Over the past year, we have been receiving an increasing number of requests for Video On Demand (VOD) to be built into existing solutions. From businesses looking to utilize video on demand as a tool to store meeting and conference presentations, empower geographically dispersed teams, and provide effective education for new hires, to an entertainment company creating a website to showcase their live television show and user generated video content, it seems that everyone wants to get involved in video on demand.
The increased interest in internet television shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone who has been following technology developments over the past few years. When internet television first appeared in the marketplace, dial-up connections were still dominant, making it incredibly inefficent and tedious to download even a single short video, never mind having an entire television network online. In short, online videos were cool, but not very practical. But today, increases in bandwidth and fast connection speeds have made it not only possible, but highly profitable for businesses to turn to video on demand solutions.
The rise in internet videos has sparked an increasing number of video solutions. Many of these solutions are excellent, providing the extensability and customizability necessary to make them adaptable to different companies and requirements. With good quality solutions alerady available, at Vyllo we focus on customizing these solutions to insure that they are truly fitting your business needs. We can insure that your video solution will not only grow with, but also enhance your existing technology investments.
If your business is interested in a video solution, one of the most important things you can do is to determine which of the many solutions will best suit your specific needs. This is not a case of one size fits all. Video solutions are complex services, and selecting the right one is the key to getting the most out of your investment. After a year of helping companies create the perfect solution we'd like to offer some useful tips for choosing the right one.
The first step towards determining the best platform is to establish your key needs. For example, how many visits are expected on the site? How many streams? How is the video integrated into the current site and CMS? Is the video solution going to be monetized and to what extent? How many videos will you publish? These are some of the most basic questions that must be addressed in order to begin selecting a platform.
Once you have a basic set of requirements, it is time to establish an additional selection criteria based on functional and operational considerations:
Video Organization: It is important to have an effective system for uploading, encoding, and storing media within the sytem. You want to make your videos easy for people to find.
Player Publishing: How is the media player created and customized? What features does it provide out of the box (full screen, embed, sent to a friend)? Does it have a reliable API so you can extend the player going forward? How is the quality of the user experience? Can you manage multiple channels with the player? Does the solution provider offer an HD solution? It is important to balance the right amount of functionality with speed to market.
Advertising: Why are you interested in a video solution? Is the purpose of it to make money? If so, there are multiple considerations to be taken into account in terms of ad functionality. For example, what type of ad formats does the solution support? How much control do you want over the placement and duration of advertisements. How sophisticated to you want your targeting options to be? Monetizing a website is a complex task, but choosing the right platform can certainly simplify the process.
User-Generated Content: If you want to accept video submissions directly from visitors to your website, you will need to balance simplicity with customizability in the upload process. In addition, you need to determine what type of video formats you will accept and how these videos will be encoded. You will also almost certainly want a method of reviewing and approving video submissions.
Analytics: Analytics are an incredibly important feature of your business solution, as it is this feature that will allow you to view key information regarding your website activity. This may include identifying viewer patterns, identifying key sources of traffic to your website, and seeing how often a video is viewed to completion. This information will help you improve the value of your website and increase return on investment.
Exstensibility and Customizability: Most often, a video solution will be snapped into an existing solution, so it is important to take into account the ease by which this can be done. In addition, it is important to select a player that can be easily extended as your business grows and evolves. When looking at different solutions, you must take into account how much you want to customize them, so that you can make a choice that will limit additional spending. Furthermore, some platforms are easier to customize than others, and this too should be taken into account when selecting the best solution for your business.
Content Deliver Network: All video solution providers offer integration with content delivery networks (CDN), which provide the infrastructure to support video files. While it is possible to buy your own CDN, it is typically simpler and more cost effective to use those already integrated with your provider's platform. Therefore, you should know which content delivery networks a provider's solution is integrated with.
Company Strength: You want to make sure that the provider you choose is going to be a strong partner, both now and in the future. It is important to choose a provider that focuses primarily on video solutions. You should also look into their history, financials and customer base to ensure that you are choosing a leading solution.
If you take into account these questions and considerations, you can insure that your video solution will fit your unique business requirements.