{{Short description|Platform for users to upload, share, or live stream videos on the Internet}} {{use dmy dates|date=July 2023}} {{more refs|date=June 2025}} An '''online video platform''' ('''OVP''') enables users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the Internet, often via a private server structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally upload video content via the hosting service's website, mobile or desktop application, or other interfaces (API), and typically provide embedded codes or links that allow others to view the video content.
==Description== Online video platforms can use a software as a service (SaaS) business model, a do it yourself (DIY) model, or user-generated content (UGC) model. The OVP comes with an end-to-end tool set to upload, encode, manage, playback, style, deliver, distribute, download, publish and measure quality of service or audience engagement quality of experience of online video content for both video on demand (VOD) and live delivery. This is usually manifested as a User Interface with login credentials. OVPs also include providing a custom video player or a third-party video player that can be embedded in a website. Modern online video platforms are often coupled up with embedded online video analytics providing video publishers with detailed insights into video performance: the total number of video views, impressions, and unique views; video watch time, stats on user location, visits, and behavior on the site. Video heat maps show how user engagement rate changes through the viewing process in order to measure audience interaction and to create compelling video content. OVPs are related to the over-the-top content video industry, although there are many OVP providers that are also present in broadcast markets, serving video on demand set-top boxes.{{fact|date=June 2025}}
OVP product models vary in scale and feature-set, ranging from ready-made websites that individuals, can use to white label models that can be customized by enterprise clients or media/content aggregators and integrated with their traditional broadcast workflows. The former example is YouTube. The latter example is predominantly found in FTA (Free-To-Air) or pay-TV broadcasters who seek to provide an over-the-top media service (OTT) that extends the availability of their content on desktops or multiple mobility devices.{{fact|date=June 2025}}
In general, the graphical user interface accessed by users of the OVP is sold as a service. Revenue is derived from monthly subscriptions based on the number of users it is licensed to and the complexity of the workflow. Some workflows require encryption of content with DRM and this increases the cost of using the service. Videos may be transcoded from their original source format or resolution to a mezzanine format (suitable for management and mass-delivery), either on-site or using cloud computing. The latter would be where platform as a service, is provided as an additional cost.{{fact|date=June 2025}}
It is feasible, but rare, for large broadcasters to develop their own proprietary OVP. However, this can require complex development and maintenance costs and diverts attention to 'building' as opposed to distributing/curating content.
OVPs often cooperate with specialized third-party service providers, using what they call an application programming interface (API). These include cloud transcoders, recommendation engines, search engines, metadata libraries, and analytics providers.{{fact|date=June 2025}}
==Video and content delivery protocols== The vast majority of OVPs use industry-standard HTTP streaming or HTTP progressive download protocols. With HTTP streaming, the ''de facto'' standard is to use adaptive streaming where multiple files of a video are created at different bit rates, but only one of these is sent to the end-user during playback, depending on available bandwidth or device CPU constraints. This can be switched dynamically and near-seamlessly at any time during the video viewing. The main protocols for adaptive HTTP streaming include Smooth Streaming (by Microsoft), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) (by Apple) and Flash Video (by Adobe). Flash is still in use but is declining due to the popularity of HLS and Smooth Stream in mobile devices and desktops, respectively.<ref>{{Cite web |title=HLS Playing {{!}} Ant Media Documentation |url=https://antmedia.io/docs/guides/playing-live-stream/hls-playing/ |access-date=2024-12-26 |website=antmedia.io |language=en}}</ref> Each is a proprietary protocol in its own right and due to this fragmentation, there have been efforts to create one standardized protocol known as MPEG-DASH.
