At a project meeting with a client, we discussed options for distributing a sales presentation video to their salespeople. DVD was an obvious choice, but most of the salespeople had older laptops without DVD drives. We could give them a Windows Media file on CD that they could play back.
Or, we could give them all video iPods.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. There are some very good arguments for using this new technology in this way:
- Small size
- Relatively inexpensive
- Automatic download and synching with the iPod
- High quality image – on the iPods small screen and when hooked to an external monitor or LCD projector
- It’s very easy to update videos in the future
The breakthrough isn’t the video iPod itself (although it is a nifty little device). It’s more about distribution. The video iPod is just a way to play back video. It’s how people get the video and the ability to track downloads that really makes this more interesting.
This distribution method gives you information you just can’t get from VHS tapes and DVDs. You know exactly how many people have downloaded your video. There is also technology to get more information, such as how many times the video was viewed and how much of the program has been viewed. This is information that both we and our clients will find very valuable as we move forward with our marketing and training programs.
I just bought a video iPod and it’s great! I travel a lot for business, and I would love to be able to use my vPod for playing our product demo video to potential clients.
There is a TV ad here in Australia promoting trips to New Zealand, and in the ad, they are walking around showing people footage of New Zealand on a video iPod.
It is the next step for distributing video and I can see the popularity of youTube passing onto the iPod, as they already have youTube downloading to Apple Tv.
It has got me thinking about doing a course in video editing to stay in the game!
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