remote working Archives

Remote Work: The Evolution of Enterprise Video

Posted on May 25, 2022August 21, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

How remote and hybrid work changed enterprise video

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

What kinds of videos are enterprises distributing?

The types of videos that viewers are most familiar with — corporate brand videos, product demo videos, how-to instructional videos, employee training videos, customer training videos, case studies, testimonials, and employee spotlights — are still the red carpet of enterprise video strategy.

But the need for audiences to be able to watch, communicate and engage remotely sparked an evolution in business-related videos that centres on virtual dissemination.

Silverwood Partners’ Media Technology: Strategic Industry Analysis 2022 shows that virtual events and webinars are the fifth most popular type of video that serves business-critical functions.

Other events, which previously would have been real-world ones, have also fed this trend by moving online. These included panels and roundtables, recruitment events, C-suite fireside chats/interviews, town halls, and briefings.

If it’s that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Creating, broadcasting and distributing video content was never easy, but the complication of disseminating it to remote or hybrid workforces and customers proved even more challenging. Unsurprisingly, time (37%) and budgetary constraints (36%) were the biggest problems encountered.

Additionally, nearly three in five respondents reported that they have to use so many different technologies to create, broadcast and distribute video content, they often feel overwhelmed.

So, what’s the solution?

Many of these problems — time/budget constraints, complexity of process, lack of in-house capability, lack of the right technology — can be addressed through media pipeline management. Overcast MAX saves you time and money with a streamlined workflow and BYO storage. Image recognition speeds up the process of finding clips. Transcoding to multiple formats is automated. Basic editing is so easy a toddler could do it. Your content is secure. And the best thing is: you can simulate your costs before investing. It’s a no-brainer!

Become a video Ninja

Come and see for yourself. Get in touch for a demo of our platform to see how it would benefit your business and make video easier.

Trends in the Acceleration of Video Management Technology

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

Trends in Media Technology

Are digital natives planning to take over the world? You may well think so if you look at the media technology industry, where trends support an increasingly digital-native economy, as outlined in Silverwood Partners’ Media Technology: Strategic Industry Analysis 2022.

Video Production in a Remote Working Era

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

The Streaming Wars

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

Upsurge in Video Marketing

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

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

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

Video Technology Innovation

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

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

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

The Secret To Great Remote Working Video Collaboration

Posted on May 5, 2021August 27, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

Remote Working Video Collaboration

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

DPP Innovation Week

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

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

Get in touch

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

What Have We Learned About Remote Working With Video — Part 2

Posted on January 28, 2021August 21, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

Remote working: the challenges for video production

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

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

Make metadata work for you — not the other way around

Automating processes and getting content to market is all fine provided that you can find the content in the first place.

Using AI it is now possible to automate audio-to-text and do basic image recognition. That creates really rich metadata sets that ultimately become searchable…to the frame.

Gone are the days when you had to scroll or scrub through long videos to find what you were looking for — it’s all automated now.

Speed to market is essential

Getting videos to market — and that means on multiple platforms in multiple formats — needs to be fast.

Broadcasters, agencies, publishers and brands don’t have time to manually distribute content anymore: they need to automate it and people throughout the organisation need to be able to manage the content.

A cloud-native Video Content-as-a-Service platform such as Overcast makes this collective responsibility effortless.

Security is of paramount importance

When all of a company’s employees are working from the same building, it’s a straightforward task for the IT department to ensure the security of data and content. But the new remote working landscape presents challenges.

Overcast is partnered with AWS and Signiant — thus it provides a secure environment in which your digital assets are protected.

So, with remote working looking like the new normal in this vastly abnormal era, you can make your video production process smooth, easy, efficient, cost effective and scalable.

What are the long-term benefits?

Streamlined workflows such as the ones described in this two-part blog post were already available before the pandemic but the new normal has accelerated the widespread move to cloud-based collaboration.

The long-term advantage for enterprises is that they will be; more agile, have greater scalability and be future-proofed.

While many people are craving the social interaction and creative collaboration that is sparked in a shared workspace; the technological and economic benefits to companies of remote workflows means it’s likely that the future will involve some form of hybrid.

What Have We Learned About Remote Working With Video — Part 1

Posted on January 21, 2021August 28, 2024 by Fiona Ashe

Remote working: the challenges for video production

In 2019, remote working was a foreign concept. We were all happily working side-by-side in our workplaces: brainstorming ideas in the boardroom, solving problems at team meetings and enjoying chats with colleagues at the water cooler.

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

Home offices were makeshift at first, with some people working on laptops balanced on their laps as they sat on their beds. But as the impact of the virus worsened, we’ve all had to look at longer term solutions.

In many cases, getting a suitable chair, desk and eye-level monitor was the easy part. Reimagining work processes that previously involved face-to-face collaboration and access to technical experts was trickier.

Video production is a classic example. So when remote working and video production have to go hand-in-hand, what does everyone need?

Phase 1: it’s all about getting up and running.
Phase 2: it’s all about sharing, collaborating and distributing faster and easier.

One option is virtual workstations but they require business-grade bandwidth to work and very few remote workers have that at home.

So the ideal solution is a cloud-native Video Content-as-a-Service platform.

Big team / dispersed collaborators

In the office it was easy enough to drop in on the editor to review something, call IT if you needed a file reformatted, or bump into the client services director to ask for an opinion. That’s all changed.

What hasn’t changed are deadlines and it has become increasingly difficult to share and collaborate on content. That’s why working on a cloud platform with proxies (generally 1% the size of an original piece of content) is the key to collaborating on video remotely — it streamlines the process of sharing, reviewing, annotating, searching and approving video content.

Technology needs to be an enabler — and uncomplicated

Working with video has traditionally been managed by editors, camera operators and engineers. But it doesn’t need to be.

Just as the UI of a smartphone can mask incredible computer power, the UI of video processing platform like Overcast can mask a lot of tech.

If you need your content to distribute on the web, mobile, social, in-store screens, broadcast TVs (it doesn’t matter what) then it should be as easy as pushing a button and automating all the tech processes. And it is!

Fast and efficient Review and Approvals

Reviewing and approving content was often the slowest part of the video lifecycle. Whether it is new content being created, or archive being reworked, getting senior eyeballs on the content can slow the process to a snail’s pace.

The concern in relation to remote working is whether that review and approvals process would be even slower. But not so — depending on the platform you choose.

Some companies use Slack and Teams, which are fine for Word docs but are not designed for video — because when you really want to make changes you need to be able to draw on the screen or log the timecode.

This is all automated on Overcast — and you can also audit when the reviewer has screened the content.

In the second part of this blog post, we’ll look at how to make metadata work for you, how to increase speed to market, and the importance of security in a remote working landscape.

So tune in then and in the meantime enjoy not having to commute to work!