You know the importance of video streaming – and thus, a video streaming platform, too – when it comes to the development of your business and company; be that associated with Entertainment, Ecommerce, or even Education today, right?

It will be a wise move on your part to stay well-informed regarding what cost factors a video streaming platform involves. You never know where you might want or need to use this knowledge, and / or benefit because of it.

To get a general idea of the sort of infrastructure that might be required for setting up a video streaming platform, you need to know whether you shall be streaming pre-recorded video content only (AVOD, TVOD, VOD), or live stream video (live events) also. Let us, however, consider both the scenarios, in turns.

Pre-recorded Video Content (AVOD, TVOD, VOD):

Prior to developing or purchasing a VOD (Video On Demand) platform, or a TVOD (Transactional Video On Demand) Solution, you need to take into account these features that are extremely high level –

• CMS
• Storage of Content and Access
• Management of Users
• Preferences for Look and Feel

Now for a deeper look into this.

CMS (Content Management System)

Are you already using a CMS? In case you have a website already, or you stream your content on some channel, it would be a good move to think about the pluses and minuses of the matter, to come to a decision on whether you would want to continue scaling your services through that. You need to be absolutely sure about whether you want to continue with the infrastructure and modules that are there already, or whether you prefer to have a fresh application for VOD.

How much of video do you intend to stream? The number of videos that you have for the video streaming platform matters. You might be having about 300 tutorials to be sold with a subscription plan; you could also be having a petabyte of prerecorded video content to stream. There is a distinct difference. You need to look into the subject of scalability. You need to consider how much you expect your viewership to increase. You also need to keep in mind the season’s probable trends.

What is the daily / weekly / monthly number of videos uploaded? A knowledge of these numbers can help one to suggest the most suitable approach for your company to take care of the volume of viewers, and video. A set up for handling a thousand videos every week will certainly be different from one handling just one video per week, right? The search features that are embedded in the video streaming platform are going to be defined by the volumes of video content. Various rules can be applicable for TV channels. Search can get enabled. Full text search can be carried out within the channel, or get incorporated in the cross-channel search that is ready for use in the mobile app, enabled for

• Paywalls
• Content sorting
• Web publishing
• Language preferences
• Geo locations

etcetera.

What can be the range of the expected viewers’ count? If you have a fair idea of the range of the viewer count expected, defining VOD and infrastructure traffic can be aided. You could be having about 300 viewers for a video tutorial application, and, simultaneously, an audience of 10M for a TV streaming app. It is always helpful to have such data forecast, or analyzed.

Is Access Control Capability necessary? Access Control Capability will not be required if you are going to be the only one to access the back-end of the platform for managing video upload, and subscribers. However, you would be requiring Access Control Capability in case of having a team of administrators for looking after content management.

What would be the Monetization Model? The Pricing Model or Monetization Features enable you to sell the video content. The models can be

• PPV / Pay Per View in which an event has to be purchased by subscribers in order for it to be viewed by them. This model is mostly used for sport related events, concerts, live art performances, and so on.
• AVOD / Ad-supported Video On Demand model in which the viewers are not charged, but there are advertisements strewn throughout the viewing experience, and revenue is often drawn from the advertisers.
• Free

If you happen to be planning to have your video content delivered through Android and iOS applications to begin with, you need to be sure whether your pricing model is

• Dynamic
• Fixed and hardly ever altered

Customizing the functionality can get good help from such information, as one would know how best the functionality can get customized so as to support alterations in the pricing policy, discounts, subscription plans, and so on.

Storage Of Content And Access

Where is the present service hosted? Monthly charges for the traffic, and also for hosting could depend upon where the storage of the video content is done, and where the back-end system runs from.

What is the geographical location of viewers? The storage of content, and access can be depending on the geographical distribution of the audience – you need to know where most of your viewers are located.

Management Of Users

Is there a requirement for login, registration? A registration for your video streaming application will be necessary in case your viewers and customers subscribe to your website or current service – for example, with an Email. TV services that are larger require a complete, secure module for the purpose of user management.

Is it necessary for you to collect customer information? A module dedicated to the collection of customer information may be necessary for the purpose of marketing, and remarketing.

Preferences For Look And Feel

The Design Factor? Having a clear idea of the design, or design preference, is useful. In case there are similar solutions the designs of which you like, it can help to make note. If you happen to have a design ready already that you would prefer to continue with, having clarity in vision related to UI (User Interface) questions could be essential. 

Would you be displaying advertisements? You need to consider the factor of whether you would want to display advertisements.

Live Stream Video:

There are certain things, like the

• Infrastructure
• Live Support at the time of Streaming
• Network Traffic

that you need to take into consideration before you decide to go for a Streaming Platform.

Infrastructure

Which video services have been brought into use till date? The bandwidth is an important factor that has to be considered in the case of streaming live events. Bandwidth has its effects on the production of video and the delivery of content, as it is the bandwidth that measures how much of data gets transmitted via a particular connection in a certain period of time. The video streaming quality can improve in accordance with greater bandwidth connection.

Have you been bringing a video player into use for your services? It would help for one to know what it was, if it was. The strategy to stream your content at its best quality could be easier to come upon, then.

• VideoJS is an HTML5 video player. It has a fallback to Flash video player for times that the browser cannot support HTML5 video.
• JWPlayer -- an HTML5 online video player – is a media player for websites that is open source, and embeddable.

Network Traffic

In order to decide upon the traffic parameters and select the most suitable option for your benefit, here are certain factors that you need to pay heed to

• The number of live events you aim to broadcast in a day / week / month
• The average and highest duration of any live event
• The number of your current viewers – expected scaling of numbers
• The number of simultaneous viewers you expect to have

After you ruminate upon these points can you take a decision, say, between Akamai, or Amazon.

Live Support At The Time Of Streaming

Would you be requiring live support while the broadcast is on? Technology can take care of

• Video Stream
• Graphics
• Feeds
• Audio

and more. In case of streaming live events such as sports, where every second matters immensely, you can get support from video streaming experts, too.

Talking of video streaming experts, you are most welcome to get in touch with our experts for the development of video streaming, delivery, distribution, monetization solutions that are completely customized to cater to the unique requirements of your company that can help you get the highest ROI.

You are also most cordially invited to contact us at Ascentspark Software for a complimentary discussion on the subject of video streaming – to share your ideas, or clear your doubts, if any -- so that you can check for yourself in how many effective and lucrative ways video streaming can be utilized for the greater development of your business, and company.