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MillimeterOpen-source Web Video
Sep 15, 2009 12:00 PM, By Dan Ochiva
When Madame Tussauds wax museum unveiled its new Britney Spears waxwork, it built an interactive website using Kaltura’s video platform. As part of the launch, the London-based branch created the Britney Spears Dance Chain. Museum attendees could dance near the waxwork, then have their clips uploaded to the website, where they could edit and remix the clips, adding transitions and effects.
Video is on a march to dominate web traffic. Cisco Systems estimates that by 2013, video will make up 90 percent of all Internet traffic, along with some 64 percent of mobile users. The major broadcast and cable networks already feel the effects as viewers turn to the Web in increasing numbers to watch their favorite shows. Debuting in 2007, Hulu is the industry’s own site, which was begun to retain a lock on straying viewers with its offer of hit shows. (Disney/ABC networks joined NBC and Fox this past April to add their shows to the offing; CBS is still going it alone.)
But a growing counter trend enabled by the latest technology—proliferating cell phone videocameras, easy-to-use editing software, and video-sharing sites such as YouTube—allows users to take on the media conglomerates by unleashing thousands of new channels and streaming sites.
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Free, open-source web video software is key. It makes sense: free, open-source HTML and JPEG 2000 have been crucial to the Web’s development, even benefitting open political discourse since the code isn’t centrally controlled.
Hoping to speed this trend, a group of alternative video creators, technologists, and academics held the first Open Video conference this past June at New York University. Calling itself the Open Video Alliance (OVA), the wide-ranging group spent three days discussing how to best promote open standards and free tools for online video.
At the conference, Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, voiced three key concerns: Is the technology transparent and open? Can people participate in a meaningful way? Can they innovate and remix without permission? Mozilla’s popular Firefox browser is one example of software that hits all three points.
If you want to host online video, you face limited choices: build your own video server platform, which is difficult and expensive to do well; embed videos from online providers such as YouTube, which doesn’t allow much control nor deliver any ad revenue; or opt for a proprietary video-management platform such as Brightcove, which can be pricey.
Another choice now comes from Kaltura, a co-founder of OVA. The New York-based company claims it offers features and control similar to Brightcove’s content-management system (CMS), but with a lower tab and an open-source approach. With customers including London Symphony Orchestra and Atlanta’s Dragonfruit Studios, Kaltura’s platform can handle all digital media site requirements from a basic video codec to elaborate server-side operations (uploading, hosting, embedding, syndicating, analyzing, and inserting advertisements into videos). The basic, self-hosted version—announced in July—is free.
That’s a page from the strategy of the top Linux vendor. “Kaltura delivers for the Web what RedHat Linux delivers,” says company co-founder and CEO Ron Yekutiel. “Like RedHat, there’s a free version, but users who want more help pay for custom installation, integration, and support.” Wikipedia will use the Kaltura platform this fall to allow users to add editable video to its crowd-sourced encyclopedia entries.
Video is becoming part of every Internet experience, says Shay David, a Kaltura co-founder and vice president of business and community development. “With almost 40,000 websites using our platform, we’ve become the open source alternative that drives value at those sites,” David says.
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.