Do you want to improve your students’ learning experience when using video in the classroom? Are you searching free online video education platform for live streaming classroom? Few years ago, when nobody knew about tech, tech has been helping educators to reinforce the learning process. Thanks to tech, teachers can use tech to make lessons interesting and give students projects in a more an engaging way.
Here are the best platforms to get you going.
Kaltura
Platform Overview:
Kaltura is a powerful online live class platform geared towards large institutions. Kaltura’s platform powers live and on-demand learning experiences through its cloud-based video services for education.
This online teaching platform uses an open-source structure, which means that you can integrate quite a few different programs and totally customize your eLearning, or eTeaching, experience.
Key Features:
Kaltura’s security features include DRM, encryption, and access control tools. They also offer a wide variety of monetization tools. The service is also fully white-label, and an API is available for programmatic interactions.
Detailed Features:
- Security features (password protection, encryption, and watermarking)
- Cloud TV service
- Closed captioning available for accessibility
- Monetization options include advertising, subscriptions, and one-time transactions
- Video looping available
- Allows bulk video uploading
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Recommended dimensions: 180p (320×180) to 1080p (1920×1080)
- Supported aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3
- Maximum file size: 2 GB
- Maximum video length: Unknown (No limits are published)
- Total file storage: 10 GB to unlimited, depending on the plan
- Accepted video formats: MOV, MP4
Pricing:
Pricing for Kaltura is not available on their website. Users negotiate contracts on a case-by-case basis. In general, these range from $500 to $1000 and up per month
Livestream
Platform Overview:
Vimeo started as a consumer-grade streaming platform, but it acquired Livestream in 2017. Because of this acquisition, the service now provides a live streaming solution under the Livestream name.
Their online video education platform includes powerful content management features for both live streams, as well as hosting video lectures for on-demand playback. However, most of these are only available with the most inclusive plans.
Key Features:
Livestream offers some interesting education live streaming tools. These include security tools, white-label branding, video monetization, API access.
Detailed Features:
- Multiple security features
- Additional marketing capabilities
- Audience interaction tools
- Detailed video analytics
- Works with YouTube
- Excellent security features
- Easy-to-use for both users and viewers
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Recommended dimensions: 720p (1280×720)
- Supported aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3
- Maximum file size: 3 GB
- Maximum video length: Unknown
- Total file storage: Unknown
- Accepted video formats: MP4 (recommended)
Pricing:
Vimeo Livestream offers three main pricing plans, including:1) Vimeo Premium:
- Premium pricing: $75/month
- Their Premium plan includes both live streaming and VOD support. This plan is the best option for professional broadcasting on this platform.
2) Vimeo Enterprise:
- Enterprise Pricing: Please contact Vimeo for custom pricing information
- The Enterprise plan includes white-label service, monetization, and video API access. It also includes branding control and added security features.
3) Vimeo OTT:
- Starter Pricing: $1/subscriber per month
- Growth Pricing: starting at $500/month
- This OTT-specific pricing package comes with the Vimeo.com relationship. These plans include all the basics for starting your web-based OTT channel, as well as growing your OTT business online.
Dacast
Platform Overview:
Dacast’s online video education platform is a great option for small educators and major institutions alike that support both live streaming and on-demand video hosting.
Our unified streaming solution’s new Zoom live streaming integration makes real-time latency streaming possible which makes our platform well-suited for conference-style virtual classes.
Key Features:
Monetization features such as pay-per-view, subscriptions, and ad-based on-demand video are supported on all plans. It is also important to note that every plan on Dacast is fully white-label.
Dacast also supports more powerful video uploading, optimized CMS, more security, and China video hosting. The platform is ideal for institutions and schools with a large video-on-demand library. This is perfect if you have large numbers of instructors creating content for different subjects and courses.
Detailed Features:
- Zoom Meeting integration
- Password protected streaming
- IP address and geographic restrictions
- Unlimited viewers and live channels
- Embeddable HTML5 video player
- M3U8 media links to stream to mobile and smart TV apps such as Roku, Apple TV, etc.
