Ensemble Video is an online video platform that simplifies video management and delivers content any time, over a variety of networks.
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Zoom Workplace
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Zoom helps consolidate communications and collaboration in the boardroom, classroom, operating room, and everywhere. Zoom is an intelligent collaboration platform that makes connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic. Zoom technology facilitates collaboration through solutions like Zoom Team Chat, Phone, Meetings, omnichannel cloud Contact Center, smart recordings, and Whiteboard.
VBrick was honestly awful. The quality was disastrous, the cost was astronomical, and it didn't work on multiple browsers. Ensemble far outweighs this service on every level.
I'm not sure where Ensemble Video would be less appropriate. We've found it to be very effective for our campus-specific use cases. However, the product is very customizable in how a campus could structure their Ensemble instance to match their organization, and how users may be managed.
I think Zoom runs circles around Teams! I just wish starting meetings was easier - anyone with a link should be able to start the meeting the way you can in Teams. It would also be great to be able to see participants when you are sharing your screen.
Adapting to user needs. Ensemble Video seems to always be listening to their clients needs and suggestions by implementing effective features in every system update. Communication seems to always indicate that these features are driven by requests that their customers have made to improve the service.
Client Support - I have an IT/support background and have had to deal with many vendors and external support. Ensemble is easily the most responsive and effective vendor when it comes to support. When needing certain solutions, they have sent code that was in development and not officially released so I could achieve my goals with project videos. Support is always personal, prompt and effective.
Customization. New templates, video players, account management, and embed options have allowed us to use Ensemble Video in a much more personalized way. Early versions of the service had an "Ensemble feel" but color schemes and logos are now able to be changed for a better organization feel.
I love how easy it is to set the focus on the presenter. It is annoying when people don't spotlight themselves as a presenter, so you get to see the whole gallery of attendees in smaller, two-inch windows.
I like the capability of having break-out rooms. Even though I don't use them very often, it is nice to have them available if the right situation presents itself for smaller group chats.
The recording quality is better than I have experienced with other products (Microsoft Teams, WebEx, etc.), and the fact that it is already an MP4, so I don't have to convert it for publishing on our intranet is huge to me.
User management. Some features are unique to the entire deployment (like authentication sources). It would be great if multiple authentication options could be used across different Ensemble institutions.
Upgrade processes. Though new versions of Ensemble Video are always better, the installation process is very manual and Ensemble Video must be involved directly. Not a weakness, but it would be nice to be able to perform our own upgrades/patches when needed.
We're sticking with Zoom for the foreseeable future--given its compelling feature set, ease of use, and advanced technology, there's just no other competition to be excited about. Plus it's a Gartner-recognized industry leader, so it's a rather easy choice.
Zoom is made for the non tech office. It has features that can be made to do what you need to run things on a day to day basis. Immediately we we able to get meetings going with remote employees. The ability to be able to add smartphone connected people was a big plus. Zoom met our needs at the time.
There have been less than a handful of outages during our two years with Zoom, and whenever there was one, an email informing us of the outage went out immediately, and they had the issue resolved shortly thereafter.
Zoom has among the best performance of any video conference platform, as I've mentioned several times. Besides that, their Chat platform works great, and their back end always runs smooth. It's unfortunate that reporting can now only be done by one month at a time, but nonetheless, it only takes a second to run any kind of Zoom report, whether it's an attendee report, Poll results, a user report, a list of meetings from the past month, etc.
As I've written before, Zoom makes us feel like we matter and that we're a client rather than a customer. They want us to succeed and they put in the time to make sure that we do. I feel like they're more of a business partner rather than simply a vendor or supplier. They spent a lot of time onboarding with us, giving us demos, helping us get set up, and then giving us follow-up to be sure it's going well.
If you receive any pushback from higher ups, point to any of the various positive reviews like this one. Or show Zoom's excellent Gartner report, or articles describing Zoom's partnership with Sequoia capital. It's not difficult to show how Zoom is a trustworthy industry leader with best-in-class technology.
Ensemble Video has succeeded for us where other solutions have failed. It came along exactly when we needed it, for our organization. At the time, we were caught between the push and pull of several different solutions, uploading our videos with the expectation that users would take the time to download and play them, using popular public video streaming services with few settings and options, and forgoing videos altogether. Ensemble Video has taken our myriad needs and provided a platform that addresses all of them.
Zoom cannot be beaten for ubiquity - 100% of my clients and prospective clients are already familiar with Zoom. This is the #1 reason why I use Zoom. Additionally, Zoom integrates with AcuityScheduling, saving me a lot of time in creating meetings and adding them to the calendar. Zoom is disappointing in terms of video quality, interactivity features, and privacy. In cases where I need to use the recording of webinars for digital products, I will always use Crowdcast, and in cases where privacy is essential, I will use JitsiMeet.
The billing and price model is really fair for so many functions that they offer, our remote work requires each of the features that Zoom offers, so accepting payment for a tool like this is the least we can do. I like that billing arrives on time and that they offer opportunities and payment times.
Because the Basic licenses are completely free, and because it's very easy to configure and install Zoom, and because anyone can join Zoom from a link without needing an account, scaling is a Breeze. There are absolutely no roadblocks. My company keeps adding more Zoom Pro license every week since it's so in demand. We were able to convert users from several different platforms onto Zoom with no trouble at all.
Zoom is perfect for our business. We use it to video chat with prospective clients. The name recognition alone gives us credibility and it is very easy to screen share and send content out.
Ease of user contributed content. The videos that users upload to the system can either be automatically published or they can be reviewed by staff before being added to websites and courses. Instead of all these videos living on different sites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) we now have a centralized location that we have control over.
LMS Integration - A year ago YouTube changed their policy to not allow direct recording from webcams. This essentially broke the Blackboard Video Everywhere tool that allowed our instructors to post quick comments in class discussions and content areas. While they need to be pre-recorded, the Ensemble Building Block allows our instructors and students to once again upload and post videos, all from directly within the Blackboard content editor.
Flexibility - With the ease of creating user accounts and video libraries, Ensemble Video has become the go to option for Erikson courses, professional development content and project videos. Different departments can have their own account and have control over their libraries without the worry of them viewing or editing other institute content.
It enables me to send and receive messages from my team members during video calls, handling online presentations.
With the ability to quickly stop, mute, and even receive notifications when someone enters or exits the meeting room, I'm never obligated to show up while making a call.
It is possible to record online meetings for future reference and more effective customer service. As we dealt with a lockdown, Zoom helped our business run smoothly.
