Can you believe that 2020 is almost here? Before we dive into a new year (and a new decade!), we wanted to highlight some of our most exciting product updates and new releases from the past 12 months. Read on for our 2019 product recap:

Brightcove Live

Bridge the gap between your broadcast and digital workflows

With our 608 Captions feature, you can easily preserve captions from live streams for your downstream clips. 608 captions used to be the standard for analog broadcast television. While they have mostly been replaced by 708 captions, 608 captions can still be embedded in digital television. You can recognize them by their stereotypical appearance: black box backgrounds with all uppercase white text. 

This 2019 feature is automatically applied with Fast Live to VOD (video on demand) — so you can take advantage of it right away!

Simplify your workflow

Our RTMP Outputs update empowers you to push your Brightcove Live streams to other RTMP entry points. Now you can deliver a single stream to Brightcove, which will act as a distribution center. This makes it easier than ever for you to publish to multiple locations, including your social channels, enabling you to expand audience reach and reduce hardware dependencies.

Optimize the publishing process

For publishers, being the first to publish high-value, short-shelf-life content can mean money in the bank. Fast Live to VOD  lets you publish a rough cut (frame accurate) clip with minimal processing delays from transcoding. Publish first with fewer tools and resources? You win!

Improve your workflow and get more ad sales flexibility

Thanks to our TS Input update, Live can now receive MPEG2-TS streams in addition to the SCTE-35 cues broadcasters use to signal ad insertions. 

One UI to do so many things

Live has a new control room layout courtesy of a Live UI update that lets you view multiple streams during an event. In addition to accommodating the live event redundancy feature that’s coming soon, this update also lets you create clips and publish to social media, all from a single interface.  

Server-Side Ad Insertion

See every ad configuration in a single view

If you have Dynamic Delivery with SSAI enabled, the SSAI UI lets you create and manage ad configurations in the admin module. (Dynamic Delivery users with SSAI and Live enabled also have controls available for Live SSAI. Those without Live only have SSAI VOD controls.)

Brightcove Social

Social streaming made simple

Brightcove is mission control for our customers’ video initiatives – including distribution to destinations that they don’t own and operate. Live to Social now allows Brightcove Live to be streamed to Facebook, with other destinations to follow. Live to Social makes it easy to produce social events by acting as a hub that connects multiple sources and multiple destinations. 

Platform Updates 

Easy localization and configuration for Brightcove Player

A couple of Brightcove Player updates made the platform even more versatile and easy to use for customers around the world: they can now localize their Players and have interface text appear in a variety of languages. And they can configure their players with a variety of plug-ins from a drop-down menu in the studio instead of having to copy and paste multiple links. The best video player is now that much better. 

UI updates to make users’ lives a little easier

The CAE Ingest file editor now lets users preserve custom settings so nothing gets lost. And account admins can change their account name, mailing address and primary administrator themselves – no more calling Brightcove customer support. 

New Integrations

Two powerfully simple analytics integrations

There used to be a bit of a process you had to go through to integrate Google and Adobe analytics into your Brightcove player – but no more. This update makes both available as out-of-the-box plug-ins with simple user interfaces – easy peasy.

Cutting out the “middle man” with tag integration

Enterprise customers, we have the data management and sharing you asked for. Tealium integration offers universal data hub and enterprise tag management and eliminates the need for a “middle man” platform. And Google Tag Manager integration lets you incorporate video event data into your data collection across all your marketing technology.

OTT

OTT Flow: New opportunities for reach and revenue 

Customers looking to monetize in more ways across more platforms were happy to see support for SSAI, multi-tier subscriptions and Samsung Tizen and LG webOS added in 2019. OTT Flow continues to offer simple, out-of-the-box solutions for companies seeking to start their journey in OTT.

Brightcove Beacon™: 2019’s shining light

Perhaps our biggest release of the year was the launch of Brightcove Beacon at the International Broadcaster’s Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. Brightcove Beacon enables companies to deliver and launch premium video experiences quickly and cost effectively across mobile, web, smart TVs and connected TVs — all with the flexibility of multiple monetization models and backed by the power of Brightcove.

All in all, quite a year – and there’s a lot more in store for 2020!

To view our Partner blog, click here

2018 was a great year here at Brightcove, in part due to the vast number of products we shipped to the market. Before we get fully engrossed in an exciting new year, we wanted to take a step back and do a quick recap on some of our favorite launches and product updates from the last 12 months. Read on to learn more:

Brightcove Video Cloud

Make translated or voice-over videos easily with multiple audio tracks

• Brightcove now supports multiple alternate audio tracks within the player, which is very beneficial for videos that need to support various languages or voice-over work. Find more information here .  

Admin auditing: How long has it been?

• Looking to see when your users last logged into the Studio? Now you can within the admin panel. In addition, you are now able to see which users created and/or updated the video within the Media Module.

Looking for a video?

• You are now able to export a list of videos for your account. You can download a list of the entire library or search for videos and download all videos in that search request.

Upload Module overhaul: See your progress

• Our new Upload Module has been updated and simplified to make development of new features faster in the future. Some of our recent updates are:

  • We introduced an upload progress bar that appears above the fold so you can easily see your video upload status.

  • You can now create a new folder from the Upload Module, instead of having to create it in the Media Module.

  • We introduced a new account-level upload setting to force required fields to be filled in before uploading videos. This helps ensure all your required metadata is filled out by uploaders. This setting is located in the Admin Module upload settings.

