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BENEFITS OF JUST-IN-TIME PACKAGING AND DYNAMIC VIDEO DELIVERY

bsp-admin-1 on August 23, 2018

In 2017, Brightcove rolled out a new media delivery system called Dynamic Delivery. This has fundamentally improved the media delivery performance of the Brightcove Player for hundreds of our customers.

Leveraging just-in-time packaging, Dynamic Delivery allows content owners to achieve greater device reach, reduced storage costs, and CDN flexibility and security. Those are just the inherent benefits.

Dynamic Delivery further reduces costs and improves user experience when used in conjunction with Brightcove’s Context Aware Encoding (CAE) technology and Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) monetization capability. That’s why we’re encouraging all our customers to transition 100% of their content over to our Dynamic Delivery system.

How does this process work and what considerations are there? Let’s break down how all this is possible.

HOW STATIC DELIVERY WORKED

To fully appreciate the benefits of Dynamic Delivery, it’s important to understand the challenges of static delivery.

In the world of static delivery, you send one source file to Brightcove and indicate the various media types needed at the time of ingest. This includes rendition encoding settings (bit rate, resolution, etc.) as well as package types (package format, DRM/encryption settings, etc.).

All these settings are layered on and applied at the time of ingest to create a comprehensive set of renditions. Even a moderately complex use case can end up with dozens of renditions which are stored on an origin server for delivery.

Then, at the time of playback, the appropriate rendition is selected and played. As you have to support more devices and formats, the more complex and expensive it becomes to prepare the content for delivery.

Another pitfall of static delivery is the rigidity of the update process. Since all of the packaging happens at the time of ingest, adding any new formats requires you to go back and completely re-transcode your library. This means every time a new format emerges or an existing format has released updates you have to go back and re-package your entire back catalog of content to get the latest and greatest technology.

HOW DYNAMIC DELIVERY WORKS

Now, when you send Brightcove the source file we create all of your desired renditions (different resolutions, different bitrates) and store them in a format-agnostic state. This means these renditions aren’t stored in a particular package (HLS, DASH, etc.) but rather as fragmented MP4s (fMP4s).

When a user requests content from any given device, our just-in-time packaging generates the appropriate packages automatically. Just-in-time packaging generates packages based on the device requesting the content, automatically selecting the appropriate stream packaging and DRM formats.

This greatly reduces the cost and effort to accommodate future devices and formats. We’re only storing the “heavy part” once and our packaging is light-weight. Your cost of ownership can decrease drastically, especially if you have complex setting requirements like several DRM packages. Even in the simple use case of delivering clear content, you’d be cutting your storage costs in half by reducing duplication of having HLS and DASH renditions.

BENEFITS OF JUST-IN-TIME PACKAGING

FUTURE PROOF YOUR LIBRARY

Applying packaging at the time of request allows customers to easily adopt new package types and DRM formats, as well as updates to the existing formats.

Previously, if a customer wanted to take advantage of features available in new versions of packages or DRM formats, they had to re-transcode their entire library to update to the new format (or more likely to add the new format in addition to maintaining the old format). Now as formats evolve we update our just-in-time packager once to support them and they are instantly available for all the content in your library.

EXPAND REACH

Just-in-time packaging provides a much more flexible framework to control what shows up in the manifest at the time of playback.

One example is the ability to apply multiple audio tracks to a single piece of content which is a growing requirement among companies trying to reach international audiences that speak multiple languages. Adding multiple audio tracks also fosters a more accessible user experience for blind users by adding more descriptive audio tracks, expanding reach further.

Previously, having multiple audio tracks for a single piece of content required an immense amount of post-production work: adding an additional audio track, marrying that audio to the video, uploading the video as a separate video asset, then managing the complexity of presenting the right video for the right user.

Now, this can all happen at the time of packaging. Upload the video once with as many audio tracks as you need. Then these audio tracks can be presented in the player, similar to how caption tracks are. The user can choose which audio track they want or you can programmatically trigger it based on geography or other relevant metadata.

INCREASE FLEXIBILITY

Every business has slightly different requirements around CDNs and that’s why we made sure Dynamic Delivery was CDN agnostic. Our old system was much more rigid about which features were supported on which CDNs. Now, Dynamic Delivery is much easier to set up and implement based on your CDN requirements.

