Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by, and presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media (notice this is plural, not mediums? Medium is singular!) that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb ‘to stream’ is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed medium.

Live streaming, delivered live over the Internet, involves a camera for the media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content.

OK- got that? Clear as mud, I know. And that’s where a professional video company comes into play. Companies like ours  take this down to an understandable level. After all, WE are the geeks!

Now, let’s get to the WHY!

Increasing consumer demand for streaming of high definition (HD) content to different devices in the home is on the rise. No longer do video viewers rely on the TV in the family room to watch programs, movies, and other entertainment and information sources. We now have desktop computers, laptop computers, hand-held/tablet computers and even “smart phones” that are all capable of receiving SOME sort of media stream. Increasing consumer demand for live streaming has prompted YouTube to implement their new Live Streaming service to users. And it seems like every company from Apple to Google to Microsoft and Yahoo are launching “TV” services^.

Now, don’t get me wrong. While the early-adopters are going head-first into programming their own entertainment from  myriad sources, this is still but a small fraction of the 115-some Million homes in the U.S. The vast majority of users prefer a network to program their news, sports and entertainment options FOR  them. And with virtually HUNDREDS of cable/Satellite channels available to over 85% of U.S. homes, it will be a while until the CONSUMER streaming market hits an apex.

Meanwhile, BUSINESS video seems to be the place to test, perfect and program your video streams – and when the consumer market hits a critical mass, GO FOR IT!

WHO?

And when you are ready to jump into the water- let us help you sort out the options, and make a good, solid effort from the very first stream you throw out there!

VIDEO!

VIDEO?

Yes, video!

So what can video do for my business? I am so glad that you asked. Video can take your business to the future of marketing. While your competition is mailing out postcards, which will probably end up in the trash anyway, you will be posting video to your website, newsletters and blogs that people can see anytime, anywhere on their smart phones, tablets, computers and TVs.

While video easily brings technology to your marketing, video also brings connection. With the click of a button, people can see you talk about your business in your own words with your own brand of enthusiasm and passion. They connect with you, not some words on a website. They feel your enthusiasm and your passion and that leaves an impression so they will think of you the next time they are looking for the services that you offer.

Video brings your business to life and puts you in front of your clients!

So join us over the next few weeks as we explore the key components to a highly optimized video that makes your 2012 marketing plan POP!

Thanks to Pamela Nebeker for this article, used by permission. Read more about Pam and her other blog articles here. You WON’T be disappointed! I promise to keep sharing Pamela’s insight with you over the next few weeks!

Chinese New Year will roll out the Year of the Dragon. Not bad, if you are a martial arts fan. I also saw 2012 marks the Year of Consciousness, the Year of the Smart Superhero Movie and the Year of the Voter (at least it is in Mumbai!) and the Allman Brothers will embark on a “Year of the Peach Tour” in March.

But I SAY it’s the “Year of the Video!” I read today that, “According to data on worldwide online video viewing from the comScore Video Metrix service, 1.2 billion people age 15 and older watched 201.4 billion videos online globally during October 2011. Google Sites, driven by YouTube.com, ranked as the top video destination with nearly 88.3 billion videos viewed on the property worldwide during the month.” 201 BILLION VIDEO VIEWS? What more proof do you need?

So, how are YOU preparing for the Year of the Video in your business? Do you have videos posted on your website? GOOD! Do you embed a YouTube Player? Excellent! Are you planning NOW to produce and upload new videos EVERY WEEK? Why the heck not?!

Videos are easy to make and upload- there are dozens of qualified production companies in Colorado alone, that can help you craft your story, produce the videos and upload them to YouTube or your own site. Do you already have an idea? Even better! We can also jump in wherever you need our help to make your video ROCK your website!

Check out our Web Video Packages. How can we help you “get your video on?” We’re here to help!

Before you take any action steps with your new video, it’s important to get clear about what you want your video to do for you. Clarity aligns your actions with your goals, keeps your actions focused and helps you save time and money.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, we have a list of questions below to help get you started. It might be a good idea to have your 2012 marketing plan handy as a reference.

•    Do you want increased brand awareness?
•    Are you planning to put ads on your content or charge a premium or pay  per view model for your video?
•    How are you going to get users to come to your site using your video?
•    Are you concerned about bandwidth costs?
•    Do you just want something simple, or is having a full fledged platform important to your business goals?
•    Do you want to add supplemental entertaining or useful videos that would gain traction and views on a video sharing site?
•    Or is your content very product specific and best used to help your current traffic convert?

