Pros and Cons of a Commercial Video Player

In today’s times, most websites and apps add videos, as doing so has multiple benefits. They help increase the user’s engagement time and rate, alongside conveying your message very lucratively. But for smooth playback and preventing piracy of your videos, secure commercial video players are essential. 

Open-source video players often lack industry-leading security features like DRM. Also, they often focus on convenience rather than performance. That is why, they might appear lucrative at first, but with time, you realize that they fail to offer the expected quality of video playback. They might not even offer adaptive bitrate streaming, which is essential for delivering your videos to remote locations. 

And that is why, you must think of using a commercial video player, that covers all the bases. In this blog, we will discuss the advantages of using a commercial video, who needs to use it and who does not, and at the end, we will compare the top commercial video players available in the market, so that you can choose the best for your business. So, let’s get started!

What is a Commercial Video Player?

I am sure most of you already know what a commercial video player is, so in that case, you can skip this part. However, if you have doubts regarding the same, please keep reading. 

So, a video player is a software tool that helps play your videos embedded on websites or apps over the user’s device. But when these players are specifically curated for businesses so that they can play their videos for commercial use and generate revenues and other business benefits, such video players are called commercial video players. 

Now what’s the difference between these players and free open-source video players? Well, the difference lies in their features:

• The commercial video players offer multiple security features so that the pirates cannot steal the videos. Hence, they are more secure than open-source video players. 
• Most of these players support advanced playback options and adaptive bitrate streaming, which are often lacking in open-source players. 
• These players show cross-platform compatibility, hence are suitable for multi-device and multi-screen use. 
• You can perform multiple customizations on these players to suit your business needs and website/app design. 
• Many commercial players allow you to monetize your videos by inserting ads. Hence, you can generate revenues from the same. 

Who Needs a Commercial Video Player?

Nowadays, commercial video players have a large number of use cases. Earlier, it was predominantly used by businesses. But now, even bloggers, influencers, and others are using commercial video players to generate revenue from their videos. 

Some people who would need a commercial video player any day are:

• Businesses that use a lot of videos on their websites and apps. 
• Bloggers who like to add videos to supplement the information provided in their blogs, generate revenues, and grow traffic using them. It can include travel bloggers, food bloggers, tech bloggers, educational bloggers, and more!
• Influencers who run their website and add videos over there with short-form articles or blogs. 
• Medical websites that add videos over their websites and apps explaining any medical procedures. 
• E-commerce sites and apps that add videos for product descriptions and offer promotions. 

And many more…

Why Do You Need A Commercial Video Player?

There are many reasons why you would prefer a commercial video player, but the most prominent ones amongst them are:

• Monetize: You can monetize your videos that are played over a commercial video player. Most commercial video players let you insert ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) from both client side and server side. Hence, you can easily generate revenues whenever the visitor views your videos and ads get played. 
• Customize: You can customize the commercial business players, as per your requirements. This customization can be done on their appearance, placement, and even performance aspects. Hence, it helps you align your player as per your brand identity. 
• Secure: Multi-DRM security helps you prevent any form of screen-recording or content-stealing attempt. Hence, the information shared via your videos remains safe and away from unauthorized access. 
• Cross-Platform: Nowadays, videos are consumed over mobile devices, tablets, PCs laptops, and many other devices. Hence, you need a video player that is compatible with all of them. Commercial video players are often suitable for cross-platform and multi-screen use, which helps you deliver your videos over any device at any time. 
• Efficient: Commercial video players are performance-efficient. They support high-quality video support across multiple devices. Features like custom playback speed control, adaptive bitrate streaming, and advanced player control help you deliver seamless video and audio to your viewers. 
• Analytics: Analytics help businesses analyze how their viewers are interacting with their videos, how much time are they spending watching them, which device are they using to watch the videos, and more!
• Watermarking: Watermarking (both dynamic and forensic) gives a distinct brand identity to your player and videos, but it also makes copying difficult for those who want to record and reuse your videos. 
• Localize: You can add subtitles to localize your videos. It will help you spread your business across the globe and cater to a much wider audience base. 

Pros and Cons of Commercial Video Players

Commercial players have some major pros like personalized support and a completely customized user experience, that can give a big boost to your business. But on the flip side, they are not free to use like the open-source players and come with license restrictions. Let’s take you through the pros and cons of a commercial video player. 

Advantages:

The major pros of commercial video players are as follows:

• They have all the advanced features, so you choose which feature you would need. It makes your task simpler as you do not have to develop any new features as a developer. You get everything built in with the player SDKs. 
• Most commercial players offer you personalized support. Hence, if you get stuck somewhere, you can anytime ask for help. 
• As mentioned before, the security features of commercial video players are what separates them from open-source players. 
• Commercial video players offer you unlimited customizations. So businesses can decide the look and feel of the player, choose the features, and do a lot more, which helps them maintain their brand identity. 
• These players are compatible with a larger number of devices and ecosystems. 

Disadvantages

Some cons of commercial video players that you need to be aware of are:

• They are not free. So, you will have to pay a price to use them in the form of subscription fees or pay-as-you-go bills. 
• They might have license restrictions, restricting the use of the player outside the set limits.
• You might need to learn how to work with them before actually starting to use them. 

Comparing the Top Commercial Video Players in 2024

In 2024, the top 5 commercial video players in the market are:

1. Muvi Player SDKs
2. THEOplayer
3. JW Player
4. VPlayed
5. Kaltura

We have compared the top 3 commercial video players based on multiple factors in the table given below:

Deliver Unforgettable Video Streaming Experience With Muvi Player SDKs

Muvi Player SDKs are built with a “developer-first” approach and are extremely easy to integrate and handle. With a sheer focus on quality and performance, this commercial video player offers amazing video playback with ABR, DRM, cross-platform compatibility, and ad-based monetization! You can track the performance of your videos with our engagement analytics. And the best part? You don’t need to pay anything to get started, our pay-as-you-go pricing model will bill you based on the impressions that your videos get! So, why wait? Sign up today!