Review: StreamCity Magic Publisher
Delivery Options
For delivery, Magic Publisher streams all videos via the Flash Media Server, but it can drop down to progressive delivery via HTTP if there are no available ports for streaming. This is currently performed automatically, though StreamCity plans to allow users to specify either progressive delivery, streaming only, or the current “smart” delivery mode. While less secure, progressive delivery does ensure that your video will play smoothly for bandwidth-limited viewers, an experience that pure streaming can’t match. StreamCity has partnered with CDN EdgeCast for worldwide delivery of its video streams.
Though you can’t produce a live webcast via the Magic Publisher platform, StreamCity offers a separate live streaming service. Currently, StreamCity has no offering for mobile or set-top viewers, and it hasn’t yet implemented dynamic streaming of multiple bitrate files. But StreamCity has installed Flash Media Server 3.5, and support for dynamic streaming is on the short list for upcoming features. The Flash platform doesn’t currently support multicast, so that’s not an option.
As I mentioned, you can’t password protect your videos out of the box, though StreamCity can implement different methods of access control and encryption on a consulting basis. There are many advanced features that StreamCity doesn’t support, such as geo-syndication (limiting embedding to certain countries) and blacklisting and white listing (identifying sites that can or can’t embed). But organisations in StreamCity’s target market probably don’t really need or want them.
Syndication options are also limited. One valuable feature that’s missing is the ability for StreamCity to flow uploaded videos to UGC sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Blip.tv, which is a time-saving feature enabled by several other OVPs. While not critical for most streaming customers, StreamCity also lacks compatibility with third-party advertising servers or a syndication engine, though StreamCity can implement a syndication program for you on a consulting basis.
Media Management
Media Management capabilities are modest but functional. You can view, sort, and search your uploaded videos by title. You can also assign each video to a separate channel, series (a subset of channels), and themes (a subset of series) and then search by any of these categories (Figure 7).
Figure 7. StreamCity lets you segment your videos into channels, series, and themes for better organisation.Reporting
Reporting is not in real time, as StreamCity relies upon statistics transferred back from its CDN, which is supposed to occur on a 4-hour lag, but it seemed delayed at least a day during my tests.
Specifically, when I viewed statistics on 18 Aug., that last reported day of viewing was 16 Aug. (and I’m sure my videos went viral in the interim). It’s probably not a huge deal either way. But if you’re the type that likes to view hits as they occur, StreamCity’s native reporting isn’t for you.
Otherwise, StreamCity’s statistics are basic—you can set date ranges and view videos played either individually or by campaign. You can download the data into CSV format for importing into Excel, which is nice, but most users will jump directly to the brilliant option to track playback stats via Google Analytics (Figure 8). Simply type your Google Analytics number into the eponymous field; you can track video plays via Google’s free service, getting vastly more information about sources of viewers, videos played, and other useful stats.
Figure 8. The best feature of StreamCity’s reporting capabilities is the option to use Google Analytics.Other sites do more—I particularly like features such as Ooyala’s ability to see the length of time viewers watch the video before dropping off, which is useful feedback for video producers. Still, as long as Google Analytics is free, StreamCity provides most of the basics provided by OVPs in their price range, if not more so.
Irritations and Conclusion
I did have a couple of minor irritations that I’ll describe if only in the hope that StreamCity will address them in the short term. First, Magic Publisher is the only website of recent note that doesn’t have the option to remember your login, so you have to type in your name and password each time you work with the system. Given that the system times out at regular intervals of inactivity for security purposes, you might have to type your name and password six or seven times over the course of a couple of hours, or dozens of times when first setting up your site. Since StreamCity also doesn’t allow you to change your password online, you’ll likely end up taping a printed piece of paper with your name and password (the easily memorable “pKBCqbsp”) just like I did. Not a great first impression for users.
Covered above but worthy of a reminder, StreamCity also needs to enable multiple file uploads. Though not all OVPs do so, most of the more mature platforms do, such as Ooyala and Brightcove. Today, uploading 20 videos to StreamCity could literally take all day, and though your attention isn’t constantly required, if the site times out between the time the upload finishes and the time you add metadata and save the file, you likely will have to upload again, which is irritating to say the least.
Otherwise, StreamCity’s campaigns are both highly useful and exceptionally usable, and Magic Publisher is the easiest-to-use OVP platform that I’ve worked with. While others do more, none do it as simply or elegantly.