FEATURES MADE POSSIBLE BY DYNAMIC DELIVERY

In addition to the explicit benefits provided by Dynamic Delivery, the flexible architecture of the system allows us to add additional features quickly and easily. We’ve written about many of these in the past — follow the links to learn more!

Context Aware Encoding – Utilize machine learning and deep video analysis to achieve optimum quality for each video with the fewest bits necessary.

Server-side Ad Insertion (SSAI) – Dynamically stitch targeted ads into your content to deliver a stunning, TV-like experience and defeat ad-blockers.

Delivery Rules – Harness the power of Dynamic Delivery to customize delivery behavior to meet your unique business objectives.

GETTING STARTED

Dynamic Delivery is fully integrated into the Brightcove Player and is API compatible for both ingest and delivery. Additionally, Dynamic Delivery content can live alongside non-Dynamic Delivery content in the same Video Cloud account so you don’t have to worry about a mass conversion.

USING VIDEO PRODUCTION WORKFLOWS TO UPGRADE ENTERPRISE COMMS

bsp-admin-1 on August 15, 2018

As a company grows in size and spills across continents, connecting teams and employees to one another can be impossible. But that’s not the case at Deloitte, the world’s largest consulting firm with 280,000 employees in 150 countries. Why? Because they’ve leveraged a team of just three in-house experts to create a video strategy that connects, engages, and educates Deloitte team members around the world.

I recently spoke with Michael Weinstein, Manager Multimedia at Deloitte, & Rollo Wenlock, Video Workflow Designer at Wipster, to discover how Michael’s three-man team overcame video production challenges, leveraged in-house talent, established approval workflows, and scaled distribution in order to effectively share their work with the entire company.

VIDEO: A NO-BRAINER FOR INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

No matter how big or small, every company needs to onboard new employees, train teams on new products and systems, and share messages from company leadership. Increasingly, enterprise video is the obvious channel to address these needs. Employees are already engaging with video online—in a survey, 55% of people reported that they watch online video every day, and 59% of senior executives said they prefer to watch video instead of reading text when given a choice.

Ways to start using video internally

Deloitte uses a video-first internal communications strategy as a more human way to connect across its vast employee network. It’s more engaging than traditional communication channels, and it can communicate complex ideas in a short amount of time. Plus, once a video has gone live, metrics are always available, allowing Michael and his team to effectively track the performance of their communications. And with the right platform, video distribution can easily be scaled across teams and regions.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR SMALL TEAMS

No matter how large the enterprise, video departments are often made up of just a few team members. 85% of webinar attendees work with a team of six or fewer—and those few people face a number of challenges including budget constraints, multi-phase approval processes, and executive buy-in. Here’s how Michael and his team of three solved those challenges:

  • They brought video expertise in-house, giving them direct access to key stakeholders and the ability to experiment, and giving the entire organization access to video resources
  • Using Wipster, they designed a more effective video production workflow, enabling streamlined collaboration that empowered the right people to pitch in at the right time and helped drive higher quality outcomes
  • With Brightcove, they scaled video distribution to all 280,000 employees across the globe via the firewall-protected Deloitte TV Network, with a multi-tab player that arranges content into playlists and channels

With these solutions in place, Michael and his team were empowered to produce more video than ever before, including a ten-episode series called Inside the Executive Studio. 75% of Deloitte employees engaged with the series, which required minimal executive resources yet connected high-level company leadership with employees on a human level.

USING VIDEO PRODUCTION WORKFLOW TO LEVEL-UP YOUR COMMUNICATIONS

As a Video Workflow Designer at Wipster, Rollo Wenlock knows that the most effective video workflows cover the entire process, from brainstorming to results. This comprehensive approach streamlines content creation and delivery, allowing team members to focus on making their best work and scaling up production. Here are Rollo’s four pillars of video workflow:

  • Strategy. It’s much easier to scale your video production up exponentially if you laid out a plan to do so right from the beginning. Plus, an effective strategy will identify the goals of your video plan, tell producers who the audience is, and show stakeholders how video can impact the bottom line.
  • Creation. A systematized, templated production process leads to greater efficiency and performance. Plus, collaborating is easier when each team member knows their role and where they fit in the process.
  • Publishing. Why bother with a seamless production workflow if it grinds to a halt after approval? Including publishing in the process increases delivery speed and decreases the potential for human error. Performance metrics should also be accessible and actionable once publishing is complete.
  • Media Asset Management. A comprehensive, searchable media library makes everyone’s job easier. It saves time, leverages evergreen content, avoids repetition, and can spark new ideas.

