I’m very bullish on Online Video Platforms (OVPs) as a substitute for internal infrastructure for video streaming. They simplify encoding, reduce capital expenditures and development costs, provide a superior distribution platform for your videos via partnerships with content delivery networks (CDNs) and save distribution costs by aggregating content from multiple providers and negotiating volume rates from their CDN partners.
It’s all good, but there’s just too many service providers to easily compare them. However, a recently opened site called VidCompare is designed to facilitate finding the best OVP for you. Here’s a blurb from VidCompare’s home page. “VideoCompare is a free comparison service for business decision makers looking for an Online Video Platform Provider.”
StreamingMedia editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen took an initial look at VidCompare which you can read here. If you’re in the market for an OVP, you might take a look at Eric’s review, and then VidCompare itself.
I’ve attached a PDF of the presentation “Introduction to Online Video Platforms” that I gave at Streaming Media Europe in October. Other resources on this site include the article Choosing an Online Video Platform and Reflections on H.264 and Silverlight from a Week at Stanford. Title doesn’t sound related, but the first trend that I discuss is “The emergence of User Generated Video (UGC) and Online Video Platform (OVP) vendors as streaming providers for small to medium sized companies.”
I should also mention that if you’re interested in the space, Online Inc is hosting the first even conference on the OVP market called the Online Video Platform Summit in San Jose November 18 and 19th. Read more about the conference here.
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