Remember, there are no right or wrong answers to these questions and nothing is set in stone.

In our next post, we will help you strategize after gaining clarity.

Multiple stage curtains on tracks are also included with our video studio rental (chroma key green, navy blue, black, and grey muslin) and can be easily rolled out of the way if not needed. The video studio includes a light grid (12.5’ from the floor), full array of lighting instruments (see full list below), and we also have a Cam Lock tie in (450 Amps) for grip trucks.  A dressing room is conveniently located across the hall from the video studio, and we have a large break room with outside patio.

STUDENT RATES AVAILABLE !!  Got a class project coming up, give us a call – you’ll get the same exceptional service but with discounted rates.  (Subject to availability. Rates apply to Student projects, must be billed to student with valid ID. No commercial projects please!)

Studio with Green Screen

If you need GREEN SCREEN production, our Chroma Key green stage curtain is included with our video studio at no additional cost. Our studio is always painted white, but will also paint our studio - Ultimatte Green, Chroma Key Green or any other color - to meet your production needs.  For productions that require a studio audience, our video studio can accommodate approximately 65 people, depending on seating and staging requirements. We rent our Colorado video studio by the hr (2hr min.) - day – or week. Please contact us for discounted pricing for reoccurring needs or multi-day rentals.

Live Video Webcast Services:

We also have extensive experience with producing live video webcasts for delivery to small or large internet audiences. We are equipped to handle all aspects of your webcast, including encoding your streaming media to most any data rate and file formats. Our video studio is pre-wired for multi-camera production with an HD switcher, broadband internet connection (10Mbs up / 50Mbs down) and many more items such as RTS intercom, encode station, HD Monitors, teleprompter, and output to HD tape of digital file, to mention a few. Mobile ENG packages are also available for producing remote video webcasts on location.  Please contact us for more information on our video webcast packages and rates.

Is your church having a major anniversary celebration and you’d like to offer DVDs to your members?

Are you releasing new materials to affiliates or franchisees for your 2012 marketing campaign?

Do you have a DVD you need to send out to potential speaking engagement clients?

How will you do it?

Like a super hero, Rocky Mountain Audio Video Productions flies in to offer YOU a solution!

You DON’T need to send your audio, video or data to Los Angeles to press your disks. We make runs up to 1,000 in-house, in south Denver and include a 4-color printed disk, full-color liner or cover, case and shrink wrap – assembled and delivered – for as little less than $2.00 each! And we do NOT require runs of 10,000 or more (but if you need that many or more, we’ll get them under a dollar!) Need Blu-Ray? We got you covered!

Here is the kicker- we are Colorado Owned-and-operated, so your hard-earned dollars stay in Colorado to feed the recovering economy. PLEASE don’t send your work to another state!

Ready to go? Call me up and tell me what YOU need, or ask any questions you may have, and get an accurate quote for your next disk release!

Here are the questions to ask:

• Do you clean and prep the reels?
• Do you splice small reels not a larger reel- or do I pay for reel changes?
• How safe is my original film- do you have a low-heat light source or a high-temp lamp?
• Do you offer any color-correction for my old films?
• Do you transfer to an HD format, and if so, what is it? Can I get the output on Blu-Ray or on a hard-drive?
• How much of my film do you scan- the entire frame?
• Do you transfer frame-by-frame, or in real-time?

These questions will get you the answers you need to decide what you will get, and what the value is worth to you!

Here are the answers you are looking for:

At RMAVP, we clean and prepare your film for you and splice small reels onto large ones so you DON’T pay for reel changes. Here is our 5-step process.

Our new, state-of-the-art integrated system uses an LED light source, so your film will NOT get burned, or otherwise damaged by heat. We scan the full-frame of your film to 1080P, HD video- in a frame-by-frame scan. You get EVERY FRAME of your film scanned – the best you can get! And we offer your new HD content burned to Blu-Ray disk or a hard drive if you plan to edit the material on a non-linear system.  We can even give you a standard DVD copy as well.

We offer a basic level of color correction for just pennies more- we’ll set you up to normal to correct for color tints that occur over the years – and also offer a more active color correction for a little more.

