I think there is some truth to the ADs views; but, the devil in the details.
Schools with limited recruiting budgets need to operate outside the normal box and, therefore, do use videos as a recruiting tool. These coaches would prefer to see players in person; but, if faced with a choice of seeing no recruits due to budgetary restraints or recruiting from a video, will recruit off the video. From a school I know (was NAIA, now D2), however, no athletic scholarships were offered to those recruits - essentially those players were recruited walk-ons.
Determining which schools lack the budget, however, would be tough to figure out.
Now, video may be used in some other circumstances. For example, the volunteer coach working a camp saw a player and liked him, but the RC/HC wasn't at the camp. A video made by the volunteer coach could be a determining factor (analogous to an area scout taping a potential draftee and sending it to the club).
It's a sort of last ditch attempt.