The Private Media Channel provides fantastic differentiation for my real estate practice
January 09, 2016

The Private Media Channel provides fantastic differentiation for my real estate practice

Adriana West | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Private Media Channel

We use Private Media Channel to manage our video content and host it for worldwide consumption. Our users are around the world in many languages and the globalization features are key for us. We use the channel to curate the video content displayed on our web page, and to give our key customers a private and secure area to exchange information about properties.
  • Multiple language sub-titling and voiceover.
  • Easy embedding of the video in our external web page.
  • Global delivery in high and low bandwidth environments without buffering.
  • Secure environment for our sensitive customers to view and keep all sorts of information about a property.
  • Ability to share live property showings around the globe. I video from my iPad, the customer in Asia sees the house and hears my commentary as I walk around.
  • The Real Time Conferencing feature is a little difficult to use.
  • Screen Sharing only works in a limited browser set.
  • Fantastic premium service differentiation for my customers. No other realtor matches the amount of communication I can provide my clients.
  • Better, more professional look keeps more visitors sticky on my site and helps me convert them.
  • I don't need to pay for live streaming and web conferencing products in addition to my video hosting. This one product serves all 3 needs.

Wistia and Vimeo simply provide hosting services, not a "channel" where my users can privately consume my content and interact with it as an extension of my website. In essense, I would have to extend my website to provide this functionality and simply place my videos hosted with them on the new pages I needed to build. This came with a full-fledged end user site I simply attached to my website.

Brightcove simply wanted WAY too much money for the same functionality/capability.

Many agents simply place videos on their website, and YouTube is fine for that. If that is all you need, then Private Media Channel is probably too much overhead for your needs. But we needed an integrated solution that provided better quality video than YouTube can, no YouTube branding, a private portal for customer communications, real time web conferencing, and permissions for the clients to upload their own content. I couldn't find anything else with these features.

Private Media Channel Training

  • Online training
  • Self-taught
It was direct and personal, aimed at solving the immediate task at hand while instructing me how the channel as a whole works in the process.
It greatly depends on how technical you are and how familiar you are with software-as-a-service tools (say, WordPress for example). An understanding of video is relatively important. There are training videos and how-to tutorial topics, but they can be improved.

Private Media Channel Support

Immediate response from a knowledgeable rep - not a tier 1 automaton reading a script. I can, and have, reached them at all hours by phone, by chat, or by email. Responses are under 24 hours and frequently less than 1. And stuff gets DONE! I see things I request in almost every monthly release.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - Premium (handholding/implementation/onboarding) support was offered, but was unnecessary. I figured out how to do it myself, as I do with many products.
Yes - Yep. Fixed same day in one case - because there was obvious impact. Most are fixed in one or two monthly releases.
I was trying to embed a video in a WordPress page. I could not figure out the HTML, so I called the support number. They immediately created a web conferencing session and guided me through it watching my screen.

Upgrading Private Media Channel

Yes - Not noticeable. It is all automatic each month, since it is software-as-a-service. I receive a notice that it will happen 3 days ahead of time and what the downtime window will be if any. The day after, we come in and see the new features in place. We were never adversely affected.
  • Real time communications to have face-to-face video conference meetings with clients.