6 Best Video Players for Newsrooms in 2023

If you’re running a media company, you’d probably know how Live Streaming has been on a surge these last 2-3 quarters. Videos have always been about sharing experiences. But unlike the pre-COVID era, where the only expectation from the video content was to create a compelling engagement experience, monetization and audience growth have now become the (new) additional returns that more and more publishers are planning to bag.

Research suggests that video ads will account for 31% of overall display ad spend ($61 billion) by 2021 and is expected to witness a whopping 72% growth. 

In case your Q1 plans aim to → engage + monetize + grow your audience using video, it’s about time you upgrade from merely embedding videos on your news portal (using Vimeo and YouTube) to a full-fledged video player. 

How do Video Players help Newsrooms?

The job of a video player is to help users stream your video content. But along with that, they help make a user stay for longer. They provide support to the textual stories and above all, are one of the best formats for product placements and branding. Mobile video consumption is rising by 100% every year and 6 out of every 10 people are now preferring videos over TV. 

Types of video players that Newsrooms can make use of -

• HTML5 Video Player - The HTML <video> element shows a video on a web page. It is quicker and has the ability to add links and applications to videos. It uses fewer system resources, therefore, considered better than Flash video player.
• Embedded Video Player - Embedded players are provided by video-sharing platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Mail, etc. You can use these players to embed an already hosted video on your website and offer all the basic functionalities, i.e., play and pause buttons, volume, mute, progress bar, etc. 

6 Best Video Players for Newsrooms

These are the options apart from YouTube and Vimeo (embedded players used as default by many newsrooms).

JW Player

JW Player is a video management tool for hosting, streaming, encoding, and transcoding. They enable publishers and broadcasters across the globe to improve their operational efficiency and grow their video revenue. A Forrester study found that companies switching to JW Player have seen an impact of:

• Viewing Experience + 19%
• Operational Efficiency +9%
• Revenue Generation +33%
• Total benefit = +61%

Pricing - 

• Trial Subscription - Offers 30-Day free trial. 25GB hosting and 75GB streaming.
• Starter - $10/mo. Includes HTML5 video player and video gallery with 150GB hosting and 500GB streaming data. 
• Enterprise - Custom pricing. Contact the JWPlayer team here for a quote.

Brands using JWPlayer - TI Media, Bauer Xcel Media, Patch Media, etc

Brightcove

Brightcove has a video cloud that lets you upload a series of videos that can be streamed over any device. It has flexible layouts and monetization options. It has server-side ad insertion (SSAI) that lets you run an ad before, during, or after the video is played. It also offers subscription-based or hybrid revenue models.

Pricing - Not shared by the vendor. Contact the Brightcove team here to get a quote.

Brands using BrightCovec- BBC Worldwide, Aljazeera, Vox Media

DALET

Dalet is built for multi-site collaboration and extensive deployments. It offers remote multimedia editing tools designed specifically for news publications, enabling fast and powerful proxy editing, even while the content is being recorded.

Pricing - Not shared by the vendor. Contact the Dalet team here for a quote.

Brands using Dalet - Times Now, euronews, MediaSet, etc.

Kaltura

Kaltura offers a set of solutions to scale your video engagement. It offers creation, transcoding, management, publishing, analytics & security for your video stories. It has fast loading players, responsive design, 1080p videos, and adaptive bitrate technology for your virtual events and is catering to over a thousand leading brands with its online video cloud platform. 

Pricing - Kaltura offers a 30-days free trial to give you a first-hand experience of the solution. You can reach out to the Kaltura team to get a quote, here. Kaltura also has a wide range of discounts available that increase as you buy more services.

Brands using Kaltura - BOSCH, MediaCorp, Thomson Reuters, etc

DaCast

DaCast provides OTT video streams with recurring subscriptions and lets you create video ad experiences that work for your business goals with pre, mid and post-roll ads. It offers a playlist scheduler, real-time analytics, and branded videos for better monetization. It also lets you manage your entire video library with its easy-to-use video hosting solutions that can be accessed from any device.

Pricing - 

• Starter - $39/mo (billed annually). Bandwidth - 1.2 TB/year and Storage - 50 GB with 24/7 chat/eail support.
• Event - $63/mo (billed annually). Bandwidth - 6 TB upfront and Storage - 50 GB with 24/7 chat/email support
• Scale - $188/mo (billed annually or $250/mo billed monthly). Bandwidth - 24 TB/year and Storage - 1 TB with 24/7 chat/email support.
• Custom - Contact the DaCast team for a quote, here. 

Brands using DaCast - TV Worldwide, ComeSeeTv, TopGolf, etc

BridTV

BridTV is another all in one solution that lets you manage, analyze, monetize, and live-stream the video content. It has AI content matching that utilizes pre-selected video content to trigger a handy content-matching system. It offers a WordPress plugin and a platform API that ensures easy integration.

Pricing - 

• Free - $0. Video plays - 100,000 and impressions - 50,000.
• Essentials - $24.99/mo. Video plays - 150,000 and impressions - 50,000.
• Business - $89.99/mo. Video plays - 500,000 and impressions - 200,000.

• Premium - Video plays - Unlimited and impressions - Custom.
• Contact the BridTV team here to get a quote.

Brands using BridTV - STACK, BLITZ, SpringServe, etc