As a video editor, you have enough to think about: file uploads, encoding, attaching metadata, etc. You shouldn’t have to worry about spelling errors finding their way out to your public sites.

To make your job easier, we’ve added spell checking to mpx for media titles and descriptions. Currently, three languages are supported: US English, French, and Spanish, and you can switch between them on the fly. You can also turn off spell checking at any time. But this is only the first step; spell check capabilities on more fields in the console are coming soon.

“This is one of those features that seems incremental, but once it’s there, you’ll wonder how you lived without it,” said thePlatform’s CTO Alan Ramaley. “I think it’ll have an outsized effect on the happiness and peace of mind of video editors. Nobody was ever killed by an errant ‘teh’, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing when it happens.”

Written By: Ryan Bogden, Product Marketing Manager

Sometimes the words ‘Custom’ and ‘Quick’ are a contradiction. Not so with our new Player Service.

Creating the right look and feel and providing rich functionality in your players is no small task. That’s why when we set out to build our new Player Service, we wanted to give our users the ability to create truly custom players without draining their technical resources or delaying content delivery while new players are being developed. thePlatform’s Player Service lets you launch unique players that are configured for PCs, Macs, mobile phones, and OTT devices in a matter of minutes. And best of all, it’s a hosted service.

The Player Service provides a simple to use console, so non-technical users can build their own players—choosing from 8 different layout templates, multiple skins, dozens of color schemes, and more—within a matter of minutes.

We think of it as customized service with off-the-shelf convenience.

Key benefits of our new Player Service:

• Unique players are created on the fly
• Requires minimal resources – anyone on your team can create a great looking player
• Offers ad policy support for HTML5 including mid-roll support
• Inline preview features lets you view player changes while you work
• Players are hosted by thePlatform

Our Player Service offers all standard features offered in our Player Dev Kit, without the need to build it through code or host it. Standard features for all players include full-screen playback, sharing, embed code, auto-start playback and support for our partner plug-ins.

Here’s a peek at a few other features that set this new feature apart:

Preview Changes in Real-time

Configuring your player is a lot faster when you can view your changes while you’re making them. The tool’s preview pane allows you to view the player while you’re working in the console. This saves you the effort of going back and forth between consoles to ensure your player is right. No other online video platform offers this dynamic preview capability.

Videos are automatically formatted for the right device

The service’s built-in intelligence lets you present players in both Flash and HTML5. There’s no need to create and manage separate online video players for each viewer environment and you don’t need any additional code on your website. Using a single embed code, Smart Players automatically detect the devices viewing your video and deliver the appropriate format for that environment. Layouts dynamically resize to fit your selected content size regardless of the skin or layout with smart logic for aspect ratio resizing.

Makes Sharing Easier

You can increase social network reach by encouraging viewers to share videos on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. thePlatform’s Player Service is white-listed with Facebook for in-stream playback of shared links.

To learn more about our Player Service contact your account manager today. You can also find more information in our Technical Resource Center.

Hey, mpx Administrators! Ready to make your content editors’ lives easier? There are simple ways to customize the Media Details pane that can optimize your workflow and provide mpx users with the information they need, in the right format.

You can group similar pieces of metadata together in a brand new panel, or you can make minor changes to the default panels – Metadata, Policies, Publish Status and History. Or you can create a completely custom set of panels. Once configured, all users who view the media in your account will have access to these customized panels.

Note: only Administrators can make changes to the media panel configuration.

Here’s how it works

To view the current set of media panels, navigate to the Media Panels within the Account Setup menu of the Library.

To add a new panel, click the Add button and type a name and an order of the panel. You control the ordering of all your media panels. After you click save, you can add fields to that panel.

To do this, you’ll click on the Fields blade to the right and then click the Add button at the bottom of the view. This will enable the panel where you can choose the field you would like to add. Other settings you can add include:

• Giving the field a new title to appear in the UI*
• Choosing the order of this field
• Making it a required value
• Setting a maximum length
• Creating a hint text or short description of what can be provided for this value.
• Configuring a tooltip that will appear when the user places the cursor over the field in a panel

You can also modify fields in an existing panel. You can add, delete, reorder, or modify the fields. To do that, simply click on the panel you want to modify – then click the fields blade. This will show you the list of fields currently in that panel.

Note: To remove all existing panels and fields on media and reset them back to the defaults (Metadata, Policies, Publish Status, and History), click the Reset button.

