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Companies have begun using video conferencing more frequently for business operations, but such conferences are not always recorded. Beyond that, at this stage video falls short of everyday corporate use due to its lack of interactivity, giant file sizes and bias for one-on-one communication.

But video still has a role in litigation, albeit a smaller one. For example, in July 2008 a woman in the Virgin Islands sued a grocery story where she slipped on liquid in the aisle and hurt herself. The store turned over surveillance video of the fall itself but not footage from before the fall, which could have shown whether the liquid on the floor was previously noticeable. The earlier footage was not preserved. Because of that, the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands stated the store had “fraudulently destroyed relevant evidence.” (You can find the decision here.)

Jeff Schlueter, vice president and general manager for legal markets at Nexidia, which makes audio and video e-discovery software, doesn't recommend cutting it out of the e-discovery equation. Sometimes years of company videocasts can become suddenly relevant. He cites one case where a company had hundreds of hours of video recordings: A litigation matter arose, and the client wanted to search through the recordings to find out evidence of what the company was saying.