Product Updates

Need deeper analytics to analyze how your video content is being consumed? Want to validate that individual viewers completed mandatory training?

IBM Enterprise Video Streaming offers individual viewer tracking analytics. These allow organizations to drill down and see not just who accessed certain videos, but how much they watched and look at overall viewing history as well. This feature has been enhanced as well, for increased scalability in the dashboard and the ability to utilize APIs to take this functionality into other applications.

This feature was demoed in our Getting Started with Enterprise Video Management webinar.

• Individual viewer tracking use cases
• How individual viewer tracking works
• What information is tracked?
• Viewing individual user data
• Scale and APIs

Looking to introduce a way for viewers to return to the exact moment they stopped watching a video?

IBM Watson Media has released a feature that saves the playback position of videos on a per viewer, per browser level. This allows viewers to continue watching video on demand content from the moment they stopped viewing.

Looking to customize your video URLs? Want to setup a static link that can be updated with new videos without having to notify others or replace embed codes?

This article walks through creating vanity URLs for videos through a new permalink feature for IBM Video Streaming. When setup, a custom ending for the URL is created, featuring the name of the content or any other desired name. In addition, content creators and organizations can use this feature to swap videos tied to a permalink. This will automatically swap the video content featured across embed codes and shared links that use that permalink.

• What is a permalink?
• Creating vanity URLs for videos with permalinks
• Embedding a permalink
• Swapping videos under permalinks
• Permalink use cases

Looking to add closed captions or subtitles to your video content? Need WebVTT captioning support?

While closed captions can be associated with aiding the deaf and those hard of hearing, their benefit goes beyond this for video creators. In this article, learn about captions, why you should be investing in them and how viewing habits are changing in a way that increases their use. Also learn about the WebVTT format for subtitles and caption, how to create them and convert other subtitle formats to them as well. This is topped off with discussing how to add captions to your videos on IBM’s video streaming and enterprise video platform.

• What are closed captions?
• Closed captioning VODs
• What is WebVTT?
• Creating WebVTT files: DIY
• Convert SRT to WebVTT online
• Using services to create caption files
• Adding closed captions to videos on IBM Watson Media
• Closed caption user experience
• Supported languages for captions

Closed captions have grown to be an important part of the video experience. While they assist deaf and hard of hearing people in enjoying video content, a study in the UK discovered that 80% of closed caption use was from those with no hearing issues. Not only that, but Facebook found out that adding captions to a video increased view times on their network by 12%. These reasons, along with regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and rules from the FCC, have realized the need to caption video assets. However, caption generation can be time consuming, taking 5-10 times the length of the video asset, or costly if you are paying someone else to create them.

A solution is automatic speech recognition from machine learning. This the ability to identify words and phrases in spoken language and convert them to text. The process offers content owners a way to quickly and cost effectively provide captions for their videos. To address this, IBM introduced the ability to convert video speech to text through IBM Watson. This was added to IBM’s video streaming solutions in late 2017 for VODs (video on-demand). It has recently been expanded to recognize additional languages.

Integrated live captioning for enterprises is also available, although differs in several ways from the VOD feature talked about here.

• How it works for VODs
• Supported languages
• Caption accuracy
• Steps to convert video speech to text
• Exporting and editing captions
• Additional professional services available for captioning

Explore the video content in your FileNet ECM (Enterprise Content Management) solution in new ways through this integration with IBM Watson Media. Introduced with version 5.5.4 of FileNet, enterprises can now leverage comprehensive video processes that unlock additional functionality. This includes the ability to stream videos from FileNet, accessing video content faster and with more flexibility. End users also benefit from AI-driven processes, generating automatic closed captions and powering deep video search features. This technology can be used to get the right content in front of the right viewer across a wide range of use cases, from watching your CEO’s virtual town hall to re-watching footage before sending a maintenance truck or approving an insurance claim.

If you are already a FileNet user and interested in testing out this integration, sign up for a free trial to start leveraging this technology. Note that this special trial has to be started before June 30th and you must be a current FileNet customer to take advantage of this.

Looking to manage video platform user permissions?

Managing video content is become an increasingly collaborative experience. Furthermore, enterprises are adopting larger video strategies as well. In fact, 51% of enterprises estimated their streaming budgets at $100,000 or more going into 2020. Naturally this increase in budget for video will produce more content, creating an environment where companies need to be more agile in managing assets. Especially as companies are looking to use video both internally, to employees and stakeholders, and externally, for prospects or entertainment purposes.

To address this, IBM released an administrator controlled permission system for organizations back in 2018. These features were recently expanded, offering more granular control. As a result, organization administrators can manage video platform user permissions, empowering them to oversee admins and managers for accounts and channels from a dashboard. This enables quick team management for video assets, fostering easier collaboration toward video goals.

• What is an organization?
• Controlling permissions in an organization
• User permission levels
• How to manage user permissions
• Creating custom roles
• Custom role use cases

62% of employees use closed captions for work related video content, for a number of reasons other than hearing accessibility. In fact, only 5% of employees cite a hearing impairment as a reason to use captions. Additional reasons include convenience, watching videos with low or no volume, or non-native speakers needing assistance to understand the language spoken in the video.

Additionally, employees are 80% more likely to watch a video to completion when it is closed captioned. As a result, there is real value behind captioning video content and a driver for organizations looking to increase viewer engagement.

To address this, IBM is offering integrated live closed captioning for enterprises by combining IBM’s video streaming solutions with IBM Watson Captioning Live. Hosted entirely on the IBM Cloud, the integrated closed captioning software solution eliminates the need for hardware on location and makes it easy for businesses to quickly set up. It is security-rich and offers teams full ownership and control over their video content and metadata, as well as any internal usage metrics and training data. In addition, Watson Captioning Live offers secure, scalable, AI-driven live captions to any live stream. The solution, which currently captions for English language content, can be easily trained to recognize industry- and company-specific terminology and seamlessly integrates accurate live captions to live streaming content, connecting employees across the globe through engaging and accessible workplace video.

• How the integration works
• Viewing the live captions
• Importance of accessibility
• AI training
• Watson Captioning Live
• Use cases
• Enabling the integration

Live and on-demand video content can be a compelling medium. It can build excitement for product launches, engage employees with corporate communication or educate viewers around specific topics. Managing and updating a company’s video activities can therefore be crucial.

For those leveraging IBM’s video streaming solutions, an on-demand and live video manager dashboard is provided. Accessed online, this allows administrators and managers to quickly go live, edit video assets or control individual access levels.

This interface has been updated at IBM, streamlining management functions while also enhancing the ability to find and locate content channels available.

• Header: go live and change accounts
• Dashboard navigation
• Channel selector

Looking for an Android or iOS mobile video app SDK in order to develop custom applications for your company?

IBM offers the Video Streaming SDKs (software development kits) for Android, iOS, and macOS devices to enable enterprises creating their custom and personalized mobile broadcasting solution.

The SDKs provide features for mobile broadcasting and manage the complexities around video streaming, scaling and security. The solution is deeply integrated into the IBM Enterprise Video Streaming platform, helping companies to focus on their own business instead of dealing with the complexities of mobile broadcasting. 

These documented interfaces allow developers to bring the power of live video broadcasting into their business-specific custom workflows. The resulting applications are then used to enable employees, from executives to managers, to broadcast content internally using their mobile device after authenticating. Audiences can range from all-hands addresses to smaller departments.