Chapter 2. The Landscape for Building Video Today
The best way to think of video is as a central part of your company’s software architecture. Your video platform must be compatible with your other key systems and tools. A strong, API-first architecture simplifies integration with external systems and future upgrades to components of the architecture. The better your architecture, the better you can deliver video to your viewers. Poor architecture makes your software more difficult to modify, slows it down, and accrues technical debt. Video technology changes quickly, and the design of your system must take long-term maintenance and ease of upgrades into account.
If you are delivering video, your architecture will include one or more content management systems (CMSs) and online video platforms (OVPs). A CMS is a platform that allows users to store, publish, delete, and modify content. OVPs are generally provided by a video-hosting service such as Brightcove or Vimeo; they enable businesses to upload, convert, store, and play back video at scale.
Both systems come with challenges. If you use an OVP for your website or app, you will need to integrate it, as well as any other content and media, into your CMS(s). On the other hand, if you choose to build video without an OVP, you’ll need to consider how (and if) your current CMS fits into the changes in your architecture.
A video product starts with the frontend player experience. This includes (ideally) smooth playback across ...
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