Which video streaming platform would you choose today? [closed]

Question

We have decided that it is time to ditch the ad-hoc method of deploying video on our web properties and pick one or more Video Platforms to handle this task for us. High level requirements are:

• Needs to have an easy to mount and embed player.
• Needs to make uploading and converting existing video.
• Needs to have strong analytics, preferably integrated with google analytics.
• Needs to be capable of "canned" video (ie -- video on demand) and live streams (ie -- live events).

Some other things that could tilt the balance:

• Mobile-friendly.
• Multiple-bitrate streaming.
• Flexible APIs.

Hosting this ourselves isn't an option--we just don't have the manpower to care/feed for it. Price is not a major object.

So, who would you pick?

Voiced

+1 for the common sense answer youtube answer below. BUT I bet you that this is not an option due to 'cannot be public', 'don't want youtube watermark', 'blah blah crap arguments', etc. You would like to have a closed 'youtube' but will realize to late into the project that "Price is not a major object" slaps you in the face. – Smoke

Bingo. We are not doing the sort of thing where, generally, it makes sense to hook things up to youtube for a variety of reasons beyond capabilities. Other serious issue there is support -- for live events, you don't have time to wait on email forms answered by robots. – Voiced

Answer 1

I'd recommend Ooyala or BrightCove as a professional video platform for mid-to-large size businesses. Both have scalable pricing as demand increases (including support for mobile, API's and live-streaming). They're expensive (see pricing: Ooyala and BrightCove), but acceptable for mid-large businesses. Brightcove is used by big names such as Fox, DiscoveryChannel, etc. Ooyala is used by EA, Dell, etc.

Competitors to also consider: Kaltura, Delve, Viddler (no live), Wistia (no live).

Ps. personally I wanted to recommend Vimeo because I love their player's interface, but Vimeo Plus' 5gb/week limit means it's probably not suitable for businesses.

Methuselah

Vimeo is not suitable at all for any kind of business. They explicitly prohibit any commercial use in their terms of service. – Nonalignment

@DanielSwe I figured, blip.tv (popular for podcasts) has a similar TOS – Methuselah

This is the best answer -- at least you read the question well. – Voiced

I agree this is the best answer. Mitchell read the question, understood it, and responded to it appropriately. – Fiber

Brightcove is very easy to setup, though it is quite expensive - one thing to consider. – Donets

Answer 2

In such case I would recommend Influxis, which provides flash media server. Adobe hosts live broadcasts etc using that.

Borrero

Answer 3

Sounds like YouTube :). Is it feasible to use them as a service? You could embed the videos easily on your site and they have the capabilities you mentioned.

Dowable

I'd love to use youtube, but that's not really an option due to content control issues. – Voiced

Answer 4

There is also another service that can help you reaching your goals. It is called Dacast. Dacast is a self-service complete platform that provides any tools an amateur or professional broadcaster would need such as Live Streaming, Video on demand and Pay per view. Despite the fact that it is a paid service, you are able to monetize your content with ads, subscriptions, and live streaming. You can monitor your visitor's behavior with their analytics. White label player is integrated as well. I think this is a good choice especially that it is way cheaper than Brightcove and Ooyala.

Francisfrancisca

Answer 5

I had some experience with Kaltura.com, and it was positive experience in general.

Not sure if they have 'multiple-bitrate' and 'live stuff' yet, but you can ask them to implement that.

Marlanamarlane

Answer 6

Maybe it's just the programmer in me but I would suggest rolling your own system using the Sothink Video Encoder Engine and Flowplayer on the front end.

Flowplayer is probably the easiest Flash/jQuery player I've found. Easy to embed, Multi-bitrate, mobile friendly, a lot of plug-ins (including social media) and did I mention EASY?

Sothink has a very stable product for PHP. It will convert just about anything to FLV. It's not free, but if you're serious about it. That's what I'd use.

Hope that helps.

Demoss

He wants mobile so FLV is a no go! – Amorous

Answer 7

Major sites like Youtube ,Vimeo uses the ffmpeg for video streaming, conversion and other stuffs.. ffmpeg is completely free and you can imagine it's strength by assuming that youtube completely runs on ffmpeg technology...

And as far as players, you can create your own and that's not a great deal if u have a designer and if u want to use that is pre-built then i would suggest to use flowplayer(has both free & commercial version) which has more plugins..

ffmpeg can be used across different development platforms , ffmpeg-php for php and java-ffmpeg for java is available..

Dramshop

Sorry, I've got better things to do with my life than roll my own youtube. Hence the question . . . – Voiced

I just quoted those sites because you could sense the power of ffmpeg and not to roll another site like youtube.. It doesn't sense that u have to use the same technology to create same products.. See Stackoverflow, they have used mvc and is that all products using mvc are like this? ffmpeg is easy and free , when your site grows much more than u anticipated then u dont worry about the money for a mere single technology.. – Dramshop

Answer 8

I would use a CDN Provider. It depend's on your customers region which to choose...

Just use google to find something like this: http://www.maxcdn.com/video.php

Eulaeulachon