All posts by Anthony Romero

Live Video Streaming with Chat Module

Live Video Streaming with Chat Module

Looking to do on-demand and live video streaming with chat support? A lot of considerations can go into selecting the appropriate chat module for your video strategy. These can range from compatible technologies, user management, feature sets and brand-able (or a lack of branding) solutions.

This article talks about the process of choosing a chat solution to accompany your video content. It includes areas to consider, features you should look out for, and how to begin moderating conversations. It also examines how IBM Watson Media has updated and expanded its chat capabilities, including the addition of direct messages within a non-Flash framework. To stay up to date on improvements like this over IBM’s video streaming and enterprise video streaming offerings, also be sure to check out periodic live demos that cover the latest on the platform.


How Does Automated Closed Captioning Work?

How Does Automated Closed Captioning Work?

How does automated closed captioning work? What elements improve or impact the accuracy for artificial intelligence (AI) driven captioning?

This article examines why automating caption generation is important before diving into how speech recognition and other elements combine to provide an accurate experience. This includes many behind the scenes aspects that go into how AI approaches the task of transcribing audio. The article then concludes with a few tips to keep in mind when looking for a solution that automates closed captioning.

For more information on this topic, including how to succeed with automated closed captioning and what to expect, also be sure to download our in-depth How Can AI Elevate Your Closed Captioning Solutions? white paper as well.


How AI is Disrupting Video

How AI is Disrupting Video

IBM’s new publication, featuring research from Gartner, examines how enterprises are leveraging unstructured video data through machine learning. Topics, showing how AI is disrupting video, range from video analysis for business value, AI powered transcription and examining a large scale deployment that uses cognitive capabilities to enhance video assets.

Check out the publication on AI and streaming video, which includes links to full papers and videos on these topics. Below is a quick recap of some of the information touched on within.


Improve Watson Captioning: AI Vocabulary Training

Looking for a way to speed up the generation of accurate captions? Interested in AI vocabulary training?

Earlier, IBM introduced Watson Captioning to generate captions for videos using speech to text. These captions could then be edited for accuracy, or to adhere to personal preferences. Those capabilities are being expanded with the addition of the ability for Watson to learn based on those edits or to be taught. As a result, this can speed up the process of accurate caption generation through removing previously repeated tasks.

Note that this feature for Watson to learn based on edits or to be manually taught is currently only available from the stand alone Watson Captioning solution. It is not currently available for Streaming Manager or Streaming Manager for Enterprise, although will be coming to those in the future.


What is Video Encoding? Codecs and Compression Techniques

What is Video Encoding? Codecs and Compression Techniques

Wondering what is video encoding and why it’s important?

In this article, we’ll examine the process of encoding, codecs and compression techniques. This includes what makes for a recommended codec, although is situation dependent. It also covers why certain artifacts, related to compression, might appear in your video. As a result, you’ll walk away with a better understanding of this process and how it relates to adaptive bitrate streaming.


Deploy ECDN through Cisco ISR 4000 Series

Deploy ECDN through Cisco ISR 4000 Series

Looking to reduce network bandwidth across your entire organization while sending out high quality internal video?

Through using IBM’s Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN) and the Cisco® 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR), companies can reduce strain on their network from the main offices all the way down to smaller, satellite offices as well to achieve scalable enterprise streaming video.

This article covers what is ECDN technology, the benefits of it and why you should be using it with the Cisco ISR 4000 technology to enable your entire organization to enjoy high quality internal video without causing local congestion issues.


Live Streaming Cameras: Select the Best for You

Live Streaming Cameras: Select the Best for You

Need some advice on choosing a live streaming camera that is best for you? One of the first steps toward doing a broadcast is selecting a video source, often times a video camera.

There are a lot of camera options out there, and different ways to connect them to your encoder as well. Not only that but prices can range pretty dramatically, with some being around $80 while others can get into the thousands. Plus, some might be confused about capture cards, like why or when do they need them as part of their overall workflow.

This article, and accompanying video, aim to demystify this a bit. Aiding you in learning a few tricks of the trade so that you can better navigate choosing a camera for your next live streaming project. Also, be sure to check out our Video Studio Recommendations guide as well to help you create your video studio with your live streaming camera.


Best Practices for Your Corporate Video Strategy

Best Practices for Your Corporate Video Strategy

Looking for best practices on your corporate video strategy? 77% of executives believe their organization should be doing more to capitalize on video technology for internal use. If you feel the same way, these best practices can help.

Here are 5 best practices to ensure that users are getting the most out of their corporate video solution:

  1. Offer user friendly security options
  2. Enhance asset indexing
  3. Survey your audience setup
  4. Be mobile friendly
  5. Track usage


Automatic Closed Captioning: How to Edit & Search

Automatic Closed Captioning: How to Edit & Search

79% of executives with video content archives agree that a “frustration of using on-demand video is not being able to quickly find the piece of information I am looking for when I need it.” This data comes from a joint IBM and Wainhouse Research report, which interviewed 1,801 executives. The frustration is a growing challenge, but one that can be addressed while simultaneously adding valuable captions to video content. This is achieved through automatic closed captioning, with support to both edit and search them.

Called Watson Captioning, available as part of IBM Video Streaming and as a stand alone service, the process works by utilizing IBM Watson to generate closed captions, converting video speech to text. Once generated, content owners can modify these for accuracy through a dashboard editor, simplified by confidence levels that will underline words under a certain threshold. Afterwards, these corrected captions are not only accessible in the player but can be searched against as well, empowering viewers to jump to parts in the video where their topic of interest is mentioned.

This article discusses, briefly, the process of generating these captions before detailing the user experience in searching them and how content owners can edit them as well.


Video Advertising Integration with Mid & Pre Roll Support

Video Advertising Integration with Mid & Pre Roll Support

Need a robust video advertising integration solution for content you own?

IBM Watson Media is expanding the advertising options available to content owners through the addition of custom ad solutions. Tailored for live and on-demand video, these are available as a product offering from IBM Watson Media with additional managed services to best support existing and new ad setups.

This article explains more about using video advertising, the available solutions from IBM Watson Media, use cases and the technology behind it. To learn more about the offered services, contact sales for additional details.