Making the move to OTT is a significant transition, but it’s also the next logical step for pretty much any video content owner who wants to ensure flexibility, autonomous business ownership, cross platform reach, access to valuable data and analytics, and the opportunity to streamline workflow for business management.

The OTT industry isn’t new but it’s growing fast. Audiences everywhere are paying premium prices for access to niche content OTT services. There’s still plenty of room for your offering.

Going OTT lets you capitalize on opportunities that aren’t really available with cable, such as:

OTT enables creators and content owners to reach their audiences directly and start a conversation with viewers.

It’s your business, and there are no middlemen. This means that you own the data AND all revenue goes directly to your bank account.

You have the flexibility to customize your apps and brand your content the way you see fit.

You have the ability to distribute your content to the destinations of your choice while maximizing revenue with your monetization model of choice

The second big decision on the docket is how you will manage your OTT video content. You can either go with a free service like YouTube, construct your own DIY solution, or go with a video platform like Zype.

Though each solution has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, a video platform will provide all of the tools required to run an OTT service. A video platform is not as costly and complicated as going with a DIY solution, and unlike free services, a video platform lets you retain full creative and monetary control.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how a video platform can enhance the advantages of going OTT.

Perhaps one of the biggest reasons to go OTT is the flexibility it offers. As a content owner, it’s important that you have the ability to change your business as your audience evolves.

With the Zype video platform, you can expand your content library, change your monetization policy, add new features or even create a new app with the click of just a few buttons.

Control Your Assets with Cross-Platform Functionality

With a video distribution platform for OTT, all your video assets are under your control on your own branded site and apps. They are stored on a cloud-based system where only you have access to them. You can organize, distribute, and promote them however you want and monetize however you wish.

Zype customers like Kin Community, The Film Detective and StarTalk All-Access distribute to three or more destinations, while some other customers choose to publish only to their website or a single streaming destination. You decide where you publish your content.

However, distributing your content to multiple endpoints ( an OTT endpoint can be a mobile device, website, smart TV or streaming device) means that each endpoint needs to be kept up to date and they all need to function simultaneously at any given time. And that’s precisely the advantage of why you want to use a video platform. With Zype, your video platform is a central hub from which you can synchronize the distribution of multiple video assets to multiple destinations from a single centralized dashboard.

Another advantage to using a single video platform for OTT is that there are tools available to create a similar experience on any device with your own customized design and user interface. This allows you to create a unified brand experience across OTT that your audience will find familiar and recognizable anywhere they go to watch your content. You can customize the look and feel of your app to truly create your brand with a “signature look.”

Havoc TV puts out content rooted in skate, surf, and music culture, and has a clean but fun look to highlight their content. Havoc TV also has a consistent look and feel across all of their destinations.

One of your major reasons for going OTT is likely because you want to maximize revenue. OTT services can be monetized by advertising, subscription or transactional models. Zype’s video platform has easy built-in ways for you to implement the best monetization policy for you and your audience. We also support mixed monetization models, so you can use any combination of SVOD, AVOD and TVOD.

Analytics and data are pivotal to a video business. Though most OTT solutions provide you with some sort of data, your video platform will likely provide you with the most detailed and accessible analytics dashboard. Data is required to build and retain audiences, take note of viewer trends/ content performance, so it should be one of the more important features you consider when choosing your OTT solution. Zype offers over 20 different metrics so you can make effective business decisions. For a more detailed look into the Zype analytics dashboard, check out this blog post.

Analytics are especially important for content that’s streamed live and streamed frequently. For Zype customers like Texan Live, data is pivotal for deciding when to stream, who to target, how to optimize subscription plans and how to market their content.

The video platform you choose can create an OTT advantage. In the fast-paced world where new OTT services are coming online daily, making smart business decisions will be crucial to your long-term success. If you want to create engaging new content, maximize your revenue, and have access to important data, an OTT solution should be the first thing you look at.

How the Right Video Platform Can Create an OTT Advantage

Earlier this month, Zype hosted a webinar to share insight into new product flows. Zype presenters included the fabulous Smith duo: Chris Smith, SVP of Product Management, and Michael Smith, Customer Success Manager. Keep reading for a brief overview on all of the awesome new Zype features.

Zype makes it easy to import videos and their metadata from several third party sources, and in the webinar we covered MRSS feeds and YouTube imports.. With a recent update, Zype now lets you customize category metadata, which is helpful if you don’t have the ability to modify the video metadata within your MRSS feeds or on these third party platforms. Say goodbye to the hassle of third party imports!

We also walked you through how to assign categories, and set their respective category values, with both MRSS and YouTube imports.

Dynamic Category Playlists and Smart Ordering

After you import these videos and assign categories, we showed you how to set up a category playlist. A category playlist is basically a dynamic playlist with the imported videos based on category tags. The category playlist feature is super important because playlists will automatically update as long as you continue to import content with category tags. Talk about efficiency!

The Smith duo also elaborated on Zype’s smart ordering feature which lets you curate your playlists by setting an order rule for the videos in a playlist. You can order playlists by title name, published date, or created date. You will always be able to come back and change the ordering rule, but it will always apply when you add more videos to the playlists. It’s just one way that Zype lets you curate your content.