When your strategy, workflow, performance metrics, and media are seamlessly integrated, your team is able to think creatively rather than getting bogged down in the process. The time and money saved on chasing down assets, approvals, and results can go toward scaling production instead. And when a small team is capable of producing and distributing video content at scale, companies are able to connect, engage, and educate their employees across the globe.

WHY DOES THE BRIGHTCOVE PLAYER VERSION 6 INCLUDE VIDEO.JS 7?

bsp-admin-1 on August 2, 2018

We have recently made a change to our version number policy in the Brightcove Player that has confused some of our customers. I’m writing to let you know what we changed and why we did it.

OVERVIEW

Changes made to Video.js when it was updated from version 6 to version 7 did not significantly alter the behavior of Brightcove Player (details below). These changes didn’t require the kind of special attention and manual opt-in we would usually require with a major version update of Brightcove Player. This is why it’s a major version update for Video.js, but not for Brightcove Player.

We recognize this now takes the Brightcove Player major version out of sync with Video.js, and we recognize this can be slightly confusing to those looking carefully at player internals. But we felt the alternative would have been much more disruptive — to release a Brightcove Player 7 requiring all customers to opt-in to a manual update.

QUICK SUMMARY

  • Changes to major version numbers (first number before the dot) indicate large changes, especially those that break compatibility.
  • Brightcove Player is a superset of Video.js, meaning Video.js forms the core.
  • Starting with version 5 we synchronized major versions to make it easier to keep track of which versions go together; Minor version numbers were never synchronized.
  • We updated the major version of Video.js to 7 because, among other things, we removed Flash support and added HLS support.
  • We decided to keep Brightcove Player at version 6 since we added back Flash support (for IE 11 on Win7) on top of Video.js 7 and since Brightcove Player has always included HLS support (this wasn’t a change).
  • With these additions to Brightcove Player we felt the changes weren’t as huge and didn’t require the kind of special attention and manual opt-in we would usually require with a major version update. This is why it’s a major version update for Video.js but not for Brightcove Player.
  • We’re sorry for the confusion this caused, but we felt keeping the major version at 6 correctly communicated the fact that we expect no disruption with the upgrade from Brightcove Player 6.

WHAT CHANGED?

As of version 6.20 we have now incorporated Video.js 7 as a dependency. In versions 5 and 6 we kept the major version of Video.js and the Brightcove Player the same. Now they’re out of sync again.

OUR OBJECTIVE

Our objective with the Brightcove Player is to provide customers the best user experience with the latest fixes and improvements with the least disruption. Our automatic update system is designed to make sure each version we release has the highest quality and continues to work on our customers’ web sites. We try hard to make every update compatible with existing implementations so our improvements can have the greatest positive impact for our customers.

WHAT MAJOR VERSION NUMBERS MEAN

We use changes in major version numbers (the first number before the dot) to indicate major changes, especially changes that make our player incompatible with existing integrations. A change to the major version number generally means our customers should take note and special care with the upgrade. For example, with the update from version 5 to 6, we decided we would not automatically upgrade any players — we required customers to opt-in to the change. Since version 5, we have also tried to keep the major version of Video.js the same as the corresponding Brightcove Player version, which we felt made it somewhat easier to track, although minor version numbers (the rest of the version numbers after the first dot) have never been synchronized.

VIDEO.JS 7 IN BRIGHTCOVE PLAYER 6

In Video.js 7 we made several major changes including removing Flash support and support for all browsers that require Flash support (older versions of IE). We also added HLS playback support to the core player. These are major changes for Video.js that could have a significant impact on integrations and plugins, which is why we changed the version number.

