Top 10 online video platforms

What is an OVP (online video platform)?

OVP stands for online video platform and refers to the technology needed to ingest, manage and distribute video through a streaming service. This generally includes hosting, video transcoding, storing, management and playback of videos over the internet. 

‍A company that provides an online video platform must deliver the highest-quality video and audio to its customers through its solutions. OTT businesses typically partner with technology providers to cover the entire spectrum and offer a complete OVP solution.  

‍Some well-known Online Video Platform providers are Brightcove, Kaltura, Comcast Technology Solutions and Vimond. 

The functionality you need in an online video platform

Several components and functions are required for an online video platform to serve its purpose adequately. For anyone starting up, moving, or updating their systems, every case is different.  Depending on the size, location, and how you want to monetise your videos, an online video platform provider needs to take this into account when setting up the video service. 

The components of an online video platform

‍From ingestion to distribution, several important components are included. Usually, an OVP requires the following components:

‍Encoding/transcoding

• Video CMS
• Monetisation (SVOD, AVOD, TVOD, etc)
• Billing and subscription
• API Integration
• Security (DRM)
• Front-end players
• Multi-screen apps
• End-user analytics
• Recommendations
• Real-time analytics
• CRM (content rights management) built for OTT
• Video distribution through global CDNs

There are many great online video platforms available in the OTT market, making it hard to pick the right one for your business. To save you time and effort, we are going to guide you through 10 online video platforms in the streaming industry, making the landscape a little less confusing! 

Note: the article is based on information from each company's website, from 2022, to provide an overview of the players in the OVP market.  

1. Vimond Media Solutions

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‍The first OTT platform on our list is our very own Vimond VIA - one of the best OTT streaming services out there.

‍Vimond Media Solutions has been around since 2011, when it emerged from TV 2, one of Norway's biggest broadcasters. Vimond Media Solutions provides video management and distribution software that delivers cloud-based solutions to broadcasters, telcos, and other content holders in the media industry. 

‍Through Vimond’s background in broadcast, combining technology with storytelling workflows, they’ve seen, and driven, the pivotal digital transformations the media industry is experiencing. With their intuitive and efficient workflows, they enable high-quality over-the-top streaming solutions. Vimond is focused on providing products that are flexible, open, and tailored for the customer's needs through its own video CMS and partner integrations. 

Vimond's OTT offering

Video CMS: Vimond's core offering is its OTT video Content Management System (CMS), Vimond VIA, which enables editors to manage all their video assets.  Using VIA, editorial teams can add metadata, structure content and organise video files into the correct categories and catalogues.  

‍Video Curation and promotion: the service offers a great blend of automatic, dynamic and manual options for creating different ways to present content to audiences, promoting popular content, or helping viewers find something to watch quickly.

‍Open APIs: Vimond VIA offers a wide range of APIs for customers and partners to connect to, enabling flexibility, integrations with other systems, and the automation of tasks, from metadata updates to scheduled publishing and updated monetisation offers.

‍In addition, VIA offers a set of Content Delivery APIs, which connect the audiences directly with content, from searching for content, playing content, and resuming playback.  The Content Delivery APIs are designed to be cost-efficient and scalable, meaning that the computing power you need is always available, whether you have a handful of connected viewers or several million.

‍Monetisation: imond VIA caters for all OTT business models, from AVOD to SVOD, and any other VOD monetisation module you might dream up.

‍To what markets? 

Vimond markets to broadcasters, publishers, organisations, telcos, sports and other media-rights holders.
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Highlighted features

• Video CMS
• Monetisation
• Video transcoding
• Profile management
• Data insight

‍Price‍

Customer-specific enterprise plans. Pricing is available upon request. 

2. Brightcove

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‍Brightcove is a global and large-scale provider of cloud services for video. According to Brightcove, it services over 5,000 clients in over 70 countries with its digital video distribution technology.

What they offer

Through its OTT offering, Brightcove Beacon, Brightcove provides an end-to-end OTT offering. Brightcove’s official statement on Beacon is “Brightcove Beacon helps you grow and retain global audiences with flexible layouts, monetisation options, and unmatched reliability — all in one industry-leading solution.”

‍Note - we have only focused on OTT offerings in this article.

‍To what markets?

