VidCaster Press Releases

VidCaster launches state-of-the-art HTML5 video player

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:03:00 -0500

SAN FRANCISCO — Online video platform and video site builder VidCaster today announced a new HTML5-based video player designed to make the experience of viewing web video faster and more consistent across all browsers and devices, including mobile phones and tablets.

The new HTML5 VidCaster player — based on Zencoder’s open source VideoJS video player — also allows for instant seeking to any point in a video, without waiting for the entire video to download.

According to VidCaster’s co-founder and CEO, Kieran Farr, the release of the new player is designed to help further the HTML5 video standard.

“The future of online video is device-agnostic and HTML5 video allows a more consistent experience regardless of device,” Farr explained. “At VidCaster, we’ve already been ahead of the curve in terms of offering an HTML5 fallback for users on mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad that do not support Adobe Flash … now we are proud to offer a state-of-the-art HTML5 player as our default option.”

Steve Heffernan, the co-founder of Zencoder and the creator of VideoJS agrees. “We created VideoJS in early 2010 through experimenting with HTML5 video, and then open sourced the library to make HTML5 video easier for everyone to use. With this major new version (3.0) VideoJS is becoming an extensible video framework and VidCaster has been an integral part of that process, providing input into the feature set and pushing the limits of what can be done with HTML5 video today.”

True to the open-source nature of VideoJS, VidCaster plans to release its some of its custom modifications — including one that allows users of the new player to connect to the LiveRail advertising platform — back to the VideoJS community.

“What’s really exciting about this,” Farr said, “is that it opens the door for separating the look-and-feel of the player itself from the video-hosting infrastructure that powers it. Soon you’ll be able to offer your videos in a player that seamlessly switches between assets hosted by live-streaming providers, video-sharing sites, or even your own site. Ultimately, that means a more consistent experience for your viewers.”

Users on VidCaster’s Silver ($39/mo) and Gold ($99/mo) service plans can expect to see their videos automatically displayed in the new player. Users on the YouTube-powered VidCaster Free service plan will continue to have their videos displayed in YouTube’s native player.

VidCaster also announced that it can now customize the look and feel of the new player to meet the needs of enterprise customers.

About VidCaster

VidCaster is a service mark of Vid Network, Inc. Founded in 2010, Vid Network is devoted to making online video publishing painless and profitable for individuals, small businesses and enterprise clients. Its investors include French innovation agency FaberNovel, Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, Quest Venture Partners and more. For more information about VidCaster, visit http://www.vidcaster.com.

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VidCaster launches YouTube-powered free plan

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

SAN FRANCISCO — Got a YouTube channel? Now you can have your own custom video website to go along with it. For free.

That’s because the San Francisco-based online video platform VidCaster today announced that it has launched a new VidCaster Free plan powered by YouTube, bringing VidCaster’s powerful site- making and video SEO tools to the YouTube ecosystem.

“YouTube is home to an amazing amount of video content and now the owners of that content can easily create their own branded destination sites,” said Kieran Farr, VidCaster’s CEO and co- founder. “And because VidCaster Free automatically syncs with a YouTube channel, no maintenance is required beyond the initial setup,” Farr said.

Like the paid VidCaster Silver ($39/mo) and VidCaster Gold ($99/mo) plans, the VidCaster Free plan allows users to choose a professionally-designed site theme, upload their logo, and select custom colors to create a unique viewing environment for their videos. And like paid VidCaster plans, the VidCaster Free plan also includes automatic video SEO to direct search results on sites like Google to a user’s video site.

“If you take a YouTube embed code and just paste it into, say, a blog post, search engines actually don’t know that it’s a video so users searching for your video will have a hard time finding it. With our automatic video SEO, that’s not something you have to worry about — it just works,” Farr explained.

VidCaster Free users who want to set their site up on their own domain name can do so for $20/ year. For users who need more power — such as the ability to put their logo in the player, run their own advertisements, or customize the CSS & HTML of their site — VidCaster recommends upgrading to the paid Silver and Gold plans.

About VidCaster

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Making a video website is now easier than ever

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0400

SAN FRANCISCO — Independent event promoter and startup consultant Nathan Beckord had a problem: his Silicon Valley event series, Startup Exits, was thriving but he had no place to publish the video recordings of the events.

“We wanted to host our videos in a way that was more consistent with our brand, than traditional video-sharing services such as Vimeo or YouTube,” Beckord said.

Unfortunately, the cost and technical complexity of building and maintaining his own solution — even one built around a ‘player-only’ online video platform such as Brightcove or Ooyala — was more trouble than it was worth. “I needed something that would work right out of the box,” Beckord said.

Enter VidCaster, a do-it-yourself web tool which enables its users to create custom video-based websites with just a few clicks. With VidCaster, Beckord was able to easily build an SEO-optimized video site — video.startupexits.com — that matched his brand and integrated with his existing website for the event series. He also included elements driving traffic to his corporate site, venturearchetypes.com.

“For people without the time or ability to make their own video site, VidCaster provides the best of both worlds. You get a beautiful, custom ‘home’ for your online videos but none of the technical headaches that come with making such a site yourself,” said Kieran Farr, VidCaster’s CEO and co-founder.

VidCaster also helped Matt Schulz, managing editor with Austin, TX-based credit cards advocacy group CreditCards.com, build out the video.creditcards.com video site for his organization. “We were looking for a simple yet attractive way to present our video library on our website,” when he came across VidCaster, Schulz said.

Just by uploading a logo, selecting a theme, and making a few custom tweaks, Schulz was able to build a custom video site for his organization — without diverting resources from his IT department. “Being able to do it myself quickly freed up our IT resources for other projects,” Schulz said.

For the VidCaster team that means a job well-done, Farr explained. “Our goal is to take this complicated, difficult, and often frustrating process and make it easy,” Farr said.

For users like Beckord and Schulz, that means great-looking video sites without a lot of work. “The process was seamless, the quality excellent, the team very supportive, and the design — well, that’s my favorite part,” Beckord said.

About VidCaster

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