Going even further, we also demonstrated how to create new playlist relationships, and how to modify playlist relationships spontaneously with our powerful enhanced playlist feature. The image above shows how “Sports”, the parent playlist, can be split into two children playlists, “Professional Sports” and “Amateur Sports.”

This all ties together, and lets Zype users pull content from Zype using a MRSS feed to submit apps to Opera TV (see the recent update announcing our integrated OTT offering with Opera TV). We walked the audience through creating an Opera app profile in the Zype platform, and gave a quick overview of the Opera Snap Submission Portal.

We know how important understanding data is, so we made a point to run through the Zype analytics dashboard. Specifically, we showcased the new consumer browser and the operated system analytics, which gives Zype users insights into what types of browsers your viewers are watching your content on and just  trends amongst your viewers. We also demonstrated how to view the same analytics at an individual level, which helps customer success efforts.

With the remaining time, the audience was able to ask questions. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the questions:

Can you give a generic overview of subtitles?

“We support both, VTT and SRT files. You can add as many languages as you want. Traditionally, the client provides the files. Or if you’re a digital broadcaster with subtitles embedded into the video tracks, we can work with that as well. We support a myriad of languages, and you can add as many as you want. There are no geographical locations limitations for we’re a world-wide player.”

How do nested playlists work with Apple TV, Roku and AFTV. If we organize playlists like this, will they show up in these destinations?

“All three are that way out of box. All push button app builders support all Zype nested playlists. The playlist structure as a whole can technically be supported by all endpoints you want to publish to.”

I like the ability to place my logo in the corner of my content. How do I do that?I

“There are two methods of doing this. One right now in the platform out of box is what we call the player logo bug. The web player allows you to pick the image and its location to put in the player. It’s part of the white labeling feature. You can also go with the player branding feature, upload an image and customize messaging.The second idea would be an overlay, like a watermark. It’s something we will take into consideration, and try to add into the platform.”

The March webinar was definitely a success and a great opportunity for current Zype customers and prospective customers to get the latest update on the Zype platform!

Categorization, Curation and Distribution: Zype Webinar Recap

New Partnership Allows Video Publishers to Distribute Content and Maximize Advertising Revenue Across Smart TVs

NEW YORK, New York (March 30, 2017) – Zype, a cloud-based video distribution service for OTT, and Opera TV, market leader in enabling the TV industry’s transition to OTT, today announced the launch of their fully-integrated, end-to-end distribution and monetization solution for video content owners to manage and maximize advertising revenue through the Opera TV Store. World Poker Tour and Shout! Factory are among the more than 20 customers included in the launch.

The integrated OTT offering allows video content owners to easily curate content in the Zype Platform, generate a Smart TV app using an Opera TV Snap formatted content feed, and publish an app on Smart TV manufacturer devices from Sony, TiVo, Hisense, Samsung (Blu-ray players), Skyworth, VESTEL, Oncorp, Changhong, Amino, Swisscom, Virgin Media and more. With Opera TV’s video distribution solution, Zype customers publishing to Opera TV can then monetize their content and get paid via this new revenue stream without having to worry about direct ad sales, ad operations, or further ad technology integrations.

“We are excited to support partners like Opera TV who understand the OTT space and are expanding their engaged and super-active customer base with innovative products like Snap,” said Ed Laczynski, Founder and CEO of Zype. “This collaboration gives our existing customers access to Opera TV’s leading suite of Smart TV products, and increases their ability to monetize and grow. We believe the Smart TV universe represents the future of streaming video, and are psyched to turn this on.”

“Combining both our leading technologies will enable us to accelerate availability of highly desired OTT video content on the biggest screen in the home to millions of consumers globally”, says Daniel Nordberg, VP Content at Opera TV. “Opera TV Snap, an industry-first, cloud based turnkey solution was designed to provide content owners with the opportunity to drive seamless distribution of on-demand and live OTT content on tens of millions of Smart TV devices powered by Opera TV software.”

“We chose Zype for their robust platform that provides us with a simple and efficient process for uploading and distributing to OTT platforms,” said Johnny McMahon, VP, WPT Studios & Executive in Charge of Production for World Poker Tour. “With the Zype and Opera TV integration, WPT content is now readily available on Smart TVs, expanding our global reach and allowing a greater audience to experience all the World Poker Tour has to offer.”

Zype currently enables over 100 content partners to distribute their owned and operated content, while Opera TV helps 1000 video publishers to reach audiences across millions of Smart TV devices.

Zype is the cloud video distribution service for OTT that makes it easy for content owners to connect directly with their audiences on every screen. With Zype, enterprise content owners and brands can own and accelerate all aspects of their video distribution pipeline. Zype provides push button app publishing, monetization, streaming, audience management, and analytics that is integrated into hundreds of OTT apps and engaged by millions of viewers every month. Launched in 2014 and headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles, Zype is the 2015 SXSW Accelerator winner in the entertainment and content technology category. For more information, visit http://www.zype.com.

