Navigation – More about navigation in the Viewer Experience section below, but the initial flowcharting of a navigation system for logical organization of subject matter is a significant first step. Considerations should include: how many levels, how many categories, how are the categories linked to other website sections, what are the hierarchies? A search function on the site should be considered, and a system for entering meta data should be established.
Hosting and Bandwidth – The video hosting platform must be robust enough to allow minimal wait time for viewers. Scalability is a key consideration. You don’t want to over-pay for a too-large system able to service hundreds of thousands of simultaneous viewers, when you might only be servicing a thousand viewers at one time.
Deployment – How long are video assets maintained on the site, and is there a plan for determining when to delete a video? Managing the number of relevant videos online will minimize server costs. Plus, viewer experience is maximized when search time is minimized. You don’t want viewers wasting their time in viewing something that is out of date or redundant.
Not all video assets have to be in the same platform. You might find it effective to create a separate non-permanent video hosting platform for special events.
Service –
How much service should a service provider offer? Something to think about – who is going to make certain the system stay current with technology trends and advances? Also, one needs to consider how much design, asset handling and updating do you want handled inhouse, versus the benefits of utilizing a service provider.Reporting – Proof of performance is more critical every year, particularly in the public affairs and training arenas. ROI is as important with public agencies as it is with the private. Your video asset management system should include a reporting function that tracks, at a minimum, the number of viewers for each video asset. You can then demonstrate Return on Investment with facts and figures, rather than anecdotes. Adding suitable meta data to focus searching can aid immensely the number of viewers, and most importantly, the number of viewers from your targeted demographics.
User Experience
Channels used in Special Libraries Associations
Presentation – Fast loading video is a key ingredient for viewer satisfaction. The framing is also important. A branded, attractive player skin with easy-to-use control buttons will enhance an image and the video it presents. A short description, which lets viewers quickly determine if a particular video matches their interest, is another key consideration.
Video Destination Sites
For NTSA,EFX Media built a destination site for the Modeling and Simulation industry, prominently featuring the
IITSEC trade show – www.SimTV.orgDownloads – Typical web video postings are designed for viewers who visit your site. Particularly in the government sector, having videos easily available to stakeholders’ sites can further marketing penetration and make partners grateful. Offering a downloadable video file for your stakeholders and the media is an attractive option. Stakeholders, news web sites, or general information destination all look for interesting video material. Making it easy for them to simply download a video file will increase your ROI dramatically and potentially allow you to create your own ad hoc network. You control the look, feel, quality and branding of the video message.
Broadcast – Increasingly, television news outlets prefer receiving video material, or bits/bites packages, via the internet. Compared to satellite up/downlinking the cost savings and efficiencies of instant video availability might be a deciding factor in whether of not your media appears on the nightly news. Your video can be made available in broadcast quality, uncompressed MPEG 4 format that is available for download 24/7 and can be edited and broadcast by media. A big advantage to news producers, is that they can viewed a web version of the video on your site to instantly determine its viability.
Streaming vs. Progressive Download – Typically, there are two choices when it comes to delivery of web video to browsers. Progressive video, used by sites such as YouTube, downloads the entire clip as it plays over regular Web protocols. Streaming, a method used on sites like Hulu, relies on the presence of a media server and uses alternate protocols to deliver only the requested portion of a video clip on demand, keeping only a few seconds in a buffer. Each choice has benefits and drawbacks. Progressive, for example, requires no server-side technology, but has the potential to use more bandwidth. Streaming video, on the other hand, can protect content from download, and ordinarily uses less bandwidth than an identical progressive clip. However, streaming can nonetheless present playback problems on some networks, even when using techniques such as HTTP tunneling to route around potential trouble spots.
Formats and Codecs – The choice of video format is a crucial one, as your content should be made as accessible as possible for as long a time as possible, even considering how rapidly standards can and do evolve. Gone are the days when it was necessary to provide video in three formats at a variety of bit rates; today, a single MPEG-4 clip properly encoded to H.264 will be compatible with and viewable in a variety of online and offline media players. Many mobile devices natively support H.264 as well. However, vigilance is key, as competing technologies such as Google’s VP8, Ogg Theora, and even legacy stalwarts such as WMV and RealMedia can present a dizzying array of choices.
Embed Code – When distributing your video, it’s good to share, and the more places your video appears, the more widespread your message. Whether you use a video site such as YouTube or Vimeo or have created a site from scratch, your users will appreciate a way to copy embed code for use on their own pages.
Video hosted by EFX on NAS website – http://americasclimatechoices.org/study-video.shtml
THE EFX TV SOLUTION
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The EFX Company (dba EFXMEDIA)
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