Sector(s)
YMCA of the North is responsible for producing and uploading numerous videos every day. Although this results in a lot of excellent content, it also moves the operational bottleneck from content creation to video preparation. Five Jars was engaged to automate the video preparation process and minimize the time spent on these administrative duties.
About the project
YMCA of the North produces many videos for its on-demand video platform, but each video requires extensive preparation that takes over 45 minutes to complete. The situation was becoming untenable, especially with the rise of the pandemic and more events moving online. To help with this challenge, Five Jars was called in to analyze the video preparation process and identify areas for automation.
70+ hours saved per week
$125k saved
After a thorough examination, six steps to be automated were identified:
1. Adding Pre-roll and Post-roll
The first step involved cutting the start and end of the video and adding pre-roll and post-roll content such as branding materials (e.g. logo and color identity).
2. Optimizing Audio Quality
The audio quality of the video needed to be improved so that the instructor's voice could be heard clearly by everyone.
3. Adding Filler Music
Background music was added to the videos to enhance their enjoyment, but the volume had to be carefully chosen to ensure that the instructions could still be heard.
4. Uploading to Vimeo
Once all the necessary changes were made, the video was ready to be uploaded to Vimeo.
5. Connecting the Video to Metadata
Uploading wasn't the end of the process, as extensive metadata was required to improve filtering and searchability. With multiple content creators, adding the right information wasn't always a straightforward task.
6. Thumbnail Generation
Finally, each video required a thumbnail image to be displayed.
A solution fostering growth
YMCA of the North was struggling as they had more videos to prepare each day than people available to prepare them. To address this, Five Jars was brought on board to automate the video preparation process. The teams from both companies worked together to analyze the entire video preparation process, identifying the six steps above that could be automated.
As a result, Five Jars was able to automate all of these steps, reducing the time required per video from 45 minutes to under 5 minutes, a reduction of 88.9% of the time needed.
Openness at heart
The client desired to share his solution with the wider community and, therefore, asked FIve Jars to make the code available on GitHub as an open-source solution for others to use.
Are you interested in the actual solution we’ve provided? Check out our GitHub repository.
Overall, Five Jars partnered with YMCA of the North to create a custom solution to their repetitive tasks, delivering a comprehensive UI that made the video preparation process quick and efficient. Read the positive feedback we got from our client here.
Why Drupal was chosen
Flexibility: Drupal is known for its flexibility and ability to be customized to fit specific needs. This made it the ideal choice for creating a custom solution to automate the video preparation process.
Scalability: YMCA of the North was struggling to keep up with the number of videos they needed to prepare each day. Drupal's scalability made it an attractive option for handling large amounts of content and traffic.
Integration: The videos needed to be uploaded to Vimeo and connected to metadata. Drupal's ability to integrate with other systems and platforms made it easier to streamline this process and ensure that all necessary information was included.
Open-source: The client requested that the code be made available on GitHub as an open-source solution. Drupal's open-source nature was a natural fit for this request, as it is a platform that is built and maintained by you, the community of developers.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
