What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (2024)

In 2017 the expectation was that, by 2021, 17,000 hours worth of video content will cross the web every second. Currently, more than 500 hours of video content per minute were uploaded to YouTube in May 2019. That equates to 30 000 hours of video per hour. And, according to recent video stats, about 90% of companies use video as a part of their marketing strategy and many of these use live video marketing to drive traffic and engagement.

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (1)

There’s little doubt that video will become an indispensable part of every organization. After all, it’s an effective medium for communication, marketing, collaboration, etc.

Even back in 2016, companies were streaming more than 16 hours of video per worker, per month. And this number has only increased ever since, with the global enterprise video market expected to reach $25.6 billion in 2025.

This has led to a growing interest in the field of video content management systems (video CMS) as enterprises look for better ways to manage and organize their databases.

But what is a video CMS? And how do you choose the right system for your organization?

Let’s find out.

What Is A Video CMS?

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (2)

According to Gartner, a video content management system, or CMS for short, is:

"Software, appliances, or software-as-a-service (SaaS) intended to manage and facilitate the delivery of one-to-any, on-demand video across internet protocols.”

Essentially, this is an application designed to help users create, modify and publish video content. It includes a wide range of features — from safeguarding confidential videos to private live streaming for management.

Much like enterprise content management and web content management systems, a video CMS helps integrate the entire organization’s video content in a single location.

Depending on the software you choose the features may include any or all of the following:

  • Organize, categorize, store and embed videos with ease.
  • Accommodate raw and edited files in a central location where you can see key info about them.
  • Use different formats to sort files including the type of equipment used to record, file size, and topic.
  • Advanced file management for video that labels and stores the files to ensure that you will always find your video without any difficulty.
  • A fast and effective search function where you simply type in a keyword and the program shows you a list of files. This list will not only show files with the typed keyword but also files with a combination of terms related to your keyword.

Why Do You Need A Video CMS?

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (3)

Video is a major component of every organization’s internal and external communication strategy. A growing need, coupled with the increasing quantity of video content, means that companies are faced with new challenges.

Here are some obstacles that a CMS application can help you overcome:

Challenge: Enterprises need to upload, publish and share videos across multiple channels. Managing and organizing all of the elements involved becomes a strenuous and time-consuming task.

Solution: The CMS acts as a video database management system that enables you to control and manage all of your content from a single dashboard.

Challenge: Enterprise videos can range from training seminars to executive meetings that require high-quality footage. This high-quality footage requires you to upload a big file that can take up quite a lot of your limited web hosting space.

Solution: A video CMS can host large video files easily without affecting the resolution.

Challenge: Playback and streaming issues can hurt your engagement rates and disrupt the entire user experience.

Solution: With a high-quality video management system, you know this is taken care of. For example, StreamingVideoProvider’s video player automatically optimizes delivery across different devices and internet speeds. This is known as Adaptive Bitrate Streaming and it ensures a fully responsive playback experience that keeps the user involved.

Why YouTube Isn’t A Good Video CMS Choice?

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (4)

When deciding on the best video CMS for your organization, YouTube is one of the first options that come to mind.

However, it’s better to use YouTube as a video-sharing platform rather than a video CMS. Here’s a list of reasons why you should opt for a professional platform, instead of YouTube:

  • Search Options: Without a centralized server, it can be difficult to search and trace videos. YouTube search options offer subpar performance compared to specialized CMS that can search based on any word spoken or shown in the video.
  • User Experience: Modern video CMS provide an uninterrupted, immersive experience by optimizing playback according to each user’s connection.
  • Security: With a professional video CMS, you can control who can view your videos, limit access to confidential data and easily regulate your multimedia database. A few things that are not possible with YouTube.

How To Choose A Video CMS For Your Company

Once you’ve decided to make the switch to a professional content management system, it’s time to consider certain factors.

Here is what you should keep in mind.

☑ Security

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (5)

Not every video is recorded for the public eye. Privacy and security are essential to give you the ability to host product demos, stream board meetings, and other corporate video content.

The level of security that a video CMS offers is crucial when you need to choose the platform for your organization. Leading providers offer the 128-bit AES HLS encryption that protects your content from illegal downloads. They also offer advanced video restrictions (based on location or IP network) to safeguard against unauthorized access.

☑ Cataloging

How do you find the podcast you’re looking for between the hundreds of thousands of videos that are present in your database? A good video CMS should allow you to organize your video content through tags, metadata, and categories.

Additionally, some systems provide users with the option to create playlist folders for easy navigation. This helps the user and the administrators to easily manage thousands of videos without confusion.

☑ Search Features

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (6)

As companies produce more videos it becomes increasingly difficult to manage and organize a multimedia database for the business. This can easily be resolved with a dedicated video CMS.

Superior quality management systems allow users to perform a search based on categories, tags, and other metadata. So you can find that one internal training your team recorded last year even if you can’t remember what exactly the topic was!

☑ Sharing Features

Your enterprise’s video management system should offer effective sharing options that make sharing easy between offices and with the public.

