The Video Service in Google Apps

OK, it is not really new.  But, major changes are in the works.   By the end of this year, Google Video for Business will be shut down with companies’ videos and the service capabilities moving to Google Drive.

Google Drive has many advantages over Google Video for Business. including:

  • Uploading and streaming HD quality video
  • Captions/subtitles in over 100 languages, and multiple tracks for each language
  • The ability to embed a video on any page
  • Advanced sharing controls, including the ability to prevent viewers from downloading the video
  • SSL streaming for secure watching of videos
  • User comments on the video page
  • API access to manage videos

Migrated Google Video for Business video files will not count against the user’s Google Drive storage quota (new videos will), and all links to them will be automatically redirected to Google Drive.  As the migration happens, videos will be stored in a folder named “Google Video for Business.”

Best Practices

While migrated videos will not count towards Drive storage quotas, future videos will.   Uploaded videos go through the same processing and compression as they did with the Video for Business service (a 30 minute video we uploaded uses only 28K), organizations that heavily use video may want to setup an additional user account to serve as the owner of videos.  By creating a central account, managing additional storage, when needed, becomes easier.

More Information

For more information, feel free to contact us.  Google has also published a nice help article on the subject.