Intranet videos: Overcome the bandwidth block

Welcome to Melcrum's Social Media Newsletter.

Using videos for communication and training may be nothing new, but the way we can view them, host them, even produce them, has come on leaps and bounds since the days of VHS players hooked up to cumbersome televisions in meeting rooms.

For today's organization internal videos are often linked to the intranet, but they come with a catch - bandwidth. Just the mention of "online video" might have your IT department on the defensive immediately, and most of the time it will be the thought of terabytes of pricey corporate bandwidth being sucked up by click-happy, YouTube-loving employees.

This doesn't have to be the case. There are many ways you can reduce the bandwidth load and the sweating from IT, here are some of them:

Flash video
Flash video files (files ending as .flv) can be as small as 1/10 of the size of a Windows Media or Mpeg file, and the quality is nearly as good. If you download a YouTube video to your desktop using a tool such as www.downloadyoutubevideos.com, it delivers the video to you as an .flv.

The downside to Flash videos is the need for a Flash video player for your intranet and Flash capabilities on desktop computers or handheld devices. But if you're looking to minimize bandwidth use, then flash videos might be the solution.

Windows media
As Windows Media Player is the bundled Windows software application, and the most often-used application to play media. Windows media video files (.wmv) are fairly prevalent in the corporate environment. While not as light as Flash video, WMV files can be kept reasonably small, although you may have to find the balance between file size and video quality.

MPEG files
Want high-quality video, maybe even in a format so employees can put content onto their own devices such as iPods? MPEG video (.mpg - or .m4v for iPods) can provide excellent quality video.

Purpose-built video platforms
If filming, formatting and hosting video on the intranet is still too much to consider, you can also investigate the possibility of a separate, purpose-built video site such as Viocorp's "Viostream" software (which uses Flash video). This software is in use by internationally recognized companies including ANZ Bank and Johnson & Johnson and provides a high-performance, hosted alternative if you don't quite feel like a budding video producer.

What can you use them for?
Recording the CEO's latest presentation, conference presentations, in-house talks, branding exercises, even screen-captured instructions or guides produced with a software program such as Camtasia for Windows, or iShowU for the Mac, can enable you to create valuable content that employees can watch and refer back to as and when they have the time.

Best regards,

Alex Manchester
Senior Consultant
Step Two Designs
alex@steptwo.com.au

"We need to believe in the impossible"
Sona Hathi, The Melcrum Blog, August 13, 2008

A fascinating video featuring a presentation by technology expert Kevin Kelly on the first 5,000 and next 5,000 days of the web.

Read now  

New internal magazine for the HomeForm Group
Kelly Dyer, the Internal Comms Hub, August 13, 2008

New magazine inform blends central communication with colleague-generated content.

Read now  

An animated guide to what internal comms isn't
Kelly Dyer, The Melcrum Blog, August 15, 2008

Whilst a pithy explanation of what internal communication is may be tricky to craft, this animation illustrates perfectly all that internal communication isn’t.

Read now

The Source for Communicators is a free resource for corporate communicators from Melcrum Publishing.
Melcrum Publishing Ltd, The Glassmills, 322b King Street, London, W6 0AX, UK
Melcrum Publishing, 449 N. Clark Street, Suite 305, Chicago, IL 60654, USA
Melcrum Publishing, Level 12, 95 Pitt Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia

Copyright Melcrum Publishing Limited 2008.