If you don’t type a name, mpx will use the same value from the field dropdown.

We’re fortunate to be a part of an exciting industry, where change is the only constant. As we ring in the new year, it’s a good time to reflect, but also predict what 2012 has in store for the media industry.

The Living Room Becomes the Battleground

For the past few years, content providers and distributors have vied for consumer attention in the PC and mobile device landscape with a big push towards “TV Everywhere”—largely driven by the iPad’s success. Meanwhile, the TV itself went unchallenged. Comcast, Dish, Time Warner Cable, to name a few, maintained their strong foothold on where the majority of viewing still takes place.

But maybe that’s changing?

With tech heavy-weights like Microsoft, Apple and Google all looking to take the role of “input A”, the major cable operators are now trying to keep the newcomers at bay by investing in enhancements to keep their subscribers happy and paying. These aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive efforts, but it will change the landscape. To make things more interesting, OTT devices, like Roku, are now all presenting a dizzying array of content options, ranging from premium offerings like HBO Go to Netflix, to Hulu+ and beyond. And even more consumer options are well on their way. I expect to see interesting bed-fellows emerge as this market continues to shake out – think Verizon and Microsoft Xbox.

So what might this all mean to the industry at large? Media companies will have more routes to reach consumers on TVs than ever before, and operators of all flavors will have to innovate—and innovate quickly—to stay in the game. This will also make rights negotiations over content more intense and competitive, which brings me to my next point…

Content is Still King

I expect to see some blockbuster content deals. We saw the beginnings of this in 2011, with some interesting forays into exclusive windows from Netflix and Hulu. Comcast/NBCU sent a strong message with the lock-up of TV rights for several Olympics to come.

I think this will heat up significantly in 2012. Everyone at the negotiations table is more savvy, and there will be a big push to extract as much value as possible for content and content distribution. The equation looks like it’s tipping in favor of the content since there are many distributors willing to write big checks. But content owners will have to carefully evaluate their options, balancing premiums for exclusivity vs. the benefits of a wider reach.

Players Get Smart

Players will have to get smarter. Online video syndication isn’t as tight as it should be, but it’s an essential part of any content owner’s strategy. Sometimes distributors expect files, sometimes feeds, sometimes players. But increasingly, it seems like content owners want more control over their own branding and advertising. I think that there will be a push in this direction, but for content owners to succeed, video players will need to render on all important devices, handle various forms of authentication, and intelligently enable ad serving that can adapt based on the syndication outlet and the revenue share deal. This means we’ll see smarter players and smarter services behind them.

A New Tracking Currency?

Nielsen has been the de-facto standard for tracking TV views/ratings points for decades, and they have declared that same position in the broadband/ip device world by simply extending their dashboard. But are their ratings a successful gauge of consumer attention in the online video space?

It seems like a new, more modern form of currency is needed. The challenge is that while there are several ways to accurately track video views and ad plays, there’s no central system or agreed upon standard. For continued investments in TV Everywhere to make sense, I think this has to change, and I’m guessing that we’ll start seeing some movement on this in 2012.

The Real Winner in 2012

One thing is definitely clear: it’s a consumer’s world right now. As media companies expand their services, people will have more portals to access content, more devices on which to view it, and their viewing options keep expanding.

Adobe Pass has quickly become the market leader in authentication technology. That’s why our full integration with it strengthens our ability to provide the most complete TV Everywhere solution available.

While we will still offer and support our own authentication solution, we want to ensure that our users have access to leading technology and a solution that’s ultimately right for their business. Our support of Adobe Pass gives you more flexibility in how you choose to deliver your content.

Why Adobe Pass?

Whether you’re considering launching a TV Everywhere service in the near future or currently offer one, you know that successfully authenticating your viewers is critical. Adobe Pass provides several advantages.

We’ve outlined some key information to help you determine whether this solution is right for you:

How is Adobe Pass offered/delivered?

Adobe Pass is offered via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and provides a secure communication between end users, programmers (content owners), and pay TV providers in order to validate entitlement to content. The core components of the service include the client side Access Enabler and the hosted Adobe Pass Server. The Access Enabler is a small file that is integrated with thePlatform’s Player Dev Kit or can be integrated by itself to a webpage. It communicates with the Adobe Pass Server, which in turn has connections built into the authentication systems of the various pay TV providers.

