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DAH Streaming Media Services

Streaming Media is the term for enabling the real-time distribution of digital media (audio, video and data) over a network -- either the Internet or an internal, corporate Intranet.

Why use Streaming Media? Having streaming video on your website increases the impact, vitality and cost effectiveness of your business communication, empowering you to substantially stand out among your competitors and increase the ROI of your marketing campaigns. Bringing a tangible return on investment hand in hand with increased efficiency, streaming technology can be found proliferating across the intranets and extranets of corporations around the world — both old-school and new.

DAH offers a comprehensive array of Streaming Media Services, ranging from the simple client-based recording, encoding and hosting of meeting minutes on a central server for ease of reference and access to DAH encoding pre-existing video footage (such as training videos, product releases, marketing materials), and also event webcasting, where DAH sends camera crews on site to record the event, edit and compose an event video, then both make the video available online, 24/7, as well as available in DVD or Videotape form to anyone who could not attend.

The most substantial and concrete enterprise ROIs with Streaming Media are achieved through savings in travel costs – often associated with a new product launch. Michael Mitchell, manager of marketing communications for Cisco’s Internet Learning Solutions Group, notes that product information for systems engineers or account managers makes up more of Cisco’s streaming video than any other application. Mitchell observes, “The main way that we justify [streaming costs] is by looking at travel costs. If you take an audience and say they all have to fly to San Jose, or you take the presenters and say they have to be on a road show for six months, either way you look at it, you get a pretty good ROI.”

A number of more specialized applications of streaming are reaping softer, less measurable ROIs. For example, Structural Group, Inc. uses its streaming video library as a recruiting tool. Director of Marketing Brian Gallagher notes, “We give prospective employees access to the [streaming] library. They learn what we do. It shows us being progressive and forward thinking — a company that really cares about investing in its people.

The line between product launches and corporate training is sometimes thin, especially in high-tech industries where training may be required for salespeople and other staff to understand what a new product does. The streaming of corporate training content is an effective video application in the enterprise, and has grown out of the dynamic, well-established distance-learning sector of teleconferencing. Most large corporations support distance-learning units, and many are now making the transition from broadcasting or conferencing to streaming.

Some Corporate HR Departments are beginning to stream regulatory compliance and other videos on subjects ranging from sexual harassment in the workplace and conflict management to the corporate 401(k) plan. Streaming server logs can be tracked to discover which employees watched which videos and for how long.  Musicians wishing to give prospective MP3 or CD purchasers a "listen" to songs can provide streaming audio samples on their sites.  Sites selling DVD's can stream trailers for the movies to clients. The number of devices and means by which streaming audio and video can be played back is expanding these days in quantum leaps and bounds -- no longer limited at all to desktop computers, many cell phones today boast the ability to play high-quality streaming video over the net.  Don't be left behind -- it costs a lot less than you'd think to bring your site and services into the next millennium!

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