In my opinion, Brightcove is THE killer app for anyone wanting to market with video online. It has helped me increase sales in my business and made it easier to do so.
Instead of taking you through the ins and outs of the program I thought I would give you the perspective of a small business owner and how it has helped me in my business. If you want to know how the program actually works, you can always download a thirty day trial and see for yourself.
This review is based on five months of using their service.
Brightcove Advantage #1: Smooth Playback with no Buffering
There is nothing more embarrassing than to show a client a video about a company only to have it stutter and buffer every five seconds. If you use Youtube or any of the other sites like it, you know what I am talking about. Especially with HD video. Sometimes you have to wait several seconds for the video to start only to have it buffer and stutter a few seconds later.
Brightcove has solved this major problem with something called multibitrate streaming. Basically when you upload one of your videos to a Brightcove express account, they make up to six versions of the video optimized for different internet speed. Then when someone watches your video, Brightcove Express delivers the version that matches their internet speed so there is no more buffering. Sounds awesome right. To see if this really worked I watched a video with my high-speed office connection and Brightcove delivered a beautiful high quality HD version.
I also wanted to see if the video played buffer free at lower connection speeds so I hooked my laptop up to a 3G modem that I use for travel. Of course this connection is much slower than your typical cable connection so this will be a really good test. To my surprise, Brightcove delivered a version optimized my my slower connection and there was no buffering at all. Of course the quality was a little lower but I will take a little lower quality over frustrating buffering any day. Now I can rest easy knowing that no matter what part of the world someone is watching my videos, they are having a great buffer free experience.
Brightcove can lead your company ahead of most companies so if you want to distribute your brand over the internet now is the time.
June 11, 2010
Online experts mention that by the year 2014 one fourth of company expenditures will be on marketing on the web. Do you know that clients first use the web for information and services that they can review? Why not get your company noticed with a Video platform and you can be noticed 24 hours a day. Especially if you are a hotel property and have to book rooms. Do you know that the Catania Hospitality Group located in Hyannis, MA has been using online video clips produced by Digital Media 500 for the past three years. In fact they have reached over 11,000 views in the past year on youtube. Just imagine your overseas clients if they could see your property first. We have been using video on the web for the last ten years and it works.
June 1, 2010
Top Ten Categories of Online Video (from Steaming Video Magazine)
Entertainment - 70%
News and Information - Current Events & Global News - 4%
Entertainment - Broadcast Media - 4%
Entertainment - Sports - 3%
Family and Lifestyle - Kids, Games and Toys - 3%
Search Engine Portals & Community - Member - 3%
Entertainment Music - 2%
Entertainment - Multi Category - 1%
Entertainment - Humor - 1%
Search engines/portals and communities - General Interest - 1%
This info is based on total streams (In thousands)
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June 1, 2010
This was an article conducted by James Carless of DV (Digital Video) Magazine of a member of the National Professional Videographers Association who is a web expert and is located in the New England area. The NPVA is a professional organization of videographers where I have been a member since 1996. We conduct monthly meetings and if you would like to join contact www.npva.org and look for the how to become a member Button on the home page.
Interview: The State of Web Video Marketing
From Web Video Expert by Michael Kolowich
This is a transcript of an interview with DigiNovations's Michael Kolowich, conducted by James Careless of DV (Digital Video) Magazine for the Feb. 2010 issue.
Where does Video stand these days, how much of it are you doing, what is the quality, what are the most common platforms, and so forth?
Very, very close to 100% of the projects that we do today have at least one web component. It is by far the most dominant delivery destination we have. Even when we are doing TV spots or live events, there is almost always a web version that's a little longer, more comprehensive, and tailored to web audiences.
We produce everything we do in full, 1920 x 1080p...even if its principals destination is for the web. With the technologies we now have in cameras and editing systems, there is little cost or performance difference between SD and HD, default to full HD and down-res for the web as needed.
Moving to progressive rather than interlaced video formats has dramatically improved the quality of our encoded material for the web. We've been using Flash Video principally, but have recently changed our mix more to H.264 for broader compatibility with mobile devices.
The Web video we produce goes everywhere - from YouTube to Facebook on one end of the spectrum to Brightcove-based private internet TV channels integrated into company websites on the other end.
How many of your clients use video on the web?
Very, very close to 100% of the projects that we do today have at least one web component. It is by far the most dominant delivery destination we have. Even when we are doing TV spots or live events, there is almost always a web version that's a little longer, more comprehensive, and tailored to web audiences.
We produce everything we do in full, 1920 x 1080p...even if its principals destination is for the web. With the technologies we now have in cameras and editing systems, there is little cost or performance difference between SD and HD, default to full HD and down-res for the web as needed.
How popular is web video, in terms of your clients?
Web video is popular among clients, but for most of them, their understanding of the possibilities is not terribly sophisticated. They’re looking for insight, advice, and help. Many of them are marketing communications pros who’ve just been told, “Get us one of those viral videos on YouTube please.” They need education about the difference between putting up a video and a smart video marketing program.
What is the biggest challenge in web video?
Until recently, the biggest challenge in web video was in the many steps required to prepare it, transcode it, upload it, and test it. The settings in compression software were often obscure and difficult to comprehend. Much of that has changed in the last year. The latest versions of NLE’s have a raft of presets that handle the most common cases. Services like Brightcove and YouTube employ server-side encoding software that will take just about anything you can upload and make it look halfway decent. Note I said “halfway”, though. There is still a lot of value to a video professional knowing the ins and outs of compression, because the settings you use for, say, a talking head are radically different from what you might use for a sporting event. Knowing what kinds of material compresses well or poorly can also influence the choice of shooting style, transitions, and effects for material that’s destined primarily for the web.
Where do you expect web video to go in the next year (i.e. what changes and progress)?
Over the next year, we can expect to see more interactivity built into the video stream. Clickable hot spots, synchronized web page events, sidebar video segments are all coming, which will extend the experience of web video viewing beyond the 16:9 frame and onto the web page that surrounds it.
At the same time, analytics will get a lot more interesting and valuable. We’ll be able to tell even more about how groups of viewers react to a video segment, second by second, and relate those reactions to commercial calls to action, such as buying a good or signing up for a cause.
And finally, video for mobile devices will start to become more standardized, and therefore more consistently available as a messaging platform for video markers.
I believe these new capabilities will come to full flower just in time for the next presidential campaign, which will kick off just about a year from now. (I headed the digital media team for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign last time around.
Do you foresee a day when video will be produced solely for the web?
It depends what you mean by the question. If you mean will projects be developed that are purely web video, it’s already happening. If you mean web video to the exclusion of all other media, I highly doubt it. Even if DVD’s go the way of the VHS tape, we’ll be seeing new media that we never even imagined that will make interactive, high-definition web video seem downright primitive.
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