• Media and Broadcast
• Financial Services
• Marketing
• Arts and Entertainment 
• Publishing 
• Manufacturing
• Retail and E-Commerce 
• Internal Comms
• Sports
• Technology ‍

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Highlighted features

A standout module in their suite is Brightcove Live. Live event streaming is a service within the OTT marketplace that some providers struggle to deliver, and Brightcove Live does so well, with many features, including Live-2-VOD, Live Clipping, and Live Streaming to Social.

In addition, Brightcove offers the following features:
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• Cloud-based transcoding
• Video portals that are customised
• Dynamic ad insertion
• 24/7 support
• Integration with marketing and social media tools 
• Adaptive bitrates
• Supports multi-device streaming
• Unlimited file size and video lengths 
• Compatible with multiple file formats

Price

Brightcove has listed pricing on AWS Marketplace for Brightcove Video Cloud.  Additionally, Brightcove's pricing plans are not available on their website. You need to contact them directly for customised quotations.

3. Kaltura

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Kaltura states that its mission is to “power any video experience”. Their wide array of video solutions is deployed globally across thousands of enterprises, media companies, service providers, and educational institutions, leveraging video to teach, learn, communicate, collaborate, and entertain.

What they offer

Kaltura offers products for a wide range of customers across industries to handle virtual events, town halls, video portals, video messaging, and meetings. Kaltura also has industry solutions for Media & Telecom and Education. In addition, they offer Media Services for developers. Kaltura offers products both for large enterprises that need customised solutions and smaller businesses looking for white-label offerings. 

‍To what markets?

Communication and Collaboration (Enterprise video solutions), Education Customers, Media and Telecom.

Highlighted features

Kaltura cloud platform: customizable online video platform allowing for personalised live and on-demand experiences for consumers on any screen. It offers a modular migration path to paid services by supporting ad, subscription, and rental business models in a single app.  The cloud platform includes:
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• content management and discovery
• pre-integrated, highly configurable front-end applications
• dynamic content curation from multiple sources
• personalization
• Behavioural- and data analysis
• Video monetization
• End-user management
• geo-blocking, device restrictions, and download-to-go rules and permissions 
• Multi DRM

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Price

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Depending on your needs, Kaltura offer several payment options. For enterprise and custom needs, get in touch for pricing.  

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4. Accedo

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‍Accedo is a global video service provider that promotes itself as “helping world-leading video services providers to deliver and grow engaging video experiences.” They achieve this by providing a combination of products and services needed to support customers during every stage of the video business journey, from strategy and conception through to delivery and post-launch optimisation.

What they offer‍

Accedo One (SaaS VOD platform for tier 1 Broadcast and OTT): an all-in-one online video platform that allows the customer to take complete control of the design and layout of their end-user platform. Accedo One also provide access to Accedo’s partner Market, which contains an extensive range of expert video technology vendors, enabling the Customer to scale and customise their offering as the market and their needs evolve.

‍Accedo Play - Sports: designed explicitly for rights-holders, federations, and clubs. Accedo’s out-of-the-box Sports Video Solution enables sports organisations to launch a service at speed and to manage and monetise their content. Accedo Play - Sports is a video-centric hub that allows sports organisations to augment and enhance their existing video and social media strategies

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Accedo Play: Accedo Play is a SaaS “turnkey” end-to-end VOD platform tailored to Content Rights Holders. As per the Accedo Play - Sports product, Accedo Play is a video-centric hub that allows rights-holders to augment and enhance their existing video and social media strategies.

‍Accedo Engage: automated and data-driven personalisation and user-insights tools

‍Accedo XR: Next-gen VOD experience tools

Professional Services: Strategic Advisory, Innovative UX and complete Managed Services

To what markets?

• Media and Broadcast
• Financial Services
• Arts and Entertainment 
• Publishing 
• Retail and E-Commerce 
• Internal Comms
• Sports
• Technology 

Highlighted features

Accedo offer nearly a full suite of products and services for the Broadcast and OTT market. The key features and ones that make them stand out from the rest are:

‍Front-end design flexibility - native apps and customizable UX experiences that you can style and configure to create a video service that is unique to your brand.

‍Business Insights tools - adaptive tools that provide an aggregated display of service analytics that help you make better decisions and optimise performance based on user behaviour and preferences.

‍Partner Marketplace - a marketplace ecosystem consisting of a wide range of expert vendors that can be easily integrated as your service evolves.

