Short Video Technology Guide: Evaluation of the Top 5 Short Video Solution Providers in China

Statistics from 2016 show that the average daily usage time of short video users reached 68 minutes, and the average daily activation frequency reached 8.2 times. Short videos, with their rich expressiveness and fragmented characteristics, are rapidly becoming the content king of mobile social networking. Since 2017, the short video market has become increasingly popular. In March of this year, Tencent announced a $350 million investment in Kuaishou, and then in April, Alibaba helped Tudou to fully shift to the short video industry. Subsequently, giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Sina have also laid out their plans in the short video field, and their financing amount has exceeded $770 million. So in the overall market environment, how can start-ups seize opportunities?

1. Facing the trend, it is an opportunity and a challenge

Video companies need to find their own business value in the face of time, funds, and the need to produce high-frequency and high-quality product content. How to seize the market before competitors, how to monetize and increase user stickiness are issues that every company needs to think about. Especially some start-ups are facing great difficulties and pressure in developing short video apps from scratch.

On the one hand, time is tight: the independent development of a short video app requires about 10 to 20 developers with video development experience for a development cycle of 1 to 6 months. Not only that, but also have to face various problems such as the diversity of video function modules, the complexity of special effects production, the lack of professionalism of materials, and the testing of effects on various terminal models. Time is life, and startups really can't afford to waste time in the independent development of short video apps!

On the other hand, financial support: In the initial stage of a video platform, content producers will generally be subsidized at all costs on each platform. At the same time, if they need to spend money, time and energy to manage the short video development team and the core business team, without sufficient financial support, it will be difficult to move forward.

2. Facing the pressure of developing short video apps, what should we do?

Faced with the pressure of developing short video apps, what should video startups do? The reporter learned from industry insiders: "Accessing third-party short video solutions is the fastest way to save trouble, effort and money. After all, producing high-frequency and high-quality content is the core business value of video platforms." So, how to choose the right short video service is crucial to the innovation and development of the business. There are already dozens of short video service providers on the market. Which one is more suitable for video companies?

The following content is a test conducted by the editor on the official product introductions and product trial versions of the five major short video solution providers with relatively large voices in the market (Alibaba Cloud, Kingsoft Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Yunfan Accelerator, and NetEase Cloud). It is an objective survey mainly from four aspects: product functions, supported scenarios, billing methods, and technical services, for reference by various video companies when choosing short video service providers.

1: Product Features

Developers of enterprise short video platforms should focus more on product content. With enough good content to attract people, there will be no worries about lack of users. Next, the editor will talk about which links the content production goes through? And when choosing a short video solution, which functions in each link need to be considered? The content production process of short videos needs to go through the following links: 1. Shooting of short videos; 2. Editing/synthesis of short videos; 3. Publishing of short videos. The complete industry chain also includes distribution and playback. This article only compares the first three links.

Among them, the product function - short video shooting, is evaluated from five short video providers as shown in the following figure:

Comparison of short video shooting functions

From the first link, all the above functions basically meet the various short video gameplays on the current market. From the perspective of functional completeness, Yunfan Accelerator currently supports all functions of the shooting module. However, only by paying attention to the completeness of the functions and taking what is needed can the cost performance be reflected. In addition to paying attention to the completeness of the functions, soft and hard coding are also worthy of attention. Soft coding is suitable for short-term video recording and has a variety of application scenarios, such as Miaopai and Meipai; hard coding is used for long-term video recording, but can only be used for mobile phones with good adaptability, such as Qualcomm CPU mobile phone series; for example, the user group of the Kuaishou platform is mainly focused on second- and third-tier cities, and the consumption level of the city determines that most of the user group will not be high-end mobile phone players. From this, it can be seen that soft coding is a key function of short video shooting.

AR animation (faceU): AR animation is basically a standard feature in the short video industry, because various cute and funny animations are deeply loved by users, and they can also cover up blemishes, which is a rigid demand. Based on the above, comprehensive recommendations in terms of functional completeness and meeting basic needs:

Comprehensive ranking of short video shooting functions

2: Product function - short video editing

Comparison of short video editing functions

After the video is shot, it needs to be edited, which is called secondary processing. Secondary processing first requires a low enough production threshold to stimulate users' enthusiasm for creation and quickly attract a large number of content producers; secondly, it requires diverse functions to give content producers more choices, combinations, and creative space to innovate, making the video content richer and of better quality, which is conducive to content sedimentation and retaining users.

There are 23 video editing functions listed above. In terms of quantity, Tencent Cloud and Yunfan Accelerator have 17, Kingsoft Cloud has 16, and Alibaba Cloud has 13. In terms of function importance, watermark, beauty, filter, and AR animation are basically standard features, which are available in Tencent Cloud and Yunfan Accelerator.

