06 Feb High-Quality Video Streaming: Expert Advice by BWD
When was the last time that you have physically written a letter to anybody? That you neatly folded into an envelope, placed a stamp, wrote the delivery address on the cover, and walked down to your nearest post office to get it delivered?Writing letters, which was once a primary and trusted way of authentic communication, has now been clothed with a sense of nostalgia, deemed slow and primitive.
Communication is progressing in phases, seeing the tremendous growth of our means to access information. Its primary focus is to fuel the need of instant gratification. Time has now more than ever, become a stronger commodity. The faster you access information, the more on par you with the rest of the world. Instant knowledge and relevancy are key in our lives.
Today, one way or any other, every bit of information that we consume in our daily lives comes through a digital format. SMS, MMS, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, just to name a few are all platforms through which we access and obtain information. Smartphones have taken over, giving birth to a range of applications to aid one to access a variety of information. Google has become our encyclopedia, our go-to person. YouTube videos & MEMES are more entertaining than normal TV shows. DATA and access to good speed WIFI is synonymous to bread, butter, and Jam! All of this is to fuel our desire and need to be relevant NOW.
The World is Digital
A digital world means having the right technology to access information. Almost annually, Apple releases an updated version of a previous software or device that they launched. They know the digital village appreciates efficiency and quality. And with the advent of Netflix, ShowMax, etc, more of our daily entertainment shows and information is readily available to us anywhere and anytime.
The next phase of our communication progress is to keep audiences satisfied by providing quality information. Before, people would share illegal content via hard drives that would not be of the best quality. These days, the best quality can be sourced through legal online platforms at the best price, picture and sound quality. It’s like having your own cinema on your phone or laptop. Subsequently, any piece of content produced by various content producers now is available to audiences in High Definition. Both Vimeo and YouTube provide viewers with the ability to view content in various formats – but the best is and will always be HD.
The ability to amplify your viewing experience is to view content in high definition has now urged content producers to up their production value. We are now seeing cameras being able to shoot between 2k and 4k. These quality ratios were originally offered for cinema and HD Tv Channels. But with more and more content being viewed on digital technology the bar has been raised to produce content that will live in the seamless digital world.
At the advent of “youtube videos”, people would simply shoot online content from their phones (which also have HD quality) as well as cheaper cameras. With YouTube ad placements at the beginning of videos, this now begs producers of online content to ensure that their production quality will captivate audiences more so to avoid “skip ad”. Hence the same production etiquette to produce a great quality TV production is also employed into the production of digital online content.
To shoot a TV commercial for brands, or have longer form content that will live in the digital world, will still require the same processes and procedure as producing a TV commercial to flight on TV. You will still need good camera equipment, experienced crew, locations, on-camera artists, final mixing of music, etc. All of these ingredients are still applicable for online content production and more.
With the ability of audiences to stop and pause content, to do frame grabs from screens, etc, begs production quality to be crafted.
Digital is Not Cheaper
With marketing budgets becoming increasingly less, more emphasis is being placed on brands to produce online content. However, there is an obscured notion that online content production is cheaper. Yes, it would be cheaper if any brand would find it plausible to shoot content for their brand on a cell phone or on a simple camera, with a videographer who may not be a strong director. And if you place that content next to a great production quality video online, chances are your message will be forgotten is highly likely.