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With new HTML5 player, is video finally coming to Wikipedia?

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 17:00:03 +0000

It’s been a long time coming, but Wikipedia might finally be ready to embrace online video. The Wikimedia Foundation said Thursday morning that it is deploying a new video player that will make it easier to add videos to the millions of articles on Wikipedia. The player is based on technology from video platform provider Kaltura, which first partnered with Wikipedia in 2008. It allows users to add captions to their videos and utilizes the WebM video format that was open sourced by Google in 2010.

So why did it take Wikipedia so long to get videos on its site? It faced a number of unique challenges: First of all, Wikipedia doesn’t rely on outside hosting for any of its media, which means that it needs a robust video hosting infrastructure.

But the site’s commitment to open codecs and standards has also slowed down its adoption of video. Wikimedia originally only used Ogg Theora-encoded videos, which significantly limited its reach. The video codec was open source, but had limited support. The open sourcing of WebM through Google in 2010 offered a more widely supported alternative: Firefox, Chrome and Opera all are capable of natively playing WebM-encoded video content, and mobile devices are starting to embrace WebM as well.

The final challenge may be more of a cultural nature, and we will have to wait and see whether a new video player will really be able to address it. Wikipedia has been largely text-based, with a complex collaborative editing process and a large community that helps to maintain the site. Video on the other hand is much harder to edit in the way users can edit a text entry on Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to use collaborative video editing tools developed by Kaltura to help bridge that gap. From the announcement blog post for the new video player:

“On the internet, video is a static medium: it rarely changes once uploaded. In contrast, the success of Wikipedia relies on numerous volunteers constantly editing and improving each other’s contributions. Appropriate tools will hopefully reduce this dissonance, like Kaltura’s sequencer, which empowers users to remix videos directly online. Successfully translating its radically collaborative nature to multimedia content will be critical to Wikipedia’s transition into the age of video.”

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Kaltura Raises $20M From Intel & Others

Ryan Lawler — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:04:40 +0000

White-label video distribution startup Kaltura announced Monday that it has raised $20 million in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from Intel Capital and existing investors .406 Ventures and Avalon Ventures, along with Silicon Valley Bank. The latest round, which brings total funding to $27.5 million, comes as Kaltura has seen huge traction for its open-source video platform, which the company says is now used by more than 100,000 publishers.

Kaltura works like any other online video distribution platform, except unlike competitors like Brightcove or Ooyala, it makes its software available for free, giving away hundreds of APIs and its source code and enabling publishers to build and customize the platform to suit their own workflows. While its software is available for free under the AGPL license, it can also be used as a hosted service or licensed as a self-hosted platform for publishers to deploy in their own data centers or cloud-based hosting.

Kaltura makes money through its hosted and licensed offerings and by providing custom professional services on top of the platform. The startup also has launched a marketplace through which developers can create applications for its platform that can be used by other publishers.

In addition to the funding news, Kaltura also released some info on publishers that have chosen to use the platform. It says more than 100,000 publishers serve video with its software, including some big-name video publishers like Fox, Paramount and HBO, as well as universities like MIT, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, NYU and Columbia University and enterprises such as Best Buy, Texas Instruments and Siemens.

That customer growth has led to pretty rapid acceleration of hiring over the past year. Kaltura CEO Ron Yekutiel said in a phone interview that the company doubled its headcount in 2010 from about 40 employees to 80 today. Kaltura is looking to grow that even further, to 150 employees in the near future. In addition to ramping up personnel to increase development and professional services, Kaltura is also looking to expand into more markets, including Europe, the Far East and India, Yekutiel said.

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Vid Biz: NBA on iPad, Blackberry 6, Sony 3-D Gaming

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:20:06 +0000

IP czar to target overseas pirate sites; Victoria Espinel was sparse on details about her plans for enforcement efforts during a hearing before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. (Cnet News)

RIM beefs up video, photos, music and App World discoverability in BlackBerry 6; new Blackberry OS features direct YouTube integration for easier uploads. (Pocketgamer)

Kaltura Launches Community Edition 2.0; new version of free, community-supported open source video platform includes enterprise-level tools for monitoring and administration. (press release)

Live NBA Games Coming To iPad This Fall; the NBA tried lots of app platforms, and now is ready for consolidation. (paidcontent)