Brightcove Player is a superset of Video.js, meaning we start with Video.js and add other components to make it easier to use, especially for Brightcove Video Cloud users. As we released Video.js 7 we asked if there was a way to make the improvements in that version available to current Brightcove Player customers without introducing breaking changes that would require an opt-in or other disruptive update. Since Brightcove Player has always had HLS support included by default, the addition of HLS in Video.js 7 was not a change for Brightcove Player 6. Also, by adding Flash support (for IE 11 on Windows 7) in the Brightcove Player superset bundle we determined we could produce a Brightcove Player that was 100% compatible with Brightcove Player 6.

In effect, this means that what is a major, potentially breaking set of changes in Video.js is not nearly as major or potentially breaking for the Brightcove Player. We felt keeping Brightcove Player at version 6 was an accurate way to indicate this and to communicate that there is no reason to take special note or to change integration code.

We recognize this now takes the Brightcove Player major version out of sync with Video.js, and we recognize this can be slightly confusing to those looking carefully at player internals. But we felt the alternative would have been much more disruptive — to release a Brightcove Player 7 requiring all customers to opt-in to a manual update.

I hope this provides you some insight into our decision and why we’re including Video.js 7 with recent Brightcove Player 6 versions. Our goal remains to provide the best user experience with the least disruption with each new version update.

MAXIMIZING VIDEO SEO IN BRIGHTCOVE GALLERY PORTALS

bsp-admin-1 on July 31, 2018

Scoring high in search results is critical for businesses. Enough so that many larger companies have SEO teams dedicated to ensuring that the algorithms used by Google, Bing, and other search engines treat their sites favorably.

To help our customers optimize their SEO within their video strategy, we recently added a couple of features to Gallery Portals that may significantly improve your SEO performance.

REL=CANONICAL 

If a site contains multiple pages with identical or near-identical content, it will have a negative impact on your SEO.

Unfortunately, this can happen on Gallery sites when a video lives in more than one Category. Many Gallery customers have a “Most Recent” or “Most Popular” category which highlights videos that exist elsewhere on the site. When Google sees these identical pages, it might split the SEO value between them, which dilutes the overall SEO power of that page.

To avoid any negative SEO impact, add a rel=canonical tag. This tells Google that the SEO value of a given page actually belongs to another page that I’ve identified through a tag within a page’s <head> element. It looks like this:

<a link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/my_page.html"></a>

We’ve made this easy for you within Gallery. You can now add rel=canonical to all of your video detail pages by clicking a checkbox in the Discovery > Site Details Screen.

Gallery uses a URL structure for video detail pages with the following portions:

<a link rel="canonical" href="https://your-url.com/detail/videos/category-name/video/video-id/title-of-video.html"></a>

An actual URL might look like:

<a link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/detail/videos/popular-videos/video/3323417749001/my-great-video"></a>

The rel=canonical tag removes the category name from the URL, so videos that live in more than one category will point to the same canonical URL.

<a link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/detail/video/3323417749001/my-great-video"></a>

REMOVE VIDEO TITLES FROM URLS

Above you can see we added a new check box that allows the ability to remove the video titles from URLs within Gallery. This may have some SEO benefit for customers who frequently change the names of their videos. It also maybe benefit customers with lengthy titles that can make for unwieldy URLs.

There is a chance that this could have negative SEO consequences for removing video titles for URLs, so you’d only want to implement this if you’ve fully considered the potential benefit and consequences.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

If you have concerns about either of these features, check with an SEO expert before implementing. If you do implement these features we recommend you review your search engine traffic before the change to get a baseline, and after the change to get a sense of the impact.

IMPROVEMENTS FOR BRIGHTCOVE PLAYER V6.22

bsp-admin-1 on July 31, 2018

Last week, we pre-released the Brightcove Player 6.22. This version brings some useful API changes that customers and integrators may be interested in.

EXPANDED AUTOPLAY CONFIGURATIONS

As part of Video.js 7.1.0, we’ve made the autoplay configuration more powerful.

Currently, this configuration can be either true or false, which is similar to setting the autoplay attribute (or not) on the <video> element. When it’s true, the player will attempt to autoplay and, if the browser prevents it, will display the so-called Big Play Button.

