
Bitmovin raises $30M Series B for ‘next-gen’ online video software - jonballant
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/09/bitmovin/
======
slederer
Thx folks, it has been a awesome ride so far. That's only possibly due to the
great Bitmovin team. (I'm one of the cofounders)

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rsp1984
Thanks for leaving a comment here :)

Now that I have your ear, may I make a suggestion? Please be a little more
specific about what Bitmovin does on your website. Right now the first thing I
read is:

    
    
        "Software to Solve Complex Video Problems.
        Bitmovin API based products help developers around the world
        solve the most complex video problems with cloud native software that runs anywhere"
    

That is a _very broad_ statement. I would consider myself quite technical but
I don't have deep domain knowledge in video coding and infrastructure. Quite
honestly I can't get much information out of this.

What kind video problems are you solving (except that they're "most complex")?
What is "cloud native software"? How do you define "runs anywhere"? Will it
run on my Smartphone / PC / Car / Container / Toaster?

I just want to know what your company _does_ [1]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15170182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15170182)

~~~
newusertoday
some of the problems that they are solving are

\- inserting ads between videos(configurable)

\- serving videos for different screen size(if you send same video to all
device, device has to do resizing in addition to decoding)

\- serving videos in different network conditions(HLS/DASH) where based on
bandwidth lower/higher bitrate video is requested from the server.

\- seamlessly serving videos by switching video sources even for encrypted
content.

\- In HLS/DASH, player is the complex(intelligent) part as it senses the
bandwith and send requests to server, they are giving readymade player
implementation through SDK's

~~~
lossolo
Most of those problems are already solved by open source tools and standard on
video streaming services like amazon, netflix, hbogo etc.

There are mature open source clients that will do most of those things
automatically out of the box. For example shaka player from Google.

~~~
Terretta
Better not to depend on client for functionality.

Don’t repeat the “JS required” situation in video, or next thing you know
you’re rederiving Flash.

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nik736
Congrats, but I never understood why they don't build their own storage and
CDN solution. Infrastructure is hard, especially operating a video cdn, but
focusing on a video player, that is easily replaced with another solution or
an encoding service that can be build inhouse way cheaper are (for me
personally) no selling points.

But apparently that's enough :)

~~~
Jakob
The premise for MPEG-DASH is that infrastructure is easy: Just small files
transferred over HTTP. You can use every CDN which supports HTTP for that.

Live encoding is surprisingly hard: You have to get a live input signal
instead of a file and transcode it on-the-fly to DASH with minimal latency
meaning:

\- encoders in the vicinity of the input signal,

\- multiple input signals,

\- efficiently transport a high data rate from a venue (with often a subpar
connection) to your encoders,

\- support many different input signal formats (i.e. camera output signals),

\- support very high data rates etc.

Some companies do it to a varying degree but not that many like Wowza,
Elemental (bought by AWS and put into AWS Elemental Delta), Adobe, Bitmovin,
…).

~~~
nik736
Yes, but they are putting together a huge sales team, their customers are
using their video player and a video encoding service. That means they also
have the need for video storage, a video CDN, etc. So they waste a lot of
potential.

Building a encoding service in the cloud era, even for live video, isn't
really that hard. The hard part is that every customer has different needs and
different source files, if you build it inhouse you are only building it for
one customer, yourself.

~~~
mv4
Commodity storage and delivery prices have been declining steadily. Building
something that is scalable but also profitable, is hard.

Still, selling is the hardest part, in my opinion. Source: run a global video
cloud.

~~~
nik736
So you are exactly confirming what I am saying, they have or are building the
sales team anyways.

~~~
mv4
One thing I didn't make clear, that may explain why somebody just wouldn't
build their own storage/delivery: when certain services become a commodity,
and long-term commitments become an exception rather than the norm - it's
easier to shift the pricing pressure and uncertainty for the commodity side to
your providers. You specifically don't want to "build your own" in a market
like that, but instead focus on specialized, high-margin services. One
exception: when you can predict/control the demand (e.g. you are a Netflix),
then you build your own, and still leverage providers for capacity on tap.

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melan13
Funny how they already support the AV1 encoding but neither the encoding is
finished nor the hardware implementation is done.

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astromberger
It's always interesting to see how local startups succeed internationally
(especially the ones founded in such rural areas as Carinthia).

Also I just recently was at a talk with one of their engineers and learned how
they scaled their monitoring services; quite fascinating...

Keep up the great work (and see you at the next OpenTechTable).

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wemdyjreichert
Hopefully they start offering a free tier soon (dev-type). Always nice to
have, and by letting devs use it in personal projects, they often carry the
API experience and preference to their jobs.

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duwease
Pied Piper has got some serious competition!

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slederer
haha, yes :-)

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toppy
Interesting if 'Bit' prefix has helped?

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jonballant
I had the same thought that with the latest Crypto craze the "Bit" prefix
probably helps them stand out, but as the founders are the co-creators of
MPEG-DASH which is used by Netflix, they are well known enough to not need the
benefit of the crypto "bump". Plus the company was founded back in 2013.

~~~
lwhite726
Yeah the company was founded 5 years ago, with the same name.

