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How Comms and IT Can Work Together to Streamline High-Quality Video Distribution

Best Practices

Leading a Communications team at an enterprise organization means you work cross-functionally with multiple departments, including the IT team. Although your goals may be different, when it comes to corporate communications, you share a common objective: Achieving a high-quality meeting experience for all employees on your network and ensuring delivery of a clear and concise message to your organization. In order to meet those goals, Kollective Technology recommends that both teams work together to make a few important decisions when it comes to your tech stack.  

Using the Right Tools 

With so many innovative workplace communication tools to choose from, it can get overwhelming if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. From applications like Microsoft Teams, built for seamless collaboration and communication, to your basic email or instant messaging program, there’s quite a long list to choose from.  

Sometimes these tools can be more of a burden than a benefit, especially if they’re not streamlined. Your team may primarily communicate big updates with your organization via email platform A, but when it’s time for a company-wide all hands meeting, your team prefers to run communications on Platform B because it has a live video function. When you use multiple communication platforms, it’s easy for employees to miss messages and get frustrated. More than half of workers say they feel overwhelmed by having to use multiple communication platforms , which is something that can be easily avoided.  

Selecting a single tool like Microsoft Teams allows for inter-department collaboration. With a single tool, you can deliver your message in a high-quality format and meet the needs of both the Communications and IT teams. After you’ve done your research, get in touch with your organization’s lead network architect and work together to select the video communications tool that meets your organization’s needs.  

Setting Expectations 

Not all departments “speak the same language” but if you want your company-wide communication to be successful, you’re going to have to find a way to effectively work with your friends in IT. One way to do so is by setting expectations up front. 

Examine what kind of user experience (UX) you want for your employees. UX is critical to the success of video communications because it asks things like:  

  1. Was the viewer able to watch event with limited interruptions? 
  2. How was the video and audio quality of the meeting? 
  3. Did the viewer understand the message that was being communicated?  

When both your Communications and IT teams have to report back to executive sponsors on the success of the event, UX is something you’ll need to include. But level setting UX expectations can be tricky, which is why Kollective has a formula that will help cross-functional teams work together to manage executives’ expectations. Kollective takes variables like time zones, survey response rate, job title, family, and attendance history into consideration when calculating expectations.  

It’s important for the Communications and IT teams to collaborate on expectations for live video events, setting clear roles and responsibilities ensures the best live video event experience for your employees. After you’ve set expectations and executed your first event, it’s time to dive into analytics .  

Diving into Analytics 

Analytics are critical to successful enterprise video strategy because they identify both wins and opportunities for improvement. To get the most detailed look into live event performance, you want a tool that gives you real-time analytics. These are the metrics that will provide the greatest insight: 

  • REACH SCORE: Sum of the number of reported users who viewed the content and the number of anonymous viewing sessions. Reach score provides insight into the total number of unique individuals reached by a live event.  
  • AVERAGE VIEW DURATION: The average amount of time a viewer was reported to have watched the event. Average view duration helps gauge company engagement when compared to baseline metrics.  
  • QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE (QOE) SCORE: Time spent displaying video relative to the total time spent both displaying video and buffering. It quantifies the quality of a live event giving insight into buffering and network bottlenecks.  
  • PEERING EFFECIENCY: Normalized percentage of bytes delivered via peering measures how efficiently network-connected devices transmit live video. 
  • BANDWIDTH SAVINGS: Percentage of bytes delivered via peering highlights ECDN effectiveness and network capacity.  
  • GEOGRAPHIC CONSUMPTION: Country-specific video deliveries displayed as a percent of total deliveries for all content on a scale of 0% to 100%. This figure gives global enterprises the opportunity to see how messaging is received globally.  

For your Communications Team, analytics like reach score, geographic consumption and average view duration are most helpful when breaking down what content employees engaged with and how engaged they were based on location. For the IT team, learnings from QOE score, peering efficiency and bandwidth savings will help quantify how well the meeting tech worked and give insight on what improvements need to be made for next time.   

Set Your Enterprise Video Strategy 

Now that you’ve picked a platform, outlined expectations, and know which analytics are important, you’re ready to finetune your enterprise video strategy. Kollective offers organizations with 1,000+ employees a free one-hour virtual workshop with one of our Event Services Consultants. During this session, you’ll learn: 

  • Live event best practices to ensure success 
  • Advice and links to helpful live event resources 
  • And, if you are a Microsoft O365 customer, a copy of the Kollective Live Event Playbook for Microsoft Teams Live Event 

Streamlining your workplace communication tools and working with your IT team is imperative for curbing burnout and running an efficient business. Let Kollective show you how your Communications and IT teams can strategize and work together to deliver successful, high-quality live events today.  