However, there are cases where customers might want to improve their chances of autoplay succeeding. The expanded autoplay configuration can now accept several new string values (in addition to the existing boolean values).

ANY

Adding the configuration, {"autoplay": "any"}, will cause the player to call play() on the loadstart event. If playback fails, the player will mute itself and call play() again. If playback still fails, the previous state of muted will be restored.

This value offers the most complete solution – when non-muted autoplay is preferred, but muted autoplay is acceptable.

MUTED

Adding the configuration, {"autoplay": "muted"}, will cause the player to mute itself and then call play() on the loadstart event. If playback fails, the previous state of muted will be restored.

This value is the most likely to succeed on the first attempt – when muted autoplay is preferred.

PLAY

Finally, adding the configuration, {"autoplay": "play"}, will cause the player to call play() on the loadstart event.

This has a similar chance of succeeding as setting autoplay: true.

CATALOG PLUGIN IMPROVEMENTS

NOTE: For the time being, these features will only be available via the catalog plugin methods – not via configuration or data- attributes.

STANDARDIZING THE API

The biggest change we made to the catalog plugin is part of an effort to standardize a library API that has grown over the years to have minor inconsistencies between its methods.

The core of this effort was to add a common get() method that works for all request types and takes a single argument: a conventional catalog parameters object (described below). The get() method will return a Promise object.

For example, fetching a video with the common get() method could look like this:

// Request a video from the Playback API.
player.catalog.get({
  type: 'video',
  id: '123456789',
  adConfigId: 'abc123'
})

  // The request succeeded, load the video data into the player.
  .then(function(data) {
    player.catalog.load(data);
  })

  // The request failed.
  .catch(function(err) {
    videojs.log.error(err);
  });

Additionally, this effort includes backward-compatible changes to the pre-existing methods – getVideo, getPlaylist, getSearch, getSequence, and getLazySequence. These changes are:

  • getVideo, getPlaylist, and getSearch can now take a catalog parameters object as their first argument as an alternative to their current implementations.
  • The third argument to all methods, adConfigId, is now deprecated. Use a catalog parameters object with an adConfigId property instead.
  • Each method still expects a second callback argument and returns an XMLHttpRequest object. If a Promise is preferred, use the common get() method.

It’s important to note that these changes are all backward-compatible. No existing code needs to change!

For example, the above video request could still be made in the old style:

// Request a video from the Playback API.
player.catalog.getVideo('123456789', function(err, data) {

  // The request failed.
  if (err) {
    return;
  }

  // The request succeeded, load the video data into the player.
  player.catalog.load(data);
}, 'abc123');

CATALOG PARAMETERS OBJECTS

This is a convention that we hope to use as the basis for describing requests to the Playback API from the Brightcove Player going forward.

It is supported as the first argument to all get* methods.

All values should be strings.

Name Description
type The type of request to make. Must be one of 'video', 'playlist', or 'search'.
accountId The account ID from which to get data. This will default to the account ID of the player.
policyKey The policy key for this account. This will default to the policy key of the player.
id A video or playlist ID or reference ID prefixed by 'ref:'. Required for video and playlist requests!
q A search query. Required for search requests (except where id is used in its deprecated form), ignored for others.
adConfigId A Video Could SSAI ad configuration ID.
tveToken An optional TVE token to be sent as a query string parameter.
limit Supported for playlist and search types only. Limit the number of videos returned.
offset Supported for playlist and search types only. The number of videos to skip.
sort Supported for search type only. How the videos should be sorted for searches.

NOTE: For backward-compatibility, there are two additional, deprecated uses of the id parameter. For search types, the id parameter is supported as a search query instead of q. For search types and sequences, the id parameter can contain a sub-object, which is also a catalog parameters object.

PLAYLIST LIMIT AND OFFSET

As a consequence of this standardization, we added support for limit and offset query parameters for playlists. This allows customers to implement longer playlist sizes as well as pagination through their playlists. These can be implemented in the getPlaylist() function like this:

// Request a playlist from the Playback API.
player.catalog.getPlaylist({
  id: '123456789',
  limit: '25',
  offset: '0'
}, function(err, data) {

  // If there is an error object, the request failed.
  if (err) {
    return;
  }

  // The request succeeded, load the playlist data into the player.
  player.catalog.load(data);
});

CONCLUSION

We are pretty excited about these new features in Brightcove Player 6.22. This version is currently in pre-release status, but we’ll be shipping it out to all auto-updating players very soon.

