Benedicte Guichard | Thu Mar 03 2016 CET | Live pay-per-view

As more and more people migrate to VoD and online streaming services, there have never been so many opportunities for video publishing success – but much like any popular medium, the competition is fierce.

Flawless quality of experience is standard

These days, there’s so much choice available to consumers that slapping a few videos up on the web for a nominal fee simply isn’t good enough; besides offering incredible content, video publishers also need to offer a flawless user experience in order to yield real success.

Imagine sitting down on your sofa after a long day on the grind, beer (or soft drink) in hand, ready to chow down on some serious entertainment, but being swiftly stopped in your tracks by a frustrating interface or poor buffer rate. Chances are you’d turn to another service to get your fix of evening entertainment. In today’s world, people will not hang around if you don’t make things easy for them – which is the main reason why user experience is the key to video publishing success.

In a technical sense, here’s something to consider when it comes to measuring video quality from a viewer’s perspective… Third-party video applications that run over-the-top (OTT) of a communications service provider’s (CSP) transport layer are the dominant drivers of bandwidth on the web.

The popularity of such video is responsible for two main shifts in consumer behaviour: higher peak bandwidth levels and heightened subscriber sensitivity to video quality.

During periods of peak utilization, resources on the network are more susceptible to congestion; from a viewer’s perspective, congestion can swiftly manifest itself as degradation in video streaming quality. Therefore, measuring the customer’s quality of experience (QoE) requires measurement of video QoE.

So it’s safe to say that keeping an eye on video streaming quality is a large part of the user experience pie. According to a survey by JW player, here are the elements of video streaming quality most important to businesses in 2016:

As you can see, user completes as a percentage of plays is deemed most important, whereas user exits as a percentage of plays is considered less important. That said: every single element in this chart should be carefully considered in order to create a well-rounded user experience.

Live streaming delays affect mobile viewers

Another key to ensuring exceptional quality for consumers is making sure your interface is optimised for all mediums, including mobile devices.

According to a recent study by Ericsson, time-to-content delays followed by an additional pause in video playout lead to a jump in mobile users’ stress levels. And vice verse, a delay-free experience triggers a positive emotional response and increases brand engagement.

Wrap-up:

Taking all of these things into account, it’s plain to see the endless potential for video publishing success in 2016 and beyond (the facts don’t lie) – but in order to really thrive, it’s essential to measure consumer behaviour to ensure that your user experience is top notch, because in this fast paced content devouring society, those who make life easy for their viewer’s will win the big fight.

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