On Recording Meetings - Avoid Post Event Trauma and Save Money by Asking a Few Questions

I'm noticing a trend in the meetings industry:Easily 5 out of the last 6 shows I've worked on have requested the recorded video of their meeting.

While that's not all that unusual in and of itself, what's different is that they're requesting it almost immediately after the program, and are wanting it in a digital format so that they can edit it and get it up on either their internal or external websites.

What does this mean for meeting planners?  You might think, "Nothing" or "No big deal" or even "Duh."  With the proliferation of high bandwidth internet connections, smart phones, and the ubiquitous YouTube videos (and their ease of creation), clients are naturally expecting to be able to get bits and pieces of their event onto the Internet in short order.

What it does is add one more conversation that needs to happen before the event, and preferably before the equipment budget is finalized.  There are many different "levels" of recording a show, varying from "goes in a box somewhere" to "going to be sold as a Blu-Ray DVD", and that level not only has a direct impact on the equipment needed for the meeting, but also can affect the out of pocket expenses of the client before, during, and after the show.  Put simply? Planning ahead can save everyone involved headaches and money- most of which are caused by having the wrong level of record, or one that doesn't meet the clients expectations even if they aren't sure what those expectations are themselves.

Here's the low down on the various types of meeting and event records:

Level 0: "No recording." Frankly, this rarely if ever happens when there's a camera in play, but it never hurts to ask your AV provider if recording is included in the price.

Level 1: "Goes in a box somewhere." For this level we usually see one of two types of record strategies.  First, there is the on-camera record.  Only the video taken by the camera is put on the tape.  On slightly older cameras these are usually DVCAM tapes, and on newer "pro-sumer" HD models the video is recorded on what's called HDV tapes.  The cost increase from level one is the cost of tapes, which aren't cheap. Almost $35 per 184 minute tape.

The second option is a "program feed" record.  A separate record deck is inserted into the video rig, and whatever's being sent to the screen is recorded.  Be careful- there's a terminology trap here. Some AV vendors (and myself, before being bitten in the rear one too many times) use the terms "Line Cut" and "Program Feed" interchangeably, however... "Line Cut" is a term derived from Television production, and refers to a particular edit that just contains camera angle switches.  A "Program Feed" should include anything that's being shown on the screen.  Make sure you know which you're getting!  Most vendors are capable of doing this kind of record, but you have to ask for it.  The cost goes up by not only the price of the tapes, but also the cost of the deck.

When the show is over, your AV vendor gives you or your clients the tapes, and they go in a box somewhere.

Level 2: "There's a chance we might use it someday," or "We might want to at least watch it." Basically you're looking at the same as above, but you need to keep a couple things in mind.  If you just hand your clients the tapes, they probably can't watch them.  Most people don't have a DVCAM or HDV (or BETACAM, which still rears its ugly head from time to time) deck lying around the office.  Your AV vendor or production company obviously does, as you just used one on your event.  See if they'll include a basic video transfer to DVD so that at least you can give the client those, which should be watchable on any consumer DVD player or computer.  If they can't, there's usually at least one company in every major city that specializes in media format changes- VHS->DVD for example.  They can usually do this for a moderate fee.  For our part, metroConnections usually includes this transfer of the program feed to DVD in the price of production.

Level 3: "We're definitely going to use it at some point." Either of the previous two options will work for some clients.  Hopefully you've handed them the tapes along with a DVD copy.  They can watch the DVD, decide what they like, hand the tapes over to a video editing company and have their footage professionally edited and put together.  If the client knows this is going to happen, though, you might throw one more option at them- the combination of both the "on camera" record (also sometimes known as ISO) as well as the program feed.  This is especially helpful when PowerPoints or other PC/Mac-based presentations are involved.  The client can provide the video editors both sets of tapes, and the editor can use the program feed as a reference to add the PowerPoints back into the final edit.  By having the ISOs as well as the original PowerPoint materials, the editor can precisely edit when the speaker is on the screen and when the slide is- something that doesn't always come out perfectly with the on-site switching that gets sent to the program feed.

Level 4: "We're definitely going to use it next week." One of the biggest problems with the above scenarios are that they're all tape-based.  That means that when it comes time to get that information off the tape, it has to happen in real time- just like all those VHS tapes you have in your basement somewhere.  If your conference was three days long, eight hours a day, guess how long it will take just to get the footage into an editable form? Yup. Ouch.  This is probably the biggest "gotcha" point." Video houses are probably going to charge you or your client wicked rush charges to turn around that much footage in a short amount of time, or simply won't have time to do it.  If your client knows they're going to use the footage, try and get a reasonable understanding of when they intend to do so, and set their expectations accordingly.

Another option is to use a hard drive recorder.  This is basically the same as the tape decks of old, but records the video directly to either an internal or external hard drive.  These are definitely going to be more expensive than DVCAM or HDV decks, but you can turn around the footage much faster.  Usually they write to a format that can be edited almost right away in Final Cut.

If you get the right cameras, you can record them on hard drives there as well.   Then you're able to get the benefits mentioned in "Level 3".  Again it's more expensive on the front end, but theoretically you or the client is saving money on rush charges and editing time.  If you don't have ISO records, the editor has to guess where the PPT slides go, and this usually involves watching the program from start to finish.  If you have both the program feeds and the ISOs, you can skim around and look for the changes.

It's important to note that all of the options above involve some kind of specialty equipment at some point in the process before the client gets the footage in their hands.  DVCAM Tapes require tape decks that can read DVCAM tapes, HDV decks the same, and even when recording to hard disk, chances are you're going to need a Mac (most of the formats I've seen are QuickTime variations that don't play nice with Windows).

There's a bunch of levels in between the ones I've laid out here, but these are the most common ones I've run into.  I mentioned the "Going to be put out on Blu-Ray" level- if that's the case, you need to have a very serious talk about expectations, because in most cases that's going to involve an entirely separate record crew from the normal production crew, essentially doubling your costs.

Hopefully though, this is enough to get the conversation started, and enough to give you an informed viewpoint in that conversation.  Ultimately you should be able to guide your client into the right fit for what they want balanced with what they can afford to pay.