BRIGHTCOVE PRODUCT UPDATES: SPRING OF 2018

bsp-admin-1 on July 23, 2018

We’ve had another fantastic NAB, and we’re excited to share the latest updates from our product team. As always, these videos are designed to educate our customers about the great new features and innovations we’re developing to help you deliver amazing and profitable video experiences.

Below is an overview of all the updates highlighted in the video, along with links to additional information and documentation to help you get started:

  • SDK enhancements: Updates for tvOS and Android.
  • Player updates: 360° video support in the mobile Safari browser. Auto-play support in Chrome.
  • Improved search functionality in Video Cloud.
  • Facebook Rights Manager API integration: Currently in beta.
  • OTT Flow: DRM support for the new Chromecast receiver app.
  • Context-sensitive encryption: “Quick Release” option for faster publishing.

We look forward to seeing how these updates enhance your video experiences.

Centralized management of video content across the company, ensuring reliable deadline management

bsp-admin-1 on July 13, 2018

CATERING TO THE HEARTS AND BODIES OF EACH AND EVERY CUSTOMER

Wacoal, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary, has renewed its corporate message to “Be more beautiful”. Having grown up with the philosophy that “women can express their beauty with pride as a sign of peace”, consumer values have become more diverse, and the “beauty” that people seek has changed to “individuality”. The message is that the company will continue to provide beauty that caters to the hearts and bodies of each and every customer.


The company has continued to work on video content. There are many cases where we want to convey information to users through video. For example, how to put on and wash underwear. In fact, “Basic knowledge of underwear” has become a popular piece of content. In addition to this, there are videos that are played in stores as promotional videos for each product, as well as TV commercials.


Kawakatsu Kazumi of the Public Relations and Advertising Department, Web and CRM Planning Section, General Planning Office, recalls, “From 2009, we started uploading these video contents to YouTube. We decided to upload all the videos we wanted to embed on our website to YouTube and embed them on our own site using tags.” “At the time, the information systems department had pointed out that uploading video files to our own server would put a strain on it, so we evaluated the fact that we could use it for free without putting a strain on our own server.”

ISSUES WITH AUTHORITY MANAGEMENT AND DEADLINE MANAGEMENT AROSE

Time passed, and the video content became higher quality, and the file size increased accordingly. Corporate security became stricter, and it became difficult to transfer files using USBs or free file transfer services. The person in charge at the company then requested that the production company be given access to the account so that they could upload the content to YouTube. After signing an NDA, the account was opened, but since YouTube does not have any permission management functions and everyone in and outside the company uses the same ID/password to log in, there was a possibility that the necessary videos could be deleted by mistake.

I was able to create this system by myself, without spending much time, and at no cost. If this system is used within the company, it should lead to cost reductions.

Kazumi Kawakatsu
Public Relations and Advertising Department, Corporate Planning Office, Wacoal Corporation

There was another major problem: the rights to use the models’ likenesses. It is common practice to sign a limited-term contract with the models appearing in video content. If the video is accidentally left online after the contract has expired, not only will additional fees be incurred, but the relationship of trust will be damaged. It is not enough to leave the management of this to the person in charge and then “forget about it”.


What makes the issue of deadline management even more complicated is the decentralized decision-making process in content production. Kawakatsu’s team is in charge of managing the company’s overall brand as the Public Relations and Advertising Department, but the promotional video content is created by the brand manager. The brand is also in charge of the contracts with the models. It was difficult to keep track of all the content within the company and manage the deadlines for each piece.


However, installing a server for video content within the company would be costly and the management burden would be heavy, while YouTube is free to use. Despite the challenges, the number of videos continued to grow. However, they were reaching their limits in terms of management. If they used YouTube for content that they wanted to strongly promote their brand with, there were times when the issue arose that another video would be displayed after playback. It was at this time that Mr. Kawakatsu learned about Brightcove. Mr. Kawakatsu says, “I heard a lecture on a case study from the same apparel industry, and I felt that it was a solution that could solve the same issues that we were facing.”

