SnapStream Blog

What’s New in SnapStream 9.6

December 23 2020 by Monty Mitra

We’re excited to announce SnapStream 9.6, which adds support for recording audio-only streams and includes more than 80 bug fixes and stability improvements delivering increased uptime and a smoother experience.

Learn more about recording and clipping audio-only streams in this video:

We are also extending the streams free trial so you can record streams for free longer (for all customers on 9.5 or 9.6).

 

Schedule Upgrade to 9.6

These newest features are available as a software upgrade to your SnapStream. Want to start using them? Have your administrator schedule an upgrade.

SnapStream’s support team will perform the upgrade via a remote session that usually takes an hour.

 

Customer Spotlight - Media Matters for America

November 30 2020 by Juliette Richert

In our Customer Spotlight series, we highlight SnapStream customers and the important work they are doing.

With the world at our fingertips, it’s more important than ever to know what news you can trust. Launched in May 2004, D.C. based Media Matters for America is dedicated to stopping the spread of misinformation in the U.S. media. In order to monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation,  MMFA produces both rapid-response pieces and long-form, analytics-based research.

It’s imperative for the MMFA team to be able to effectively monitor, analyze and quickly report on media bias. By recording and monitoring a gamut of TV channels using SnapStream, Media Matters can live tweet and point out disinformation or misleading news (through a host of popular Twitter accounts), quickly reaching their nearly half a million followers on @MMFA twitter account and even more through the Twitter accounts of staff members. For longer form articles, the transcriptions generated by SnapStream provide a basis for analysis.

Here are some examples of the type of content MMFA produces.

A rapid-response video tweet

 

MMFA 2

A longer form research study using analytics from SnapStream

 

We are proud of the work that MMFA is doing bringing accountability to media and look forward to continuing to support them in their mission.

 

Five Steps to Find Your Voice with Evan Gregory of The Gregory Brothers

November 30 2020 by Juliette Richert
Since graduating recently from Rice University, guest writer Juliette Richert is continuing her education by listening to as many podcasts about politics, culture, and society as she can get her hands on.

Much of America wondered how we were going to process two presidential town halls that replaced the cancelled debate during the 2020 presidential campaign. In response, the Gregory Brothers, in collaboration with Darren Criss, used video effects to create “an alternate reality,” where the opponents sang their arguments to each other. These melodies were created by “songifying” found footage, which is the process of applying audio pitch correction to the spoken voice to make it sound like music. The video gives you a pretty good idea of what both candidates discussed in reality (at their separate town halls), and the music is likely to get stuck in your head.

This unique work is a product of a decade of practice and has attracted a following of more than 3 million.  Browsing their YouTube channel is like walking through a library of past internet culture from memorable moments in US politics to iconic memes. The group, which includes Evan, Michael, Andrew, and Sarah Gregory, are foremost musicians, but their distinctive music videos that tie together comedy and current events have turned heads. Evan Gregory of The Gregory Brothers attributes their success to finding their voice. On your path to success, “finding your voice” may feel like a vague, overwhelming goal, but Evan gave us some insight into how you can find your voice and what makes you unique, too. 

 

1. Get your reps in. 

When you’re figuring out what you’re going to be good at, it’s going to take a lot of practice. If you want to make music, make a lot of music and then make some more. Producing a lot of videos over a long period of time has given The Gregory Brothers  practice and perspective to figure out what they like and what they want to be good at.  

The team has refined their process to be as efficient as possible. Before a big event, like a presidential debate, the group has a fair idea of what will be discussed (climate change, coronavirus, etc.), so they write a script and do pre-recordings with their guest. During the event itself, two of them, usually Evan and Michael, will watch the debate and take notes, sending messages to the other, about which clips from SnapStream they might want to use. They listen for moments where someone says something notable or speaks musically, making it easier to “songify.” They didn’t come up with this process overnight, rather it’s a result of countless hours of practice. 

 

2. Better done than perfect. 

Rather than focusing on getting everything perfect, it’s best to not get overwhelmed with perfection. If you’re going to make a lot in order to “get in your reps,” there may be times where you don’t hit the mark. Defining what is most important to you and focusing on that (more on that below), may be helpful in coping with a loss of perfectionism. 

