost, so no matter how
many webcasts are done, the cost remains
the same, saving video-savvy businesses
thousands of dollars.
Build Video Up from the Base
Savings will increase as the business
continues to leverage the enterprise video
platform for any number of enterprise
video use cases. Want video on-demand?
How about connecting to mobile employees
with video? With an enterprise video
platform, businesses can grow their video
use in any direction without adding any
additional cost.
ENGAGE EMPLOYEES
Not all ROI can be quantified with an
exact financial figure. Businesses can also
see significant benefits from an enterprise
video platform investment in the form of
more engaged, invested, and connected
employees.
Video is Valuable
So How Do You Prove It?
By Rebecca Cavagnari
Connect to Employees
With video, upper management
can deliver video communication to all
employees across the globe. This has been
shown to engage employees more fully in
their work and also give them a greater feeling
of alignment with company goals, creating
happier and more productive workers.
Drive Innovation
Video can also inspire innovation
between employees. Employees across the
organization hold immense and valuable
stores of knowledge, but oftentimes it is
difficult to connect the right people so that
the knowledge can be used in the most
effective way. Video is a powerful way to
share complex ideas between coworkers
and drive innovation across the company.
Analyze Social Success
Engagement can be a tricky metric to
measure. However, with social features and
back-end analytics showing the amount of
likes, shares, views, and comments on any
video in an enterprise video portal, its easier
to see how video is benefiting employees
throughout the organization.
ENABLE SUCCESS
Employee enablement, like engagement,
can sometimes be difficult to break down to
a single number, but it is no less of a factor
in both driving revenue and cutting costs.
Sharpen the Sales Tools
Companies with widely distributed
sales teams can give their representatives
immediate and up-to-date information
about new products the moment they
hit the shelves. This gives every single
sales rep the tools they need to not only
make the sale, but also to provide the
customer with a satisfying experience.
Sales enablement, then, has the additional
benefit of not simply driving sales, but
also solidifying brand loyalty, which is
important to a business.
Put the Power of Knowledge in the
Hands of Employees
Enabling employees to take proactive
steps to work more efficiently is another
case where video can be a tremendous
tool. Creating a centralized video
knowledge base gives employees the
ability to actively seek out the information
they need. Whether onboarding new
employees or giving existing employees
the power to find the right information
quickly, cutting down on time-to-
knowledge eliminates costly employee
downtime and streamlines workflows.
Seek and You Shall Find
Enable those employees further by
implementing speech search technology
that allows them to search through the
audio of all of the video files on the
portal. This gives businesses a cutting-
edge solution to building productivity
and encouraging employee engagement
throughout the organization.
MAKE THE PITCH
Every company is different. When
building a business case for video in your
organization, keep these categories in mind
to define the ways in which video can best
benefit your unique business, both in a
tangible, financial sense as well as providing
more soft ROI figures. You should compile
all of the information into a single business
case that clearly communicates the wide
range of benefits that implementing an
enterprise video platform can provide.
Defining the specific benefit areas for
your business will enable you to find other
members of your organization who can help
spread the word and make an even stronger
case for the value of video in your enterprise.
And for those in your organization who need
to see it to believe it, download the Qumu
Video App in the iTunes App Store or on
Google Play or visit video.qumu.com to see
Qumus enterprise video solutions in action
Qumu provides industry-leading
enterprise video solutions to help businesses
create, manage, distribute and experience
video across their organization. Find out
more information at www.qumu.com or
email us at info@qumu.com.
ABOUT QUMU
Qumu Corporation (NASDAQ: QUMU)
provides the tools businesses need to
create, manage, secure, distribute and
measure the success of their videos. Qumus
innovative solutions release the power in
video to engage and empower employees,
partners and clients. Qumu helps thousands
of organizations around the world realize
the greatest possible value from video and
other rich content they create and publish.
Whatever the audience size, viewer device
or network conguration, Qumu solutions are
how business does video. www.qumu.com
THE WORLD OF ONLINE VIDEO HAS CHANGED.
IS YOUR ORGANIZATION KEEPING PACE?
