Maastricht University's Web Video Universe

Video on the web is the big buzzword. It's not only a buzzword but a fact. ComScore estimated that in the US alone around 144 million people watched 14.6 billion videos this May and the number is increasing. Youtube alone is responsible for 1.8 billion streamed videos/day and leads the chart of online-video platforms. What holds for the consumption side is equally true for the production side. Every minute twelve hours of video is uploaded to youtube alone. Other stats speak that by 2014 around 80% of online content will be video while still others speak of 80% of users will consume it. From whatever perspective perspective one approaches this phenomenon Cisco sees no technical limit and is rather neutral in his recent report that gives an idea of why "data is the new pollution of the information age":

Today Cisco announced the results of the annual Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast, 2009-2014, which projects that global Internet traffic will increase more than fourfold to 767 exabytes, or more than 3/4 of a Zettabyte, by 2014.  This amount is 100 exabytes higher than the projected level in 2013, or an increase the equivalent of 10 times all the traffic traversing Internet Protocol networks in 2008.
The growth in traffic will continue to be dominated by video, exceeding 91 percent of global consumer IP traffic by 2014. Improvements in network bandwidth capacity and Internet speeds, along with the increasing popularity of HDTV and 3DTV are key factors expecting to quadruple IP traffic from 2009 to 2014.

Source here

Video is the fastest growing media on the internet and no website (in the real world) comes without one. Video captivates more than text or images can do particularly in visual dominated cultures like ours. Moving images combined with music responds to our feelings and emotions in way only really good typography can do. (and Gutenberg was aware of this fact that is visible for us even today. Just look at the care and fines Gutenberg bibles exhibit) Video is easier to digest and much more convenient to experience than TV ever was. The reasons are technological and have little to do with how one use it to create a certain effect. But there is certainly more to it than just putting videos online.

I recorded an interview and a presentation exactly one week ago with a camera I borrowed from the university. A nice Sony HD consumer camera with an extra microphone and a tripod. A students editor was supposed to edit the material for me in the coming days. Of course I informed myself about other possibilities. I contacted Media Service Maastricht and Science Vision Maastricht. They offered me a professional set for a professional price. Since the budget is always the locus of disagreement I decided to move on with the in house equipment and services available. And here is the result:

The student editor has no time to edit anything before next week. (This means that for two weeks no such service exists practically) A very nice girl who's hobby is video editing cannot be blamed for having no time. But the equipment she gets in order to do the job can. The workstation she uses to edit HDvideos is not different from the workstation I use for web browsing in the cave. The free video editing software "Movie Maker" is her editing suit. She said something about another video editing software but this is even more confusing. So, already a week ago I thought that there is something wrong with all of this. But I remembered a prayer I put on the entrence of the cave:

God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

courage to change the things I can

and wisdom to always tell the difference.

So I booked her workstation for two hours to encode the .MTS files into a editable format. I expected the other software to be installed but without the right login nothing shows up. After calling the Helpdesk and listening for 5 minutes to a female voice who repeated the same phrase over and over again I decided to ask somebody what is going on. And somebody came and explained to me that no such software was purchased by the university nor is anybody able to help me. He was very kind and really sorry for the inconvenience this situation caused. So what is the lesson?

Now coming back to video on the web. Whatever ends it serves it will not do so here. The lack of basic facilities (software and hardware) for their production is a major barrier and not easy to overcome. Skilled professional personal is the next barrier that needs serious meditation when one wants to embrace on-line video. As long as those obstacles are not eliminated nobody should talk about embracing the "fastest growing media on the web". It needs more to successfully utilize video to accompany the educational program of the University than thought experiments and guesswork. What it needs is investment. Once this is in place a fruitful discussion about what content is available and how the University can make use of it in a way that promotes the values it stand for can begin. But as long as the university has amateur videographers equipped with stone age tools nothing will happen.