Adobe Pass provides a single, persistent login as users travel from site to site across the Internet. Adobe Pass for TV Everywhere is player and platform agnostic and integrates with any playback application, including Silverlight and HTML5. Additionally, Adobe Pass supports devices where Flash Player is not yet available via HTML5.

Adobe Pass is supported by virtually any device with the HTML5 web kit for in-browser viewing experiences.
For more information from Adobe on their offering, visit the Adobe Pass product page here.

There are many ways to customize mpx – from customizing the look and feel of the console – to customizing your views and workflow.

Here are a few of those ways:

Customizing the console

To customize the look of the mpx console, go to Account Setup / My Account Console / Settings.

From here, you can do such things as:
• Replace the mpx logo that displays in the left hand corner with your own
• Change the background image or colors of the console
• Make the help URL be your own custom help link you want your users to visit

Customizing views to simplify workflow

By customizing the columns and creating shortcuts, you can create your own personalized view.

Shortcuts contain the settings for a specific view configuration that you frequently use. Shortcuts can streamline your workflow because they give you immediate access to the views you use most often. The view is specific to your username, and can be used to view media or other items from any of the accounts to which you have access.

Note: You’ll find the shortcut option (star) next to the current view name.

Customizing columns is another way to make sure you are displaying the information you need most. You can find the customize columns option in the Command pop up box located at the bottom of the view panel.

This function allows you to select certain fields to your list view column display. After adding the fields you want, you can arrange them using the drag and drop feature. You can also use the customize column and pair it with a search criteria and then use the create shortcut to save a path to a view and media that matters to you.

Stay tuned for more helpful hints and tricks in my next installment.

While you can watch almost any TV program on the internet today, Alan Ramaley of thePlatform thinks about how to get them there. The CTO of the online video management and publishing company oversees all product offerings that help customers like The Associated Press, CNBC, PBS and Fox Sports Network publish their sizable video libraries for digital streaming.

Read the rest of the article outlining Alan’s award here.

Publish to any media outlet, quickly and painlessly

The number of media outlets in the marketplace is increasing at a rapid pace. It’s an exciting trend, but it also creates new challenges for video publishers, especially those with limited resources. While we wouldn’t want to slow the growth of new media and devices hitting the market, we can evolve our technology to better prepare you for this rapidly changing environment. Our latest release of the mpx console, which focuses on advanced publishing features, helps you give your viewers the content they want, where they want it. Without more workload on your end.

New Publish Adapters – Bolstering our long-standing framework

The addition of Publish Adapters is an important expansion of our existing Adapter framework. Our Feed Adapters have been a major component of our platform for years. Now we’re taking yet another step forward by enabling our users to simplify their publishing workflow even more. Publish Adapters essentially automate the conversion of data to new formats, so they’re compatible with the latest and greatest media outlets.

Here’s how it looks in the mpx console:

If you navigate to publishing profiles in the console, you will see that you can now execute custom publishing and also reference the specific publish adapter that contains the custom instructions.

Take note of the new view under publishing:

Out of the box functionality, using Groovy

We’re launching this feature with a universal Groovy Script integration. This Groovy Script Adapter (available to all standalone VMS accounts only) can be used to generate specific XML for consumption by external systems. Using Groovy, you can easily define the contents of your XML, as well as the file name required to publish, update and/or revoke content. You can embed this adapter in a publish profile, for instance, use all the regular publishing functionality to first select and push video and an image to an external ftp server, and then send the XML file that will trigger analysis and consumption by the external system.
Stay tuned as more off the shelf Publish Adapters are on the way.

Ready to Get Started?

You can start using Publish Adapters in mpx right away. Get the how-to in our Technical Resource Center. If you are interested in learning more about mpx or other products, please give your Account Manager a call.

It should come as no surprise that monetizing online video doesn’t come without its challenges. One of the major obstacles content owners struggle with is balancing their content’s integrity and entertainment value with the need to generate strong viewer engagement and positive return on investment (ROI). Clickable video, also known as hyper video, helps solve this problem.

What is clickable video?

Clickable videos allow viewers to click on objects in-video to learn, shop, and play. Objects are linked to interesting fun-facts, back stories, sports stats, product info, ecommerce pages, sweepstakes, choose your own adventure scenarios, and much more. Many top tier brands and networks use this technology to engage audiences and make their content stand apart while generating impressive results.

