“Best of Show Up Close” is a series about nominees and winners in the annual Future Best of Show at NAB award program.

We spoke with Charles Chu, chief product officer with Brightcove, a Best of Show winner for the Brightcove Live platform.

TV Technology:How is the integration of Ooyala into Brightcove going after the acquisition earlier this year?

Charles Chu: The Brightcove team is hard at work integrating Ooyala’s OVP technology into the Brightcove platform to create one unified platform for all customers. At our recent event, PLAY, we were thrilled to meet and hear stories from customers that were previously of Ooyala. We have a migration plan in place and are working diligently with each customer to move them when the time fits their schedule. Brightcove was the leading OVP before, but adding in aspects of Ooyala’s OVP technology, we have solidified our position.

TVT:What is it about Brightcove Live that sets it apart from similar offerings?

CC: The award-winning Brightcove Live solution enables broadcasters, publishers, brands and enterprises to deliver and monetize live video at a low cost with the flexibility to scale with business needs. Brightcove Live is a broadcast-grade, cloud-based live-streaming solution with broad device reach and integrated monetization capabilities using server-side ad insertion (SSAI). Broadcasters, publishers and brands alike can originate live events using Brightcove’s globally-distributed architecture, and deliver a high-quality experience to viewers with minimal delay across multiple platforms and devices. What sets Brightcove apart from the rest is the launch of new features to meet the needs of our customers. This most recently includes:

• Secure Reliable Transport (SRT): Support for live stream ingest via the SRT protocol, enabling forward error correction and the robust low-latency delivery of live broadcasts over unpredictable and challenging network conditions.

• Transport Stream (TS) Input Interface: Allows broadcasters that are delivering live streams over the internet the flexibility to send a broadcast native MPEG2-TS stream to Brightcove Live without having to convert to digital RTMP format while eliminating the need for costly onsite encoders. By accepting MPEG2-TS, Brightcove Live can detect SCTE-35 ad markers, replacing the linear ads with digital ads across devices using SSAI.

• Real Time Media Protocol (RTMP) Output Interface: Allows users to expand audience reach by pushing streams to other RTMP entry points with the flexibility to turn them on and off during the event. This enables a simplified workflow with maximum stability and minimal risk to deliver live video to multiple locations.

• Live to Social: Brightcove Live events can now be streamed to Facebook simultaneously via the Brightcove Studio and will soon be available for YouTube. Live to Social enables users to grow and retain viewers by live streaming content to existing audiences in social communities.

TVT:What does it cost? Is it available?

CC: Brightcove works with a wide range of customers, our pricing is dependent on the scale of the event and support needed. Brightcove Live is always always evolving to incorporate the latest features and functionality our customers need. The recent enhancements are live and being deployed to customers of all sizes and segments around the world, with the latest features going live in Q1 of 2019.

TVT:What else should we know about Brightcove Live or Brightcove in general?

CC: Brightcove works with customers in more than 70 countries representing many different market segments including global media companies, regional broadcasters, publishers, brands and enterprises. Anticipating our customer's needs is key, and that is why Brightcove has a robust product roadmap related to our live offering and features, and functionality will continue to become available over the coming months. We continue to improve upon our award-winning solution to provide our customers with features that meet and exceed their needs. 

BOSTON—Cloud video services company Brightcove has launched its new live video platform, Brightcove Live.

The API-driven platform augments scalable live-streaming with server-side ad insertion (SSAI), cloud DVR, content encryption, on-the-fly clipping, and VoD asset creation.

The platform has already been tested by Australia’s Seven West Media before it’s been brought to market. The company tested Brightcove Live for the purpose of workflow improvement using the Live-to-VoD feature. It was able to stream action from 16 different courts within an hour of each match’s completion and publish more than 400 clips, such as interviews with the players and match highlights.

Brightcove Live integrates with Video Cloud to leverage Video Cloud’s best-in-class tools for monetisation and analytics and its rich ecosystem of broadcast and publishing technology partners.

“With Brightcove Live, we’re directly addressing problems facing publishers and broadcasters today – how to deliver and monetise live events and linear channels using simple but flexible tools, without breaking the bank,” said Anil Jain, executive vice president and general manager of media at Brightcove.

“We continue to invest heavily in innovation and Brightcove Live is the type of advancement that provides our customers with the performance and efficiency they need in a highly competitive marketplace.”

 This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication TVB Europe.