7+ Video Data Collection Services & Selection Criteria

Video data collection services have become essential for companies trying to build solutions powered by computer vision (CV) and artificial intelligence (AI). As AI continues to advance, the demand for high-quality datasets has surged, prompting many companies to seek services that can provide diverse video datasets.

This article compares the top video data collection services and platforms to help businesses and AI developers with their visual data needs.

Video data collection services comparison (for buyers)

Selecting a service provider for collecting video data is a significant decision for any AI project. The tables below compare the top companies in the market offering video and visual data collection and generation services:

Table 1. Comparison based on the market presence & experience criterion

Platforms	User Ratings Out of 5 (Avg)*	Number of Reviews*	Founding Year	Data Collection Focus**
Clickworker	4.1	68	2005	✅
Appen	4.2	54	1996	✅
Telus International	4.3	10	2005	✖
TaskUs	4.3	6	2008	✖
Summa Linguae Technologies	N/A	0	2011	✅
LXT	N/A	0	2014	✅
Toloka AI	N/A	0	2014	✅
Innodata Inc	N/A	0	1988	✅
DataForce by Transperfect	N/A	0	1992	✅

* The data was gathered from B2B review platforms such as G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra.

** If the company mentions data collection as the first offering on its website, we consider it to be data collection-focused.

Table 2. Comparison based on platform capabilities criteria

Platforms	Video Dataset Evaluation***	Video Transcription	Mobile Application	API Availability	ISO 27001 Certification	Code of Conduct
Clickworker	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Appen	✖	✖	✅	✅	✅	✅
Telus International	✅	✅	✖	✅	✖	✖
TaskUs	✅	✅	✖	✅	✅	✅
Summa Linguae Technologies	✖	✅	✅	✅	✅	✖
LXT	✖	✅	✖	✖	✅	✖
Toloka AI	✅	✖	✅	✅	✅	✅
Innodata Inc	✖	✖	✖	✅	✅	✖
DataForce by Transperfect	✅	✅	✅	✖	✅	✖

Notes for the tables

*** Data evaluation is a service for customers with existing video datasets. It includes evaluating the quality of the dataset and targeted actions to improve its quality.

• The companies are sorted based on the number of reviews criterion for both tables.
• The comparison table is created from publicly available and verifiable data.
• The companies selected in this comparison were based on the relevance of their services. This means whether they offered video data collection or generation services for AI models.
• All companies offered video annotation services.
• All vendors chosen in this comparison have 50+ employees.
• We will not be updating these tables as frequently as our product page, so you can access the most up-to-date vendor data from our data-driven list of data collection/harvesting services.
• In Table 2, a company is assumed to follow a code of conduct if it has a code of conduct page on its website.

Criteria for selecting a video data collection service

We divided the criteria into 2 categories: market presence and capabilities.

Market presence and experience

1. User ratings 

A company’s reputation is an important factor to consider. You can consider the user rating score from B2B review platforms like G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra. A high average user rating score indicates a higher level of customer satisfaction.

2. Number of reviews

The number of reviews can be a good metric to gain the user’s perspective on specific aspects of the company. A larger number of reviews on B2B review platforms indicates the company has a large user/customer base, and you can get a better understanding of the customer’s perspective of the company’s performance. 

3. Founding year

The age of the company helps customers understand the experience the service provider has in a specific field. In our experience, an older company usually has a more refined service. However, this is not always the case. Some companies can achieve more expertise in a shorter time if they focus on a certain service.

4. Data collection focus

Some companies offer data collection as their primary service. If the company’s data collection or generation is the first thing on its website and a popular service among its customers, it’s considered to be its data collection focused. A company that focuses on video data collection will offer a better service than companies that offer it among other offerings.

Platform capabilities

5. Video annotation as a service

Visual data is useless without proper data annotation. Therefore, it can be efficient if the company also offers video annotation as a complementary or as a side service so the data you receive is ready to train AI models.

6. Video dataset evaluation

It can also be beneficial if the video data provider offers data evaluation as a service. Video data evaluation refers to analyzing existing data to ensure that it is up to standard. This can be beneficial for customers who do not require fresh video data.

7. Mobile application availability

A mobile app enables dynamic project management on-the-go. This allows the participants to acquire video clips of the outdoors, such as traffic clips, or road clips. Having a mobile app can result in faster dataset preparation.

8. API integration

API integration facilitates seamless data transfer, ensuring that large volumes of data, including video data and raw data, can be efficiently processed.

9. ISO certification

It is essential to pay attention to the data protection policies of a company when dealing with video data, as it often includes personal content. Having an ISO certification indicates compliance with international standards, guaranteeing both data security and high-quality management.

10. Code of Conduct

The ethical integrity of a company is crucial. Its code of conduct must demonstrate a dedication to data security, privacy, and fairness in practices. Should an AI project rely on data collected via unethical means, it could negatively impact the reputation of the developers.