Five years ago, an online video player
platform (OVPP) was the primary tool
an enterprise needed to handle most of
its video publishing needs. (Within the
last few years, OVPP was renamed OVP,
dropping the term player. The name was
changed but not the product.) During this
time, fewer videos were being produced,
and those videos only needed to travel to
a website or two. Today, however, leading
enterprises are increasingly adopting
video as the primary medium for all forms
of business communications.
Gartner Research projects that by
2016, large companies will stream more
than 16 hours of video per worker, per
month, up from 10.8 hours in 2012 and
7.2 hours in 2010. Thats 45 minutes every
day each employee will spend watching
business videos.
To handle the sheer volume of video
being produced by sales, marketing,
customer support, and HR departments,
leading companies are looking beyond
their traditional OVP solutions to
enterprise video platforms, or EVPs. The
key difference between OVPs and EVPs is
that EVPs take a platform-first approach
to video. Whereas OVPs start with a video
file and ask How can I best publish this
file into my player?, EVPs start with an
organizations business objectives and
ask, What is the best way to deliver a
video to the audience, in order to generate
maximum productivity gains with the least
friction? An OVP product centers around
player-specific bells and whistles, while
an EVP product invests in maximizing
new video workflows and organizational
capabilities such as player frameworks
and tools, live streaming, OTT publishing,
podcasting, and video conferencing. And
perhaps most importantly, an enterprise
video platform is precisely thata
platform. It is designed to be built upon
and extended with department-specific
applications integrated into the processes
your business uses. In this way, a platform
provides maximum opportunities
for enterprise growth, video strategy
evolution, and scale.
IS YOUR ORGANIZATION READY FOR AN EVP?
At face value, the appeal of EVPs
is undeniable. Finally someone has
developed a way to organize, manage,
and deliver all manner of enterprise
video assets in all manner of players and
destinations in a coherent, unified, end-
to-end fashion. If only the enterprises we
serve were as coherent and unified as the
platforms themselves.
In reality, video workflows and
publishing needs across the enterprise are
often fragmented, touching a diverse set of
technical and non-technical stakeholders
who all have differing requirements for
what a video solution should deliver. Your
marketing team might require a system
that allows for lots of different video
viewing experiences as well as a way to
push video directly inside their existing
marketing automation tools. Or they
might need a faster way to publish and
track video across social media apps or
emerging OTT platforms. Your HR team
might demand a video-enabled distance
learning solution that is private, secure,
and accountable. Or they may simply need
a way to live stream corporate meetings
across several locations around the world.
There are seemingly infinite publish-
view-track permutations for how
departmental teams may need to use
video inside and outside of your company.
But there is one thing we know for certain:
Those needs are sure to evolve and
change. The first step in preparing your
organization for an EVP is identifying the
business processes for which video is core
and getting the stakeholders to agree on a
set of shared requirements. Here are some
of the requirements to consider:
Pervasive Simplicity
Apple products continue to remind us
that ease of use and an elegant UI are key to
mass adoption and, ultimately, productivity
gains. Every aspect of your EVP, from the
end user UX to the REST APIs, must be
carefully designed and architected in a way
that provides simplicity for application
users and developers alike.
From OVP
to EVP
How companies like uStudio are defining
the future of the video-centric enterprise.
By Jen Grogono and Lisa Stuardi
Utterly Configurable
Let there be no limit to the number
of ways in which the platform can be
configured to support departmental and
company-wide workflows and objectives.
Your EVP should be able to publish
securely, privately, and publicly, inside or
outside of the organization, and should
integrate with your existing business
systems with minimal investment.
Designed for Change
Acknowledge that your organizations
use of video is still nascent so that you
invest in smarter future-proof tools.
OVPs cant give your organization the tools
you need to keep pace with things like new
video delivery formats, compression and
codec standards, the emergence of 4K+,
and new devices and destinations.
Highly Agnostic
A platform whose value proposition
favors its specific video player, CDN,
or even delivery or codec standard is
already limiting you. An EVP should
be highly modular in its architecture
and thus agnostic to whichever player,
CDN, storage, destination, or codec
your organization needs to use. And you
should have the freedom to swap these
departmentally or as needed.