AUTOMATIC PAGE GENERATION WITH BRIGHTCOVE GALLERY

If you store videos on Brightcove Video Cloud, you can accurately manage deadlines and serve different content to different devices. Of course, you can also set permissions for the production company and other related parties, and give them their own individual IDs and passwords. For videos you want to be widely viewed, you can continue to use YouTube, but for managing that, you can use Brightcove Social. And there was also the existence of Brightcove Gallery, which makes it easy for anyone to create landing pages.


“Even when we uploaded to YouTube, we would still have to ask an external web production company to create the landing page. If you set up a template in Brightcove Gallery, anyone can quickly create a simple page” (Kawakatsu)


The decision to introduce the system was made at the end of 2017. First, the Public Relations and Advertising Department took the lead in using various functions, including Brightcove Video Cloud, and is currently working on a project to pave the way for company-wide use. The expiration date for videos can be viewed on the Brightcove Video Cloud screen, so if the expiration date has not been entered for a piece of content, the person in charge can be prompted to enter it. It is now possible to set permissions for each ID, so the production company has only upload permissions, while the in-house staff have editing permissions.


“I tried creating a landing page myself as a test case using Brightcove Gallery. It was a simple page that I generated by copying and editing a template, but if I had to outsource it, it would have cost a certain amount. I was able to generate it myself in a short time and at no cost. If this system is used within the company, it should lead to cost reductions.” (Kawakatsu)


Since it is possible to store videos that you want to keep private within the company, they have also uploaded videos for internal use, such as training videos for sales staff, to Brightcove Video Cloud. This has enabled them to store videos on a secure cloud, so they can now share the latest information quickly with sales staff in stores.


They are also currently testing video ad viewing analytics. They have been able to obtain viewing data for their corporate brand ads targeting women who are working away from home, which they have been promoting on social networking sites. Kawakatsu says, “This year is the stage for setting up the infrastructure. We are promoting awareness within the company. In the near future, for example, we would like to work with the e-commerce department to set up a system that links content to purchases.”

SIMPLE STEPS TO IMPROVE VIDEO PERFORMANCE

bsp-admin-1 on July 11, 2018

“Hey Sally, how are our videos doing?” asked Sally’s supervisor as if such an ominous question could be answered while passing by. “Great,” said Sally. “Lots of people watched them, we got 382 views.” Yet they both wondered, “Is that good? Is that below average? How can we get more views?”

If this scenario sounds eerily familiar, you’re not alone. I’ve worked with countless Brightcove customers who have wrestled with the same questions. So I’ve created a series of steps anyone can take to improve video performance.

CHALLENGE: GET MORE PEOPLE TO CLICK PLAY

There are a couple of basic things to consider when you’re having issues getting viewers to engage with your content. Look no further than your poster image, your video size, and page placement to improve video performance.

STEP 1 – TIGHTEN UP THE POSTER IMAGE, TITLE, AND DESCRIPTION

Website visitors generally feel hesitant to commit 1-2 minutes of their life to a video unless it will:

  • Help them with something
  • Answer a question
  • Entertain them

The number one way to get more viewers to click play is to set expectations using the cover image title and description—tell the viewer exactly what they will get if they click play.

If you’re making a video about how to assemble a desk, say, “How to assemble our new desk.” If you’re explaining quantum physics, “Explaining quantum physics” would be a great title. Don’t over think the title or get to clever with it. Avoid using “marketing-ese” and be clear. You can even photoshop the title into the poster image itself. Check out how I did this for a recent video I created.

Home Depot has always been really good at this. If you check out their video portal you’ll see that they tell you exactly what you’re going to get in the video.

STEP 2 – ADJUST THE SIZE AND PAGE PLACEMENT

We all love big videos. It’s the reason we keep buying bigger and bigger TV’s and phones. The same is true for viewers on your website. If you place a tiny 320X180 video bottom right, two page scrolls down expect to see low numbers.

Placing it front and center and making sure it’s as large as your page design will allow dramatically increases the chances of someone clicking play. I’ve clicked play on a video that I wasn’t even interested in just because it was so big and beautiful.

