Do you need Brightcove?

Before we can plan out the work we need to do to create a video site we will need to decide whether you need a publishing system or not. This page will help you make this decision by pointing out the pros and cons of both methods.

BrightCove

For the video publishing system, we recommend using BrightCove. An example of a website we've created using the Brightcove system is NYCTV Video On Demand

If you decide you don't need a publishing system we will still build a custom video player from scratch in flash but we won't need to do all the work of integrating it with a publishing system. The drawbacks are that it would lack some of the features that make Brightcove appealing. An example of a site we've made without a publishing system is moyercine.com.

Here are the strengths of both systems, let us know which you think will work best for you.

Advantages Of Using The Brightcove Publishing System

• You would have a web based CMS (content management system) to upload and update your own content. To update the content on a site we make from scratch, you would either have to send us video files to put on the site (which we charge for by the hour) or if you have a tech savy person on your staff who would like to handle the updating of content we could talk them through the process which isn't very complicated.
• Brightcove lets you syndicate your content to others.
• Search feature: Lets you search descriptions and titles put into the brightcove console.
• Brightcove has a 'get link' feature which with some customization will allow your users to get links to specific videos.
• Possibly makes it easier to integrate with an advertising server (please let us know if you will be using an ad server)

Advantages Of Not Using A Publishing System

• It is easier to program the functionality and customize the look of a site that does not include a publishing system. With the Brightcove system you need to interface each element through their API, which takes extra time.
• Because it's easier to make it is also cheaper to make a site without a publishing system.
• You don't pay a monthly fee to Brightcove if you use one of our custom players. I believe if you want to use Brightcove without having their advertising on your videos you will need to pay at least $2500/month for the service. If you were paying us to update the content on the site manually it would cost you much less to maintain, or if you maintained it yourself there would be no out of pocket expenses involved per month.

Either system would allow us to make a great website, the question is whether you need the Brightcove features in the long run or not. We've found that the Brightcove system is best if you have a large amount of content you want to offer and you will be adding new content regularly, otherwise the costs outweigh the benefits of the system.