‍Price

Accedo offers price plans for any budget. Contact Accedo for an estimate.

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5. 24i

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24i was founded in 2009 and promotes itself as spearheading the global OTT revolution and as one of the leading front-end TV app developers worldwide. 24i’s platform supports most aspects of a pay TV or OTT service, including live channels, catch-up and nPVR on multiple devices, and the build-and-deploy of custom apps. 

In 2019, 24i and its sister company Amino became part of Aferian plc (London Stock Exchange: AFRN). In 2021, Nordija (a Pay TV platform) and The Filter (a recommendations and personalisation engine) were acquired by 24i. 

‍What they offer

24i offers 3 tiers of OTT solutions:

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• 24i OTT Studio:  24i OTT Studio is a low entry, cost effective end-to-end solution. The solution is tailored to SVOD services and enables streaming to web, iOS, Chromecast, Android, and AirPlay. The package includes transcoding, DRM, CDN & subscriber management.
• 24i OTT Studio Select: 24i OTT Studio contains the same functionality as OTT Studio, and also allows the Customer to add extra modules, or “Mods”. The platform provides the ability to stream content on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV or Smart TVs.
• 24i Premiere Select: 24i Premiere Selection is 24i’s baseline package with the ability to include additional modules. It provides the Customer with the ability to utilise the 24i Smart TV app experience or add white-label apps to the Customer-owned backend.

To what markets?

• Media and Broadcast
• Arts and Entertainment 
• Publishing 
• Sports

Highlighted features

24i offers a range of additional modules (Mods as they call them) which can be purchased as add-ons to the 24i OTT Studio platform. The core and highlight of their platform is “Backstage” which offers a cloud-based console with a neat UX, asset console and app statistics view. Backstage is also offers easy publishing and scheduling functionality. 

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Price

Pricing is not published - contact 24i for a commercial offering.

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6. Firstlight media

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Firstlight Media, founded in 2004, is a Canada-based company that provides managed services for the distribution of premium VOD and live video. The company's cloud-native platform powers video services for Tier 1 streaming providers, among them aha, Rogers Sports & Media's Sportsnet Now, and Struum.

What they offer

• Vide pipeline for live and VOD
• Video management with its video CMS
• User experience
• User management
• Videplayer
• Modular apps
  
  

To what markets?

Tier 1 customers and content providers across the globe, including Sport, media and entertainment. 

Highlighted features

Video Pipeline: Firstlight Media offers a video pipeline that's built to handle high volumes of content while offering advanced functionality required to operate in the complex media landscape. The video pipeline offers live and VOD streaming capabilities.

Video CMS: The video content management software from Firstlight offers human curation, recommendations, and personalisation for audiences and content to drive user engagement. Included in the video CMS is a datastore that handles metadata, curation and rules for distribution. To create editorial or personalised carousels, dynamically target different user segments, devices, or regions, and experiment with A/B testing to maximise engagement, the video CMS uses Storefront. In addition, the video CMS comes with user management that defines user access, subscription packages, and billing and payment methods. ‍

Price

Get in touch for custom pricing. 

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7. Redbee Media

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Redbee offers managed media services and media experiences for audiences worldwide. Through its end-to-end offerings, Redbee Media offers solutions across the entire content delivery chain. Ericsson owns the company. ‍

What they offer

• Access services
• Content discovery
• Distribution
• Live & remote production
• Media management
• OTT
• Playout
• Post production

To what markets?

• Media
• Broadcast
• Entrepreneurs
• niche content owners

Highlighted features

_‍White-label OTT platform

One of Redbee's key offerings is a white-label OTT platform for brands and content creators that want to deliver broadcast-quality live and pre-recorded streams from anywhere to anyone. Their white-label OTT offerings allow users to create a destination for their audience, where the customer can monetize their content and be in control over their video content. 

‍Content discovery

Redbee offers content discovery, enabling users to find the right content through search and recommendation technology. 

‍Access Services

Access Services provide pre-recorded captions, sign-language translation, and audio descriptions, allowing viewers who are hard of hearing, partially sighted, or simply prefer captioned content to watch.

‍Playout

The playout services let content creators stream their content to their audience, making sure the content is accessible on the correct device, such as smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. 

‍Post-production

Redbee provides post-production services with a variety of toolsets for different use cases. 

‍Live and remote production

Enables you to broadcast live events.

