Video Delivery Is a Different Problem From Video Playback
Adding video to a website brings a new set of engineering challenges. The <video> tag handles playback, but questions about formats, browser support, network conditions, and buffering quickly surface. A common shortcut is to host on YouTube, but that platform’s ad-based business model conflicts with mission-critical content — you don’t want a competitor’s ad interrupting your own product demo.
Building your own streaming backend is technically possible but consumes significant developer time. A more practical path for most teams is to adopt a dedicated video streaming service that handles encoding, delivery, and playback. The same technologies used by Netflix and Hulu are now accessible through such platforms.
Why Adaptive Bitrate Matters
Traditional video delivery serves a single bitrate to every viewer, regardless of their connection. On slow or fluctuating networks, that leads to slow startup and playback stalls — the “spinner of death.” Adaptive bitrate streaming solves this by encoding multiple versions of the same video and letting the player choose the appropriate quality in real time.
When the network degrades mid-playback, the player can switch to a lower bitrate version on the fly. This ensures playback starts quickly and continues smoothly across a range of connection speeds.
How HLS Works
HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is the industry standard for this approach. Despite the “Live” in its name, HLS is primarily used for on-demand playback of recorded video. At upload time, the streaming service generates multiple bitrate copies of the video, each sliced into short segments — typically 5–10 seconds long.
During playback, the video player requests segments sequentially. If download speed falls behind playback speed, the player requests the next segment from a lower-bitrate rendition, since lower bitrates download faster and reduce the risk of stalling. The player effectively adapts the video to each viewer’s unique network conditions.
The Player Requirement
HLS is not natively supported in most browsers (Safari is the notable exception). To play HLS content, you need a JavaScript-based video player integrated into your site.
Choosing a Video Processing Service
Outsourcing video streaming to a specialized platform is often the pragmatic choice, but not all solutions are equal. Look for these capabilities:
- Adaptive bitrate HLS support. Ensure the service encodes to HLS with multiple renditions for smooth playback.
- Broad format support. Accepts MP4 (h264 and h265), MOV, WebM, and other common input formats — no need to pre-convert before upload.
- Pipeline integration. The service should automatically detect and process videos added to your existing cloud storage, such as AWS S3, Google Cloud, or Azure.
- An out-of-the-box player. A customizable player that works across browsers and fits into your current frontend stack.
- Asset management. A dashboard to visualize and organize both images and videos in one place.
- Analytics. Playback metrics — view counts, watch duration — and encoding stats for processed videos.
imgix’s Video API
imgix’s recently released Video API addresses all of the above. Videos uploaded to any supported cloud folder are automatically encoded and streamed, with native integration for AWS S3, Google Cloud, and Azure. The API can generate either HLS or MP4 versions based on your requirements, returning a playback URL for your website.
Video assets are visible in the Asset Manager, alongside detailed viewing analytics. An included video player works with React, Vue, static HTML, and other common frontend frameworks.
For teams delivering both images and video at scale, imgix offers a unified platform for processing and optimization, avoiding the need to assemble separate tools for each media type.
