When you ask the question above the first thing that strikes you is just how many providers of these kind of services there are – see the( not necessarily complete) list alongside this article. So, it is a buyer’ s market, indeed probably an over supplied market that will see further consolidation.
Therefore, a first consideration is to think about your potential supplier’ s underlying strength – it doesn’ t matter how good it is, or how tight a price it offers, if it falls over with your content and subscribers on board. Few things will be more of a headache. START UP. So, is it a start-up? Nothing wrong with that, particularly is it has started up because of some genuine innovation, but has it got solid funding? What’ s the worstcase scenario on its cash burn? What are its’ contingency plans if things don’ t quite as well as planned( a foundational ingredient of all start-ups is optimism)? Have regular and frank conversations about how their business is developing, even if your service experience is excellent.
If you are happy with the answers to these questions, there are advantages to start-ups; high service levels, high levels of flexibility, and the opportunity to grew alongside your supplier with a uniquely close relationship. As a test bed customer there may even be the opportunity to co-develop new, or better, functions or features. Maybe write it into your contract that if this happens you keep a share of the IP?
If you are rather bigger as a customer; say you have an existing service or major content assets you simply cannot roll the dice on, then a different kind of supplier might be for you.
It is a buyer’ s market that will probably see further consolidation
Can you get the advantages of a smaller, innovative supplier by using a company that is either: a start-up type that’ s been recently acquired by bigger tech company, or a spun-out label from a big tech?
Maybe, is the answer. There are several of these kinds of suppliers on the list. When it works it can provide a sweet spot of flexibility and good service, with the back-up of financial and operational stability. But the danger is that, no matter how things are when you set off on your journey together, the priorities of the parent company will always be the priority of your supplier. If you are not one of the biggest customers of the supplier, this will steadily become more and more evident. Your innovation needs, and your service level will slip down the to do list. And if the parent’ s overall direction of travel changes, then your supplier will likely be put on the market, and you might end up with a big name company that you had good reason to reject in the first place.
Tier 1 And then there is going with the Tier 1 big tech supplier in the first place. If you are a major corporation yourself, then the‘ no one ever got fired for buying IBM’, effect is probably still around, even though everyone says it isn’ t. Other multinational, multibillion-dollar corporations are available. And they all got that way because they’ re usually pretty good at what they do, and they certainly offer a safe pair of hands from a financial and operational point of view. But are they any good at the particular thing you need right now? They are unlikely to be chronically bad at it – though this does happen; Microsoft’ s Mediaroom anyone? But TV service provision might not be their trump card – for instance, did they only get into this area because of the acquisition of another company who, in turn, had acquired a media platform company? This isn’ t particularly unusual and is quite easy to check out. It isn’ t a red flag, but it is an amber one.
But if a Tier 1 supplier has a solid reputation for service, isn’ t overpricing, and isn’ t inflexible deal wise, this could be the option for you. So long as you aren’ t expecting fleet footed innovation or the ability to get under the hood and co-develop.
If you are comfortable that a particular company could be right for you if they can deliver the features and functions you need, what should be your checklist to make sure that’ s the case? TRANSCODING. Transcoding: Obviously, you say. But what kind of market are you supplying? Do you control a lot of the network? Or is it, at least, a modern, high bandwidth market? Or is it a low-tech region served by FTA, mixed broadband speeds and reliability, and patchy 3-4G? You’ ll need a platform that can transcode video content into multiple renditions that are universally compatible and scalable. Live recording: Audiences like to pause and replay a live stream or re-watch the whole thing again, so you need live stream recording. It also facilitates repurposing as video on demand without impacting the quality of the stream itself.
Auto-archiving tools are valuable because they record your live cloud streams and automatically upload them to your video-ondemand solution library. That provides added convenience for broadcasters.
Video player. While supporting many video formats is important, an HTML5 video player that’ s compatible with nearly every device can further maximise an audience’ s experience. You can easily embed an HTML5 player wherever viewers are, whether on social media posts or websites. It prevents your audience from leaving your website to go to another site, such as YouTube, to watch the video if its not exclusive to you.
Monetisation: Beyond saving on infrastructure costs, a platform should have options for monetising video content. Some standard monetisation features include subscriptions, automated ad insertion, and transactional VoD and live events.
Analytics: To measure and optimise the video experience you deliver to audiences, you’ ll need in-depth video analytics. A professional-grade broadcasting platform should provide viewership insights such as tracking video plays, consumption time, and other fine-grained details about audiences to fuel business decisions.
Video API access: Along with monetisation, broadcasters can make the most of their video content if it’ s easy to integrate cloud-based solutions with other business applications. You want video platforms with well-rehearsed video API access to help customise your video streaming experience and incorporate advanced features when necessary.
CDN. Content Delivery Network: Again, basic to all cloud streaming platforms. But not every CDN is the same. What quality of streaming to how many users over what geographical area are you looking to provide? Many platform brands will actually partner with third party CDN specialists with geographically dispersed assets. Platforms that leverage Tier 1 global streaming CDN networks have fewer buffering and latency issues associated with delivering video over long distances.
Security: Content providers need to know their assets are safe with you. Again, depending on the positioning and price of your service, you will need from a minimum level DRM application through to the strongest, field tested, conditional access systems. Just as important these days, to the extent your chosen platform deals with subscriber data, you need to have confidence in their data security both from a regulatory point of view and from a cyber-attack point of view. Broadcasters need to be confident in knowing that their data is safe in the cloud. A platform with enterprise-grade security will mitigate any risks of piracy, hacking, or other data safety issues.
What’ s the contingency plan if things don’ t quite as well as planned- a foundational ingredient of all start-ups is optimism?
24 / 7 Support: As the service provider – particularly if you are a broadcaster – you will have less control over the underlying infrastructure when using cloud video
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