 

3. Define your guiding principles.

The Gregory Brothers put their creative process first. Though it’s gratifying to see that millions of people liked their videos, they’ve decided that it’s most important to make sure their music sounds good.

First and foremost, they always aim to create high quality music. If you listen to their music from the 2020 presidential campaign, the group wants you to feel like you’re listening to an album that “captures a snapshot of their aesthetic” and accurately reflects the essence of today’s political movers. 

This leads us to their next priority, which is to accurately reflect reality. For example, watching their video of the cancelled debate will give you a pretty good idea of both presidential candidate’s arguments with a comical take. It might be easy to fall into the trap of thinking of their work as educational, a label which Evan rejects, as not to venture into the realm of journalism. They always want their videos to be interesting, frequently using comedy to heighten an opinion or statement. In Evan’s words, "comedy speaks truth and highlights things that are not spoken about." Though rarer than their comedic feats, the brothers use their process to highlight poignant events, like this speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 

4. Build your expertise one area at a time.

Coming from a musical background, the group's video expertise has been entirely self-taught. In order to manage this learning curve while still producing, Evan described his incremental approach to self-education. Currently, he’s mastering video effects and creating video worlds, exemplified below where Darren Criss appears to sit at a table with Joe Biden. Evan’s next goal is to dive deeper in cinematography, which has become one of his long term goals. The progression of the group’s videos tells a story of the progression of their expertise. Looking at their earlier videos, you can tell when they were working on green screen effects versus now where they integrate green screen effects quite effectively. By choosing to get really good at one thing, they have been able to integrate new forms of tech and video production, from efficiency tools like SnapStream which makes it easy to find, edit, and share the most important video moments to creative video effects, without getting overwhelmed. 

 

5. Attract your audience.

The Gregory Brothers’ videos are designed like any good song, which keeps you coming back to hear it again. It’s “rewatchability,” a term coined by Evan, that draws their audience back for more. If you’re like me, their songs will be stuck in your head for days at a time. Because their tracks are designed to be listened to repeatedly, they’re able to benefit from multiple revenue streams. You can find them on Spotify and iTunes, as well as YouTube. They’ve found a way to hook their audience by using video. People come for a funny video and stay for the jams.

The Gregory Brothers have amassed a following of more than  3 million by focusing on an authentic creative practice, motivated by their desire to make high quality music. By venturing into video, which they knew little about when they began experimenting 10 years ago, they stumbled onto something great and found a career. Finding your voice will take time and might be messy, but the risk is worth the reward.

Content Meets Context: The Power of Video with Aaron Rupar

October 15 2020 by Juliette Richert
Since graduating recently from Rice University, guest writer Juliette Richert is continuing her education by listening to as many podcasts about politics, culture, and society as she can get her hands on.

Given Aaron Rupar’s half a million Twitter followers, his work is obviously popular, but why? As a millennial, I haven’t turned on cable TV in more than 5 years. Like much of my generation and the country, I get my news from the Internet and social media. Using short videos to share news stories on his Twitter feed and in his writing with Vox, Rupar connects Internet and social media users to the world of TV watchers, shedding light on the filter through which much of America receives news and information.

In 2017, Rupar was working as a journalist with Center for American Progress and had only a couple of thousand followers. That number has since soared after his “John Kelly” post (as seen below) was retweeted more than six thousand times, the most retweets he had received up until that point. This successful tweet propelled Rupar from a meager 4K Twitter followers to nearly half of a million, a 10x increase in followers over the past 3 years.

HubSpot Video

John Kelly on Fox

Rupar is now an associate editor for politics and policy at Vox, an avid Twitter user, and self-labeled liberal. He’s refined his beat from politics to primarily Congress, the Republican party, and Trump. Rupar publishes short pieces for Vox nearly every day, designed to give context around current events. His quick response time, sense of humor, and easy-to-read writing style make Rupar a strong reporter. Rupar’s Twitter feed, which he updates more than 30 times a day, has a critical and often satirical take on politics and the White House.

