How to Create a Video on Demand Website Like Netflix, YouTube?

On-demand streaming services are one of those trends that have gone on to become a religion. Though started by the millennials, this mode of entertainment has caught on like wildfire with every generation starting from baby boomers to Gen Z. The prediction graphs favor the climate of video on demand business than any other form of entertainment.

“Forecasts predict that video on demand market is about to grow from $25.30 billion in 2014 to $61.40 billion in 2019”

Though North America and Europe lead in VOD consumption, the geographical locations such as the Asia Pacific and the Middle East has shown promisable growth within a couple of years. The whole world is washed off by the VOD tide, and if you are looking to create your own video on demand website, this is the right time to do it, no matter where your targeted audience is. This vast migration is occurring due to the promisable high-quality video and the exclusive nature of content these platforms provide at the ease of your homes.

Things to Consider Before Launching a Video on Demand Business

Plan Your Video Content:

To successfully build a video streaming website that entices large masses and get recurring engagement requires quality content. This factor boils down to two large methods in which captivating content can be pitched into your website. Either to research the market for well-doing videos and buy their rights or to create your own videos that are viral worthy. In case of opting for the second option, prime factors such as budget, crew, and script relevant to your viewer base are to be considered. It is also important to invest a considerable amount of resources in making your video on demand platform’s UI attractive, responsive and easy-to-use.

Manage Your Videos:

Any great content without proper management is bound to meet its end. Thus, efficient organizing and managing of video content are equally important. Analytics play a big part in managing your video on demand platform.

Everything from SEO optimized elastic search engines, search tags based on genres, instruments, artists and real-time suggest algorithms aggregate your videos’ reach among the audience.

Right Monetization Strategy:

The long-term success of your video on demand software depends on how intelligently you monetize it. Though video-on-demand models often swear by the transactional VOD model for payment, there are multiple innovative payment schemes such as push TV and catch up TV that might intrigue your viewers to buy precise content of their interest in flexible ways. Video on demand platforms can also run ads in pre, mid and post-rolls of their videos and in rare cases have placements for banner ads. Choosing what would work the best for your target demographic is crucial in how you reap your returns.

With all the above factors on the check, creating your own video on demand site comes down to just good programming and back-end tech work. Instead of hiring an entire team to build your streaming website from scratch, there are options to buy ready-made yet customizable solutions that are on par to the movie streaming moguls such as Netflix and Hulu.

Vplayed — A Perfect Video on Demand Solution

Vplayed is a video streaming solution that is one of the top companies that aces the video streaming market. When it comes to delivering readymade video/audio streaming apps and websites, Vplayed has proved them time and again with their projects. Partnering with global brands across 50+ countries on all continents, Vplayed has created magic with a dash of innovation sprinkled on every single time their solution has been used to build streaming platforms.

So what makes this video on demand solution stand tall among the crowd? To put it into perspective, we have created a list of features that are the onus to Vplayed’s style of curating solutions.

Readymade Yet Customizable: Readymade solutions call for cutting down the hatching time. But that doesn’t mean your product should be monotonous or generic. Go for a solution that incorporates your expectations with customizations.

Cloud Hosting/ On-premise Hosting: Where you store your data should be decided by you. Vplayed provides the choice of using cloud servers such as Microsoft Azure, Google, Akamai, AWS or building an on-premise hosting system.

3-tier Security: AES encryption, Access control, and Data Rights Management offer a secured pathway for your data to be streamed and published. These security measures make sure your content stays free from any kind of security breach or infringements.

In-built Player (HLS): HTTP live streaming is a media streaming communication protocol that is used to stream video content hassle-free. HLS player breaks the overall video stream into small HTTP-based file downloads, resulting in faster, errorless streaming.Content Management System: Manage, organize and, modify your digital content efficiently with Vplayed CMS that perpetuates a collaborative environment. CMS curates everything from format management, editing, to publishing.Analytics: Get an in-depth analysis of your revenue stats, users and their activities with Vplayed metric graphs. The dashboard breaks down the timeline of the activities the users are engaging in with clear-cut numbers of watch count display, most favorited and most commented videos.

Payment Method: Integrate multiple payment gateways to your platform with multi-currency compatibility. In addition, you can also view the duration each of your users has validity over their subscription, and when they would have to recharge again. The plans you provide for your users can be customized whenever you wish, with options to add new plans separately.

Unlimited Video Storage: Cloud or on-premise storage — Whatever your take may be, we do not drift from our quality. Get unlimited video/audio storage in any format and transcode with seamless operational quality.

Geographic Blocking of Video Content: Monitor and manage which content gets streamed where across the globe. Geo-blocking comes in handy to abide by national laws and have your platform in good books across borders.

Instant Playback & Return: Leave no space for buffering and latency. Vplayed offers instant playback with its advanced HLS player without having to worry about streaming ads, having high-end user-friendly UI and other customizations.

Video Monetization: Monetize your content with a wide range of options at your dispense. Video on demand websites has promising returns in ads, subscription plans, transactional schemes, catch up and push TV monetizing models

Conclusion:

Creating your own video on demand website is no simple task. But along with the giant comes even bigger positive outcome. So if you are an entrepreneur who is considering to venture into this stream of entertainment, think no further. Make sure you fend to the needs of your focus population through your own video on demand platform with custom awe-inspiring features that woo them to your platform.

How to Create a Video on Demand Website Like Netflix, YouTube? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.