- Mobile device support
- SDK for player integration on iOS and Android platforms
- Live stream recording
- Multi-bitrate streaming for live video and VOD
- Real-time video streaming analytics
- Ad-free streaming
- Tokenized access control for secure video sharing
- Video paywall for secure content monetization
New!
- Multi-user access on Scale and Custom plans
- Zoom live streaming integration for meetings and live events in real-time
- Expo 2.0 galleries video portal for immersive video experiences
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Minimum dimension: none (but 240p is the recommended minimum)
- Maximum dimension: 1080p or 4K (depends on the user’s hardware and internet)
- Video aspect ratio: no restrictions (but 16:9 is the default)
- Max file size: none
- Max video length: none
- Total file storage: 10-1000GB (depends on plan)
- Compatible video formats: MP4 (preferred), MOV, M4V, M2V, AVI, MPG, FLV, WMV, MKV, WEBM, OGV, MXF, ASF, VOB, MT
Pricing:
Pricing for Dacast’s live streaming for education solutions starts at $39/month. Pricing plans include:
- Starter Plan: $39/month (billed annually); ideal for small schools; comes with 1,000 TB of bandwidth and 50 GB of storage per month
- Event Plan: $63/month (or $750/year); for educational organizations that would rather not sign a contract, and want to purchase bandwidth separately to live stream an event. It offers 6 TB of bandwidth upfront, 50 GB of storage; additional data and storage can be added as needed
- Scale Plan:$188/month (billed annually); includes 24 TB of bandwidth per year, with 1 TB of storage; adds phone support, monetization paywall, an M3U8 online player for live channels, ad insertion, white-label video player, and video API access
- Custom Plan: if your school has high volume streaming needs, you can contact Dacast for a custom plan tailored to your needs
Dacast also offers custom pricing for higher volume streaming.
Panopto
Platform Overview:
A leading video platform for education, Panopto is an online lecture platform that was designed to serve universities and other large institutions. Their solutions include dedicated software for lecture capture and video search.
Key Features:
With a focus on online education, it provides tools similar to YouTube and integrates with Learning Management Systems. Overall, Panopto is a more focused online video organization than the other best live streaming solutions considered here.
However, the Panopto platform doesn’t include video monetization. Security features include the ability to make live streaming and event content private. Additionally, users can integrate with existing authentication systems. All plans are white-label, and API is available.
Detailed Features:
- Lecture-capture and video-search software
- Access control & security features
- White-label streaming
- Integration with LMS systems
- APIs for further integrations.
- Audio Content
- Analytics
- Document Indexing
- Customizable Branding
- Full-Text Search
- Video Content
- Asset Categorization
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Compatible video formats: AVI, MP4, MPG, WMV, MOV, QT, ASF, 3GP, WMA, MP3, M4V
- All other upload guidelines and specs are only available to paying customers.
Pricing:
Panopto recently simplified its pricing packages and includes the following three options:
- Basic: Free
- Pro: $14.99/month
- Enterprise: Please contact Panopto for custom pricing.
For educators, pricing depends on full-time equivalent student pricing. Plans are available starting at 500 users.
Muvi
Platform Overview:
The next of the online live class platforms we’ll take a look at here is Muvi. Muvi’s e-learning video portal has a wide range of features to live stream classes.
This platform supports video monetization via all three major methods: subscriptions, pay-per-view, and ads. Muvi also includes access to this API and white-label video players. They also provide VOD and audio streaming. It’s fully managed and all controlled from a single CMS.
Key Features:
With Muvi, you can create a multi-screen platform relatively quickly. Their video streaming solution comes with a plethora of functionalities and capabilities. They also provide VOD and audio streaming. It’s fully managed and all controlled from a single CMS.
Detailed Features:
- White-label with branding customization
- HTML5 video player
- Video analytics
- Monetization tools
- DRM and security features
- Live and on-demand hosting
- Powerful CDN
- Video CMS
- Transcoding
- Secure streaming
- Website and Apps for Mobile and TV
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Minimum dimension: 144p (256 x 144)
- Maximum dimension: 4K (3840 x2160)
- Aspect ratio: 16:9, 4:3
- Max file size: not available
- Max video length: not available
- Total file storage: 1TB, 2TB, 5TB (depending on plan)
- Compatible video formats: MP4, MOV, MKV, FLV, VOB, M4V, AVI, 3GP, MPG
Pricing:
Muvi prices its plans at the following five levels:
- Standard plan: $399/month (+ $299/month per app + infra fees), allows 2000 concurrent viewers, 1TB each of bandwidth and storage, and API support.