Special features : short video generation speed, GIF generation, green screen cutout, file order adjustment, voice change and reverberation. The short video generation speed function is vividly reflected in applications such as Douyin, Huangka, and muscily, which is now a popular short video gameplay. Looking at the fact that Douyin’s average daily video playback volume exceeds 100 million and its phenomenal popularity, you can see how much young people prefer this magical function. The top three special features: Tencent Cloud: 3, short video generation speed, green screen cutout, file order adjustment; Yunfan Acceleration: 2, short video generation speed, GIF generation; Kingsoft Cloud: 2, voice change and reverberation;

Money-saving function : Compared with H.264 transcoding technology, H.265 technology can save 30% of bandwidth costs. Since H.265 technology is not yet mature and is a technical difficulty, in the above comparison, only Yunfan Accelerator and Kingsoft Cloud have embodied this technology in short videos.

From the above dimensions, the comprehensive strength recommendation of short video editing:

Comprehensive ranking of short video editing functions

3. Product function - short video release

Comparison of short video publishing functions

From this, we can see that the publishing modules of major short video solution providers basically maintain the same level.

1. Support scenarios

At present, there are various ways to play short videos. The main features of short video application platforms can be roughly summarized into three categories: 1. Focusing on beauty, animated pictures, and FaceU, firmly attracting female user groups. Representative platforms: Meipai and Miaopai. 2. Focusing on music, lip-syncing performances with a large amount of professional materials, and applications with built-in funny functions. Representative platform: Xiaokaxiu. 3. Short video creation platforms that focus on music and creativity are positioned as gathering places for young trendsetters. Representative platforms: Douyin and muscialy.

According to the gameplay of these three typical short video platforms, the support strength of the above five SDK short video solutions is as follows:

Ranking of short video support scenarios

(II) Billing method

The billing method of Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and NetEase Cloud is to package the playback space, traffic, and short video functions into packages and prepay the packages annually. It is worth noting that the large platforms have many businesses, and there is a correlation between the business and the billing method, which is not as transparent as the quotation when purchasing functions on demand; package services may not be a good match for the functions required by short video platforms, so it is more reasonable to purchase on demand. If you make prepayments, you may have to pay for functions every year instead of paying for services. It is not ruled out that due to improper estimation, you bought a high-version package and it was idle and wasted; or you bought a low-version package and needed to upgrade to a high version due to business expansion, and the low-version package that had not yet reached the expiration date was abandoned.

From this perspective, the on-demand purchase method of Yunfan Accelerator and Kingsoft Cloud is recommended. The advantage is that the content purchased is exactly what the current business needs. After all, unnecessary software functions will not be purchased first to stock up, and software services are more reliable after multiple upgrades.

(III) Technical Services

In terms of technical services, industry insiders said: "In terms of technical services, large cloud vendor platforms do not support one-on-one technical guidance and 24-hour online services. The overall strategy of these large platforms does not invest more energy in product standardization and detailed services to help start-up video companies solve the bottleneck problems they encounter." Therefore, while small and medium-sized video companies pay attention to the technical capabilities of service providers, they should also pay attention to their subsequent rapid feedback and service responsiveness in solving problems.

On the other hand, according to the reporter, such large platform services generally do not support the customized needs of B-side customers. Their core is to provide PAAS and IAAS basic services. Compared with SAAS service providers who are deeply engaged in vertical industries, they do not have any technical advantages. In addition to video services, NetEase Cloud's business also includes SMS and communication services, dedicated telephone services, etc.; Kingsoft Cloud has multiple businesses such as servers, storage, games, and operation and maintenance; Yunfan Accelerator currently only includes two businesses, streaming CDN services and streaming SAAS services, which to a certain extent reflects Yunfan Accelerator's focus on deepening its presence in the vertical field of streaming media.

Summary: If video companies do not need more short video gameplay, the reporter believes that the above five short video solution providers can meet their needs. If video companies need to meet functional diversity and richness in their business, Tencent Cloud and Yunfan Accelerator are good choices. First, judging from the functions covered by these two companies, they are at the forefront of short video exploration; second, Tencent Cloud has a deep understanding of the video and entertainment industries in China; Yunfan Accelerator is a company started by the core backbone of the original Kuaibo. It has the video technology genes of Kuaibo. Through technological innovation, it has developed rapidly in the live broadcast and video fields in 2 years, and has established a reputation in the industry with very rich streaming media technology experience and excellent technology. For short video platforms, no matter which short video solution provider you choose, you need to start from your own business and choose the one that suits you best. For explorations in the field of short videos, you can also communicate on QQ: 983468758