CHALLENGE: GET PEOPLE TO WATCH MORE OF YOUR VIDEO

So now that we’re getting more clicks, how do we get people to stay engaged for longer periods of time? This is possibly the most difficult one to define and quantify. After all if there was a formula we’d all be making viral videos.

STEP 1 – BE CONSISTENT WITH CONTEXT

Let’s say you have a website that lists all of the specs of a tractor. You place a shiny new marketing video that focuses primarily on how great the tractor is and why everyone should buy it. We have two completely different conversations going on here. If your page provides info or explains something, so should the video on that page. Save your marketing video for a marketing page.

STEP 2 – THINK ABOUT TONE AND PLACEMENT

When you head to a job interview or go out socially with friends you think about each situation differently and dress appropriately. The same is true for a video. Before you start writing a script or storyboarding your shots, have a short conversation about what tone and presentation best supports both the topic and destination of your video. For a social piece you can and should be more casual and conversational. If it’s going on your home page, you can and should be more polished and formal.

STEP 3 – TELL SOMEONE’S STORY

As humans, we are drawn towards someone’s perspective on a story, not just the story itself. It’s the reason we like reality shows and why we listen to a specific news channels. Yes “story” is king, but someone’s perspective on a story is what makes it interesting and relatable. Once you’ve identified a story, ask yourself, whose perspective of that story makes it most interesting? A customer of yours? An engineer who worked on the product? A sales person? A salesperson’s Mother? You get the idea.

STEP 4 – ALWAYS BE HELPFUL

Being helpful wins every time. If you’re not sure what your customer pain points are, dig into your support tickets and ask your sales team what customers ask about most often. Then go create content that helps your customers solve those problems and they will keep watching.

Xero’s “Startup Series” is an excellent example of this. The videos directly address and provide answers to questions that new startups are asking.

While there is no formula that will guarantee your next video will double your company’s revenue or go viral, the suggestions above will help improve video performance and engagement. Ultimately we all know that the more people that click play on your videos and longer they stay engaged, the more likely they are to eventually convert.

BRIGHTCOVE PLAYER V7 UPDATES

bsp-admin-1 on July 5, 2018

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

In 2018, we pre-released version 6.20.0 of the Brightcove Player, marking the first release using Video.js 7.

Video.js 7 includes two major changes.

First, it bundles the Video.js HTTP Streaming library into Video.js, adding HLS playback support and experimental DASH playback support to the default Video.js library. The Brightcove Player has long bundled HLS playback support, so this aspect of the update does not significantly affect Brightcove customers.

However, the second change does affect Brightcove customers and it’s one we’re really excited about: the removal of support for Internet Explorer (IE) versions 9 and 10. Going forward, we will only support IE11 and versions 6.20.0 and higher of the Brightcove Player will not function properly in IE versions before 11. The full details of this policy change can be found in the Brightcove Player System Requirements document.

HOW IS REMOVING SUPPORT FOR SOMETHING A GOOD THING?

As of June 20th, IEs older than 11 accounted for a mere 0.07% of our Player traffic. However, every quarter we have expended effort to support these outdated browsers. This includes the human effort of running manual tests and debugging potential issues as well as the machine effort of running automated tests. Every hour we spend testing and chasing issues with these browsers is an hour we can’t spend doing work that’s more valuable for the Brightcove Player and our customers.

Further, removing support for old IEs from both Video.js and the Brightcove Player has reduced the size of the default Player from 166KB to 159KB. In other words, after updating to 6.20.0, each Player download from our CDN should send roughly 7KB less data over the wire.

Now, 7KB doesn’t sound like much, but consider it in aggregate. We only need to deliver around 142,857 players from our CDN to save of one gigabyte of bandwidth.

And this savings doesn’t just affect us here at Brightcove. The most important beneficiaries of this change are our customers’ users. They will be consuming less bandwidth from their limited mobile data plans.

WHAT IF I WANT IE9 OR IE10 SUPPORT?

If customers need to retain IE9/IE10 support, they can opt out of automatic Brightcove Player updates either in the Studio or via the Player Management API.

Customers still on versions 5.x don’t need to do anything. But we strongly recommend upgrading to 6.x to get all the latest and greatest improvements.