The post How Comms and IT Can Work Together to Streamline High-Quality Video Distribution appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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Pick the Right Bitrate for Your Next Live Video Event

bitrate

If you’ve spent any amount of time watching or participating in a live event over the last year, chances are you’ve noticed a difference in the level of engagement between events with clear video and perfect audio, and events where you can only hear every fifth word of what the presenter is saying.   

While it’s true that top-notch streaming equipment and high-speed Internet can lead to the perfect lag-free Live Event, there’s another factor that could be contributing to the quality of your steam — bitrate. 

WHAT IS BITRATE?  

To keep it simple, bitrate is the quality of the video or audio being streamed during your Live Event. It’s measured in kilobits per second (kbps), which means we’re looking at how many ‘bits’ of data you’re sending, and at what ‘rate’ (speed) they’re being sent. 

Higher bitrates typically use up more Internet bandwidth, so it makes sense that using a higher bitrate can improve video quality. However, selecting the highest bitrate without considering other factors like expected quality and video complexity is not the most efficient plan for your Live Event. Plus, if your network’s bandwidth is insufficient, most video streaming platforms will prioritize audio quality over video quality.  

SO, WHICH BITRATE IS RIGHT FOR MY LIVE EVENT?  

There are many factors that can impact your choice of bitrate. In addition to meeting the requirement dictated by whichever codec (software programs that encode or decode a video stream into a different type of stream) you’ve chosen, your decision will revolve around your organization’s preferred quality for your Live Event – the higher the bitrate, the better quality your Live Event will be. But the actual bandwidth consumption for every Live Event will vary based on video layout, video resolution, video frames per second, and whether you’re utilizing an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN), like Kollective . When more bandwidth is available, quality and usage will increase to deliver the best experience. 

Assess your organization’s quality expectation for your Live Event. This boils down to how advanced the culture of video is within your organization and will depend on how expectations around video have been set previously. Over the last 12 months with the rise of remote work and increased video communications, most organizations probably have a more robust video strategy, so their employees expect Netflix and Hulu-quality Live Event experiences. In order to hold a high-quality Live Event, you have to choose a high enough bitrate to support the video complexity and motion content of the source you’re pushing to viewers. 

Here’s a breakdown of Kollective’s recommended bitrate based on desired resolution and frame rate:

Screen Shot 2021 03 11 at 10.56.13 AM 300x156 1


WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO LIVE EVENT QUALITY? 

Live Event quality takes both resolution and frame rate into consideration. Resolution is how many horizontal lines a frame of video has from top to bottom. The more lines of video, the “clearer” the picture is. Frame rate is the number of frames in one second of video. The more frames per second (fps), the smoother the video’s motion.  

When you’re selecting the proper frame rate and resolution for your Live Event, think about the content and purpose of the event, specifically related to motion and video complexity. The more motion your video has, the higher frame rate you want. For example, if you watch a basketball game at 10 frames per second, it will look like a cartoon flip book or strobe light. If you have a group of very animated presenters, it’s nice to have a decent frame rate to keep up with their motion, usually around 30 fps or higher.  

Video complexity refers to the level of detail in the video, so if you have multiple speakers in different panels during your event, of if you’re showing a slide presentation with small font or moving pieces, your Live Event is going to require a higher degree of complexity in order to meet your organization’s quality expectation.  

START STREAMING 

Once you’ve selected your bitrate, you’re good to start streaming your Live Video Event. Just remember that choosing the right bitrate can be a bit of a trial-and-error process and can change with each Live Event your organization presents depending on your ECDN capabilities, quality expectation and video complexity.  

If you’d like to learn how an ECDN helps improve the quality of your internal communications, read our Browser-Based Peering Solution Brief.

The post Pick the Right Bitrate for Your Next Live Video Event appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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How to Optimize Your Network for Live Video in 60 Seconds

browser-based peering

If you want to deliver live video to all your employees but don’t want to invest in hardware, download software or purchase additional bandwidth, you need Kollective Browser-Based Peering . Our enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) is powered by WebRTC technology – that means all you need to get started is a browser.

Signing up for a free trial of Kollective is so easy, it can take as little as 60 seconds. Here’s the proof: 

 

Choose the right ecdn

When optimizing your network for live video, make sure you pick the ECDN that will scale with your business. Kollective Browser-Based Peering will help you exceed expectations for high-quality events by delivering buffer-free video to every employee, regardless of their location, device or bandwidth capacity.  

WHY KOLLECTIVE BROWSER-BASED PEERING?