A win/win/win scenario can be achieved for publishers, viewers and brands alike:

• Publishers see a higher retention and ROI
• Viewers are engaged through fun and personalized interactivity
• Brands get to integrate their marketing messages into video in a non-intrusive, effective manner which lowers their cost of sales.

So how does clickable video improve monetization?

A typical clickable video receives one to three clicks per minute per viewer, depending on content. This engagement can be monetized through various mechanisms.

For example, each click can:

• Display a contextual IAB ad and be sold in CPMs or CPCs. The click-through rate (CTR) on such ads is usually at least 5% and can be over 25% if the content is produced and edited with interactivity in mind.
• Link a product to an ecommerce page and generate direct sales. This could be a store front-end, product review, fashion show, or branded entertainment.
• Provide fun facts and backstory sponsored by an advertiser. Typically these are reality shows and music videos similar to pop-up-videos.

With the right technology, you can repurpose your videos by applying interactivity to your content, or to achieve the best results, create original content with interactivity in mind.

The workflow is very simple. You simply identify which objects you’d like to make clickable in the video and where they should link to. When the authoring process is complete, you can embed the video in any webpage or post to social media sites like Facebook. The interactivity then draws traffic from the video page to your object’s designated landing page.

Viewers can even “Like”, Post and Tweet objects directly from within the video, making it viral, sticky and profitable. This next gen video technology also comes with some cool futuristic features like object radar and product glow effects, which give viewers feedback on what’s being interacted with, in real time.

Measuring and Monetizing Engagement

Allowing viewers to interact with objects in-video opens up a new dimension in measuring viewer engagement. It’s important to focus not only on object clicks but also on rollovers, object popularity, and time of popularity in order to produce better interactive experiences and content in the future.

Here are some average engagement metrics you can expect on clickable short form content (2 to 3 min long)*

Rollovers per Viewer: 10 to 25
Clicks per Viewer per Min: 1 to 3
Retention: 1.1x to 1.2x
Ad CTR: 5% to 15%

As a result, brands and ecommerce sites can more effectively promote products by creating rich shopping videos and branded entertainment. Networks, portals, aggregators and eMagazines can monetize content with viewer-initiated ads and sponsorships.

To get a free video as a Premium Publisher, email TPpromo@VideoClix.com or call 604.688.8889.

New Features Meet Complex Business Requirements

The media business is rapidly evolving in so many areas and quickly becoming more complex. Keeping up with consumer demand isn’t just about supporting the myriad devices on the market or making content available anywhere and at all times. Staying ahead also requires control over your media assets and the ability to ensure the highest ROI for your business. Enforcing sophisticated business rules around viewer rights and restrictions could play a big role in meeting those objectives.

Fortunately, mpx now gives you a whole new set of advanced features, specifically designed to help you meet a growing set of requirements and complex demands set forth by your business, content owners, and the industry at large.

More Control Over Viewer Access

The latest mpx Console release allows you to control viewer access at a more granular level. These new features ensure that the right viewer is viewing the right content, at the right time, and with the right restrictions.

Here’s just a peek at what only mpx offers in the industry:

Stream Caps

You can limit the number of content streams being played simultaneously. Whether it is applying limits to different pieces of media, or a single piece of media, mpx has you covered. If you need to restrict content at the user level, such as end users, households or even specify a specific IP address; you can, and it’s simple.

In the new Stream Concurrency panel, you can set these specific limitations.
1. First, set your maximum count value.
2. Then select if it should be applied across all items or individually, and whether it should count by IP addresses or active streams.

Now you’re done. It’s an easy way to set up complex rules in no time at all.

Content Restriction Windows

Restrict content over specific time periods. There may be times you want to restrict content for a limited window, and then removed after a certain period of time.

Example: You can require authorization for the first seven days your media is online, and make it available only to viewers with a subscription. After seven days, everyone can view it. Then, after a certain time or on a specific date, the content would expire completely.

Setting enforcements in the console

Our new Availability Window panel now allows you to set relative availability and expiration dates on particular restrictions.

Example: You can make content available immediately for end users, but prevent syndication partners from making it available for five days. Or maybe you want to set a general rule that content always expire 30 days after it’s available.

Ready to Get Started?

You can start using restrictions in mpx right away. Get the how-to in our Technical Resource Center. If you are interested in learning more about mpx or other products, please give your Account Manager a call.