Ages ago, well, in Web time, I spoke to the CEO of Grid Networks who was telling me about some of the feedback he was getting from media companies, particularly TV companies. The gist was that until 1 Million viewers could in tandem watch a movie online at once without it affecting the user experience, the Web was not really going to matter to them as much as the “smart crowd” thought it should.
It was clear that he - both the CDN CEO and the media executive - was right. But today I got an example of that, biggatime.
PaidContent finally published a video of its EconSM panels and for whatever reason (well, it seems obvious and like the right thing to do), they decided to publish the entire 65 minute clip in one piece (Update: I see this morning that they reduced the screen size, which will actually help quite a bit).
Until you publish video that seems like a harmless thing to do… It’s not harmless. The Web just ain’t there yet.
I emailed them to give them some friendly advice as someone who has produced, published and syndicated 100 hours of broadband content for web, wireless and out of home networks, this is suicide!
The simple solution is to publish 6×10 minute clips or better yet, 12×5 minute clips… though I hate to say it: even that is pushing it! Anything over 3-4 minutes and the streaming gets messed up and fuggetabout it, all of a sudden Rafat is a ventriloquist.
I swear for the love of all things holy this ain’t a knock on PaidContent, Ali or the Brightcove player, it’s just a dose of reality on where things are at… and why publishing video online is a programming and tech challenge. And that’s really a fraction of the issue at hand. I’d tell you the rest of the issues, but I’d have to disconnect you.
All to say, it’s bad now, and it will be worst tomorrow morning when the site’s readers get online and check out the site.
This also says a lot about Brightcove. I’m not knocking them, I’m knocking the state of matters. The firm’s raised a gazillion dollars and is backed by everyone you can imagine, it’s founded by the cream of the crop, but in the time it’s taken me to post this post, I’ve yet to get to the 10th frame of the freaking video. I’m on ultra fast cable, I was on wi-fi, just logged on wired up, and still, not much.
Yes, online will one day be huge, but right now, to a TV executive, it’s a freaking joke. Mind you, the last laugh might be on them, but please, let’s not get too drunk on the koolaid just yet.
Tags: Brightcove, Video|
Posted By: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan | Jun 21st
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