  • Simplicity: Auto-provision your ECDN trial in 60 seconds. Kollective is the ONLY WebRTC solution that lets you sign up, choose your integration, configure it, and try it immediately – for FREE!  
  • Intelligence: Confidently deliver high-quality video streams. Our browser-based solution uses smart peering algorithms that tune to your network, delivering the intelligence you need – no agent required.  
  • Control: Scale live video to the network edge. From out-of-the-box configurations to advanced bitrate and playback controls, Kollective puts the power of peering in your hands.  
  • Analytics: Customize live events and network insights. Instantly see your aggregate performance metrics or dig into the data down to a single node or endpoint with Kollective IQ Analytics. 

STAY ON THE FOREFRONT OF ENTERPRISE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND SECURITY

With enterprise video gaining traction worldwide – it’s safe to say video communications are likely a focus of your organization’s 2021 digital transformation goals . Kollective makes it easy to save bandwidth and deliver high-quality video, whether your personnel are working physically distanced in the office, remotely or at home. 

In addition to saving your organization up to 99% of bandwidth, Kollective Browser-Based Peering is Secure by Design. Our ECDN uses standard web-based protocols with all data transfers encrypted and signed. We do not receive, store or process customer content, nor are we able to decrypt the source content.

MAKE SMARTER DECISIONS FASTER

Kollective IQ is the only enterprise-ready analytics and intelligence platform intuitively designed for the way you work. Whether you’re a network administrator, manager of a corporate communications team or a video producer, Kollective IQ is designed with intuitive workflows that simplify data exploration to help you make intelligent decisions, fast.  

In addition to standard network and event workflows, Kollective IQ lets you to choose which data sets you want to highlight. Create the custom dashboards, metrics and visualizations that align with your business goals and then save them for future reference.  

Kollective IQ makes it easy to package and send data when and where you need it. Easily automate your data imports with simple data export tools and database integrations, connecting Kollective IQ to the leading business intelligence platforms on the market. 

ADD KOLLECTIVE TO YOUR NETWORK

Now that you know more about Kollective Browser-Based Peering, it’s time to add it to your network. Sign up for a free 30-day trial.

The post How to Optimize Your Network for Live Video in 60 Seconds appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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2021 Digital Transformation Trend: SD-WAN Optimization for Live Video

CMMA Blog

One of the many things 2020 has shown us is the escalating need for digital transformation across all enterprise organizations. An increased IT spend focused on network optimization is absolutely necessary as your workplace transitions back to the office post-COVID, because while some pre-pandemic aspects of communication will remain the same, the need for video communication and expanded network bandwidth will increase at least tenfold.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION POST-COVID

Returning to the office to then deal with tech debt, dated software and outdated processes is an unnecessary hassle that you don’t have time to deal with. Companies that have started their transformation journeys are ready for the challenge of managing digital communications when the workforce returns.

Among the changes that we’ll see within the next year will be the move to a more distributed workforce and workplace, with digital experiences at the forefront, which will require multiple technologies and platforms connected by digital workflows. This will be the case no matter which one of your offices your employees are working in.

HOW IT BUDGETS WILL CHANGE IN 2021

As the need for digital transformation increases, so will worldwide IT spending. In 2021, spend is expected to reach $3.8 trillion, an increase of 4% from 2020, according to research firm Gartner . Specifically, enterprise software spending should also see tremendous growth in 2021 with an anticipated gain of 7.2%, due to enterprise digitalization efforts.

“In the 25 years that Gartner has been forecasting IT spending, never has there been a market with this much volatility,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “While there have been unique stressors imposed on all industries as the ongoing pandemic unfolds, the enterprises that were already more digital going into the crisis are doing better and will continue to thrive going into 2021.”

THE ERA OF CLOUD END-USER GROWTH

When enterprise organizations increase IT spend, Gartner also expects growth in public cloud to be sustained through 2024. In fact, recent Gartner survey data indicates that almost 70% of organizations using cloud services today plan to increase their cloud spending in the wake of the disruption caused by COVID-19.

“As CIOs think more strategically about how to lay the foundations to support a return to growth, it is clear that the move to digital and associated services will play a big role for organizations in the future,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “Cloud adoption therefore becomes a significant means to stay ahead in a post-COVID-19 world focused on agility and digital touchpoints.”

Network Impact of Increased Cloud Adoption

SD-WAN is a crucial technology that businesses need to invest in to thrive in the “new normal.” As cloud-adoption becomes more prevalent moving forward, the need for SD-WAN technology will continue to increase. Here’s why:

INCREASED DEMAND FOR ROBUST VIDEO QUALITY:

The days of in-person all hands meetings have been traded with back-to-back video calls. While businesses are planning to return to the office in the future, many will have employees stream enterprise video and live events at their individual workstations. Video communications have proven necessary for inclusivity and productivity during the pandemic, but a surge of users using video can completely bog down your network, causing lags and connectivity issues which can be frustrating and ultimately lead to decreased productivity. A simple fix for these issues is adopting a robust and higher bandwidth network connectivity, by way of an SD WAN.