  • And finally, we added the ability to set videos to ‘offline enabled.’ This setting will show up in both the Upload Module and Media Module, but only for customers who are enabled for the offline playback feature.

Update your playlist

• Our latest version of the playlist plugin provides easy options for horizontal layout and a new “up next” countdown. See how to update your playlist .

Play on Player editor

• The new Player editor makes it easier than ever to modify your video player and truly make it your own. You can select the editing options in the new tabbed structure, and even use a new feature that lets you change the shape and location of your “Play” button. As you make changes, you can see your player settings change in real time. Need help navigating? Check out our guides !   

Server-Side Ad Insertion

Get in the advertising mode

• We’ve added an advertising mode for Video Cloud SSAI. This feature gives you the ability to prevent the user from scrubbing past ads, and empowers you to display feedback on the time and number of ads remaining in an ad break. Find out how .

Defend against the dreaded ad blocker

• Ad Block Detection and Auto-Failover is now available in Brightcove. When ad failover is turned on, the Brightcove player will automatically request an SSAI stream if it detects an ad blocker present in the browser. This feature allows for seamless execution of client-side IMA- or SSAI-based ads based on the detection of ad blockers — allowing you to recover 10–30 percent of ad revenue lost to ad blockers. Let’s get your failover set up !

Brightcove Live

A whole new look and feel

• Brightcove Live also had an overhaul in 2018. The brand-new Live Module is built upon a whole new platform. The updated interface is easy enough for new Live users to use to get an event set up, but offers a variety of more robust fields for power users. Let’s get streaming !

Extend the reach of your live content: Create clips and push to social

• Our new Brightcove Live user interface allows you to create on-demand video clips while your live stream is still running. You can store these clips in Brightcove or publish to social channels within the clipping interface. Start clipping now !

Brightcove Social

Fight for your Facebook rights manager  

• Do you ever find that the videos you post on Facebook are re-posted on other sites without your consent? Good news: You can now configure rights properties within Brightcove Social if you have Rights Management enabled on Facebook. Check out our documentation for more details around the Facebook Rights Management process and how to configure your Brightcove Social account.

Social video captions: The sound of silence

• You now have the ability to add closed caption files to your videos on Brightcove Social. With this feature, your viewers can watch your videos with the sound off on social channels. Furthermore, adding captions to your social videos can have a positive impact on your search engine optimization. Start adding captions today !

Audience

Does your marketing team use UTM Codes?

• Brightcove Audience now tracks standard UTM attributes, as well as video viewing data. It then syncs these attributes to your marketing automation platform, giving you access to even better data tracking. Start getting better data now !

Increase open rates: Easily embed your videos in your emails

• Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite has made it easier to start sending videos in your email campaigns with the new “Publish to Email Landing Page” feature. We have seen that videos in your email campaigns increase open and click through rates. Now your prospects will notice, open, and read your emails in even higher numbers. Check out our step-by-step walk-through !

Gallery

Going mobile

• We want to ensure your Gallery video portals continue to have a great mobile experience, so we have been updating our templates for better mobile optimization. Make sure your templates are mobile friendly !

Avoid building separate event pages: Live stream on your website

• With the new In-Page Experience Live Template, you can embed your live stream into your existing web pages, templates, and CMS. The new template offers similar functionality as the Live template, such as event countdown and pre-, during, and post-event states. Set your In-Page Live up now !

OTT Flow

OTT Flow had 40+ feature updates in 2018, including In-App Purchasing for iOS, Authenticated VOD Support, the ability to binge watch through your App, and much more! Want to learn more? Get a detailed walk-through of our OTT Updates with our subject matter expert .

To view our Partner blog, click here

This year has been busy at Brightcove HQ, between our trip to Las Vegas for NAB and our ninth Brightcove PLAY here in Boston. Not only have we been attending and hosting major video industry events, our product team has been busy behind-the-scenes, making updates and improvements to our products. These new features give you the power to collect richer insights, provide custom subscription options, and more.

Live to Facebook

Brightcove Live to Social now enables Brightcove Live jobs to be streamed to Facebook, with other social destinations soon to follow. This feature enhances Brightcove as a hub that connects multiple sources (cameras, encoders, etc) and multiple destinations from one place. Click here to learn how to start streaming live to Facebook right from your Brightcove dashboard.

OTT Flow Multi-tier Subscriptions

OTT Flow customers can now provide their subscribers with multiple content pricing and packaging options in-product—meaning content creators can now introduce unique content packages to potential buyers at different price points, or even blend AVOD/SVOD strategies as a means of upselling users.

UI For SSAI

Users of Dynamic Delivery and SSAI enabled can now create and manage ad configurations in the Admin module. Dynamic Delivery users with SSAI and Live enabled also have the appropriate controls available for Live SSAI. This update improves workflow by allowing you to see all ad configurations in a single view. Click here to learn how to implement server-side ads within Brightcove Live.

Ad Metadata

Using the Live Program and Ad Metadata API , customers can now integrate into their broadcast playout system or pass specific data for ad targeting. Providing more granular details makes your ad inventory more attractive to advertisers, increasing demand and CPMs.

IMA SDK Now Includes Open Measurement

The IMA SDK for Android now includes the Open Measurement SDK , an industry standard developed by the IAB and designed to enable third-party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to mobile and desktop environments. The open measurement SDK makes provisions for video controls to be considered friendly obstructions that are essential to the user’s experience, thus excluding them from ad viewability measurement.

To view our Partner blog, click here