Popular CMS programs allow you to share a video by using a private link. With this feature, you can easily restrict access and ensure that the content is only seen by the users whom it’s meant for.

☑ Content Delivery Network (CDN)

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (7)

Modern-day organizations have stakeholders spread across the globe. And with the rise of remote working, businesses require their employees to access content, attend webinars and participate in meetings from all around the world.

This is where video content delivery systems and networks come in. An ideal management system should have a video content delivery network (CDN) that ensures your employees can access the system, wherever they may be.

☑ Web Publishing Features

Your video CMS should make it practical and easy to host public videos for clients, leads, and other stakeholders.

Web publishing features, such as the option to host both limited-access and public videos, are an extremely important feature of your CMS.

For example, your video platform of choice should be able to act as a “WordPress video CMS”. It should specifically allow you to publish your customer-facing video content on any website whether it’s custom-coded or built on top of WordPress.

☑ Tools to Upload in a Batch

If you’re creating multiple videos, it can take a long time to upload and publish individual video files one by one.

Batch uploading tools are a nifty feature that enables you to upload multiple video files into your CMS. This saves time because it allows you to prepare the videos and upload a complete batch at once. But it also saves money because it reduces the amount of bandwidth needed to process every file.

The best video CMS platforms on the market offer some of the following batch uploading tools:

  • File transfer protocol, also known as FTP. This protocol allows for fast and secure video uploads from a remote or local server where you store your videos.
  • A bulk upload tool that allows you to select a set of video files to upload at the same time. It usually has an extra feature that will automatically pause and resume the download, in case you are disconnected from the internet. This will spare you a lot of frustration, especially if you’re working with unstable connections.
  • Some platforms can integrate with Dropbox. This feature allows you to drag and drop your selected files into a dedicated Dropbox folder. You don’t even have to open a web browser, the files are available on the CMS.
  • Another feature offered by some platforms is video library migration. If you already have a boatload full of videos and recently discovered that you need a CMS, this is the feature for you. A video library migration tool will let you transfer your files in bulk from the platform where you’ve hosted them until now. This will save you a lot of time.

☑ Live Streaming

From seminars to podcasts and meetings to demonstrations, everything is accomplished over the internet. With live streaming expected to reach $149 billion in market value by 2026, organizations are increasingly leveraging live video to enhance their reach.

Keeping this in mind, your preferred video management platform needs to provide live streaming capabilities with added security measures. You should be able to protect your media and limit access if needed. For example, you may use such a platform to live stream your all-hands meeting, limiting access only to your employees. And you may also use it to live stream a paid conference meant to reach everyone on the web. Both should be possible with a good video CMS.

☑ Monetization Capability

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (8)

The rapid pace at which video has emerged as the most dominant content means that organizations may soon be selling tickets for live events, or set up pay per view to access high-quality content files.

Your CMS platform should allow you to monetize your videos. If this isn’t the case, you may be pushed to migrate your entire database once you need this feature. And, chances are you will need it.

It’s an important aspect of organizational planning to keep an eye out for the future. Your CMS platform should not be an exception to that.

☑ Encoding Features

You may know that videos are a series of images that run across the screen. But it’s running at a speed that lets your eyes see it as a video. These images are referred to as RAW footage. For your audience to be able to stream a video over the internet the RAW footage need to be digitized. This process is called encoding. A video encoder compresses the images into a fluid video.

Real-time encoding on your CMS will digitize your video directly from your camera, so you’ll be able to immediately stream your videos live. Without this feature, your viewers may need to wait for the video to buffer during the live stream.

☑ Transcoding Features

A video camera films a video in a certain format and size. This format isn’t always accessible with different devices. A lot of times, this is the perfect format to view it on a desktop computer, but not on a tablet or mobile phone. For a video to be viewable on any device, it needs to be transcoded.

Top-of-the-line CMS platforms usually offer a built-in transcoding feature. This will automatically convert the files that you upload to several popular formats such as MP4. These formats will allow the viewer to watch your videos on any device.

Conclusion

The rise of video as an essential aspect of communication and marketing is unsurprising if you look at its potential. As organizations continue to optimize their video strategy, integrating a professional video CMS, like StreamingVideoProvider, should be a top priority.

As a comprehensive platform, StreamingVideoProvider allows users to access military-grade security, cataloging, and search features. Additionally, its proven ability as a live streaming medium means that sharing and monetizing your video is never an issue.

In short, with a professional video CMS like Streaming VideoProvider, you can make the most of your video database.

References & Further Reading

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (9)

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (10)

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (11)

DON’T MISS OUT

Get updates on new articles, webinars and other opportunities:

Video CMS

The 5 Steps of a Highly Effective Video Production Workflow The right video production workflow can save you tons of time. Here's how to create one.

May 24, 2022

Video CMS

Video Playlists, Webcast Slides, Live Chat and Other Widgets Publish your videos using streaming video player with playlists. We offer wide range of web video widgets so you can create your own video playlists using video players, playlists, live chat, list controls etc.