BOOST BANDWIDTH WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK:

Adding bandwidth to your network can be expensive. SD-WAN is an attractive option for increased bandwidth pressure because it’s a solution that can meet your demands while remaining cost-effective.

OPTIMIZE CENTRALLY OPTIMIZED NETWORKS:

Once you check the boxes for enterprise video quality and bandwidth, the next step is to ensure that IT teams have the resources needed to effectively operate networks from cloud-to-cloud. SD-WAN is a useful IT tool for network management because it provides full visibility into what’s happening across the network.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU NEED MORE ENTERPRISE BANDWIDTH

Simple. It’s time to optimize your network, and Kollective’s browser-based peering is the easiest and most efficient solution to solve your enterprise bandwidth needs. The browser-based peering solution scales video communication across your network, allowing you to achieve 100% delivery at 1% the bandwidth. Kollective’s superior user experience, seamless integration, global scalability, decision-based analytics and effortless onboarding. Kollective optimizes the network you have today, we use peering to distribute content efficiently.

Kollective Browsed-Based Peering offers:

  • Lower transit costs
  • Retain greater control of routing paths
  • Improve overall network performance
  • Increase redundancy by using multiple locations
  • Increase bandwidth capacity

Talk to an expert today to find out how Kollective can help you optimize your network in 2021.

The post 2021 Digital Transformation Trend: SD-WAN Optimization for Live Video appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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Network Capacity Planning for Live Video

CMMA Blog

With large numbers of employees still working from home, many enterprises are adopting a video-based culture to aid in corporate communications. What is often missed however is the impact live video can have on your network. This is where network capacity planning comes in.

Network capacity planning helps network administrators understand a network’s shortcomings. Typically, it involves gathering data around:

  • Network traffic
  • Traffic type
  • Utilization rate
  • Infrastructure capacity

The purpose of network capacity planning in regard to video is to find out if your network can handle the demand for live and on-demand streaming.

In the last few months, we’ve heard a few justifications for why some organizations have avoided network capacity planning prior to running live events.

“We have plenty of bandwidth. We don’t even have half of our employees back in the office yet.”

“Video will be easy. We’re running a skeleton crew.”

Unfortunately, those arguments don’t hold up in the new normal. Here’s a real-world example from a Kollective customer that explains why.

10% of Employees Can Consume 70% of Network Capacity

A leading agricultural organization recently broadcast a virtual Town Hall Meeting to its globally distributed workforce of 45,000 using a top webcasting platform. Their corporate headquarters, normally alive with more than 5,000 employees, had less than 10% of its staff in office on the day of the event.

With so few employees onsite at HQ, the IT team was confident they could live stream the Town Hall without activating an enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) to optimize bandwidth consumption.

The result? Seventy percent of HQ’s total network capacity was consumed by less than 10% of the workforce.

Given the physical distancing measures required in the workplace, each of those 500 employees participated in the Town Hall from their own computer, pulling the video stream directly from the source instead of gathering to watch in the HQ auditorium. This put immense strain on the network.

If you do the math, that means their network would not be able to support even 15% of employees streaming video from HQ.

What happens when the bulk of employees return to the office?

The Weight of Synchronous Video

The goal for every organization shifting to a video-based culture is to deliver a high-quality viewing experience that is inclusive to all employees, regardless of location, bandwidth or device. Although our customer may have network capacity at Corporate HQ, they also need to address remote office and branch locations that are the most likely to struggle with scaling live and on-demand video.

For context, live events created in Microsoft Stream get a fixed encoding profile:

  • 720p – 3.5 mbps
  • 540p – 2.2 mbps
  • 396p – 1.4 mbps
  • 288p – 850 kbps
  • 216p – 550 kbps
  • 192p – 200 kbps

What’s important to note is that video playback is not a static number and will change according to:

  • The video’s original resolution, bitrate and content
  • A user’s available bandwidth
  • Size of the player

You can estimate the impact video will have on your network by measuring and sampling the bandwidth of the content typically produced by your organization. Extrapolate that out across the total number of employees likely to view said content, and you can see how quickly the bandwidth required to stream video at scale adds up.