His most popular tweet from each thread gives a brief look at what people found interesting or important, but his long threads give you the chance to dig into the details of the event minute-by-minute, without ever having to watch the whole thing. Rupar’s Twitter feed is fun to explore, and you can easily get lost in rabbit hole-threads. Along with entertainment value, his work provides access to video that many people might not see otherwise.

HubSpot Video

Scrolling through Rupar's feed

Rupar’s time on Twitter and his success as a journalist at Vox have a symbiotic relationship. His Twitter following has helped Vox by indirectly growing their audience and increasing traffic. In order to make his Twitter threads, Rupar has to trim down longer videos. This process allows Rupar to engage with news as he live-tweets and construct rough outlines of his written pieces for Vox. In his writing, Rupar frequently uses short videos pulled from his Twitter-feed to contextualize the topic, providing audio and visual context that is difficult to replicate with words alone.

 

“With Trump everything is a spectacle, so it lends itself to video.” - Aaron Rupar

 

Videos provide context for the viewer to experience and understand the news, according to Rupar. Rupar’s discovery of SnapStream in 2017 was well-timed with the presidency. Trump is the most frequent face seen on Rupar’s feed (rivaled now only by his new daughter, Mia). Trump’s wild oratorical style and polarizing statements certainly help Rupar catch the attention of his audience. However, Rupar is confident that when Trump leaves office (whether that be in 4 more years or a couple months), there will still be high demand for news clips on Twitter.

 

“It’s one thing to have an opinion on politics, but if you have the video with it…people like to see people saying things” - Aaron Rupar

 

Why are some people ditching TV and paying attention to shorter clips of news? News consumers feel pressed for time and are exhausted by the current news cycle, so shorter clips are a quick way to consume news. If a video isn’t interesting enough, I’ll skip around to find the highlights. Rupar basically does that work for you.

Social media is also crafted to keep us moving down the feed, consuming as many posts as possible. Instead of competing with other TV stations, reporters now compete with puppy videos and memes for their audience’s attention. Best to make your post eye-catching and to-the-point in order to grab back their attention. Plus, there’s something priceless about seeing things for yourself.

HubSpot Video

President Trump at a rally in September

Video isn’t going anywhere because it gives you and your audience the ability to make up your own mind. How are you giving your audience the context they deserve?

 

What’s New in SnapStream 9.5

October 07 2020 by Monty Mitra

We’re excited to roll out our newest SnapStream 9.5 release, which is focused on enhanced streams support with live transcription and Slack integration. At a high level, SnapStream 9.5 allows you to:

  • Easily add streams and create specific events to record
  • View and search live transcriptions from the added streams
  • Share a clip directly to Slack
  • Geo-lock posts to Twitter and Facebook

9.5 features


Streams & Events (With Live Transcription)

(Note: Only available as a part of SnapStream Cloud.)

One of our long-term focuses is helping our customers to expand their content sources within SnapStream. SnapStream 9.5 is the first step in that process by letting you directly add and manage your own RTMP or HLS streams. This can be great if you want to:

  • Record and clip specific events, such as a press conference
  • Easily add press pool feeds and other live and breaking news feeds, such as CNN Newsource, AP Video Hub or Reuters Video
  • Record and clip your Zoom events, meetings and webinars
  • Add, record, and search a 24/7 news stream channel, such as CBSN or YouTube Live channels

channel logos 2

 

Many of our customers want to quickly grab a stream to record and clip a specific event, such as a press briefing or an event that may not be available on national news broadcasts. So we also added the ability to create scheduled events for your streams as well. If you want to record an event happening next Tuesday from 2PM to 3PM, you can schedule it on any stream you setup in SnapStream.

 

Live Transcription

Our Streams & Events feature now enables Live Transcription. Since not all streams carry caption information, SnapStream can create those transcripts in real-time. Not only does this allow your event to be searchable later, but it makes real-time live clipping easier. SnapStream includes this transcript data when you publish clips to social media so your clips show captions when they auto-play as a user scrolls through Twitter or Facebook. 

