Video archives are commonplace in the competitive advertising market, but few agencies have latched on to the potential of their video collections for electronic communication.
Mark Chertkow, MD of Illovo-based digital video and multimedia company Graphic Image Technologies (GIT) says agencies are neglecting millions of Rand in potential revenue from encoding and using their video archives more effectively.
"Technology has advanced to the stage where converting analogue video reels and Betacam tapes into electronic video files is mainstream," says Chertkow. "There are many compelling reasons for agencies to do this, and yet few companies have latched on to the idea with any real conviction."
Chertkow adds that once video has been captured electronically, it exists as non-degenerating data that can be used and re-used as often as needed without any loss in quality. It can also be reproduced without quality loss, compressed for faster delivery in limited-bandwidth environments (like the Internet), and broadcast across corporate networks before the analogue tape is located and positioned in the player.
"We`re already seeing video as e-mail attachments proliferating on the Internet, and that`s in an uncontrolled form," he says. "Imagine if we can use the medium to convey targeted, video-driven presentations to global clients, send product-specific annotated show reels to colleagues and interactively share video resources without ever touching the master tape.
"We`re currently demonstrating applications that take book-marked, annotated video into portable PowerPoint presentations, support digital VCR playback on the desktop, make video streams available globally from a central location, to name a few," he continues. "The technology is here and is entrenched in the market. All it needs to do now is reach critical mass and the way we package and share information will change completely."
Digital video quality has come a long way since postage stamp-size video made its debut on PC screens a few years ago. Broadcast quality MPEG-2 video streams can be fed to PC networks via satellite, and are enjoyed in millions of homes around the world through multi-million dollar digital satellite TV services.
"Getting video into MPEG is not the problem," says Chertkow. "Getting people to understand that an investment in digital video will have a domino effect on productivity, customer service, sales presentations, customer focus, job turnaround and video production quality is another story."
Share
Editorial contacts