How an ECDN Optimizes Bandwidth Consumption

The simplest way to offset live video bandwidth consumption is with an ECDN. Kollective’s ECDN uses WebRTC technology to create a peering mesh between employees in a shared office location. Rather than everyone pulling content directly from the cloud and overwhelming your WAN (wide area network), a single peer gains access to the video and shares it with those nearby.

As you can see, a network without an ECDN is quickly overwhelmed by video – first by live playback and then by employees viewing the event on demand. This can have a dramatic impact not only on the viewing experience but also for business-critical applications that rely on the same network.

Network capacity spike

With an ECDN those network spikes are eliminated, which means you can be confident live video will not take down your network and the end user will have a high-quality viewing experience.

Small network capacity spike

See How Peering Works

Take the work out of network capacity planning with Kollective’s ECDN. Try our demo today to see how we can help you deliver 100% of video broadcasts at 1% the bandwidth.

The post Network Capacity Planning for Live Video appeared first on Kollective Technology .

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6 Metrics You Need to Know to Analyze Live Video Performance

CMMA Blog

COVID-19 has changed the way world works and Live Video is now essential to maintaining enterprise communications . But how do you know if your videos are reaching the right people – and what the quality of the experience is for the viewer?

The answer to those questions and more can be found in your Live Video analytics dashboard. Here are six metrics you need to know to analyze Live Video performance.

Reach Score

The first metric you need to know is reach score. It is determined by summing the number of unique views with the number of anonymous viewing sessions. An anonymous viewing session is a view that cannot be determined, like if a viewing machine does not properly report play by a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID).

As opposed to solely reporting on unique viewers, reach score gives better insight into the total number of individuals reached by a Live Video. You can use this metric to evaluate the performance of your pre-event promotions: How many people showed up relative to the number invited? How does this compare to previous events you’ve hosted?

From there, you can draw parallels between lead time, invitation format, and even the business segments invited.

Average View Duration

Analyzing average view duration is the quickest and easiest way to tell if the content of your Live Event was engaging when compared to a baseline measure. By viewing aggregate data in the event summary dashboard, you can get a general idea how your audience typically behaves. Do they stay online for the entirety of a Live Event? Or do they drop off at the end of a session when the Q&A portion typically starts? Once you have a good understanding of this, you can compare it to the most recent event data to determine engagement.

Quality of Experience (QoE) Score

Nothing can derail a user’s experience quicker than buffering. Unfortunately for many enterprises, it’s an all-too-often occurrence when streaming Live Video to remote offices and worksites. Thankfully, QoE score gives organizers Insight into how end users experience their Live Events.

At Kollective, our QoE score is based on the time spent displaying video relative to the total time spent both displaying video and buffering – buffering in this case includes buffering before video startup and during playback. Here’s how it’s calculated:

The total time a user spends expecting to watch a video is described as:

TTotal = TBuffering + TPlaying + TStalled

Therefore, the QoE score would be equated such that:

QoE = (TPlaying / TTotal) * 100

The “good” threshold for QoE score is 90% or greater, while a “bad” QoE score is less than or equal to 70%.

A buffering video not only impacts view-ability and employee engagement. It can mean there are serious bottlenecks in your network that may be affecting business application performance. For businesses with Live Video QoE scores that fail to meet users’ expectations, an Enterprise Content Delivery Network (ECDN) can help alleviate the pressure on your network. Live video is a notoriously bandwidth heavy medium, and as the demand for it grows, you need to know that your network can reliably scale content to reach all employees.

Bandwidth Savings

Once you’ve implemented an ECDN, it’s easy to monitor how much bandwidth it saves during each Live Event. Bandwidth savings is defined as percentage of bytes delivered via peering. Network administrators can reference this metric to determine ECDN effectiveness and network capacity.

Geographic Consumption

Kollective IQ GeoExplorerNow that you know how many people attended your event, what their experience was, and how much bandwidth you saved using an ECDN, it’s time to investigate where you content is being consumed. Kollective’s GeoExplorer allows you to drill down into how much content was consumed by how many users, even if there was a lag or buffering that occurred during event delivery.

This gives global enterprises the opportunity to see how messaging is received across the organization. Identify your top performing offices and those that need additional attention.

Peering Efficiency

Kollective’s ECDN leverages browser-based peering to deliver Live Video. Rather than relying on a single distribution point, it uses WebRTC Technology to enable direct peer-to-peer communication for all network-connected devices in a modern workplace. Peering efficiency is the normalized percentage of bytes delivered via peering. Or, in layman’s terms, how efficiently these connected devices transmit Live Video.

Learn More About What Great Analytics Reveal

Want to learn more about what great analytics reveal about Live Events? Join us for a webinar where we’ll teach you the ins and outs of Live Video reporting for Microsoft Teams.

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