11. Data diversity

We looked at each company’s crowd size. The larger the network of workers, the better. A global crowd allows for diverse and scalable solutions, helping companies quickly deliver large volumes of labeled video datasets. 

Here is a comparison of the company’s crowd sizes:

Figure 1. Visual representation of the crowd size comparison criterion

Notes for Figure 1:

• In Figure 1, Innodata Inc. and TaskUS were not included since their crowd size was less than 100K.
• For Figure 1, some vendors were also not included since their crowd size data was not found.

Company evaluation

This section offers a brief introduction and some customer reviews of the companies compared in this article. Only relevant reviews were added for selective companies. We also incorporated relevant news regarding the companies that might influence the buyer’s decision. We could only offer pros and cons for companies for which sufficient data was found.

1. Clickworker

Clickworker leverages its crowdsourcing platform to offer various data services, including video data. The company distributes its projects to its global network of over 4.5 million workers.

Here is a list of Clickworker’s solutions:

• Human-generated and collected video datasets
• Video annotation and classification service
• Aspects include motion sequences, Gestures, sports activities, scenes, objects,  animals, etc.
• Video dataset evaluation

Pros and cons of working with Clickworker:

• A customer review regarding Clickworker’s team, platform, AI services, and its ‘reliable’ crowd.¹

• A customer review regarding Clickworker’s data annotation services and its prices.²

2. Appen

Appen is another popular name in the AI data service space that offers video datasets through a global network of workers.

Its offerings include:

• Video data collection & generation
• Off-the-shelf video datasets
• Data annotation & validation

Pros and cons of working with Appen:

• Despite being popular, recent news has highlighted that Appen’s performance is declining as the company goes through financial losses and loses customers.³
• News has also identified that Appen is planning to sell its business due to its declining financial condition.⁴
• A customer review regarding Appen’s customer support, pricing, data quality, and platform.⁵

3. Telus International

Telus International offers AI solutions that span across machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.

Its video data solutions include:

• Video data collection
• Video dataset annotation and classification
• Other data services for AI development

Here is our in-depth review of Telus International and its alternatives.

4. TaskUS

TaskUS offers various data types, including video, for AI and machine learning models. However, their key offering falls under the customer experience domain.

Its video data offerings include:

• Video data collection
• Video data annotation and classification
• Video transcription

5. Summa Linguae Technologies

Based in Poland, Summa Linguae Technologies also offers AI data services through a crowdsourcing model. 

Offerings include:

• Video data collection and annotation
• Off-the-shelf datasets, including road, car, and pedestrian video clips,
• Video transcription
• The company does not offer dataset evaluation for video datasets.

6. LXT

LXT is an emerging player in the data collection domain, claiming to specialize in curating datasets tailored for AI and machine learning models.

Its video offerings include:

• Video data collection and annotation
• Video transcription
• Data evaluation for video datasets is not offered.

7. Toloka AI

Working with a crowdsourcing platform, Toloka AI claims to specialize in collecting data for AI models, especially natural language processing (NLP).

Its video data solutions include:

• Video data collection
• Video data annotation and classification
• Video evaluation and analysis
• The company does not offer video transcription.

8. Innodata Inc

Specializing in creating AI training data, Innodata Inc. offers video data solutions to train machine learning models.

Its offerings include:

• Video data collection
• Data types include drone footage, CCTV footage, production line cameras, and data for autonomous car systems.
• Video data annotation is also offered.

9. DataForce by Transperfect

DataForce claims to cater to specific AI development needs, through a blend of data types, including video data.

Its video offerings include:

• Video data collection and generation
• Video data annotation 
• Video transcription

Our recommendations

Video data is one of the 3 most important components of an AI-powered solution, algorithm and hardware being the other 2.

By choosing a video data collection service that meets the criteria outlined in this article, companies can ensure they receive high-quality data that is ethically sourced and accurately annotated.

You can consider the following while selecting your data partner:

• Level of diversity: It is important to work with a partner that offers a large and diverse workforce.
• Customer satisfaction: You can analyze reviews and customer references to assess the company from the customer’s perspective.
• Clear description and understanding: Clarify potential edge cases and problems that might arise during the data collection or generation process so the workforce can work efficiently.

Transparency statement

AIMultiple serves numerous emerging tech companies and vendors, including the ones linked in this article.

Further reading

If you need help finding a vendor or have any questions, feel free to contact us:

Find the Right Vendors

External Resources

1. Clickworker customer review on reliability and easy-to-use platform. G2. Accessed: 21/November/2023.
2. Customer review regarding Clickworker’s data annotation services. G2. Accessed: 27/November/2023.
3. Hayden Field, (2023). Inside the turmoil at Appen, the former AI darling that’s reeling from executive exits, big losses. CNBC. Accessed: 27/November/2023.
4. Appen planning to sell. Reuters. Accessed: 28/November/2023.
5. Appen’s customer review with positive and negative comments. G2. Accessed: 21/November/2023.