Brightcove Announces Support for WebM Video Format for Adobe Flash & HTML5

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightcove, the leading online video platform, today announced plans to support WebM, an open Web media project and the open sourcing of the VP8 video codec, unveiled at the Google I/O developer conference. Brightcove will provide H.264 and WebM as standard encoding options for Adobe® Flash and HTML5 video experiences to its customer base of more than 1,500 media publishers worldwide. Brightcove's support for WebM will reduce the cost and complexity of delivering high quality experiences across an increasingly diverse landscape of Web browsers, rich media platforms, operating systems, and mobile devices.

"Brightcove is committed to helping our customers cope with the complexity of consistently delivering full-featured, high quality video experiences across browsers on the desktop, mobile devices and Internet-connected TVs," said David Mendels, Brightcove president and chief operating officer. "In supporting de facto Web standards like Adobe Flash and emerging open standards like HTML5 and codecs like WebM, we're providing organizations around the world with a full range of options for operating flexible, successful online video businesses."

"A key factor in the Web's success is that its core technologies are open and freely implementable," said Sundar Pichai, vice president of Product Management at Google. "Video is fundamental to the Web experience, so developers and content publishers need an open video format option. Brightcove's commitment to bring WebM support to its online video platform makes this open, Web-optimized video format accessible to leading content publishers."

Brightcove joins other Web technology leaders, including Mozilla, Opera Software, and Adobe, in bringing support for WebM to a wide range of desktops and devices. 

"Adobe is focused on enabling developers and content publishers to deliver rich online video content and applications regardless of the device, browser or platform," said Ricky Liversidge, vice president, product marketing, Flash Platform at Adobe. "Together with Brightcove, we are pleased to support the WebM project to provide consumers with seamless access to high quality video content and experiences on all of their Internet-connected devices."

Brightcove customers will be able to deliver video simultaneously in both H.264 and WebM formats to Adobe Flash and HTML5 video experiences and to native apps running on mobile, tablet and connected TV devices. In the future, Brightcove will automatically generate both H.264 and WebM renditions of all video content uploaded to the Brightcove service, enabling customers to insert a single embed code into their websites that will detect the capabilities of the device and browser environment and render the best possible experience with maximum functionality. This ensures that Brightcove customers will enjoy the broadest possible reach for their video content, including Web browsers, Apple devices, connected televisions, and other devices without incurring the cost and complexity of manually managing multiple formats and playback experiences. 

Brightcove customer, The New York Times, which continues to set the standard for the media industry in leveraging new standards and formats, will be testing Google WebM in the future. The Times produces more than 100 original videos per month, featuring breaking news and analysis, as well as enterprise and investigative reporting by Times journalists around the world. The Times Company is an equity investor in Brightcove.

Brightcove's delivery system is built around Flash and has grown to support emerging standards such as H.264 and HTML5. Brightcove's support for WebM is the latest in a series of product innovations that deliver on the company's vision of empowering organizations to easily distribute high quality video across any screen. Earlier this year, Brightcove announced the Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a framework for publishing and delivering high quality, interactive and advertising-supported Web video experiences for HTML5-compatible devices and platforms, including the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

About Brightcove

Brightcove is a cloud-based online video platform. Media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide use Brightcove to publish and distribute video on the Web. Founded in 2004, Brightcove has offices across North America, Europe and Asia and customers in 45 countries. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.

SOURCE Brightcove