‍Media Management

Using Redbee´s cloud-based video management, users are able to find all assets in one location, making it possible to edit and access assets anywhere in the world. 

Distribution

Utilise a global distribution network to distribute content worldwide.  The distribution services make it possible for users to keep track of how, when, and where their content is being distributed. 

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Price

Get in touch to get quotes

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8. Uscreen

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Uscreen started in 2015 with the mission to create an all-in-one platform for video distribution and monetisation. Today, Uscreen exist as a team with over 100 individuals located all around the worl,d helping over 25,000 creators, brands, and businesses monetise and distribute videos. ‍

What they offer

Through Uscreen, video content providers are able to monetise and distribute videos on demand as well as live content globally. ‍

‍To what markets?

For beginners and pros, and everyone in between. It’s ideal for organisations looking to grow their web-based video presence.

• Yoga, health, and fitness
• Lifestyle
• eLearning
• Arts and crafts
• Faith and spirituality
• Kids
• Entertainment

Highlighted features

Video distribution: Deliver content to an audience worldwide with multi-screen on-demand and live video distribution

Video Monetisation: Monetise videos and add subscriptions, rentals, pay-per-view, bundles, lifetime access, and free trials

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Video Content Management: Video CMS to manage video content

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Video player: HTML5 video player that works on all devices and is responsive

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Website builder: Create and launch your own branded website quickly with a customizations website builder 

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User security: All information shared in a channel is encrypted, ensuring the viewers' privacy is protected 24/7

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OTT apps: Launch branded OTT apps available on a range of destinations, including iOS, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Android, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV devices

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Price

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Basic

$79/mo

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Growth

$159/mo

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Uscreen Pluss

Custome price

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9. JWplayer

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Founded in New York City, JW Player is the maker of the video player software of the same name. The player is used to embed videos into websites and is used by news outlets, video hosting services, and for self-hosted web videos to connect content with audiences. 

What  they offer

• HTML5 video player
• Support for live streams
• OTT apps 
• Video analytics 
• Video monetization 
• Recommendations

‍To what markets?

• Advertising
• Sports 
• Broadcast
• Film/tv
• Publishers
• eLearning

From startups to large media companies, the platform is a good fit for everyone wishing to scale and monetize their video content.
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Highlighted features

• The video player interface can be easily customized to match your website's theme. This includes adjusting color, speed, thumbnails and more
• Buffer-free viewing experiences on any device through OTT apps and player SDKs.
• Multi-CDN approach with network POPs in 130+ countries 
• Ad integrations with any video ad server including built-in support for SpotX, Google DFP, Google IMA, AdX, and FreeWheel.
• Article Matching that automatically inserts a relevant video from a content library into any article publishing
• Video analytics using tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe, Nielsen, Comscore, Conviva & more.

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Price

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10. Zype

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Zype, a Backlight business, claims to be “the infrastructure for digital video, providing an API-first SaaS that helps product teams solve mission-critical streaming video challenges with a robust platform that includes monetisation, CRM, business analytics, automation, and integrations with thousands of SaaS applications.”

What they offer

Zype empowers Enterprises to drive revenue and engagement by providing the most connected and reliable cloud-based video content management and distribution infrastructure to stream video on the web, mobile, OTT & Connected TV, and social media. This is broken down into product areas, which are reflected in the pricing.
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• Streaming Platform‍
• VideoMeta CMS‍
• Video CRM‍
• Connectors‍
• Encoding‍
• Content Delivery‍
• Playout‍
• Apps Creator
• Zype X 

To what markets?

Zype claims to have Solutions targeted towards  the following verticals:
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• Fitness
• Education
• Media & Entertainment
• Enterprise
• Faith

Highlighted features‍

Zype has a broad product suite, but its core product is a Streaming Platform with multiple components, including metadata management, analytics, 3rd party connectors, encoding, and content delivery. Zype X caters to a low entry point marked with an all-in-one streaming platform for live and VOD, targeted at lower-tier customers.  Playout focuses on a drag-and-drop interface that lets you create linear streams from VOD assets distributed across broadcast and digital platforms.   
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Price

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Now let's hear from you

In this post, we looked at several platforms and discussed their main features and pricing options.

‍In the event you have read this far, we can only assume that you are probably looking for an OTT solution for your company. 

Let us give you a walk-through on how to ingest, monetise, and distribute your video content worldwide using our online video platform.