Mar 8, 2016

Video CMS

Keep Your Copyrights For Your Videos and Live Streaming Broadcasts Keeping your video content copyrights is very important if you own a premium content. Unlike companies such as YouTube, where they take your copyrights, StreamingVideoProvider does not leaving you full owner of your uploaded videos.

Oct 22, 2014

What Is A Video CMS? (And How To Choose One) (2024)

FAQs

What is a video CMS? ›

A video content management system, or video CMS, is purpose-built to enable organizations to centralize, manage, and deliver video securely online. With Panopto's industry-leading video CMS, it's easy for anyone in your organization to find and stream all of your video assets online, from anywhere in the world.

How to decide which CMS to use? ›

Critical factors to consider when choosing a CMS
  1. Customers are demanding personalized experiences. ...
  2. Globalization means you need content for multiple languages and countries. ...
  3. Technology is constantly changing and becoming more complex. ...
  4. Understanding data is key to connecting with customers.

What is CMS and how do you use it? ›

A content management system helps you create, manage, and publish content on the web. It also helps keep content organized and accessible so it can be used and repurposed effectively. There are various kinds of content management systems available—from cloud-based to a headless CMS—to meet every audience need.

What is CMS for dummies? ›

Simplifies Content Creation & Publishing

CMSs are user-friendly platforms that allow non-technical users to create, format, and publish articles, blog posts, and other website content. One user can create content while another user can edit, preview, and publish it.

What is CMS in video surveillance? ›

In Surveillance, the terms CMS (Central Management System) and VMS (Video Management System) are frequently used, often interchangeably. However, these two technologies serve distinct roles in the realm of surveillance management.

What does CMS mean on a camera? ›

Camera-monitor system (CMS) means a device for indirect vision as defined in paragraph 2.1., where the field of vision is obtained by means of a camera-monitor combination as defined in paragraphs 2.1.

When should you not use a CMS? ›

A lot of code is being held redundantly on the server, and frequent security updates may become more of a nuisance than they should be... if they aren't forgotten about completely, that is. Websites which don't require the power of a content management system are probably best off not using one.

What is the most common type of CMS? ›

WordPress is the most popular and widely used CMS on the market used by 43.2% of all websites. WordPress offers an open-source, free-to-use web hosting platform.

How do I know what CMS I have? ›

The CMS used on a website can be determined by looking at the URL that leads to the website's admin panel. For example, if adding /wp-admin/ to a domain name in the URL bar, this is WordPress that brings you to a page with a login and password entry window.

What is an CMS example? ›

What are some examples of a CMS? While there are hundreds of types of CMS platforms each with their own unique functionality, some of the best and most popular CMS providers are: Wordpress. Drupal.

What is the main purpose of the CMS? ›

CMS's mission is to provide effective health care coverage and promote quality care for people with Medicare. The agency makes sure its contractors and state agencies properly administer Medicare.

Who needs a CMS? ›

If you plan to share frequent posts, or even periodic updates about your products and services, a content management system makes publishing new pages and editing existing ones a cinch. When choosing a CMS, you'll want to go with one that is able to scale with you as your business website grows.

Why do you need CMS? ›

Using a CMS, you can effortlessly manage your content, such as text, images and videos, so they remain fresh and relevant to your customers. You don't need a web designer to tweak things like post a blog, update an image or even update the site menu.

What is the full meaning of CMS? ›

CMS stands for content management system. CMS is computer software or an application that uses a database to manage all content, and it can be used when developing a website. A CMS can therefore be used to update content and/or your website structure.

What is CMS Basic? ›

A content management system, or CMS, is a digital platform that enables users to construct and oversee digital properties such as websites and apps. It acts as a central hub for content stores while also allowing multiple team members to create, modify, and publish content.

What does CMS mean media? ›

A content management system (CMS) is a software application that lets users create, edit, collaborate on, publish and store digital content. CMSes are typically used for enterprise content management (ECM) and web content management (WCM).

What does CMS stand for in film? ›

Video CMS – Video Content Management System is an application that organizes and manages your media files in a distribution environment. MAM – Media Asset Management is an application that organizes and manages your media files in a production environment. CDN – Content Delivery Network.

What is the meaning of CMS format? ›

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is the preferred formatting and style guidelines used by the disciplines of history, philosophy, religion, and the arts. This quick reference guide focuses on how to format the title page, the notes, and bibliography citations in Chicago Manual Style 17 edition.

What does CMS stand for digital? ›

CMS stands for content management system. CMS is computer software or an application that uses a database to manage all content, and it can be used when developing a website. A CMS can therefore be used to update content and/or your website structure.

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Rob Wisoky

Last Updated:

Views: 5441

Rating: 4.8 / 5 (68 voted)

Reviews: 91% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Rob Wisoky

Birthday: 1994-09-30

Address: 5789 Michel Vista, West Domenic, OR 80464-9452

Phone: +97313824072371

Job: Education Orchestrator

Hobby: Lockpicking, Crocheting, Baton twirling, Video gaming, Jogging, Whittling, Model building

Introduction: My name is Rob Wisoky, I am a smiling, helpful, encouraging, zealous, energetic, faithful, fantastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.