By John Mills, Director of Business Development at BexelJune 8, 2017 – Burbank, CA – Organizations increasingly turn to broadcast technology for corporate media solutions. The breadth of new easy-to-use, cost effective tools make these solutions the perfect answer to creating high-quality productions with less-technical operators.

High-quality video: it’s not just for broadcasters anymore. With the built-in video capabilities of smartphones and other personal devices getting more sophisticated by the minute, and the exploding popularity of go-anywhere, miniature POV cameras such as the GoPro, just about anyone can capture and share high-quality video and even broadcast live from social media sites such as Facebook. Clearly, we’re living in a video age, a fact that is beginning to sink in for non-broadcasting organizations — the many types of enterprises whose core business is neither broadcasting nor media.In growing numbers, these enterprises are recognizing the important role that video can play in their operations for everything from training employees to communicating with customers and shareholders. Until recently, however, enterprise video projects have been slow to catch on as organizations struggled to overcome cost and technology barriers. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at those barriers and some new approaches that are making high-quality enterprise video easier and more affordable than ever before.Enterprise Video Challenges and OptionsWhile the will to adopt video might be strong, enterprises from virtually every sector have the same misgivings about how to actually bring it into their operations. Will they have to hire a trained and specialized staff, and can the budget handle it? Can they deliver the same quality that they’re used to seeing on a television news broadcast? Will they have to find space in their facility to build a dedicated room or studio for video production? And even if they do, will they be able to achieve production values that reinforce, rather than diminish, the company’s brand?Some enterprises have turned to video conferencing systems to increase their video usage. While these systems have decreased in size and their video and audio quality has improved, they still fall short in their ability to produce quality output. And without knowledgeable staff or proper equipment at hand, production values can be an issue. For instance, subjects might be placed in front of sun-drenched windows or lighting might be insufficient or inappropriate, placing the subject in shadow or casting an unappealing hue for skin tones. Audio can be muddy and dialogue indistinct. And for tightly scripted messages, it’s not easy to integrate prompting capabilities into a typical video conferencing system. While it may be easy to record or stream a subject using these systems, organizations expecting broadcast-quality video might be in for a big disappointment.Beyond using video conferencing systems, maintaining a dedicated and knowledgeable in-house video staff, and building a professional in-house video facility, enterprises have been left with one other option – to hire a video production company. This can produce highly professional results, but it’s a costly undertaking that can disrupt daily activities during the set-up, shooting, and tear-down process. And forget spontaneity – hiring a production company just isn’t practical or cost-effective for organizations that want to leverage video on a frequent, ad hoc, and ongoing basis.

Parameters for a New ApproachGiven the limitations of these options, our enterprise customers have given us several baseline requirements for a video solution that meets their needs. At a minimum, these organizations want the ability to make professional-grade videos that can be streamed live to internal or external sites, or be recorded for later use. Most of them do not intend to hire a dedicated staff or build an in-house facility; therefore, operational complexity is a liability. They’re also looking to start building a library of reusable content.To break it down even further, our enterprise customers need video production solutions that address five key elements:

• Content Capture. What’s required to create video that looks and sounds great? Minimum elements include lighting, camera, audio, prompter, recorder, streaming unit, and backdrops. All of these components must be reduced to a form factor that is easy to deploy, portable, and easy for non-technical staff to operate.
• Scheduling. Getting the broadcast feed on the air or streamed online should be as easy as possible: It should be doable with a few clicks on a user-friendly interface that operates like a calendar, so anyone can choose the day, time, and duration of the feed and how the content will be used; for example, live or VOD.
• Device Routing. Once the broadcast feed is scheduled, automatic systems are needed to manage the devices to send and receive the feed. The encoder should be linked to the decoder regardless of the destination, network, or distance. Quality of signal (QoS), latency compensation, bandwidth management, and security of the signal path must be present without the need for human intervention.
• Pre- and Post-Event Analytics. The setup must provide valuable analytics to help the enterprise evaluate the quality of the broadcast and understand viewership. Both before and after the transmission of content, adjustments may be necessary. Were there more dropped packets than usual? How much retransmission of those packets was necessary? What was the geographic concentration of the viewers, and how many stayed on for the duration of the broadcast? All of these metrics can feed into decision-making for improving the broadcast service going forward.
• Archiving. Like the content produced by broadcast and media companies, video created by our enterprise customers has extremely high value. Easy-to-navigate asset management and archiving tools are a must for storing, accessing, and managing content.

A Comprehensive and Yet Compact and Easy-to-Use SolutionIf we could deliver an enterprise video solution that meets all of these requirements, what might it look like? Systems integrators like Bexel ESS have been working on such an offering – a type of “pop-up studio” that can be made available as a rental package or for purchase at a much lower cost than purchasing discrete equipment. The basic concept is a mobile broadcast facility for everyday enterprise video production that delivers the same, consistent video quality as a television newscast, but without the complex operation, capital equipment investment, fixed site equipment, and trained video staff of an in-house studio. This approach places a strong emphasis on simplicity – it should be simple to light and mic subjects and then record and stream content in a way that does not require a fixed location taking up precious space.One such offering, designed for use in a conference room setting, provides fully integrated HD or 4K video capture and streaming with a PTZ camera. In addition, the solution includes incremental functionality including prompting, recording and monitoring, storage for post-production, or streaming to any number of internal or external distribution sites including Facebook, YouTube, and other social media sites. Since this solution does not require a dedicated video staff, it can be set up and operated by anyone in the enterprise; for instance, templated production tools help non-technical users position lights and backdrops to achieve a professional look. And because this solution is compact and mobile, enterprises can deploy it anywhere in a building, on a campus, or around the world.

A Real-World ExampleConsider the experience of one client, a global consultancy firm that serves customers in more than 100 countries. This company wanted to re-imagine how it communicates with its employees and adopt modern tools and techniques that would have greater impact. At the same time, the company doesn’t have the time or resources to build a full broadcast facility in each of its 50 worldwide locations. The objective was to place state-of-the-art broadcast technology in the hands of the people delivering the message, but in an affordable and re-deployable way.Using the Creative Studio solution, the company delivers a regular schedule of corporate video messages from C-level executives, including a monthly “CIO Live” program in which the chief information officer shares the latest technology solutions that are being developed for the company’s client base. The CIO then cues employees in remote offices, who in turn give updates on what their teams have accomplished in local client engagements. Since the content is being distributed live over an IP network, employees are able to view the broadcasts from anywhere and on the devices of their choosing.In SummaryThis rapidly growing company has tapped into a powerful truth – the more visual the message, the more impactful. Rather than relying on static emails to convey important corporate messages, the company has recognized the value of high-quality video for capturing tone and other subtleties that simply don’t come across any other way. To date, the company has deployed the Bexel mobile video solution to 15 of its locations, with more coming. Even the company’s CEO has recognized the value of video messaging for engaging employees, and she uses the solution spontaneously – sometimes twice a week – as a quick and highly effective communications vehicle with global reach.This story first appeared on the Broadcast Bridge, here.[sc name="ess-footer"]