There are many OVPs available on the Internet.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=http://www.onlinevideo.net/2011/10/every-online-video-platform-ovp-on-the-market-a-reference-list/|title=Every Online Video Platform (OVP) on the Market: A Reference List|date=2011-10-06|newspaper=Onlinevideo.net – Online Video Marketing Strategies, News, and Tips|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008025359/http://www.onlinevideo.net/2011/10/every-online-video-platform-ovp-on-the-market-a-reference-list/|access-date=2017-02-08|archive-date=2011-10-08|url-status=live|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Tips-for-Choosing-an-Online-Video-Platform-(OVP)-90061.aspx|title=Tips for Choosing an Online Video Platform (OVP) – Streaming Media Magazine|last=Dreier|first=Troy|date=5 June 2013|newspaper=Streaming Media Magazine|access-date=2017-02-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211081944/http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Tips-for-Choosing-an-Online-Video-Platform-(OVP)-90061.aspx|archive-date=11 February 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Choose-Wisely-Selecting-An-Online-Video-Platform-65746.aspx|title=Choose Wisely: Selecting An Online Video Platform|date=Spring 2010|newspaper=Streaming Media Europe Magazine|access-date=2020-02-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211080531/http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Choose-Wisely-Selecting-An-Online-Video-Platform-65746.aspx|archive-date=2017-02-11|url-status=live}}</ref>
==Influence== In the 2010s, with the increasing prevalence of technology and the Internet in everyday life, video hosting services serve as a portal to different forms of entertainment (comedy, shows, games, or music), news, documentaries and educational videos. Content may be either both user-generated, amateur clips, or commercial products. The entertainment industry uses this medium to release music and videos, films, and television shows directly to the public. Since many users do not have unlimited web space, either as a paid service, or through an ISP offering, video hosting services are becoming increasingly popular, especially with the explosion in popularity of blogs, internet forums and other interactive pages. The mass market for camera phones and smartphones has increased the supply of user-generated video. Traditional methods of personal video distribution, such as making a DVD to show to friends at home, are unsuited to the low resolution and high volume of camera phone clips. In contrast, current broadband Internet connections are well suited to serving the quality of video shot on mobile phones. Most people do not own web servers, and this has created demand for user-generated video content hosting.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://groundwire.org/resources/articles/online-video-hosting |title=Recommended Online Video Hosting Services |publisher=Groundwire.org |access-date=2014-01-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310200721/http://groundwire.org/resources/articles/online-video-hosting/ |archive-date=2016-03-10 |url-status=usurped }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dvguru.com/2006/04/07/ten-video-sharing-services-compared/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110710033801/http://www.dvguru.com/2006/04/07/ten-video-sharing-services-compared/|archive-date=2011-07-10|title=Ten video sharing services compared|date=7 Apr 2006}}</ref>
==Copyright issues== On some websites, users share entire films by breaking them up into segments that are about the size of the video length limit imposed by the site (e.g., 15 minutes). An emerging practice is for users to obfuscate the titles of feature-length films that they share by providing a title that is recognizable by humans but will not match on standard search engines. It is not even in all cases obvious to the user if a provided video is a copyright infringement.{{fact|date=August 2023}}
==History== Practical online video hosting and video streaming was made possible by advances in video compression, due to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed video. Raw uncompressed digital video has a bit rate of 168{{nbsp}}Mbit/s for SD video, and over 1{{nbsp}}Gbit/s for full HD video.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Jack |title=Scalable Continuous Media Streaming Systems: Architecture, Design, Analysis and Implementation |date=2005 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9780470857649 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7fuvu52cyNEC&pg=PA25 |access-date=2019-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227031840/https://books.google.com/books?id=7fuvu52cyNEC&pg=PA25 |archive-date=2019-12-27 |url-status=live }}</ref> The most important data compression algorithm that enabled practical video hosting and streaming is the discrete cosine transform (DCT), a lossy compression technique first proposed by Nasir Ahmed, T. Natarajan and K. R. Rao in 1973.<ref name="Ahmed">{{cite journal |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/52879771/DCT-History |title=How I Came Up With the Discrete Cosine Transform |author=Nasir Ahmed |author-link=N. Ahmed |journal=Digital Signal Processing |volume=1 |issue=1 |date=1991 |page=4–5|doi=10.1016/1051-2004(91)90086-Z |bibcode=1991DSP.....1....4A |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The DCT algorithm is the basis for the first practical video coding format, H.261, in 1988.