Video Accountability
In todays digital era of transparency
and accountability, one would assume that
video ROI is easy to measure. In reality, its
harder than it looks. Thanks to the quantity
and diversity of places where video travels
and is consumed, measurement and
analytics are fragmented. Sometimes,
the data is hidden or you receive partial
information. A good EVP solves for this. By
staying tethered to every video, no matter
where it is published, EVPs can provide
360-degree analytics back to you in an
aggregate, easy-to-digest format.
THE USTUDIO EVP: THE WORLDS MOST
ADAPTABLE PLATFORM FOR ENTERPRISE
VIDEO MANAGEMENT
At uStudio, these requirements are
sacred; pervasive simplicity, configurability,
design for change, agnosticism, and video
ROI are the DNA of our platform. They are
the code, literally and figuratively, by which
we innovate and build.
uStudio can publish your video anywhere,
by design
We understood early on that todays
distributed enterprise and multi-
department, multi-platform publishing
requirements necessitated simple tools for
moving beyond websites. Thus, uStudio
frees you from getting stuck on any single
player or destination. We automatically
encode your original mezzanine video file
to the proper specs for any destination
you choosebe it your own player, one of
our players, or any number of third party
web, app, or OTT destinations including
popular channels like YouTube, Vimeo,
iTunes, Roku, Facebook and Twitter. Plus,
we frequently work with enterprise teams
to develop custom delivery to web, mobile,
or business applications like salesforce.
com that serve employees, partners, or
customers. All managed via a single system.
uStudio aggregates analytics across all the
places your video lives
uStudio brings together all of a videos
performance metrics across all of the
destinations on which it is viewed. This
data includes important information
such as when a video is viewed and the
amount of time spent with the video. This
information allows you to determine,
among other things, how your video
investments are performing.
uStudio stays ahead of evolving video
technology so you dont have to
There are an abundance of video
standards and delivery protocols for
both video-on-demand and live, and
change is rapid. Very few production
teams can justify the investment
required to stay ahead of these
movements. uStudio continuously
invests in video tech innovation and
support for new standards. By the time
you realize you need a new file type or
delivery method, our product is already
there. Whether its our ever-evolving
Platform APIs or recent innovations like
our HTML5 Video Player Framework or
VideoShare application for salesforce.
com, weve got your back.
THE USTUDIO INTERFACE IS ELEGANT AND
SIMPLE FOR USERS AND DEVELOPERS ALIKE
In this case, the proof is in the pudding.
Contact us at info@ustudio.com for a
demo and experience the uStudio product
for yourself.
ABOUT USTUDIO
At uStudio, we help enterprises capture
the most value and opportunity from their
growing video investments. We do this by
providing an elegantly designed, highly-
scalable enterprise video platform that is
easily congured on both the front and back
ends. Our cloud-based system automates the
technical complexities of managing video,
moving it effortlessly from rst upload through
to distribution, publishing and tracking. Our
easy-to-use platform is revolutionizing the
way organizations manage video, helping
them drive productivity, efciency and video
ROI. www.ustudio.com
uStudio was so much better than the
competition, nobody else was even close. With
uStudio, our customers get access to hundreds
of hours of video content that they can watch on
any device at any time. We need to be the best
and uStudio has helped us get to that top tier.

-Brian Malone, Director of Video Operations, Ragan Communications.
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RAMP
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VBRICK
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Herndon, VA 20171
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www.vbrick.com
VOLUME 1 OF A SERI ES OF BUYER S GUI DES TO PRODUCTS AND SERVI CES
MEDIAPLATFORM
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Suite 460
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
United States
www.mediaplatform.com/site/
SONIC FOUNDRY
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Madison, WI 53703
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KALTURA INC.
