Case Studies

Streaming Video with inhouse resources or...to outsource?

Why Cities Utilize a Fully Outsourced Solution Like Ours.

A few large cities do have the expertise and existing infrastructure available, in-house to deploy a basic streaming solution that supports live webcasting over the Internet. In addition, they have the manpower available to manage the archived files and publish them individually to the web. They find introductory encoding software is free, and building an encoding computer is fairly simple and inexpensive. Streaming technology is seen as fun, or at least interesting, and most IT teams look forward to the opportunity to work with the technology. To start, the outlook is optimistic.

 

Five reasons why Granicus provides a superior webcasting solution with tools to improve the legislative management workflow:

• End-user usage grows and network congestion becomes an issue.

  Streaming webcasts uses considerable bandwidth, and produces large peaks during live events, such as public council meetings. This large increase causes serious quality problems when the network is congested, forcing cities to find a new content delivery solution. Simple economies-of-scale suggest that an outsourced solution would be beneficial. Because during high peak usage, additional costs for dedicated bandwidth can cost four to five times what you would pay on a gigabyte (GB) transfer rate through the Granicus MediaCenter™. To save money and/or improve quality cities with network congestion are moving towards outsourced hosting.
   

• Server/Encoder reliability problems occur because of configuration.

  Most cities start by utilizing one piece of hardware, an encoder. The encoder is used both to encode the analog signal from the cable or camera feed, and to serve the streams to users. This is not the ideal configuration, and as usage grows the single-server will have difficulty handling both the encoding and serving of media. The result can cause "lock up" of the encoder/server, during a popular event, disabling all of your live streams and loosing the archive or creating an incomplete archive of the event.

  The ideal solution is to have one computer/server act as the encoder, and to forward the stream onto multiple streaming servers. The streaming servers handle the requests from the users, and the encoder simply encodes and archives the event. This configuration greatly increases your reliability of providing streaming content. However, it also means cities will have to build/buy additional servers and maintain them. Additionally, the expertise of managing these servers and a streaming infrastructure is unlikely to be available in most cities. Again, simple economics support outsourcing this service to Granicus, which provides shared servers in a managed environment.
   

• Manual processes for managing and publishing video become extremely time consuming and difficult.

  When replacing the simple one-server infrastructure with a more fail-safe solution, the administrative tasks of moving, organizing, and publishing video content become more complex and time consuming. To publish content, an administrator usually has to log on to several servers, possibly in multiple locations. Files are down loaded off the streaming servers for minor editing, such as trimming or creating a video sub-clip. HTML publishing to the web site consists of numerous manual steps, most of which are very redundant and tedious. The need for reliable and easy-to-use software, which provides automation and central control for these processes, becomes apparent after a short period of time. Only a handful of cities, have the software development skills required to link and automate these processes in-house. Furthermore, the city has no desire to develop complex and customized software solutions. This leads them to seek a predeveloped and tailored solution for government from a qualified outside vendor like Granicus.
   

• High demands for additional features usually require third party software.

  Cities that have dealt with or accepted the obstacles pointed out above, still find reasons to adapt the Granicus solution to obtain additional features and functionality. Adding these expanded features and functions improve the user experience and save valuable time. The most compelling feature is the combination of indexing and searchable archives by keyword. This allows users to gain quick and simple access to the content they are looking for. In addition, Granicus MinutesMaker™ allows the Clerk to annotate minutes in real-time, during a meeting instead of the Webmaster or IT team, days afterwards. Finally, reporting tools allow city staff to quickly see how much traffic is being generated, as well as the number of unique users, unique requests, and a breakdown of internal versus external viewers' statistics.
   

• A need for additional expertise and support.

  The final reason that cities make the decision to outsource part or all of their streaming solution with Granicus is to acquire additional technical support and/or expertise. Very quickly, the IT team realizes that they really don’t want, or can’t afford to be, experts in every aspect of maintaining an end-to-end streaming solution. Logically, an outside provider specializing in streaming video applications for local governmental entities is better positioned to stay on the cutting edge of advancements in technology, and create beneficial upgrades. Cities feel comfortable outsourcing this aspect of the responsibility to a competent outside provider who demonstrates key skills and provides solutions that benefit them and their citizens.