The video player market today is galore with options. While there are variances in terms of offerings, performance, rendering etc. between each of them, fundamentally, they all meet the core requirements of a player, which is to play the video for end user consumption. Also, many of them are free today. If such are the options, how does a new video publishing platform and video player solution, build a USP for oneself. Is your market for end users purely going to be probability driven? Not really. If so, how? We will talk about how we went about with Phando. As mentioned a core set of features are a given for any player. It is important to decide “what are those few things that you absolutely need to factor into your product”, and then craft the rest of the features around them. This is what we recognize as the DNA of your solution. We chose two things here for our Phando player – firstly, it has to be simple and intuitive and secondly, it has to be scalable.
Simple and intuitive because, the player should be user-friendly not just to the technology savvy but also to any video management user. This does not mean the feature set is compromised in any way, but essentially, the offerings are bundled in a usable manner that makes them easily discoverable and consumable.
The evolution of digital media players is very fascinating. From the humble beginnings of a Walkman back in early 80s, to the latest where players are supported in multiple platforms across devices for live streaming, on demand video and the like, the road has been a great journey – and of course there is still a long way to go, which brings us to the second parameter under discussion. The landscape is very dynamic. We wanted to ensure Phando player is scalable with minimal ongoing maintenance to align with the changes in the industry in the coming years. We have designed it to be an HTML5 player with a fall back option on Flash and to accommodate mobile ready encoders for reach across a range of platforms, including newer ones that may enter the market.
These two guiding mantras of simplicity and scalability are the focal points of our Phando player with which we have been able to customize it for our clients thus far. And when you are confident of such distinguishing USP, the other players out there are only seen as healthy competition to create a thriving marketplace, rather than any sense of insecurity.