In a recent Mashable post by Mark Hopkins, he discusses the intrinsic value of the video long tail, in particular the difference between current event and news-based video versus video produced for enjoyment.  At RipCode, the video long tail is a topic that we are very familiar with. 

When you talk about video long tail content, it’s important to understand the unique challenge to content creators, aggregators and network operators striving to expand their video distribution by offering support for a greater number of devices extending their reach to the “3 screens” – Internet, mobile and IPTV.

Each device supporting video playback maintains one or multiple media profiles defining what types of content is supported.  These media profiles are differentiated by many variables including resolution size, codec implementation, aspect ratio, scan method, and network protocol.  So it’s no longer just about making long tail video available for viewing on a PC, but to any video enabled device.  

Pre-transcoding video can be a practical approach when working with smaller video libraries supporting a limited number of supported profiles; however, it becomes problematic for content aggregators who have large libraries and ingest a high volume of content on a daily basis.  As the size of a video library and number of supported profiles grow, so does the data storage requirements.

 As we talk about on our website, by transcoding video on-demand, content creators can realize value from not just the most popular and widely viewed video, but from the video long tail as well.  Until now, it was deemed too resource intensive to pre-transcode and store less widely viewed titles in multiple file formats – like the news-based video that Mark talks about in his blog.  But by changing the nature of transcoding from a “pre-transcode” methodology to one where video is transcoded only when a customer requests it, this opens the door for less popular content, enabling content creators and syndicators to monetize their entire video library.