Video has penetrated all types of industries and departments. From marketing and live events to internal comms and organizational training initiatives, video is found everywhere. Managing these critical video assets securely and efficiently is now a matter of staying ahead of your competition.
However, video asset management (VAM) is quite different from traditional digital asset management (DAM). That is because video itself is quite different from other forms of static digital assets. A single minute of 4K video captured at 60 FPS on an iPhone takes about 400 MB space. That means an hour-long video would take about 24 GB of space.
So even if your startup is creating ten videos a month, it will pile up to be 2.88 TB in a year’s time. To put it into perspective, a 300-page eBook is typically only about 2.6 MB in size. So if we publish ten books a month, that will only be about 312 MB a year (still lower than 400 MB minute long video).
However, storage space is only just one of the reasons why video requires special attention. Let us explore what exactly is Video Asset Management and why a traditional DAM system is not able to meet its requirements.
What is Video Asset Management?
Video Asset Management is simply put digital asset management for video. To elaborate further, it is a system designed to handle centralized storage, organization, management, and playback of a large number of video assets. End-to-end management of videos encompasses a variety of capabilities, including transcoding, indexing, search, sharing, security, compliance coverage, analytics tracking, and much more.
5 Video Challenges Faced By A Traditional Digital Asset Management System
Costly and Limited Storage
Conventional DAM systems mostly have upload limits for the size of a digital asset. Hence, it can be a struggle to find a system that can actually allow large video assets to be uploaded.
Plus, video need is ever-changing. The pandemic definitely accelerated it suddenly. Scaling up the storage space of these systems can prove to be very costly.
How VAM system Helps?
VAM systems have scalable storage with tiered storage options. So, you can put non-frequently accessed video assets in cold storage that has lower storage costs.
Lacks Transcoding – Viewability Hampered
Video can be captured and uploaded in a variety of formats – each of these is supported by different devices, browsers, which can severely hinder the playback of these videos on DAM systems (that is, if the DAM system offers playback of videos). This is because DAM systems do not automatically transcode your videos into multiple renditions to support playback for all viewers.
How VAM system Helps?
VAM systems automatically transcode your videos into multiple formats, resolution levels and bitrates. This supports adaptive bitrate streaming that allows smooth, buffering-free playback on all devices, browsers, and varying bandwidth conditions.
Not Optimized for Global Content Delivery
Traditional DAM systems are also not designed to handle video streaming, especially across borders. They lack CDN support and do not offer adaptive bitrate streaming. It makes it next to impossible for your videos to be playable worldwide, which is a hindrance, especially if your business has global operations.
How VAM system Helps?
A VAM system provides CDN support for global content delivery alongside adaptive bitrate streaming, ensuring playback anytime, anywhere, on all devices and browsers.
Finding Required Videos Quickly is a Struggle
Finding the right video amongst thousands is very difficult and time-taking on a conventional DAM system. These systems have limited capabilities for the modification and optimization of metadata. The videos are not auto=tanscribed and translated. So, auto-tags cannot be generated for them. Plus, you cannot add additional identifiers to these videos to improve the filters.
Above all else, these systems lack AI capabilities to provide in-video search. So finding that one sentence in the hour-long video will be an excruciating process for your viewers.
How VAM system Helps?
VAM systems have extensive AI-powered search capabilities assisted by automatic transcription and translation of videos. So, your videos will be auto-tagged. You will also be able to optimize the metadata by adding custom identifiers to your videos, ensuring accurate filtering. Plus, AI-powered in-video search will help you search inside videos for a particular spoken word.
Limited Security and Compliance Coverage
Organizations usually handle videos for a variety of use cases, each with its respective audiences and security requirements. These videos can have trade secrets, critical financial planning details or personal information of employees. A security breach would not only result in financial loss but also hurt your business reputation and loss of competitive advantage.
DAM systems lack many critical video security capabilities like role-based access controls, content segregation through restricted user groups, end-to-end encryption, etc. This also results in the systems not having the appropriate capabilities to meet critical compliance requirements, which can be highly troublesome.
How VAM system Helps?
Opt for a VAM system that is designed with a security-first approach. It will provide you with a bunch of security and data governance features for secure and compliant video asset management. These include end-to-end encryption, role-based access controls, content segregation, SSO integration, audit logs, anonymous user policy, custom retention period, and much more.
Conclusion
To sum it up, digital asset management systems are great if you are mostly working with static digital assets. However, with rising video usage in the business sphere, using an efficient VAM system will not only increase your ROI but help your startup reach new heights without getting bogged by petting video management problems.