Qlipso is Now Integrated With Veoh; users of the video site can share clips within Qlipso. (VideoNuze)

Sony patents two-player 3D technology; the patented technology will allow two-player 3D gaming on a single screen. (Thinq)

Is the Wall Street Journal the Future of News Video? The WSJ’s site has reached 10 million streams, despite having an anchor that resembles a Muppet character. (The Big Money)

Stroome Brings Collaborative Video Editing Online

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:13 +0000

A new collaborative online video editing suite dubbed Stroome is going into public beta this week, with an official unveiling planned for Wednesday at the USC Annenberg School of Communication & Journalism, where Stroome was developed as a graduate project. Stroome is based on the Kaltura video editing suite, but extends the online editor with community tools that make it possible to work on videos together and remix other people’s work.

Stroome co-founder Tom Grasty told me that the site will eventually adopt a freemium model and offer paying end users or companies licensing Stroome more storage for their raw footage, as well as HD capabilities. One of the first licensing partners is USC Annenberg, where the editing suite will be used in classrooms, as well as for its campus cable channel Anneberg TV News and its online journalism project Neon Tommy.

Stroome allows users to upload footage and mix these clips with photos, audio tracks and other video footage available online in a video editor that resembles something like iMovie, albeit with less features. The resulting video can then be saved as a project and shared with either a closed group of collaborators or the entire Stroome community. The final video can be shared through various social networks, but there’s no function to republish content on YouTube or any other video sharing site yet.

I played a little bit with Stroome today, and I can see this turning into an interesting way to work on some projects together that don’t necessarily need too much post-production. That being said, the editor is still fairly limited (e.g. there’s no way to incorporate subtitles or other forms of text), and it was tough to get a good sense of all the social features with very few people currently participating.

The site also seemed a little sluggish at times, which is something that Grasty attributed to the fact that there’s still active development going on to get Stroome ready for Wednesday’s official launch. That being said, users who want to play around with it can already sign up. Check out the screenshots below for some first impressions, and if you do give it a try, please let us know what you think about it in the comments!

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Kaltura Adds App Exchange

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:50:49 +0000

Kaltura has just launched a virtual marketplace where publishers and developers can exchange plugins, skins, extensions and applications that can be used with its open-source video management platform. The Kaltura Exchange, which is now in beta, enables developers to re-use and share code been written for their own video implementations, while giving publishers an easy way to add functionality without having to build it from scratch.

The new app exchange provides a one-stop shop for tools to augment Kaltura’s video management platform, including for transcoding, player designs, metadata extraction, SEO, monetization and analytics. Apps are split into categories, such as skins, themes and language packs; plugins for the Kaltura video player, remixer and other video tools; client libraries in different programming languages; and stand-alone widgets and apps.

Kaltura, which provides an open-source platform for managing and distributing video online, hopes to emulate the same sort of success that Salesforce.com has had with Force.com, which was built to take advantage of its CRM suite. While many of the initial apps are available for free, Kaltura also gives developers the option to charge service fees and license terms.

A number of technology providers have already added their own applications to the exchange, including 3Play Media, Adap.tv, Artivision, encoding.com, HD Cloud, Microstudi, MindTouch, PLYmedia, rtCamp, Taboola, TikiWiki, Tremor Media, TubeMogul, VideoMarket7, YuMe and more.

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Ooyala, Kaltura Add Silverlight Support

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:00:48 +0000

In terms of user and customer adoption, Microsoft Silverlight has been playing catch-up with Adobe Flash ever since it was released back in 2007. But there’s reason to believe that it’s catching on, with online video platforms Ooyala and Kaltura both adding support for the latest version of the rich Internet application framework.

Silverlight is gaining traction, both in terms of consumer installations and adoption by media companies and enterprises for the delivery of web video and the development of web apps. The Silverlight client is now installed on about 60 percent of Internet connected devices, Brad Becker, director of product management for rich client platforms at Microsoft, told us a few weeks ago.

As a result, more media companies and video publishers are seeing it as a viable solution for their online streaming needs, which has led Ooyala and Kaltura to add support for the technology based on customer demand. In a phone interview, Kaltura CEO Ron Yekutiel said that its customers were showing interest in the technology due to its support for advanced DRM and HTTP-based adaptive streaming technology. And a spokesperson for Ooyala says it added Silverlight primarily to support some large International broadcasters who wish to use Silverlight video for their streaming of the World Cup.

