It is easy to say physical storage will not exist in the next few years. Cloud servers are grasping the internet to store unlimited data. Cloud video streaming is one of the key revolutions of technology to enhance your streaming and access it anytime. You may have heard of and used a cloud video streaming platform before. However, let’s break down everything you need to know about cloud video streaming and how it will be the future of media consumption.
What is Cloud Video Streaming?
The first question arises in mind, what is cloud video streaming?
The cloud is a metaphor for the internet. It’s a way of describing how everything is connected. When you “go to the cloud,” you’re really going to a remote video server, often owned by a third party, that stores your data and applications. That’s why you can access your music, photos, and documents from any computer or mobile device, anywhere in the world.
It is like delivering video content over the internet. But, rather than using hardware to store and stream video, cloud storage will do all of that to ensure video streaming. Not only that, you publish live or on-demand videos that can be accessed over an internet connection. Perhaps an example will clarify it further. Your daily chilling website, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are the cloud streaming platforms.
Also, YouTube is another popular example of a cloud video platform. Primarily cloud video streaming services are meant to be paid services.
So, a cloud video streaming solution is the way to watch and deliver video content without worrying about your device’s storage space.
How does Cloud Streaming Work?
The Cloud streaming platform provides virtual stores where you can access video files, start live streaming, etc. So, how does it work?
Here you are providing data to the cloud storage, which is third-party server hardware that you can remotely access. Whether you are doing a live stream or regular video streaming, it will allow your users to watch the content without downloading it. Cloud video platforms work as data storage and store your file and deliver that file to the users in various formats.
And you don’t need to provide different formats of that file while delivering video content. The cloud video platform will encode the file for the users to play on their devices.
In summary, you are storing your video content to cloud video streaming platforms to make it available to watch from anywhere by accessing the internet. Or, you can say cloud streaming provides the maximum security of your content and deliver that elegantly whenever you want.
Why Use a Cloud Video Streaming Solution
There was a time when you needed to buy a physical CD to watch any video content. These cloud streaming servers replace that if you have a cloud streaming service, you can use them for handling video streaming and hosting video files to make them available for others.
Access from Anywhere & Any Device
Unlike physical storage, you can access cloud streaming servers from anywhere and any device as long as you are connected to the internet. For example, if you use YouTube as a video cloud streaming, you can use this video hosting to share with the audience without physically delivering the content.
API and Integrations
With cloud video hosting, you deliver it to any person and access it through cloud streaming software. By using API and other integrations method, you can use a single video file to access multiple video streaming platforms.
Multiple ways of accessing the video and integrating it with various web properties without losing security are one of the advanced features of a cloud video platform.
For example, you want to embed or access a particular video on your website. However, you do not want your users to download the content but watch. Integrating through an API keeps the security intact and delivers it to your users.
Live Streaming and Recording
A Cloud streaming solution is a perfect choice for your video broadcasting success. Yes, you can create virtual storage to host and stream videos. I’m afraid that is going to be a hectic process. A cloud video streaming service is an efficient choice if you want to ensure video broadcasting success. It can deliver better video streaming performance and multiple streaming capabilities.
Using a cloud platform, it is easy to manage live streams. Also, you can do a live recording and store it on the cloud platform.
CDN for Video Delivery
Before integrating with the video solution, you need to know about the CDN. A CDN (content delivery network) is a group of cloud servers that helps to access cloud data faster. It is an efficient way to deliver content over the world.
Let’s break it down with an example. If you host a video on a server that is located in the USA, that will be faster to access nearby areas. However, the latency will increase by the distance needed to cover to access this data. If the same video someone access from somewhere in Asia, it will take time to receive the data because of the distance.
So, a CDN server does whenever someone accesses the content and caches the data in all the servers. And CDN means multiple data centers to access data without covering too much distance. Therefore, you can get faster video streaming without latency and buffering.
A cloud-based video streaming server always uses CDN to utilize cloud servers and efficiently stream video. For example, Netflix uses a CDN called open to connect, reducing their streaming platform’s buffering.
Transcoding
Sometimes your bandwidth does not allow you to stream high-quality videos. So, it would be better to watch videos at a lower resolution. What if you’re the video host? Is it possible to deliver multiple formats manually? I am sure you have already calculated the answer. Transcoding is one of the key features of cloud adoption.
Cloud technologies allow you to convert videos into multiple formats to make them compatible. As a user, you can watch content from many video formats suitable for your bandwidth.
Video player
Despite knowing the device, cloud providers come with a universal video player. It works with mobile devices and computers as well. Accessing video files over the internet offers html5 player, which is not convenient for some video formats. Yet, you can conquer that barrier using cloud video platforms that can play videos beyond it.
Moreover, it provides constructive security for your video files from piracy, which I will discuss later.
Monetization
When you publish content on a video streaming platform, you need to earn something from it. Fortunately, there are limitless opportunities to monetize your video while using a cloud streaming server. Indeed, you can make money by showing ads over your videos. Perhaps that’s the least convenient approach for cloud video platforms.
You can host videos for pay-per-view or monthly subscriptions. If you know the proper method of marketing videos and producing quality content as well, you can make a good fortune without any doubt. The transactional or pay-per-view is called the PPV platform.
Also, you can go for monthly subscriptions based on OTT platforms like Netflix. It is the most popular choice for monetizing your video in a better way and earning a handsome amount of money.
Video analytics
Imagine a scenario you have uploaded some videos to a cloud video platform. Without knowing the stats of the performance, you will not be able to determine the popularity of a specific video. Therefore, you need to have a perfect video analytics tool to see the detailed data of your videos.
In a cloud video streaming platform, you can see how many people watched your video and the average watch percentage. This will give you a better idea of your uploaded videos. Also, you can count subscribers and check where the visitors come from.
Usually, you will get a video analytics tool on every cloud platform. And it is one of the most necessary tools for a video platform.
Cloud Security
When talking about an online platform, it is common to get intruders. Also, there are numerous chances of piracy. However, cloud platforms are known for their indestructible security. As a host, if you only allow users to watch the content and not access to download, users will not be able to download the content for piracy anyway.
Apart from that, your content will be safe in a cloud platform. Cloud platforms ensure the best quality security at a minimum cost. And all the platforms use their tech team to secure your content and improve that security daily.
For example, using Microsoft Azure cloud will provide AES security to eradicate unusual invasions in your videos.
Conclusion
Cloud video streaming is spreading rapidly over the world. Also, it is the most popular way to watch video content. That said, you will soon see the end of physical media replaced by cloud servers. Due to the accessibility and usability, cloud adoption is the crying demand of this era. And it provides proper security for your content and is easy to access anytime.
In the recent pandemic, the world has seen the rise of cloud video streaming platforms. And that is increasing rapidly. I’m afraid it is going to surpass the traditional way of media consumption.
