11 Must have Features to Consider when Building a VOD Platform

If you are not Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen or Steven Speilberg, chances are that your content is gathering dust while waiting for the right media to showcase it. Instead of waiting for things to happen, why not shake things up by yourself?

An estimated 40.2 million households are going to shift away from paid TV subscriptions as they explore fresh and quality content on VOD platforms.

A Video-on-demand (VOD) platform is an internet-enabled distribution system without the constraints of a static broadcasting schedule of a pay-TV. Many technopreneurs are following the footsteps of pioneers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu by building their own VOD platforms.

In this blog, you will grasp the must-have features to build an exciting new VOD streaming platform.

Features that your VOD Solution cannot do without:

1. Personalizing your platform

The benefit of creating your platform through a SaaP model is the extent of customization that can be incorporated into your video-on-demand business model. This helps in building your brand and visualizing an innovative solution for entertainment.

2. Choosing the server

It is important to be able to have access to your content and modify it at all times. Most services permit either cloud hosting on their servers or on-premises services. But it is best to go with a product that offers a choice of both. Hosting on a cloud gives an added benefit of the timely upgrade of your video-on-demand platform.
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3. Inbuilt Content Discovery Functionality

CMS is the key to have an engaged subscriber base. Using a recommendation engine can help in content personalization in real-time through methods like collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, and deep learning. This ensures that your VOD streaming platform will gain the benefit of a longer watch-time which converts to revenue as per your monetization model.

4. Multiple Options for Building Income Flows

Video-on-demand platforms generate high ROI when their services are flexible. Revenue streams can be channelized better with subscription, transactional, ad-based revenue models or a combination of it all. Ads can be inserted at the server-side or through third-party integration.

5. Uninterrupted Global Streaming

Content Distribution Networks are a system to distribute HD content in your video on demand platform globally with a large number of networked servers. High-density CDNs ensure that videos are streamed faster and over shorter distances even in high-stress situations such as potential server outages.

6. Immersive full-screen experience

Progressive Web App (PWA) boosts the accessibility and searchability of your app at a fraction of data usage compared to traditional apps. ‘On-use’ update ensures that any critical issues can be fixed in a much shorter time frame delivering supremely smooth user experience.
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7. Widen your reach

Transcoding protocols like RTMP and HLS convert your ingest streams into multiple formats that are compatible across devices like smartphones, TV and Web applications. Capitalize the viewership on different platforms by streaming videos even over low bandwidth networks.

8. Secure your platform even for offline streaming

Security functionalities prevent unauthorized access and modification to your video-on-demand services. Watermarking ensures that the videos cannot be illegally redistributed. If you are building a platform that supports offline viewing, DRM becomes an unavoidable feature.

9. Promote your content

Marketing your video-on-demand services are pivotal to generate engagement and revenue. Marketing is not limited to integrating your platform with social media. Metadata management, social publishing, lead capture forms, and email notifications must be some key elements of a marketing strategy for your VOD platform.

10. Faster and customized player

An HLS player enables fast playback by adaptive bitrate streaming. m3u8 player By picking a platform that supports HLS player delivers the ultimate visual experience. Customizing the player can help in branding your VOD platform and also add features like playback speed and seek bar controls.
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11. Dynamic insights into trends

In-depth analysis and review about user engagement, audience timeline, and refresh rate are pivotal to understand trends in your content. By tailoring your content to cater to the audience on your VOD streaming platform, you deliver a personalized experience that they will come back to!

Bottomline

Building your own video on demand platform takes a lot of technology integration and research. By utilizing the services of a white label solution that enable 100% customization, you can build a VOD solution just the way you visualize it. User experience being the focal point, you can monetize the content on your subscription or transactional or advertising video-on-demand platform with deep insights into viewership trends.