Ooyala and Kaltura aren’t the first online video platforms to add support for Silverlight video; competitors such as iStreamPlanet, Origin Digital and ExtendMedia already support the framework for video delivery. However, wider support in the OVP space underlines the notion that Flash is no longer the only option for video delivery on the web.

“Video is becoming pervasive enough now that people are considering more options and putting more thought into the selection process,” Yekutiel said. “HTML5 has taken some of the exclusivity out of Flash already, but whether it be HTML5, Silverlight or any other solution, we’re trying to ensure that we offer the widest selection of options for our customers.”

With support for Silverlight, Ooyala and Kaltura can now enable their customers to distribute videos across multiple platforms and devices. In addition to Silverlight, both companies also support Flash video delivery, as well as standards-based HTML5 video delivery required by Apple’s iPad.

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Kaltura Launches HTML5Video.org, Publishes HTML5 Media Library

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:00:05 +0000

Open source video platform provider Kaltura launched a new site called HTML5Video.org today that is meant to be an industry resource for HTML5 video-related issues. The site is supported by Mozilla, the Open Video Alliance and the Wikimedia Foundation. The launch coincides with the release of Kaltura’s HTML5 Media Library, which enables web site owners to embed videos in their sites through HTML5 without locking out users of older browsers that don’t support Flash-free web video just yet.

The HTML5 Media Library uses a fallback mechanism to play media through a Java application in browsers that don’t natively support HTML5 video. Kaltura plans to extend the library to also support analytics and monetization — two very important features that have so far prevented many sites from fully adopting HTML5. YouTube, for example, has been toying with HTML5 in recent months, enabling users to watch a subset of the site’s content without Flash after opting into a special TestTube trial. However, videos with ads are always shown in Flash. Sites like YouTube could at least in theory completely ditch Flash if HTML5 video was embraced by advertisers.

The unveiling of HTML5Video.org comes only one day after the launch of another site promoting HTML5 video to end users. Videoonwikipedia.org, which was launched yesterday by the Participatory Culture Foundation with support from Kaltura and others also involved with HTML5Video.org, wants to get users to contribute more video to Wikipedia. HTML5Video.org, on the other hand, seems much more geared toward professionals, offering business headlines as well as a link to a forum hosted by Kaltura’s open source video developer community at Kaltura.org.

Speaking of which: HTML5Video.org is heavily branded by and geared towards the solutions available from Kaltura. One has to wonder whether this will help or hurt their effort to gather support for an open format that just this week received support from industry heavyweights like Microsoft.

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Wikipedia Is Finally Gearing Up For Video

Janko Roettgers — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:01:20 +0000

This week, it almost happened. The servers hosting all of Wikipedia’s media were ready to burst, filled up to the max with almost six million files totaling close to eight terabytes of data. Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia, was able to install a new server with tons of new space just in time this Tuesday, but Wikimedia’s deputy director Eric Moeller admitted in a blog post: “It’s been a much closer call this time than we would like.”

Part of the reason why Wikimedia has to deal with a huge influx of data is that volunteers are increasingly uploading videos, and content partnerships with museums and archives have brought in hundreds of hours of additional footage. Wikimedia announced two years ago already that it was getting ready to include more of this content into Wikipedia. Little of this has materialized so far, but now it finally seems like video on Wikipedia is actually going to happen soon. So how is the free encyclopedia going to use moving images, and why has this taken so long?

Wikimedia announced a partnership with open source video platform provider Kaltura to get Wikipedia fit for video in early 2008. However, two years later, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any video clips on the site. I got in touch with both Kaltura and Wikimedia in recent days to figure out what happened. Both partners told me that they’re still very much in the process of making video on Wikipedia happen. It’s just that this process has been taking a little longer.

Much of the delay has to to with a mixture of technical and licensing issues. “We don’t work with proprietary video systems,” explained Wikimedia’s Head of Communications Jay Walsh when I talked to him this week. It was clear early on that Wikimedia wouldn’t use Flash or any other proprietary technology for video, which is why HTML5, with its capability to play video straight in your browser, was the obvious choice. However, the implementation wasn’t just a question of plug-ins, but also of codecs. Wikimedia decided to use the license-free, open source codec Ogg Theora, which didn’t natively play back in most browsers two years ago. In fact, even Firefox only started to support Ogg video playback with version 3.5, which was released last summer.

