Secure Video Hosting: Ensure Video Protection

Secure video hosting is a necessity if video is going to be a major feature of your business. You may already realize the limitations of free consumer online video hosting platforms (such as restrictions on rights and monetization, etc.). But with a growing number of secure video hosting platforms in the marketplace, it can be difficult to decide which or what type of platform is right for your business. In this article, we’ll run down key features of a secure video hosting platform as well as give our judgment on 7 of the top hosting platforms out there.  Read on for more!

• What is secure video hosting?
• The importance of secure video hosting for business
• Main features of secure video hosting
• 7 top secure video hosting platforms
• Kaltura solutions for secure video hosting
• Final thoughts

What is secure video hosting?

Secure video hosting is a video host that has various security features in place preventing your online video from being illegally copied or distributed, while also allowing you to retain full ownership of the content. This is a more business-focused iteration of a video host, which as you’re probably aware is a professional digital service allowing the uploading and storage of videos (or a video library) on a third-party site. While there are free hosting options, paid video hosting solutions tend to offer more options and better security features.

The importance of secure video hosting for business

When video is a major component of a business, broadcasters want to have a streamlined viewer experience. In other words, smooth playback that keeps video content free from buffering and file format and display issues. Likewise, whether branded video content is intended to cultivate new customers, add value for those already using your service or products, or as an education and training tool within your company, you’ll want to prevent your content from being stolen.

The primary goal is to have control of your brand and to secure any revenue generated by the video content. With these things in mind, the best possible route is to utilize a secure video hosting platform. It will give you better control over how your content is distributed, as well as enable you to retain ownership of your videos. Finally, the advanced features and tools that are included in a quality video hosting platform give you options for managing your content, your distribution and access, and how you’re making money from the content. Not to mention providing additional layers of security!

Main features of secure video hosting

When shopping around for a secure video hosting platform, be sure to consider the following primary features:

AES encryption

AES is an abbreviation of “Advanced Encryption Standard” and it adds a strong layer of security to your password protection. Without going too far in the weeds, AES is a cipher originally chosen by the US Government to protect classified information. It’s now implemented worldwide to encrypt sensitive data. It’s also incredibly valuable for video streaming services–incorporating AES into streaming prevents the stream from being intercepted and snooped on or hijacked by malicious actors. If the data from the private stream were somehow intercepted, it would still be encrypted and unwatchable. Only legitimate viewers (who will have the encryption key as part of their login process) will be able to watch the video.

Video CMS

A video content management system (CMS) is a tool for organizing and storing video content. It’s a necessary component of a user-friendly platform. The features of your CMS might include a variety of useful functions such as support for custom thumbnails, bulk uploading, creating playlists, seamlessly replacing already-embedded videos, batch editing and deleting, and more. Additionally, if your organization is likely to grow, you’ll want a CMS that can similarly scale up.

A quality CMS product will also work hand in hand with privacy and security tools in a secure video hosting operation.

Privacy and Security Tools

These features in a secure video hosting site protect your content throughout the process from upload to viewing, making sure that only those with proper access can watch your videos. These might include such things as secure uploading tools, password protection, and domain restrictions that can prohibit viewers from piracy-prone domains.

Transcoding and Encoding

These features ensure your content is correctly formatted to distribute and packaged in a file format compatible with the majority of browsers and devices. Depending on how and what you stream, an ideal platform might convert camera RAW files into streaming files, encode video to prepare it for streaming formats, or transcode content to fit with different types of devices.

7 top secure video hosting platforms

If you need some help narrowing down the field, here are our top picks for a secure video hosting solution in 2023:

Kaltura

If you need secure video hosting, we pride ourselves on our advanced video platforms and products. Whichever one is best suited to your needs, we’ll ensure it’s a vehicle for high-quality private streaming and comes with the best secure video hosting and privacy features available. We’ll introduce Kaltura’s features and make our case a little further below, but first, let’s check in some other worthy entrants in the field.

Vidyard

Vidyard is an enterprise video platform geared towards business video streaming and offering strong marketing features. Its functions encompass corporate communication, marketing, and sales with a particular focus on turning viewers into customers when content is outward-facing. Key features include secure video hosting, strong personalization options, and in-depth analytics and data. A significant drawback is a backend that is not user-friendly.

Dacast

Dacast provides “comprehensive live streaming and online video hosting solutions” including secure video hosting, and the ability to embed videos while maintaining control of the content. While not necessarily the best possible choice for a large-scale business platform it was designed with an eye toward broadcasting content for enterprises, schools, and professional organizations.

Vimeo

Vimeo is one of the largest video streaming platforms on the web and offers a wide range of subscription service plans as well as excellent secure video hosting. While originally a consumer-oriented platform, Vimeo acquired the Livestream streaming service in 2017 and incorporated it into a service focusing on professional and enterprise customers. While Vimeo is up to the standard for professional-grade hosting platforms as far as features and quality, it has also emulated the high price structure of enterprise products. Additionally, it takes a significant bite out of your monetization.

Brightcove

Brightcove’s enterprise video suite seems most geared toward internal video communication, but it also encompasses enterprise video hosting, live event streaming, video marketing, and other services. Pros to Brightcove are its secure video hosting platform, HD streaming, and user-friendly CMS. Cons include a pricing scheme that is not transparent, and limited support except for the highest-end plans.

Wistia

Wistia provides secure video hosting on a solid VOD-only platform. Due to its specialized nature, it’s very good at what it does, which is video marketing, but it doesn’t include many features offered by other VOD platforms. Wistia does provide some innovative and unique features such as its project organizational structure and powerful analytics tools. If you are laser-focused on marketing videos, Wistia’s advantages may overshadow its limitations.

IBM Cloud Video

IBM Cloud Video is a secure video hosting and CMS platform from an established and well-known name in the technology industry. It provides enterprise solutions for end-to-end streaming and broadcasting including previously recorded content and live content. IBM has a reputation to live up to and is known for being a reliable platform with good customer support and to platform API access for further customization. However, like many other services, it has a downside with both a high price point and a lack of transparent pricing.

Kaltura solutions for secure video hosting

Kaltura’s platform offers strong secure video hosting features across all our products. Where security and privacy are concerned, a range of authentication and authorization options are available, including single-sign-on (SSO) support. The Kaltura SaaS platform supports two-factor authentication and encrypts data at rest with AES-256 encryption. It’s deployed in AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon’s worldwide cloud computing resources, with VPC security provided by AWS security groups. The VPC acts as a virtual firewall on every Kaltura instance and controls inbound and outbound traffic. We additionally offer robust storage and hosting services operating from state-of-the-art data centers with high stability, redundancy, and security levels.

All Kaltura solutions, from our Enterprise Video Portal to Virtual Events Platform and Virtual Town Halls and Live Events offer secure video hosting at any scale and keep your sensitive content protected. Keeping your data, reputation, and staff safe is always a priority!

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, it should be obvious by now that free consumer platforms will not come with adequate customizable tools and features to keep your content secure online. A secure video hosting solution is necessary to give you what you need to protect and monetize content. Be sure to put some thought into your selection, and maybe take a few trial runs of the products. Remember the “best” secure video hosting solution is the one that fits your business or organization most closely!