If a picture is worth a thousand words, image how much more a short video can be worth. You can do all sorts of things that you couldn't do before in terms of getting information to your customers. Although filming a Webcast can be done with professional crews, he says, a basic Webcast can be done with a video camera, VCR and a computer with video-digitizing capability. The computer needs a video card and the software for streaming media, each of which will set you back a few hundred dollars. Also required is a server, often housed with an ISP, to hold the video.
Some companies opt to use third-party Webcasting hosts.
Naturally, the higher the quality of the video, the bigger the quantity of hard-drive space required to store it. And higher quality costs more to produce. But compared with the alternatives, Webcasting can be a cost-efficient approach. That's one reason Terra Financial, a suburban Chicago-based subsidiary of General Electric Financial Assurance Corp., started Webcasting this past December. We used to be a small Midwest company.