Hosting videos in China is one of the rising needs of the time. Chinese video viewers rose from 433 million in 2014 to 927 million in 2020.
With a population of 1.4 billion people – China takes the crown of the world’s most populous country. It is also a booming business hub – one that most businesses want to tap into. As of December 2020, China alone has 900 million internet users. Organizations are rapidly moving towards digitization, with 63% adopting cloud-based innovation for automation and acceleration in product development.
With government controls and stringent compliances in place, streaming videos (even private, enterprise-grade videos) is no easy feat. Whether you want to host videos in China or deliver them from another part of the world, you will face several obstacles that you alone will not be able to tackle. You require the expertise of an enterprise video platform that supports China video hosting. But you can’t just choose any ordinary video platform claiming to do this. The platform must also be well-equipped to handle all your video challenges. Without automating your video use cases, delivering video will be of no use.
This blog piece goes over the main challenges faced while hosting videos in China and compares the 5 best enterprise video platforms that will allow you to deliver your videos in China.
Obstacles To Overcome for Hosting Videos in China
With stringent restrictions and regulations in place, streaming videos to the Chinese audience has become a massive ordeal. Let’s go over the key challenges faced by companies trying to host videos in China:
The Great Firewall – China’s Stringent Internet Censorship System
The Great Firewall refers to China’s online censorship system, formally known as the Golden Shield Project. The system was implemented in 2006. It utilizes sophisticated technology to block a variety of foreign content sources, including foreign user-generated content sources like YouTube and Vimeo. The system bans anything considered to be offensive as well as slows down the internet speed. It even goes as far as banning foreigners from live streaming in the country.
CDN’s Presence Inside Mainland China vs. Outside Mainland China
CDN Providers that are not licensed in China are not allowed to set up their “Points of Presence” (PoPs) in Mainland China. Hence, they have POPs located in nearby regions like Hong Kong or Korea. However, this does just doesn’t cut it. The slower internet connection in the region and these far-off PoPs lead to low-quality, poor content delivery to the Chinese internet users. It is best to work with CDN providers licensed in China with POPs located in the Chinese Mainland.
Finding an End-to-End Enterprise Video Platform that Supports China Video Hosting
Does your organization want to privately host videos to a restricted group of people in China? Or maybe you want to publicly stream to the entire Chinese market. Whatever the purpose, it will be vastly difficult to achieve unless you opt for a video hosting platform that is allowed to stream in China.
Top 5 Video Platforms for China Video Hosting
Here is a list of the top 5 video platforms for video hosting in China:
VIDIZMO
VIDIZMO is a Microsoft-Gold partner and Gartner-recognized enterprise video platform with flexible deployment options available in Azure, AWS, any other cloud of choice, on-premise, as a hybrid model or a SaaS application.
This easy-to-use enterprise video content management system is made to handle all your enterprise-grade use cases while allowing you to build a YouTube-like corporate video portal. It supports secure live and on-demand video streaming for both internal and external audiences. The platform provides end-to-end video management capabilities, including:
- automatic transcoding
- global content delivery
- authentication and access management through SSO and IAM integration
- role-based access controls
- content segregation
- limited sharing
- AI-powered search capabilities for finding videos in seconds
- out-of-the-box and custom integrations
- actionable visual insights through analytics reports
- and various other features
How to Host Videos in China Using VIDIZMO?
VIDIZMO supports video hosting in China through 2 methods:
- Video Stored and Hosted in China Delivered to the Chinese Internet Users: You can deploy VIDIZMO in the Azure China datacenter to locally store, host and deliver your videos to the local audience. Azure China is independently operated by 21Vianet with physical instance located in the country. It is a highly trust commercial cloud service in China with a world-class data privacy environment that meets all the Chinese government compliance requirements.
- Videos Stored Outside China and Delivered to Chinese Internet Users: If your goal is to stream content from outside China to the Chinese audience, you could also simply utilize VIDIZMO’s support for Azure CDN China to deliver content to China. Azure CDN China partners with different local providers to utilize POPs located in China for high-quality content delivery to Chinese internet users. You must subscribe to Azure CDN China separately and acquire an ICP license for your website in order to deliver your content within China.
Note: Your organization must be a legal entity in China to utilize either of these options.
Why Should You Opt for This Platform?
VIDIZMO has a customer-first philosophy and has been designed to cater to both private and public enterprise video use cases. Fortune 500 companies like Louis Vuitton have trusted VIDIZMO to deliver content in China.
