Throughout most of the year in Streaming Media, we tell you what we think, whether it’s our writers or the various industry experts they tap in their articles sharing their expertise, analyzing what’s happening, or predicting what’s to come in the streaming world. But once a year, we flip that script and let the readers have their say with our annual Readers’ Choice Awards. The results are sometimes surprising and always illuminating. While you’ll see a number of familiar names in the list, as we reveal this year’s winners and runners-up, this year, as in all years, there are plenty of surprises and a few instances of winners and finalists we wouldn’t have predicted, but just as often leave us thinking, “But, of course,” and rushing to reconsider previous assessments.
This year’s awards brought in 140 nominees, which were then voted on by StreamingMedia.com readers. More than 1,600 readers cast roughly 14,000 votes in 22 categories that reflect both the Streaming Media and Streaming Media Producer purviews. After discarding votes from obviously phony email addresses, as well as votes by employees casting ballots for their own companies’ products, we identified the top three vote-getters in each category. Many of the names are familiar, even expected, but you’ll find a number of unexpected names and products in the list that follows. And if you’re surprised that a company isn’t represented, well, all we can say is that it either wasn’t nominated or didn’t get enough votes. Thanks to all who nominated and voted, and thanks to BirdDog and PTZOptics for sponsoring this year’s awards. And we’re pleased as punch to be presenting these awards—live and in person for the first time since 2019—at Streaming Media West 2022!
Analytics/Quality of Experience (QoE) Platform
Winner: Bitmovin – Bitmovin Analytics
Runners-Up: MediaMelon – SmartSight QoE, Telestream – iVMS AMS
Best New Streaming Innovation
Winner: LiveU – LiveU Ingest
Runners-Up: Flussonic LLC – WebRTC Flussonic (Flussonic Media Server), Muvi LLC – Muvi Minis
Cellular Bonding Solution
Winner: LiveU – LU800
Runners-Up: Haivision/AVIWest Pro460, TVU Networks – TVU One 4K with 5G
Closed Captioning Solution
Winner: Telestream – CaptionMaker
Runners-Up: Flussonic LLC – Flussonic Media Server, IBM Watson Media – Watson Live Captioning
Cloud Encoding/Transcoding Service
Winner: Bitmovin – Bitmovin Next-Generation VOD Encoder
Runners-Up: Flussonic LLC – Flussonic Cloud, Telestream – Encoding.com
Cloud Video Production Platform
Winner: Blackmagic Design – Blackmagic Cloud
Runners-Up: LiveU – LiveU Matrix, Vizrt – Viz Vectar Plus
Content Delivery Network (including Edge)
Winner: Amazon Web Services – Amazon CloudFront
Runners-Up: Akamai – Intelligent Edge Platform,Google – Google Cloud CDN
Corporate Video/Enterprise Video Content Management Platform
Winner: Vimeo – Vimeo Enterprise
Runners-Up: Haivision – Haivision Media Platform, Telestream – Sherpa Stream
DRM/Content Protection
Winner: EZDRM – Universal Complete
Runners-Up: Bitmovin – Bitmovin/Nagra Forensic Watermarking, IdeaNova – Inplay DRM
Encoding Hardware for Live Production
Winner: Haivision – Makito X4 Encoder
Runners-Up: Blackmagic Design – Web Presenter 4K, Flussonic LLC – Flussonic Coder
Live Streaming Service
Winner: Muvi LLC – Muvi Live
Runners-Up: Haivision – Haivision Connect, Vimeo – Vimeo Live Streaming Platform
Meeting/Collaboration/Webcasting Solution (Cloud)
Winner: LiveU – Air Control
Runners-Up: NewTek – CaptureCast, Telestream – Sherpa Stream
Meeting/Collaboration/Webcasting Solution (On-Prem)
Winner: IdeaNova – Intouch Nearcast
Runners-Up: LiveSwitch – LiveSwitch Server, Magewell – USB Fusion
On-Prem Encoding/Transcoding Solution
Winner: Telestream – Vantage Media Processing Platform
Runners-Up: Flussonic LLC – Flussonic Media Server, Haivision – Makito X4 Encoder
OTT Video Platform
Winner: Vimeo –Vimeo OTT
Runners-Up: Bitmovin – Bitmovin Per-Title,Brightcove – Brightcove Beacon
Per-Title Encoding Solution
Winner: Bitmovin – Bitmovin Per-Title
Runners-Up: Brightcove – Brightcove Context Aware Encoding, Harmonic – VOS®360 Cloud Streaming Platform
PTZ or Network-Controlled Camera
Winner: BirdDog – P120
Runners-Up: NewTek – NDI|HX PTZ3, PTZ Optics – 30X NDI PTZ Camera
Quality Control/Monitoring Platform
Winner: Akamai – Broadcast Operations Command Center (BOCC)
Runners-Up: Telestream – Centralized Video Quality Monitoring Management, Witbe – Witbox+
Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI) Solution
Winner: Amazon – AWS Elemental MediaTailor
Runners-Up: Brightcove – Brightcove SSAI, MediaKind – PRISMA
Single- or Dual-Stream Encoding Hardware
Winner: Magewell – Ultra Encode
Runners-Up: Flussonic LLC – Flussonic Coder, LiveU – LU800
Video Mixer (less than $1,500)
Winner: Blackmagic Design – ATEM SDI Pro ISO
Runners-Up: Telestream – Wirecast Pro, vMix – Live Video Streaming Software
Video Mixer (more than $1,500)
Winner: NewTek – TriCaster Mini X
Runners-Up: Roland – V-600UHD, Telestream – Wirecast Gear 3
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