Customer Spotlight

National Multiple Sclerosis Society
with Renaissance Media

Video Content Management – A Case History

(September 2008) Now that we’re no longer fighting the dragons of bandwidth (I was in a public restroom the other day that had better bandwidth than my office) and people are really ready to accept streaming video as a viable source of information – then the next problem becomes obvious: How do you manage hundreds of hours of footage in a player environment that makes sense to an inexperienced user?

While most internet users are keenly familiar with clicking on a YouTube image or an icon of a little video camera – what can we use when we have to coordinate hours of footage broken into specific subjects, multiple associated elements such as PDFs, podcasts and more PLUS monthly, weekly and daily updates? This is where the BroadbandVideo, Inc. Broadcasting System gave the team at Renaissance Media a hand up in developing a new kind of information environment for their long-term customer the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Working as a multiple-disciplined, multiple-talented team; members from all three organizations put their collective heads together to design a new form of information tool using the capabilities of the BroadbandVideo, Inc. Broadcasting System.

Link to new NMSS video player running live

Originally designed as an online tool to replicate the functionality of an interactive television station – the Broadcasting System proved to be the perfect tool for organizing streaming video in terms of subject matter, related materials and content flow. Users can choose a main subject area – then drill down to the almost granular level of enhanced description followed by a program link. When the viewer chooses the video they wish to view, they are also automatically given a transcript of the program, a podcast of the program, links to similar content resources within the NMSS site as well as tools to allow the viewer to contact and interface with representatives inside the organization. All this with ONE mouse click.

Using footage and spreadsheets created by Renaissance Media, the production group at BroadbandVideo, Inc. used the Broadcasting System to break up hours of video into predefined “shows” of varying length. These shows also contained consistent elements that had to be included at the end of each clip - additional information, contact information, copyright information and more. Considering the commercial insertion capabilities of this system, these elements were reused in a time-code based, non-linear fashion. Instead of using the “info window” capabilities of this system to send out promotional messages, these capabilities were utilized to their fullest as each clip has many non-video elements associated with each subject video. By dividing the video player into different areas – users were allowed to dig as deep as they wanted, or just “watch the video”, curing that age old issue of associating additional materials in such a manner that inexperienced users will not suffer from “information overload” and be turned off to the experience / environment. Instead, the exact opposite has occurring in preliminary test viewers – they were able to get the information they wanted without feeling “out of control” or “lost”.

The Broadcasting System is a backend tool with a simple, easy to use, HTML-based front end, so the tasks of daily updating take no more than a few sections to complete – without having to endure endless lines of code or confusing commands. BroadbandVideo, Inc. is currently working on a time-based module addition to the system that will allow for complex scheduling of material addition or subtraction. This soon-to-be released feature will compliment a system that already makes ongoing updating simple and easy to achieve. Persons with no knowledge of internet code or construction can click a few buttons and perform the addition of literally hundreds of clips or “show” environments. Once the system has been pre-formatted – updates are extremely easy.

Using the active X components of the Windows Media Player and a targeted pre-defined series of interlinked framesets as the core components of their highly customizable player, the team at BroadbandVideo, Inc. was able to create an easy-to-navigate hierarchical menu system that allows the user to select one of three content areas by type of content, then they can drill down to paragraph descriptions of the content to make intelligent choices about the materials that apply to their particular field of interest.

The creation of these type of sophisticated information environments is a specialty of BroadbandVideo, Inc. along with other online video services such as streaming live events, long-form video hosting and management and video-on-demand distribution products.

To view the player in action, click HERE.

To visit Renaissance Media, click HERE.

To visit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, click HERE
 

Denver Newspaper Agency
(Rocky Mountain News / Denver Post)

Link to video page on Post-News Classifieds