Brightcove Shuts the Door on Free Access
Brightcove will fully shut down its free service and force all its users to upgrade to its new Brightcove 3 platform by Dec. 17, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company said in an email to users tonight. Users who do not upgrade will see their content deleted.
Brightcove, which has a record of changing its strategy, had previously shut its paid video offering, closed its consumer site, and dropped internal ad sales.
Here’s the key portion of the email. What’s frustrating is Brightcove does not publicly disclose what even the very basic version of its service costs. But there’s an FAQ with other information.
Regretfully, we’ve decided to discontinue the Brightcove Network (the free version of our service). The discontinuation of the free Brightcove Network accounts will not affect Brightcove platform accounts that customers have paid to use.
On December 17, 2008, we will be shutting down Brightcove Network accounts that have not been upgraded to paid Brightcove platform accounts. At the same time, we will be shutting down the Brightcove.TV website (which is separate from the corporate Brightcove website).
Until December 17, 2008, your Brightcove Network account will remain fully functional; the players that you have published will continue to operate; and you can keep using the Brightcove Console as you have been using it to date. At the same time, we are giving you a free trial of Brightcove 3.
Brightcove has raised some $90 million in funding from investors including Accel Partners, General Catalyst Partners, AOL, Allen & Company, Maverick Capital, Brookside Capital, AllianceBernstein, The New York Times Company, Transcosmos, Dentsu, J-Stream, and Cyber Communications.
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Looks like their strategy is move to the top tier customer base. That’s where the money is ….
Akash on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm - Permalink
When they first began, Brightcove allowed people to present video like the pros. Now, there’s no lack of tools to do so. In fact, they took a long time to catch up in ergonomics and ease of use.
randulo on November 4th, 2008 at 3:22 am - Permalink
[...] pulls the Web 2.0 version of the old switcheroo: It’s no longer offering free service, according to New TeeVee. In an email to users sent last night, Brightcove states: “On December 17, [...]
Contentinople - Eve Bergazyn - News Bits: Battening the Hatches on November 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am - Permalink
There’s always Fliqz. It’s plug-and-play and completely customizable. And there’s a range of pricing for businesses of all sizes, including the free basic player.
John on November 4th, 2008 at 9:11 am - Permalink
[...] we learned that Brightcove plans to terminate their free network service for smaller publishers. As reported by NewTeeVee publishers have until December 17th to upgrade to Brightcove 3 or find another [...]
Special Offer to Brightcove Network Customers : Delve Networks Blog on November 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am - Permalink
Im so upset with brightcove I have a daily podcast uploaded everyday and I have over 100, Its gona suck to migrate. On another note I called brightcove and they told me if I wanted to upgrade to their basic service it would be 6,000 USD. I was like no thank you.
leo on November 4th, 2008 at 7:18 pm - Permalink
Ooyala (www.ooyala.com) is a great alternative to Brightcove. They’ve got a beautiful platform — very easy to use — with all the bells and whistles of Brightcove, and the service doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Why hasn’t anybody mentioned this yet?
Jonathan on November 4th, 2008 at 10:10 pm - Permalink
What is Ooyala’s differentiation vs. Brightcove?
Akash on November 4th, 2008 at 11:09 pm - Permalink
Leo,
I’m interested in hearing more about your situation. I work on Miro, the open source internet TV platform. As a mission based non-profit, we’re very interested in how decisions like this affect smaller and more independent producers. Feel free to hit me at: dean (a] pculture.org
Dean on November 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm - Permalink
Leo–is that right? $6,000? I assume per year?
On another note–do others here recommend Fliqz?
John Farrell on November 6th, 2008 at 9:28 am - Permalink
[...] a large provider of white label video hosting, recently announced the discontinuation of their free video hosting service. They’ll be deleting all videos/accounts that haven’t upgraded to paid hosting, before [...]
Miro - Internet TV Blog » Blog Archive » Large Video Host to Kill Their Free Service on November 6th, 2008 at 11:27 am - Permalink
John,
We’d be happy to discuss our services and pricing with you. You’ll find that we are more than capable of replacing your Brightcove solution at a fraction of the cost:
http://www.fliqz.com/aspx/packages.aspx
Kris (Fliqz employee)
888-323-5479
Kris on November 6th, 2008 at 11:46 am - Permalink
The basic package is $6k/yr with only 1T of data transfer PER YEAR - insane. The pro package starts at $2k/mo.