When you upgrade to 9.5, you get 30 days to test out Streams & Events completely free. Add as many streams as you want and record as many events as you need. We also provide 10 hours of free live transcription per month.

Streams and EventsLearn more about Streams & Events

 

Zoom thumbnail

Recording a Zoom call in SnapStream only takes a few clicks

 

HLS Thumbnail

OTT channels like CBSN can now be added to SnapStream for clipping

 

Clip to Slack

One of the things we heard from a lot of customers is that they’d love to be able to share clips in Slack. Many of you create clips in SnapStream and collaborate with them with other members of your team to decide if and how to use them. Maybe a few of you want to decide if that’s the right clip to post to social media or to your website. Plus, just about every team is on Slack so it just makes sense to share clips directly there!

Clip to Slack

Geolock social media posts

Many of our customers need to ensure that their posts are only displayed in specific countries or excluded in specific countries. SnapStream 9.5 now supports geolocking posts to Twitter and Facebook. You can select specific countries where to show the posts or where to exclude the posts.

Geolock

 

Speed enhancements & more

We’ve also made performance upgrades to our SnapStream Cloud product. Cloud customers, particularly those with a larger number of users, should notice faster speeds when publishing clips to social media. SnapStream 9.5 has many other bug fixes and improvements. Read the full release notes.

 

Schedule Upgrade to 9.5

These newest features are available as a software upgrade to your SnapStream. Want to start using them? Have your administrator schedule an upgrade.

SnapStream’s support team will perform the upgrade via a remote session that usually takes an hour.

 

Feature Friday: Gayan Gunawardana

August 28 2020 by Bethany Goldson

 

image

Visiting Sequoia National Park! 

 

Yo, it's that day where we showcase a super cool person that we get to work with every day. Meet our numbers enthusiast, Gayan: 

 

How did you find SnapStream?

In 2012, I was in the last year of my MBA and was attending a career fair. Most of the students were flocking to the big gas company booths but I wasn't too interested in working for a large company. I spotted SnapStream with a cool booth and more importantly, no line. I decided to go see what it was all about and came away thinking "Wow, that's a very cool product!". I later found out I had a connection with Rakesh (SnapStream's CEO) since he was an advisor to the startup incubator I was working at as an Operations Analyst, so I applied. After a couple of rounds of interviews, I joined the team!

What is your role here?

Senior Marketing Program Manager

How have you grown with SnapStream?

I've grown quite a bit. For a start, I’ve grown laterally from all the snacks in the office! :) Jokes apart, SnapStream was my first job in the U.S. since moving here for my MBA. I’m originally from Sri Lanka where I studied Chemical Engineering and had my own startup making e-learning software but moved here to pursue higher education. I first joined SnapStream as a Sales Engineer and whenever they needed help managing a team, I would step in. I liked working with Sales and Engineering because you work both in the technical side and with customers. I had the opportunity to move into an Analyst role and work with Sales and Marketing, which was great because numbers have always been my passion. I now work completely in marketing and do lead generation, digital marketing, and analytics. I have a lot of fun with the technical things I’m working on now and I’m very happy with how I’ve been able to pursue my passion here at SnapStream.

What is your favorite thing about SnapStream?

Absolutely the PEOPLE, we have a big commitment to our culture. Even when times change, things get busy, and life gets hard, we are always consistent in our culture. A lot of startups start to lose their roots as they grow large, but we’ve always kept that playful and relaxed startup feel. We have the right environment for our people to blossom. This commitment to people was really evident when COVID happened. We were one of the first companies in Houston to move to a remote structure and have done a ton to help employees navigate this really strange time we are in.

What do you like to do when you aren’t at SnapStream?

I spend a lot of time with my 2-year-old daughter. She’s loads of fun and it’s incredible to watch her grow. I also have a variety of hobbies. My wife and I used to travel all the time and so far have visited 20 national parks (our plan is to start again and visit all 62 parks). We have a map framed in our living room with flags that mark where we have been. I’m also into cryptocurrency; I’ve lost more money than I’ve made, but it’s a very cool concept that I follow closely. I play a lot of video games, especially city simulators, transport simulators, and warship simulators. Recently, I’ve been into water cooling my PC. It's a huge money pit but it's super fun since it’s basically a never-ending engineering project.

