Whether it’s video of a meeting, an interview, a consultation, or a surgery, the ability to record and review video for later viewing has become essential. Consequently, the need to store such video conferencing content has become critical.

“You have to ask yourself the question about what kinds of presentations you wish you could have more people attend,” says Brock McGinnis, sales manager at entertainment technology house Westbury National Show Systems in Toronto. “It’s a video world. That’s become the preferred method of getting information for young people.”

Video content storage has grown in popularity in the legal and education sectors and now is gaining strength in healthcare, says Eric Murphy, vice president of Stampede Visual Communications Group in San Francisco. Operating rooms, for example, can carry live feeds of surgeries and other procedures that med students can watch later, he says.

The prices are lowering at a time where the technology is becoming simpler for in-house professionals to maintain. Content storage systems typically run about $20,000 to $25,000, says McGinnis. The recording device becomes an end point on the call and a ceiling camera helps to capture the full discussion, and IT departments can easily make presentations available on company intranets.

“When you do it, IT people don’t have to convert anything, which is a big selling point because web streaming can be a real barrier for a lot of IT departments. This is a great way to have a corporate DVR,” McGinnis says.

Still, the relatively new concept hasn’t gotten popular enough yet that administrators are asking for it without being told about it first, but that’s no different than most other new technologies. But he expects that will change as decision makers across all sectors become more familiar with the technology.

“They’ve been video- and audio-savvy, and now they’re becoming more storage- and streaming-savvy,” McGinnis says.