Adventures in Consumer and Business Multimedia

I’ve been offline on my blog for a couple of months given that I have taken on a new position at my company, as the Product Manager of a very sexy and successful multimedia platform.  Since joining a team of very sharp and bright folks, the work has been non-stop.  In less than two weeks I wrote over thirty user stories and probably double that many wireframes.  Agile and so organized, our developers are spinning out new requests into our QA environment every few days.  And, I’ve moved to a nice view overlooking Times Square, so I’ve got going for me, which is nice.

Unfortunately, my job has indirect association with our own Online Video Platform in-house, so I have stopped reviewing third-party OVPs for the time being.  It was an important realization when some big OVP providers recently contacted me for help on how different OVPs compare.  Instead, I’ve been pouring everything I’ve got into the next version of our platform, which is due at the beginning of December.  It is sure to wow our customers and its only getting better.

Kaltura: http://corp.kaltura.com

In the jungle of OVPs, Kaltura is one of three open source video platforms according to our trusted resource, VidCompare.com.  Among the experts and journalists in the U.S., Kaltura holds rank among the most popular OVP providers, sharing press with Ooyala, KIT Digital, and Brightcove.  And, you’ll find Kaltura sharing industry insight into hot topics like DRM, mobile, and tablet delivery, as well as being a founding member of the ‘Open Video Alliance’ (www.openvideoalliance.org).

So, what makes Kaltura’s OVP stand out?  Well, from my review of their 30-day trial SaaS offering below, Kaltura offers more flexibility than most OVPs that will likely appeal to the technically saavy user or service provider.  With a role-based content management backend that provides batch processing of media files, content moderation, and insight into content origin, activity and usage, this OVP should be on the short list of anyone who wants more granular control over their content, their contributors, and the software that supports it all.

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The last couple of weeks have been mind-blowing.  Firstly, I have the pleasure of posting my OVP Test Drive reviews on VidCompare.com, thanks to its founder, Kris Drey.  Since then, I have been contacted by a few people in the online video industry, complimenting me on how thorough and in-depth those posts really go.  Thanks to all those who reached out – the encouragement will only result in more reviews, so stay tuned!

Secondly, to my surprise and excitement, I was contacted by Ooyala and had the chance to speak with its co-founder and President of Products, Bismarck Lepe.  During that discussion, Bismarck kindly walked me through a very detailed demo of Backlot and addressed all of the questions I originally raised in my April review of their free trial.  Don’t worry – the results of that demo will be shared on this site before the end of the month.

Finally, after the demo, Bismarck was kind enough to answer some general questions I had about Ooyala.  The following is an exchange that took place by email late last week.

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