Feature Friday: Gerard Monier

August 21 2020 by Bethany Goldson

Gerard

Gerard visited the battlements of Blarney Castle during his vacation in Ireland!

 

Y'all know what day it is: Feature Friday! Meet our expert bug catcher Gerard:

How did you find SnapStream? 

I found SnapStream through Indeed.com. The job listing was very effective at portraying the company as a geek-friendly environment with a great culture. Working on a product that records television was an interesting choice. Many of my college friends ended up working on bill collecting software. 

What is your role here?

I’m a Developer-in-test, or a developer that works on the Quality Assurance team. I’m responsible for writing and maintaining various suites of automated tests, writing internal tools, and testing some of the more technical improvements that end up in our queue. It's my job to make the lives of the blackbox testers easier by catching bugs before they do, and coming up with improvements to our workflow to save time.

How have you grown with SnapStream?

I came to SnapStream knowing how to “code”. I’ve grown to understand more about what it means to develop and maintain a solution. I’ve been exposed to so many new challenges like learning how to build and maintain a cable plant or how to automate user interaction with a page streaming live video. My favorite memories working at SnapStream are those when I finally get to the bottom of a problem I’ve been banging my head against. 

What is your favorite thing about SnapStream?

The atmosphere and culture is my favorite thing about SnapStream. It's a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Between that and working on interesting products, I’d say that we have it pretty good here. 

What do you like to do when you aren’t at SnapStream?

I’m a PC gamer. I love to build my own gaming PCs and sink 100 hours into open world RPGs. I’m also very interested in travel.

 

Feature Friday: Adrienne Gonzalez

August 14 2020 by Bethany Goldson

Adrienne (2)

Adrienne dressed up as the Flying Spaghetti Monster for one of our famous in-office Halloween parties! 

 

Hey, it’s Feature Friday! Meet our queen of Support, Adrienne: 

How did you find SnapStream? 

I was looking for a new position because I was a network services technician at a call center that was about to close down. I was told that I could start looking for another opportunity, so I started blasting my resume everywhere. When I applied to SnapStream in 2009, I didn’t really realize what it was until I got home and opened up BeyondTV on my home computer. I was greeted with the SnapStream branding declaring the company that makes the software I was using to turn my PC into a DVR. It was a pleasant surprise to realize that I did know what SnapStream was and I was one of the only interviewees that was familiar with their DVR software. 

What is your role here?

Technical Support

How have you grown with SnapStream?

I’ve learned all sorts of new stuff, especially pertaining to standards in the video and media industry. I’ve always been interested in networking and anything with flashy lights! Since SnapStream is always evolving as technology changes, I’m constantly being exposed to new things. We went from recording content being fed directly to a single system to figuring out how to record to a cluster of systems. Then we were off to record from a variety of different types of IPTV streams, and why don’t we go ahead and have our software record this content in the cloud instead?  This gave me an opportunity to learn about different ways that a/v content can be sent, viewed, and manipulated. That also involves the discovery of all the things that can go wrong with doing this stuff.  I like fixing things in general because I’m honestly really good at breaking things! 

What is your favorite thing about SnapStream?

I love how there’s a lot of intelligent people working here so I always feel challenged. In my previous position, there weren't a lot of places an issue could go beyond me. Things can get complex here at SnapStream, so when I have an issue I can approach someone who knows way more than I do in certain subjects, and in turn I learn how to fix things faster. I don’t feel like there’s a ceiling holding me down in learning here. 

What do you like to do when you aren’t at SnapStream?

I like to read mostly - I like to read Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman (Good Omens is a favorite), and Sci-fi fantasy books. I also enjoy camping, I went hiking in New Mexico recently. My favorite place that I have gone is Yosemite. 

 

Feature Friday: Kyle Walton

August 07 2020 by Bethany Goldson

Kyle

Fun family time!

 

It's our favorite day of the week, Feature Friday! Meet our IT superhero, Kyle: 

How did you find SnapStream?

