If you have a streaming business, then most probably you have already budgeted a hefty amount for building the streaming platform. You must also have done thorough research on important solutions and features provided by video streaming platforms such as its CDN, monetization models, analytics and others. One of the things that we think you might have overlooked is the API of the streaming platform, especially the video streaming API on which a lot of factors depend. Starting from customizing online video players to streaming experience, everything is more or less dependent on how efficient your API is. Since it holds the most importance in a streaming service, in this blog we are going to guide you through choosing the best video streaming API. But first, let us brief you about video streaming APIs.
We are Going to Cover:
What is a Video Streaming API?
How to Choose a Video Streaming API?
Conclusion
An API or Application Programming Interface is a predefined set of rules/protocols for software-to-software or user-to-software or user-to-application or application-to-application interactions. APIs also determine how easily you can build/integrate softwares/applications. You can read here more about the basics of APIs, their functionalities, and others.
Now let’s come to the Video streaming API, as the name suggests- a video streaming API enables you to customize the player, video streaming and facilitates the developer with the ability to integrate/add/modify/customize a software/application. There are mainly three types of APIs for a video streaming platform-
A player API allows one to customize the features, design, solutions of a video player online. This implies that any developer or even a non-technical person can easily customize features as per requirement such as adding or modifying action buttons, button size, adding brand logos among others.
A video streaming API lets you customize video streaming in various ways such as description, settings, renaming and many more. A video streaming API is in charge of simplifying all these activities so that the streaming platform developer/owner/operator has more flexibility and control over changing/customizing/modifying video streaming in a simple manner.
Video platform API provides the flexibility and ease to customize/modify/integrate in terms of CMS and all other parts/new parts/ system integration etc.
However, there are certain features/solutions you must look for in a Video Streaming API before you opt for one beyond the basic functionalities. Let’s have a look-
Every streaming platform is equipped with its own video streaming API. It is recommended to go through the features thoroughly before you make a final decision. Let’s have a look at the must-have features for a video streaming API below-
An easily-integrable video streaming API provides you with a simple solution whenever it comes to integrating to any platform/third party site/app or any other system/application including hardware/software systems, servers, tools etc. Unless the video streaming API of your streaming platform is flexible enough, it will be a tedious task every time you need to integrate or develop and deploy even a small tool/system/part on the streaming platform. While checking the video streaming API, you must ensure-
And others.
Video APIs are what determine how the video appears. Settings and others should be easily modifiable to ensure smooth operations. So, always focus on how simple they are to use.
Creating/customizing video players, video content modification, management and others- a good video API’s efficacy implies how easy the task will be for the developers or non-technical person if required. For a robust video API, most of the functionalities are defined by API calls and are in-built. So, that is why a highly efficient video API helps you experiment with your video player/video streaming easily be it changing the speed options in settings or modifying the description, video delivery optimization or encoding.
Starting from executing encoding in batches to processes involving the new implementations- a good video API helps in automating these all tasks.
Apart from ensuring the above-mentioned qualities of a video API, you must take into account how well-documented it is. The documentation of an API refers to a technical content that specifies the usage, instructions, process etc. Apart from documenting how efficiently an API can be used, a well-documented API also includes API lifecycle updates, latest information etc. However, with an easy documentation solution one can automate the video API generation and maintenance process.
Undoubtedly video streaming APIs are of high importance in several ways as discussed above. No matter how compact your streaming platform is, there can be requirements to modify various tools/integrate new systems/parts related to video streaming. So, you must be well aware of what type of video APIs are there and how efficient they are to ensure fast and hasslefree integration/development/video content modification and more.
Muvi, the all-in-one OTT platform provider, is equipped with easy-to-use video APIs that meet all your requirements to customize or change or modify video streaming/platform/player with ease. Thinking of trying it? Get a 14-day free trial now (no credit card needed)!
Written by: Ishita Banik
Ishita is a Content Writer with Muvi Marketing Team. Apart from business writing, she is also an acclaimed author of three best seller romantic thriller novels. In 2020, she got featured in The Hindustan Times, a leading news portal as an inspirational Indian author.
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