All posts by Anthony Romero

A video thumbnail is an important component of hosting video content online. In many instances, it will be the first thing people see related to the video asset. This can be for external facing assets from a simple Google search, where thumbnails appear in the Video results. It’s also important for internal facing assets using Streaming Manager for Enterprise, where channels can be created with a supplemental video gallery with each additional on demand video represented by a thumbnail.

Consequently, a video thumbnail acts as not just a method to preview what the video is about, but also as a “mini-poster” to market that asset. As a result, it’s important to not just make sure a thumbnail is associated with each video, but also to make sure it’s the most relevant it can be. For those looking for a solution that offers greater control over their video thumbnails, IBM Cloud Video has a suite of cloud based features that include thumbnail generation.

If you prefer a video representation of this, register for our Getting Started webinar which walks through this and other IBM Cloud Video features.

• Video thumbnail generator and selector
• Custom image uploader
• Video thumbnail editor: image cropping capabilities
• The benefits of a good video thumbnail

The ability to monitor, in real time, stream analytics gives enterprises a way to extract business value from data that is effectively in motion. On external facing streams, this might mean using these metrics to help further bolster attendance through promoting real time statistics on social networks such as noting impressive viewership volume. Going beyond what historical analysis could offer, this gives organizations the ability to inspect and analyze data in order to quickly respond to enhance performance or “right the ship” if the video content is not performing to expectations.

While IBM Watson Media has long had an impressive array of real-time analytics, this week the cloud platform expands with a new console that allows enterprises to monitor live stream content to an incredibly granular degree. This includes tools to investigate issues to support real-time decision making, such as validating how widespread buffering issues might be and check the overall stream health. This use case can help determine if a report of a viewer experiencing buffering issues is an isolated problem associated with the viewer’s connection or if it points to a larger problem possibly due to connection issues at the broadcaster’s side. The new console offers a wealth of use cases and increased ways to understand stream performance, from the ingest to delivery side. It also includes a visual and user interface update to the live stream analytics console as well, marking an overall update to the live metric capabilities of the IBM Cloud Video platform.

Read on to learn more about the real time monitoring and analytic features available to leverage live data regarding video channels. Also be sure to check out our Live Video Delivery System Built for Scalability white paper, which gives insights into the delivery method used at IBM Watson Media to better understand the data presented in the live monitoring console.

• Live Monitoring Console: Overview
• Live Monitoring Console: Stream Monitor
• Live Monitoring Console: Stream Setup
• Live Monitoring Console: Channel Setup
• Live Monitoring Console: Performance Metrics
• Live Broadcast Console: Real-Time Stream Analytics

Video streaming privacy and controlling video access can be a challenge at times, and the reasons for wanting to limit access can be varied. Sometimes there can be legal incentives, such as acquiring distribution rights for a concert in only selected areas. Other times it can just be to funnel the benefit of doing that video content to a source controlled by the content owner. For example, making sure beneficial traffic to a website ends up at a page controlled by the user.

This article covers the wealth of features available at IBM Watson Media that can facilitate this need to restrict access to streaming content. This includes methods to password protect video assets along with more sophisticated approaches such as restrictions based on demographics like location or age.

This piece is focused on protecting external facing video content. If the need is to instead protect video access for content that has to be internal facing only, IBM Enterprise Video Streaming offers more granular control to keep video content inside an organization.

• Video Access: Restrict Embed URLs
• Video Password Protection
• GeoLock: Geo-Blocking
• Preferred Support Restrictions
• IPLock: IP-Blocking
• AgeLock: Age-Restriction

Wondering what an enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) is and why a company might need one?

IBM’s ECDN helps enterprises service large viewerships centrally located inside an office. The solution allows companies to horizontally scale their efforts, enabling training sessions and more that can be streamed while not causing bottlenecks for a local network.

Read on to learn what CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) are before diving into what an enterprise CDN is, and finally to learn more about IBM Watson Media’s approach.

• Understanding The Need For CDNs
• What Is A Enterprise Content Delivery Network?
• Introducing IBM’s ECDN
• Global Reach From ECDN
• IBM ECDN Release

Today marks the complete launch of the new IBM Watson Media viewing experience and the discontinuation of the old experience. This impacts all existing IBM Watson Media channel pages that were created before February 18th, 2016, and were not already migrated to the new design.

The new viewer experience brings with it a multitude of new improvements for the desktop and mobile experience around these pages. This includes a cleaner look and also additional features for broadcasters to customize channel page content.

Want to stay up to date on what changes and improvements are being made to both the channel pages and the overall IBM Watson Media solutions? Register for this Live Demo: Getting Started with IBM Video Streaming.

• Expanded Channel Page Options
• Cleaner Look + Cover Image
• About: Description Updated
• Outside Links
• Video Gallery
• Upcoming Events
• Other Channels
• Story Behind The New Viewing Experience