I was currently employed but looking for a new opportunity as my previous employer decided to scale back its recent growth and return to a family run business. In turn, this would impact my career growth so I decided it was in my best interest to look for a role that aligned with my goals. I was really happy to find SnapStream’s listing on Indeed. SnapStream is the first company I’ve worked for that doesn’t have a formal corporate culture. I’ve worked for national companies in manufacturing and construction, so I was excited to find a small company in the tech field. 

What is your role here?

Platform Engineer

How have you grown with SnapStream?

I was initially hired as an IT Administrator. SnapStream was much different then as we had a smaller tech footprint regarding the products offered. I was responsible for supporting the company's infrastructure, but my responsibilities and title grew with the company. I started supporting more than just IT and began working closer with engineering, more specifically hardware and cloud services. I transitioned to my current position as platform engineer where I work with our product and internal infrastructure.

What is your favorite thing about SnapStream?

The culture, encompassing both how we work together as a group and how we are managed. I love the flat management style which offers flexibility and ability to create a good work/life balance. You’ll find friendly people in just about any work environment, but I’ve found actual friends here that I talk to outside of work. 

What do you like to do when you aren’t at SnapStream?

My passion has always been fishing, more specifically inshore and bass fishing. My hobbies had to take a back seat when my wife and I decided to start a family.  Now that 5 years have passed and my daughter Sophia is about to start school, I am able to find time to enjoy the outdoors. Since we are working remote due to current events and COVID, this allows even more time to spend outdoors doing the things I love, mainly fishing.

What’s New in SnapStream 9.4

March 03 2020 by Tina Nazerian

SnapStream 9.4 brings you a new clipping interface, pre-roll and post-roll branding on clips, integration with Kaltura, and many other bug fixes and improvements. You can see these new features in action by watching our on-demand webinar. Here’s what we’ve added and improved: 

image1-1 

A few of the highlights:

  • New Clipping Interface 
  • Pre-roll and Post-roll Branding on Clips 
  • Kaltura Integration

New Clipping Interface 

image2-2 

SnapStream 9.4’s new, snappier clipping interface will look familiar to former SnappyTV users. It gives you more fine-tuned control of in and out points during clip creation. You can configure SnapStream to automatically create an out point once you pick an in point (you can customize this—for example, you can set the automatic out point to occur after 10 seconds each time). Then, refine that out point and you’re done. 

The software will also show you a zooming trackbar that automatically sizes to the length of that clip. You can then go forward or backward by frame or second. The in and out point thumbnails allow you to quickly preview the clip’s start and end frames. You can also loop the whole clip or loop the last 2 seconds. 

To begin, use your mouse or keyboard to select an in point on a video. 

 

Pre-roll and Post-roll Branding on Clips

image4-1

Give your brand one look in one place. With SnapStream 9.4, you can easily add custom branding, such as your company’s video intro, to your clips—no need to spend time using an additional video editor.

Simply upload and save your desired brandings for pre-rolls and post-rolls. Then, select the specific brandings you want to use from a drop-down menu as you create clips. 

To get started, go to the “Admin” tab and choose “Brandings” on the left-hand menu.

 

Kaltura Integration 

image3-3

Natively export your clips in SnapStream to Kaltura. Kaltura is our newest integration with an OVP. SnapStream now has native support for 14 cloud storage, OVP, CDN, and MAM services—and is always adding more based on customer requests. 


To start using our newest integration, go to SnapStream and set up Kaltura as an external account. Don’t use Kaltura, but are curious? Learn more.

 

More

SnapStream 9.4 has many other bug fixes and improvements, like updates to the clipping hotkeys and the option to auto-minimize task pop-ups. Please read the full release notes.

 

Schedule Upgrade to 9.4

(Usually 1 hour) 
SnapStream’s support team will perform the upgrade via a remote session.

 

Watch On-Demand Webinar: SnapStream 9.4

See SnapStream 9.4 in action. 

What is SnapStream? There's an unlimited amount of video content out there: 24/7 news channels, breaking news events, sports, talk shows, awards galas, entertainment shows, and so much more.

SnapStream makes a real-time news and media search engine that makes it fast and easy to find the video moments that support our customers telling great stories.

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