<ref name="Ghanbari">{{cite book |last1=Ghanbari |first1=Mohammed |title=Standard Codecs: Image Compression to Advanced Video Coding |date=2003 |publisher=Institution of Engineering and Technology |isbn=9780852967102 |pages=1–2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7XuU8T3ooOAC&pg=PA1 |access-date=2019-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808084018/https://books.google.com/books?id=7XuU8T3ooOAC&pg=PA1 |archive-date=2019-08-08 |url-status=live }}</ref> It was followed by more popular DCT-based video coding formats, most notably the MPEG and H.26x video standards from 1991 onwards.<ref name="Zhu">{{cite book |last1=Ce |first1=Zhu |title=Streaming Media Architectures, Techniques, and Applications: Recent Advances: Recent Advances |date=2010 |publisher=IGI Global |isbn=9781616928339 |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Cb4dWYVJ_8AC&pg=PA26 |access-date=2019-09-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191223224826/https://books.google.com/books?id=Cb4dWYVJ_8AC&pg=PA26 |archive-date=2019-12-23 |url-status=live }}</ref> The modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) is also the basis for the MP3 audio compression format introduced in 1994,<ref name="Guckert">{{cite web |last1=Guckert |first1=John |title=The Use of FFT and MDCT in MP3 Audio Compression |url=http://www.math.utah.edu/~gustafso/s2012/2270/web-projects/Guckert-audio-compression-svd-mdct-MP3.pdf |publisher=University of Utah |date=Spring 2012 |access-date=14 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180520211458/http://www.math.utah.edu/~gustafso/s2012/2270/web-projects/Guckert-audio-compression-svd-mdct-MP3.pdf |archive-date=20 May 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref> and later the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format in 1999.<ref name="brandenburg">{{cite web|url=http://graphics.ethz.ch/teaching/mmcom12/slides/mp3_and_aac_brandenburg.pdf|title=MP3 and AAC Explained|last=Brandenburg|first=Karlheinz|year=1999|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170213191747/http://graphics.ethz.ch/teaching/mmcom12/slides/mp3_and_aac_brandenburg.pdf|archive-date=2017-02-13|access-date=2019-09-18}}</ref>
===Video hosting sites=== The first Internet video hosting site was ShareYourWorld.com.<ref name="beet">{{cite web |url=http://www.beet.tv/2007/07/first-video-sha.html |title=First Video Sharing Site Paved the Way for YouTube — ShareYourWorld.com Was There First to Launch Ten Years Back |publisher=Beet.TV |access-date=2014-01-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140121111500/http://www.beet.tv/2007/07/first-video-sha.html |archive-date=2014-01-21 |url-status=live }}</ref> Founded in 1997, it allowed users to upload clips or full videos in different file formats. However, Internet access bandwidth and video transcoding technology at the time were limited, so the site did not support video streaming like YouTube later did. ShareYourWorld was founded by Chase Norlin, and it ran until 2001, when it closed due to budget and bandwidth problems.{{cn|date=October 2022}}
Founded in October 2004, Pandora TV from South Korea is the first video sharing website in the world to attach advertisements to user-submitted video clips and to provide unlimited storage space for users to upload their own clips. The company has developed an auto-advertisements system that automatically inserts advertising to the clips posted to the website. It was founded in the Gangnam District of Seoul.<ref name=":0">"[http://info.pandora.tv/?m=service_use_2 Privacy Policy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110924191426/http://info.pandora.tv/?m=service_use_2 |date=2011-09-24 }}." Pandora TV. Retrieved 17 September 2011. "Seoul-Gangnam Building 5th Floor #727-16, Yeoksam-Dong, Gangnam-Gu Seoul, Korea 135-921"</ref><ref>"[https://web.archive.org/web/20080409192016/http://info.pandora.tv/?m=state_right Report Personal Rights Violation]." Pandora TV. Retrieved on 17 September 2011. "Copyright Infringement Report Center Pandora TV Inc.5F. Seoul Gangnam Bldg, #727-16 Yeoksam-dong Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-921, South Korea"</ref>
===Video streaming platforms=== [[File:Youtube Studio (2015) My Verison.png|thumb|YouTube studio logo used since 2026. Owned by Google, it is the largest video sharing platform, with 2.7 billion monthly active users.]] YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen in 2005. It was based on video transcoding technology, which enabled the video streaming of user-generated content from anywhere on the World Wide Web. This was made possible by implementing a Flash player based on MPEG-4 AVC video with AAC audio. This allowed any video coding format to be uploaded, and then transcoded into Flash-compatible AVC video that can be directly streamed from anywhere on the Web. The first YouTube video clip was ''Me at the zoo'', uploaded by Karim in April 2005.<ref name="Matthew">{{cite book |last1=Matthew |first1=Crick |title=Power, Surveillance, and Culture in YouTube™'s Digital Sphere |date=2016 |publisher=IGI Global |isbn=9781466698567 |pages=36–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y-FmCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36}}</ref>
YouTube subsequently became the most popular online video platform, and changed the way videos were hosted on the Web.<ref name="beet"/> The success of YouTube led to a number of similar online video streaming platforms, from companies such as Netflix, Hulu and Crunchyroll.{{fact|date=June 2025}}
Within these video streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, there are privacy concerns about how the websites use consumers' personal information and online behaviors to advertise and track spending. Many video streaming websites record semi-private consumer information such as video streaming data, purchase frequency, genre of videos watched, etc.<ref name=":0" />
==See also== *List of online video platforms *Online video analytics *Streaming media
==References== {{Reflist}} {{File sharing}} Category:Video hosting Category:Internet hosting