Live Streaming Platforms – An Overview

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You go about your day and end up watching a couple of live broadcasts because going live is the new norm and has become a lifestyle. It is a great way to have a lively engagement with your audience. It is much more effective for eCommerce or businesses in general. It lets you interact with your viewers to increase your brand’s visibility, conduct different virtual meetings and conferences.

Do you know? The market of live video streaming is expected to grow from $30.29 billion in 2016 to more than $70 billion by 2021.

However, choosing a live streaming platform can be overwhelming. Each of the platforms has its own capabilities and limitations. Not to worry because, in this blog, we’ll let you know what a live streaming platform is, the benefits of live streaming, and what features to look for within one. Furthermore, we will see the top 4 live streaming platforms for you to opt from.

Benefits of Live Streaming

Live streaming is an effective and trendy way to connect with your audience to gain prominence in the market. Since it is the current technology, businesses that opt for this have a competitive edge. There are many benefits of streaming live, such as:

  • Live streaming can certainly help in reaching your target audience
  • Easy to set up. Requires internet, active account, a streaming platform and then a click of the button “live”
  • Live streaming platforms are cheap and available for free as well
  • It helps in increasing your visibility by reaching a diverse audience geographically and also brings up better sales conversions
  • You can even monetize your session by going live
  • The recorded session can be utilized for sales or any promotional campaigns

What is a Live Streaming Platform?

A video streaming platform that lets you interact with people in real-time. Live streaming videos can’t be edited, unlike recorded videos. The video platform is the element that connects the creator and audience.

Businesses use live streaming platforms to share videos to build brand awareness, lead generation, advertising, and provide paid access to stream the videos.

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Features To Look for When Comparing Live Streaming Platforms

So what features are in the live streaming platform? As a business, you need advanced features with a simplified process to perform. You can look for the following features

  • Live and on-demand video streaming
  • Seamless playback
  • Secure video streaming solution
  • Low latency streaming to avoid buffering
  • CDN support
  • Video embedding options
  • Video monetization tools
  • Video interactivity and analytics
  • Encoding, transcoding
  • Translation and transcription
  • Ability to set up backup live streams in case the main one fails

4 Top Live Streaming Platform

Based on the features mentioned above, here are the top 4 platforms for conducting your live stream.

1.      YouTube

This is a popular platform for free public live streaming, more suitable for personal use or enterprise looking to market their solution. It has strict rules towards monetization, and you would have to compete with your competitor’s content. The platform is not catered for corporate use cases, especially internal streaming.

Since it is a public portal, the streaming is mostly done for external viewers with limited capabilities to conduct internally. Moreover, YouTube requires users to give ownership of their content to the platform to be redistributed whenever. YouTube at a glance:

  • No notable security features.
  • Ad-based monetization is only limited to users with large followings.
  • Powered by Google.
  • Easy to share videos.
  • Videos can be easily embedded on other websites.
  • Video analytics.
  • No white-label capabilities.

2.      VIDIZMO

VIDIZMO is a live streaming platform that also supports on-demand video streaming for internal and external audiences as well as video content management for end-to-end use cases. For more information visit this site: f95zone

VIDIZMO features at a glance:

  • Scalable live stream in the cloud automatically provides load balancing for sudden rise and fall in view count. You can use it to reach 10s of thousands of people at once.
  • You can stream in you on-premise infrastructure, in secure Azure or AWS cloud network and more.
  • Seamless playback by minimizing the buffering through automatic transcoding, modern video streaming protocols and adaptive bitrate streaming
  • Define access on a granular level to each user, group or department – even within your organization so that limited users or groups may view the restricted stream
  • SSO enabled login for enhanced security.
  • It offers low latency HLS for live streaming.
  • Offers secure internal live streaming restricted to your organization.
  • Every live stream conducted is end-to-end encrypted with FIPS 140-2 standards.
  • All live streams have live transcription and close caption, interactive Q&A, live chat, quizzes or surveys.
  • VIZDIZMO supports the integration of many web conferencing tools from which you can live stream, such as Zoom, MS Teams, Cisco Webex, etc., through RTMP.
  • Geo and IP based restrictions.
  • Ability to set up backup live streams.

Some other capabilities include on-demand videos by recording the live session and organizing in a YouTube-like content library in playlists, collections and categories.

 

3.      Brightcove

This live streaming platform is generally used by large enterprises mainly for external use cases helping them reach a global audience by connecting with their social channels. You can also create clips and post them to your sites and social channels.

However, the platform lacks in terms of private streaming capabilities and is a very high-priced solution only feasible for broadcast-grade live streams. You also can’t integrate Brightcove with internal IT systems like video conferencing tools such as Zoom and MS Team.

Brightcove features at a glance:

  • Video API access, but only on custom-priced plans.
  • Multi-bitrate and adaptive streaming.
  • Global content delivery via CDNs.
  • Monetization options, but only on custom-priced plans.
  • Good analytics.
  • CRM integration.
  • Custom video portals.
  • Slow ticket-based responses.

4.      Vimeo Live

Vimeo can handle unlimited storage and events. The platform was initially only for Over-The-Top live streaming, providing mostly external audience-focused live streaming features. Vimeo is simple and comes in three different plans, including the free one.

Vimeo has an easy-to-use interface with options to make your live interactive with Q&A and live polls for live streaming and more. Their support, however, has a lot of drawbacks, with Trustpilot depicting multitudes of disappointed users. You can expand your audience by simply getting connected through live broadcasts. Vimeo at a glance

  • You can run your live streams on multiple different social platforms concurrently through SimulCast.
  • Interactivity provided with live polls, Q&A, email capture, audience chat and custom calls to action.
  • Analytics provided to track live stream engagement

Conclusion

Choosing a live streaming platform is not a walk in the park. All platforms are distinct and have different features, audiences, and technical aspects. Each organization must research and choose based on its own requirements and audience.

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