5 Union Square West
Suite 602
New York, NY 10003
United States
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REALNETWORKS
1501 First Ave South
Suite 600
Seattle, WA 98134
United States
www.realnetworks.com/helix
ELEMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES
225 SW Broadway
Suite 600
Portland, OR 97205
United States
www.elementaltechnologies.com
QUMU
1100 Grundy Lane
Suite 110
San Bruno, CA 94066
United States
www.qumu.com
USTUDIO
1005 Congress Ave.
Suite 500
Austin, TX 78701
United States
www.ustudio.com
Call For
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consultant, a frequent contributor to industry magazines and websites
on streaming-related topics, and the author of Producing Streaming
Video for Multiple Screen Delivery.
T
heres a lot of interest in ultra-high defini-
tion (UHD) video, and the two codecs that
drive it, HEVC and VP9. Over the past few
months, a new UHD codec called Daala has also
come to the fore. I wanted to take this opportu-
nity to update the status of HEVC and VP9 and
introduce you to Daala.
By way of background, HEVC/H.264 is the roy-
alty-encumbered, standards-based successor to
H.264, while VP9 is the free, open-source codec
from Google. In case you hadnt heard, MPEG LA
has announced its proposed royalties for HEVC,
which includes a $0.20/unit charge on encoders
and decoders, with the first 100,000 units except-
ed. The maximum yearly charge is $25 million,
a substantial boost from H.264s $6.5 million. For
content producers, however, there will never be
content-related royalties, even for video distrib-
uted via pay-per-view or subscription.
So if youre a content producer, your next two
questions are likely how does the quality com-
pare? and where will the two codecs play?
Even though Ive tested multiple HEVC codecs,
none of the encoders that I typically work with
support the VP9 codec. I could use FFMPEG,
but command lines arent my thing, particular-
ly when attempting to produce files for quality
comparisons.
So, I checked for objective third-party com-
parisons and found several, all of which find that
HEVC offers superior quality to VP9, though by
varying degrees. One study, headlined by Dan
Grois, a senior member of the IEEE, was pre-
sented at the 30th Picture Coding Symposium in
December 2013. Grois and his group compared
the quality of HEVC, x264, and VP9, and found
that, according to the experimental results,
the coding efficiency of VP9 was shown to be
inferior to both H.264/MPEGAVC and H.265/
MPEGHEVC with an average bitrate over-
head at the same objective quality of 8.4% and
79.4%, respectively.
Another study produced by Maxim P. Shara-
bayko, a postgraduate student at Tomsk Poly-
technic University in Russia, compared the qual-
ity of x.264, HEVC, VP9, and Daala. Regarding
the first three, Sharabayko found while [HEVC]
provides 31% better compression rates in key-
frame-only mode and about 40% improvement
in intercoding mode compared to [x264], VP9 is
only 18% better than [x264] in both modes.
In terms of where the two codecs play, VP9 un-
surprisingly has the early advantage in browser
compatibility, with support in Google Chrome,
Opera, and Mozilla Firefox. On the desktop,
both codecs play in the VLC Player, while only
HEVC playback is supported in Rovis DivX.
Judging solely by press releases, hardware sup-
port is coming for both codecs, though HEVC
appears to outnumber VP9 by about 2:1. Still no
word from the Adobe (Flash), Google (Android),
Microsoft (IE), or Apple (Safari or iOS) camps
regarding either codec, which basically means
that both are dead in the water for any website
not named YouTube.
The most intriguing development in the UHD
space is Daala, which is the code name for a new
codec being developed collaboratively by Mozil-
la, Xiph.Org, and other contributors. Heading
up the development is Xiph.org founder Monty
Montgomery, who joined Mozilla to work on the
codec in late 2013. Montgomery was the master-
mind behind the Ogg Theora codec, which was
the leading open source codec until it was sup-
planted by Googles VP8.
Where both HEVC and VP9 leverage improve-
ments to existing compression techniques, Daa-
la explores new techniques to achieve both bet-
ter compression and a technology that doesnt
infringe upon any IP developed for these exist-
ing codecs. As mentioned above, Sharabayko
tested Daala along with the others, and found
that experimental results obviously show that
Daala video encoder is still rather far from be-
ing competitive. Montgomery expects to have
something solid enough with which to begin
standardization work in late 2015. Given the
relatively nascent state of the UHD market, that
might just be soon enough.

UHDWhat Do We Know?
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