Jay on November 8th, 2008 at 4:07 pm - Permalink
I have been totally left in a panic. And so many video providers claim to be similar to Brightcove but aren’t.
Fliqz is NOT a fraction of the cost of Brightcove: Brightcove is, in fact, charging $6000 base price per year (I talked to a sales rep.), or $500/month. Looking at Fliqz, you’d have to pay at least $200/month to get enough streams & uploads to approximate a Brightcove player.
I can’t believe there aren’t video players out there with multiple channels, unlimited uploads & streams per month for free, etc. I’d love some advice if anyone has any.
Naomi on November 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am - Permalink
Jambo Media’s Jambo Video Network is another great free solution. Not only can you upload your clips into their free player but you can also benefit from the ability to create secondary players of your content to give to other sites, offer your content to hundreds of current Jambo Video Network publishers and create your very own video network too. It’s worth a call or email: http://www.jambovideonetwork.com
Steve Jones on November 11th, 2008 at 9:23 am - Permalink
We have over 450 half-hour episodes on Brightcove’s ad-supported network, soon to evaporate into the ether. Scrambling to find an alternative that we can afford, I found blip.tv . It’s free, or only $8/month for the “Pro” account. Quite good. Read my blurb in the Brightcove forum. ( http://www2.brightcove.com/programmer/fusetalk_enterprise/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=9&threadid=1892&enterthread=y ) Watch our player at http://urbancowgirlchannel.blip.tv and see an example of an embedded (syndication) player at http://urban-cowgirl-show.thesokolows.com . For long-playing-time videos, I transcode them into flv using a program called SUPER, which lives up to its name and is free to use.
Urban Cowgirl on November 15th, 2008 at 6:50 pm - Permalink
I must say it’s really sad that brightcove is shuting down the network version. I looked all over the internet for an alternative…and most of them are not as perfect.
For those who had the free platform you can start downloading your videos as of today, if you install the video downloader. It took me about 30 minutes to download all my data….I’ll sure miss their service…but I really can’t affort 6000dollars a year now, I am not FOX or another Big company!
I am looking foward to find something close to what I had with Brightcove….hope I find it one day :(
Fred Michel on November 26th, 2008 at 7:50 pm - Permalink
After weeks of exhaustive searching, I will probably end up going with Ooyala. They offer the closest features to Brightcove, including a multi-channel, very sleek player with nice-looking video. And customer service has been responding to my various questions in less than 24 hours. Their rates start at 25 cents/hour of streaming & you get 15 hours of admin time/month for the Independent Package.
Anyone know what they charge for the Director package?
culturesurfer on December 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am - Permalink
Just looked at Jambo media and the video quality is, well, blech!
culturesurfer on December 1st, 2008 at 11:19 am - Permalink
I WISH I could settle for the $6K per year Brightcove solution. This basic package is apparently not sufficient for my traffic so the solution I’ve been offered is much more. If you’re i the basic package range, you don’t have the traffic to pay the rate and if you’re above it but not one of the big guns you don’t have the money to pay the fee. I’m hoping some of the solutions suggested here are going to work. If not, it seems like there’s a void in the industry between REALLY expensive solutions that only large networks/publishers can afford and something for a smaller content producer.
Susan on December 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 pm - Permalink
i am absolutley devistated with this decision. i feel mislead. If i knew that brightcove would pull something like this i would have went another route in where i chose to upload my footage. I have over 40 videos that spans in half hour segments, and super concerned of what site i can go to that can accomidate my needs with regards to channels and the legnth of video time.
I understand that in these times financially, many companies are struggeling but damn!!! how do you go from free to $6,000. that shyt just does not make sence. I also recieved the synical hartless email when they responded back to me. They didnt even have the balls to post the cost, the just said email them and a representative will get back to you.
Can anyone help me, as i believe its less than 2 weeks left. my email is dejavuorg@yahoo.com. pls.pls.pls. someone help. jeesh this is obsurd
Charles Gregroy on December 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am - Permalink