LV utilized its Azure China subscription to host private on-demand videos to the Chinese viewers, alongside viewers in the entire APAC region. VIDIZMO has also been trusted globally by commercial and government customers alike, serving various use cases, including corporate communications, training & learning, marketing & sales, live events, video archival, and knowledge management.
With audit logs, end-to-end encryption, and granular access & sharing controls, the platform provides air-tight security and coverage of a wide range of compliances. The AI-powered platform also ensures that you do not operate in a silo. The flexible range of out-of-the-box and custom integrations ensures connectivity with your existing IT and business systems.
Louis Vuitton, Enabled By VIDIZMO, Streamed Private Content To Select Buyers Across APAC region (including China) - Read More On This Story
Wowza
Wowza media systems is a broadcasting solution. It is best known for its video streaming engine that supports live and on-demand video streaming, both on-premise and in the cloud.
How to Host Videos in China Using Wowza?
Wowza streaming engine allows you to utilize Alibaba Cloud CDN to support video delivery in China.
Why Should You Opt for This Platform?
The solution is specialized in live streaming, which it promotes the most. Plus, it has complex workflows that require technical expertise at hand. It is best to utilize this solution as part of any other platform. It does not provide you an easy-to-use YouTube-like video portal to manage all your video content from a central location. You have to set up the complex workflow for each new live stream and push the stream to a player for playback. This is especially troublesome if you want to set up a private streaming platform with authentication and security controls in place.
Panopto
This is an education-focused enterprise video platform serving both live and on-demand use cases. The platform started out as a screen recording tool for lecture capture, a service it still offers for free. Hence, it is best known for its course creation and lecture capture tools. It is also better geared towards internal streaming with limited branding options and security capabilities.
How to Host Videos in China Using Panopto?
Panopto utilizes Amazon Cloudfront as CDN for content delivery in China. However, it can be an inconsistent experience with a slower load time due to the limitations of this CDN.
Why Should You Opt for This Platform?
Panopto best works as an e-learning platform, as seen by its customer list mostly filled with educational institutions. Its capabilities are, hence, designed to serve this vertical with the lecture capture tools, LMS integrations, and a simple, internal interface with fewer branding options. The platform is hard to customize and lacks in terms of security capabilities, including DRM support and password-protection for videos.
IBM Cloud Video
IBM Cloud Video is a basic video platform, recently established after IBM acquired the live streaming service, uStream, in 2016. The platform does provide on-demand streaming as well. However, it is designed to serve content to external audiences. Hence, it lacks in terms of secure internal streaming for a limited group of people.
How to Host Videos in China Using IBM Cloud Video?
IBM Cloud Video supports content delivery in China through Akamai China CDN. Akamai China is powered by a 3rd party called China Net Center.
Why Should You Opt for This Platform?
If you are on the lookout for a well-known solution to create a public portal for an external audience, then IBM Video Cloud would fit your needs just right. It is designed as a simple platform with very basic functionalities for companies with minimal video needs. This is why it is very restricted in terms of security and compliance offerings; no DRM support, no audit logs, no custom retention period, etc.
Dacast
Dacast promotes itself as a live streaming solution with a minimal on-demand video streaming offering. Hence, it best serves external monetized live stream use cases. The platform lacks in terms of secure internal video streaming for a private audience. Out of all the solutions mentioned in this list, Dacast is the most limited in terms of its security and compliance offerings.
How to Host Videos in China Using Dacast?
Dacast supports content delivery in China with the help of Akamai, Limelight and a few other CDNs.
Why Should You Opt for This Platform?
The entire emphasis of the platform is to serve external live streaming use cases. The security capabilities lack SSO integration, audit trails, custom retention policy, etc. More so, the platform lacks many other advanced video management capabilities like Zoom recording management (only Zoom live integration is possible), LMS integration, SCORM support, interactivity features, etc. Hence, choose this platform if you are on the lookout for a simple external live streaming platform.
Wrapping Up
To sum it up, China is a market that businesses can dare not ignore. It is critical to opt for an enterprise video platform that supports video hosting in China. The list compares the main options you have. Critically analyze your organization’s use case and choose a video platform that best serves that use case.
Suppose you are on the lookout for a platform that could flexibly cater to multiple use cases and automated management of all your video content. In that case, VIDIZMO is the best solution in the market.
Have any queries to ask? Contact VIDIZMO’s team today to learn more. Or better yet, experience the advanced video streaming capabilities firsthand through the free trial.
