Brightcove bolsters online video

ONLINE VIDEO FIRM Brightcove is attempting to help improve the state of online video with the launch of the fourth iteration of its video delivery platform.

The massive growth of online video sharing sites as well the success of video on demand services such as BBC Iplayer and Hulu are driving many companies to begin delivering or enhance their own online video content.

However this is a content channel that can be difficult to create and effectively deliver and monitoring and monetising this is even harder, according to Brightcove. This is complicated further by the varied delivery requirements of each end user device, such as desktop, console, mobile or netbook.

"As video becomes pervasive on the web, publishers face increasingly complex and demanding requirements that often span multiple use-cases and devices," said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and chief executive officer of Brightcove.

"Everyone wants video on their site, but this is becoming increasingly difficult to do well and derive value from, not less so."

With this in mind, Brightcove 4 introduces a host of new features, including support for native Iphone video application development, expanded live streaming capabilities, advanced analytics as well as new resources for video distribution, monetisation and custom online video applications.

"People just want to shoot high quality content and drop it in the system and all of the details like video formats, players, advertising and delivery, taken of," he added.

According to Allaire, Brightcove is already the widely-used online video system around.

The newest version adds a cloud-based encoding system allowing for a high definition clip to be pre-rendered into the three other formats which, combined with secure multi-bitrate streaming, is suitable for most types of device / connection combinations.

Support for live streaming, including the ability to mix and match live and video on-demand programming within the same Brightcove players, brings the compelling immediacy of ad-supported live content within reach for publishers and projects of all sizes and scope.

The company has also introduced a new player Software Development Kit (SDK) for the Iphone allowing for content to be embedded directly into applications. The SDK uses Objective C and adds pre-built components for playback, social sharing, content discovery, and hooks into the Brightcove Media API services.

It is also compatible with the Brightcove Experience Markup Language (BEML) which allows for component skinning to enable the creation of branded player controls and in-player design elements without requiring Flash programming knowledge.

On the business side Brightcove has focused on enhancing analytics and revenue generation, offering better stats and reporting on viewer engagement.

These include embedded Google Analytics support for several popular open source CMS applications such as WordPress, TypePad, Drupal, Joomla and Ektron.

There is also better support for integration and sharing on social networks.

An ad rule API and SDK, and new advertising networks and servers from Google, Yahoo, FreeWheel and OpenX, as well as support for the multi-ad Video Ad Serving Template standard round off the money making improvements.

You can get Brightcove 4 in Express, Pro and Enterprise flavours depending on how many users you would like to have and how much content you need to have hosted. µ