Wikipedia’s collective structure has been another reason for the delay. The site is ruled by consensus, and its tens of thousands of volunteers need to be on board with any major changes, which is one of the reasons why Wikipedia’s basic look and functionality have remained the same over the years. Walsh assured me that “Wikipedians are thrilled” about the possibilities of including video on their site, but Kaltura VP of Business and Community Development Shay David said that this hasn’t always been the case. “People needed to understand that video is an important aspect of Wikipedia,” he told me, adding: “That needed some time.”

Finally, Wikimedia also needed to figure out how to actually make the transition towards video work. “We are not Flickr, we are not YouTube,” cautioned Walsh. “We need to grow intelligently.” The organization needed to figure out how to encourage collaboration in the video space without becoming a repository for everyone’s vacation videos, and at the same time improve the usability of its video hosting. Part of this has been to come up with new uploading tools that make it easier to submit and tag media. The gathering of meta-data is especially important to make video work across Wikipedia’s various international editions as well as Wikimedia’s other sites. “It needs a lot of information attached to it,” said Walsh.

Kaltura’s video playback and editing tools are another important part of the puzzle. The company has developed an HTML5 video player that can be embedded into third-part websites. It will be substituted with a Java-based player for browsers that don’t support HTML5 yet. Kaltura has also developed encoding and uploading tools as well as a web-based video editing suite that will eventually make it possible for Wikipedia users to edit clips on Wikipedia in very much the same way they now can edit the site’s articles.

Walsh told me that we’ll finally see at least some of this functionality through a wider roll-out of video on Wikipedia within the next three to six months — provided, of course, that Wikimedia’s servers can handle it.

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Vid-Biz: Hulu, Boxee, Sky

Ryan Lawler — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:00:29 +0000

At Hulu, ‘Free’ May Turn into ‘Fee’; one plan that the site is considering would allow users to view the five most recent episodes of TV shows for free but would require a subscription of $4.99 a month to watch older episodes. (LA Times)

Boxee Adding a Payment System; video startup plans to release a payment platform this summer that will allows users to make purchases with one click on a remote. (Boxee blog)

Sky Loses ITV Appeal; UK satellite firm has lost an appeal against having to sell its stake in the commercial broadcaster ITV, and as such will have to reduce it to below 7.5 percent from a current 17.9 percent. (Broadband TV News)

Discovery CEO Zaslav Makes $34 Million Profit on Options; Zaslav reaped a $34 million payday as a result of a stock appreciation rights plan that kicked in earlier this month, according to an SEC filing. (paidContent)

The Cord-cutting Threat May Be Larger Than You Think; operators continue to see little evidence in support of cord-cutting, but the industry is being impacted incrementally by a number of forces, all of which collectivity point to a “perfect storm” in support of the phenomenon. (The Diffusion Group)

Josh Silverman: How Video Changes Everything; Skype CEO argues that video is not only an entirely different way of communicating, but a really important one. (GigaOM)

Bharti Airtel Partners With Limelight Networks for CDN services; the deal enables Limelight to expand its access in India, while letting Bharti resell global CDN services to its customers. (press release)

Kaltura Releases Open-source Video Extension for Moodle; white-label video platform company releases an extension for Moodle, a popular open-source learning management system for remote learning programs. (emailed release)

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Vid-Biz: BBC, Ooyala, Kaltura

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:40:11 +0000

BBC to Offer Over 2,000 Hours of Winter Olympics Coverage; the Beeb’s Red Button interactive TV service will have 2,000 hours of coverage available, compared to approximately 160 hours of coverage on BBC Two. (InteractiveTV Today)

Telegraph.co.uk Ditching Brightcove for Ooyala; The Telegraph has signed a deal with Ooyala to manage the clips on its Telegraph TV section. (paidContent)

Video Ads Become More Engaging; online video ad companies are responding to agencies and advertisers by providing more flexibility in how they deliver their messages. (VideoNuze)

Unigo Selects Kaltura to Power Video for Its Online Platform for College Students; white-label platform will be used to deliver video on Unigo.com, including WSJ On Campus. (press release)

VOD Outperforms DVRs; Video On Demand will reach 54 percent of US households by 2015, compared to 44 percent for DVRs, according to a new report from Interpublic’s Magna Global. (Broadband TV News)

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