So, before you buy a half-price deal that’ll get you 6 minutes of un-corrrected, analog standard-def video that looks pink or brown and might even burn your film… ask these questions. And please, feel free to call me and I will be glad to help you figure it out!

To host or not to host?

Do you want to host your video yourself or enlist the help of a third party? Generally hosting video yourself is not recommended unless you have lots of technical resources at your disposal (there are lots of moving parts to a video hosting project including: hosting the files, serving up video and the resulting bandwidth costs, selecting and customizing a player, collecting metrics and analytics, etc). In the past, this was the best option, but that is no longer the case. For most people, choosing a third party video platform is a better solution because they will offer better bandwidth costs, provide you lots of tools to manage your video and help you create a compelling user experience.

Third party here I come!

For most of you, choosing a third party platform will be the best option. It will free your time and budget and allow your video marketing to do what you want, expand your business, but let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages to third party hosting sites like YouTube, MetaCafe or DailyMotion.

Advantages:

•    Easy to upload video
•    No bandwidth costs
•    Lots of traffic
•    Easy to share (embed, email to friends, rss feeds, etc)

Disadvantages:

•    Videos are watched on their site, not yours!

•    Harder to monetize – if you are pursuing a video ad strategy to monetize your content this will be harder to do on big video sharing sites
•    No link juice if people embed/share your video
•    Limited analytics to understand user engagement, video bounce rate,etc
•    Tend to be lower quality
•    Ads appear on your content
•    Limited length/duration

How about a mixture of both? We’ll look at that next time …

What do I do with my new video? Call me with questions, I can help!

Part Three in our series by Pamela Nebeker on web videos

Video helps you break through the political noise- on your  web sites, on YouTube, on Local TV and Cable- by getting YOUR message out rather than the anti-message from your opponent(s). Video is compelling- in fact, viewers may not be able to look away if done right! Video is powerful; video captures sight, sound motion emotion and color… and video is easier than you may think!

Once you and your agency develop your idea, come to a production house, like RMAVP, and we can turn your vision into television! We’ll take your idea (and if you have one, a script) and set up locations, ancillary talent and shoot the High-quality, High-definition video footage you will need to tell your story. Once it’s shot, we will transfer it into our edit systems and build your story: we’ll add powerful graphics, strong music, authoritative voice-overs and complete your production. When complete and approved, we will distribute the videos on your behalf to local stations, onto websites and YouTube channels and anywhere else you’d like. WE do the heavy-lifting for you!

What about a direct-to-consumer mailer? It may cost less than you think! Get your message into the hands of your target voters, or better yet- your campaign operatives. get everyone on-message and rallied-up with a personal video from YOU!

Like what you see and hear, here? Give me a ring to explore next steps- or to get a bid – to making your 2012 campaign videos work harder than ever before.And we can help with your radio spots, and live-to-web press conferences, too!

• Drives more people to your site because folks like video!
• (in fact, websites with VIDEO are 53 TIMES more likely to appear near the TOP of Google‘s search results!)
• Folks spend more time on your site because it creates a connection.
• (the average viewer watched 20.2 hours of web video in December ’11!)
• Video enhances the user experience and makes them want to know more!
• Converts “looky loos” into real clients or customers.
• Provides access to “you” – 24 hours, 7 days/wk.
• Puts you light years ahead of your competition.
• (seriously- how many of your competitors actually have Pro Video on their site?)
• Enhances the possibility of viral marketing.
• Increases online awareness of your company.
• (see #1 above!)
• Harnesses the power of online exposure!
• Makes your company LOOK AND FEEL leading edge!
• Helps you capitalize on the emergence of new media!
• Attracts the clients who want to work with you!

When I look at this list, the word experience comes to mind and an experience is a particular instance of personally encountering a person or thing. That’s what we’re getting at, how people experience you.

So how do you want people to experience you? Do you want them to read pages of words with some images that might not capture the essence of you and your business or do you want them to see your excitement, passion and authenticity? Video does the latter and that’s where the spark of connection happens.

Keep watching over the next few weeks, as we take a more in-depth look at these 12 reasons and you’ll see what I mean about awesome!

And meanwhile- feel free to call or email me with questions, or suggestions. I welcome your feedback!

*Special thanks again to Pamela Nebeker of Talkabout Productions. Doesn’t she ROCK our video world?!