Extending The Reach Of Microsoft Teams Meetings With Vbrick

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Extending the reach of video conference (VC) meetings throughout the enterprise and beyond, while always important, is even more so in our current environment.  Enterprises want to leverage their existing VC investments to both source webcasts and provide solutions for user-generated content via recordings.  However, the ability to widely distribute and provide rich engagement features within these VC systems is often lacking.

This is where VC integrations with Vbrick Rev allow customers to extend their reach, distribute VC meetings, control access, and measure success.  Vbrick provides a number of Video Conference Integrations (VCI) including Cisco Webex, Zoom, and Microsoft.

The newest addition is the second Vbrick integration with Microsoft Teams.  For context, we will review the first integration.

Screenshot of the Microsoft Teams User interface, showing a library of compliance videos

The first integration of Vbrick and Microsoft Teams was based around the use case of allowing Rev videos to be displayed within the Microsoft Teams client, but much more.  This consumption approach allows users to view videos within the context of a Microsoft Teams client.  Videos can be presented individually or through Rev categories – much more than simple embedded links.

Videos are no longer trapped in remote siloes/system/elsewhere, but presented and accessible within the context of both Rev and Microsoft Teams.  This also provided the ability to view Rev events to bridge the systems.  Lastly, this integration allows video access within Microsoft Teams while honoring all the security, analytics, and control of Rev.

The first integration was a resounding success.  However, in moving to a more comprehensive integration with Microsoft Teams, Vbrick focused on video meetings within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.

The second integration between Vbrick and Microsoft Teams allows for meeting capture and dissemination.

Screenshot of the Microsoft Teams calendar

Put simply, this new integration lets customers “take” their Microsoft Teams meeting (with all the audio, video, and shared content) into Vbrick Rev as a source for meetings that can be enriched and distribute widely.

What does that mean?  Technically, it means that Microsoft Teams meetings can become a video source within Rev for both recording and distribution.  For customers it means that Microsoft Teams meetings can be extended in the following ways:

  • Widely distributed by Rev.  Once the Microsoft Teams streams (audio, video, content) are within the Rev ecosystem as an event source, the streams can then take advantage of both internal and external, large scale distribution by Rev, including:
    • Automatic MBR.  As with our other VCI solutions, once captured, the video is processed to provide multiple-bit rates.  In this way, our adaptive player can optimize the playback for any given customer based on their particular network conditions.
    • Automatic Multicast and Reflection.  Vbrick VCI solutions all share the ability to automatically be converted into multicast for bandwidth savings targeting customers who use our Vbrick Multicast Agent.  Reflection, for customers with Distributed Media Engines, reduce the ingress bandwidth consumption.  All of this is controlled through intelligent IP zoning and customer-controlled configuration.
    • Vbrick Mesh technologies.  Once within the customers’ premise, distribution can be supported by edge-based, cooperative, distributed caching technologies within our Distributed Media Engine (DME)—  further accelerating video and reducing bandwidth consumption.
    • Live and VOD.  Distribution can be both Live (near real-time with Microsoft Teams meeting) or VOD playback of a recorded event at viewers’ discretion.
    • CDN Integration.  For video that travels outside of the corporate firewall, we provide seamless integration into global CDNs.
  • Enriched.  By “Enriched” we mean applying the breadth of our Rev IQ feature set.  These features work to expose and include additional meaning and metadata from the video.  At the time of writing, Rev IQ supports automatic transcription and automatic translations (21 current languages) for both live and VOD assets.  Rev IQ also supports facial recognition for VOD assets.  When enabled, these features are highlighted in the playback in a dynamic interface (called the Pulse View).
  • Rich Rev Viewer Experience.  For live distribution of Microsoft Teams meetings, viewers that access the streams through Rev are provided our rich Rev viewer experience.  This includes a full moderated Question and Answer capability, polling, chat, and playback through our dual stream player – allowing viewers to customize their experience.
  • Rich Rev Administrator Experience.  Not to be outdone, administrators have access to both Live and VOD analytics of viewers who watch the Microsoft Teams meeting through Rev.

How does this work?

In order to accommodate and connect with the Microsoft Teams infrastructure, Vbrick utilizes Microsoft specific environments and APIs within the cloud.  Rev uses meeting links to “call into” this environment to retrieve and capture the audio, video, and content.  The connections are all highly secure and completely within customer administration.

In summary, the new Microsoft Teams and Vbrick integration allows customers to pull in their Microsoft Teams meetings into Rev.  Thus, allowing customers to make these meetings part of their wider corporate library of video collections, to enrich them, to manage them, and to widely distribute them.

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