Opera TV is the market leader in enabling the TV industry’s transition to OTT. The Opera TV portfolio powers rich web experiences on tens of millions of devices each year, including Smart TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, Game Consoles and chipsets for more than 60 customers. The Opera TV ecosystem spans the Opera TV Store app platform with over a thousand entertaining apps tailor-made for TV, the Opera Devices SDK (software development kit) for creating and rendering HTML5-based user interfaces including optional modules to enable HbbTV, the Opera Media Streaming Module, to manage the rapidly changing global OTT streaming requirements, and the Opera TV browser for browsing the full web on TV. Opera TV offers solutions for OEMs, pay-TV operators, broadcasters and content publishers. Visit www.opera.com/tv to learn more.

Zype and Opera TV Launch Integrated OTT Offering

Zype is keepin it fresh! Check out the latest updates to our platform:

Now you can assign category values to videos imported via MRSS feeds from directly within the Zype platform. This new feature comes in handy in situations where you may not be able to modify the source MRSS feed, but want still want to organize your imported content into category playlists. Zype supports both self-served category value media elements assigned in the MRSS feed as well as category values assigned in the new workflow.

Once your imported videos have category values assigned to them, you can quickly create powerful category playlists to automate your content curation. If you’re big on MRSS imports, category playlists, and curation, this new feature is incredibly valuable.

We are always working to make everything more efficient. Along these lines, we just added consumer emails to the player request logs so you can easily see which unique users have generated a player request. Clicking on the email address will let you view that consumer’s details page and access their full range of analytics.

Consumer Browser and Operation System Analytics

Now Zype users can view detailed reporting around consumer operating systems and browsers in the analytics dashboard. This is super useful to better understand the types of devices being used to view your content.

We have also improved the Geography and Device summary analytics reports. Now, the data is provided in a rolled up summary table, so it is easier than ever to make meaningful observations about where your content is being watched, and how it is being accessed.

What's New At Zype- March 2017

Zype customers can accept PayPal payments from their consumers as a payment method when using Braintree as the payment processor. PayPal is widely used and offers fully secure online payments, which will make your consumers feel more comfortable subscribing to your content using credit card payments online.

In order to set up PayPal as a payment option for your consumers, you must have a Braintree Merchant Account and PayPal Business Account.

The first step is to sign up for a PayPal account or log in to your existing PayPal Premier Account.

Select a business type and click Continue

Enter your business information and follow the remaining prompts

Accepting PayPal Payments through Braintree

Under Accept PayPal , enter your PayPal email address and password

Enter the URLs to your website's Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions in the fields provided

Make sure the "Use Vault flow" box is checked

Create a Subscription Plan with Braintree

Next, you will need to create a plan in your Braintree Control Panel. The plan will be used to populate information such as amount, currency, and billing cycle when a new subscription is created. Make sure to configure the plan with the same monetization settings you wish to use in Zype’s Make Money section.

Click on the Gear at the top of the Zype Dashboard and select Settings from the dropdown menu.

Navigate to the Monetization tab. Make sure to enter your Merchant ID and key pair under the Braintree Settings section to accept payments for plans using Braintree, and select Braintree as your Default Payment Type.

Confirming Your Subscription Plan in Zype

If you have not created a subscription plan in Zype, visit our help center article for detailed instructions on how to create a subscription plan.

If a subscription has already been created, please confirm that the Braintree ID has been entered for this plan, the default cost, billing cycle and billing date match up with the Braintree plan you set up earlier in this post and that the plan is active in Zype.

After setting up the PayPal integration through Braintree, your consumers will have the option to pay for subscriptions, purchases, or rentals through Zype using their personal PayPal account. This creates a simple, seamless, payment flow for your clients. Visit our Help Center for full setup instructions.

You’ve created a subscription plan, updated your monetization settings and tested the subscription. Now how do you launch your media empire using a video paywall and the subscription you created on your website? Check out these three steps to quickly create a video paywall.

Accept Secure Video Payments with Braintree and PayPal Integration

Faced with changing consumer habits, Hollywood studios are preparing to change the long standing tradition of movies being unavailable on DVD and digital platforms until at least 90 days after they are released on the big screen nationwide.

The landscape has changed and consumers can stream from any device including web, mobile, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire and smart TVs and at their convenience. Movie companies and studios are anxious to explore these new revenue streams as the global box-office growth becomes stagnant, rising just 1% last year.

"Major studios and exhibitors are trying to work out how to respond to consumer desires so they can remain competitive," said Doug Belgrad, a former president of Sony Pictures Entertainment's motion picture group who runs an independent film and television company.

According to the Wall Street Journal, theater owners and Hollywood studios are finally discussing a compromise. What’s likely to come from these discussions is a home release less than 45 days after the movie debuts on the big screen. Viewers will likely pay a costly price to watch these films on VOD shortly after theatrical debut.

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How the Right Video Platform Can Create an OTT Advantage

Categorization, Curation and Distribution: Zype Webinar Recap

Zype and Opera TV Launch Integrated OTT Offering

What's New At Zype- March 2017

Accept Secure Video Payments with Braintree and PayPal Integration

Hollywood Studios Seek New Revenue Streams

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