- Professional plan: at $1,499 per month (+ $499/month per app + infra fees) increases limits further and adds premium support.
- Enterprise plan: $3,900 per month (+ $499/month per app + infra fees) adds a dedicated server with auto-scaling.
- Ultimate plan: $8,900/month (+ $499/month per app + infra fees) doubles the bandwidth and storage of the enterprise plan and adds your own CDN and unlimited API calls.
- Black plan: this is a custom solution and includes everything in the Ultimate plan plus premium services and project management.
Hippo Video
Platform Overview:
Hippo Video is a professional video streaming hosting provider that offers virtual classroom software for education live streams, as well as marketing, sales, and more. It was founded in 2016 by Lyceum Technologies.
This company is unique in the sense that it has plans for broadcasters with a wide range of budgets.
Key Features:
In addition to hosting videos for virtual classes, Hippo Video is equipped with tools for video editing and creation.
Detailed Features:
- Editing and video creation tools
- Customization options
- Marketing tools (CTAs, analytics, etc.)
- Screen recording
- Hosting tools (transcoding, closed captioning, organization)
- Collaboration tools
Upload Guidelines and Specs:
- Minimum dimension: 480p
- Maximum dimension: 1080p
- Aspect ratio: not available
- Max file size: 3 GB
- Max video length: 5 minutes on Free plans, 2 hours on Premium plans
- Total file storage: n/a
- Compatible video formats: not available
Pricing:
Hippo Video has a complex pricing structure since it offers a variety of solutions for different use cases. Here’s a breakdown of pricing for the most popular categories:
Sales
- Pro: $30/month
- Growth: $48/month
- Enterprise: $79/month
Marketing
- Starter: $23/month
- Pro: $49/month
- Growth: $99/month
Support
- Starter: $10/month
- Pro: $29/month
- Growth: $49/month
Team Communications
- Starter: $7/month
- Pro: $15/month
- Growth: $23/month
Hippo Video also has special pricing plans for Personalization and Education. Users can contact Hippo Video directly for recorder API pricing.
All of the prices above reflect the rate when billed annually. Please check out the Hippo pricing page for more information on quarterly and monthly pricing.
YouTube (Free)
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Owing to being one of the earliest in the Video hosting scene and to Google, YouTube has gone from strength to strength. You can now get the YouTube app for any devices , including Smart TVs and it comes pre-installed on Android smartphones and tablets with Google’s app bundle. If you need your video to reach out to audience everywhere then YouTube is probably your best bet.
With deep integration on iOS and Android devices, it meant you can upload videos directly from the smartphone or tablet without needing to use your PC. You can upload lectures, lessons, tutorials, demonstrations, workshop and other learning materials quickly and easily.
Vimeo (Free & Paid)
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Vimeo is a more professional looking video sharing platform that also offers a Plus and PRO paid packages. While the free, Basic account has some useful features, it also has its limitations. The Plus and PRO accounts not only give you more upload limit but also gives you more control over the video you publish.
You can restrict the video to a domain(s), set security functions, create groups and manage the uploaded video to say by department, topic or teacher using the channel, group or album. You can even remove your video from being listed in Vimeo. The paid packages also removes ads, which is more suited for education and business use.
Vimeo Basic members gets:
- 500MB per week of storage space
- 1 HD video upload per week, other videos at standard definition
- Banner ads
- The ability to upload up to 10 videos per day but no priority uploading
- The ability to create 1 Channel, 1 Group, and 3 Albums
- The ability to download converted video files but no HD embedding
- Basic-yet-robust privacy controls
- Basic embedding features and basic player customisation
Vimeo Plus members ($9.95 per month) gets:
- 5GB a week (5GB per file)
- 5GB of HD videos per week
- No banner ads
- Upload your videos in their full HD glory
- Customizing your embedded video player
- Privacy Settings, including how to hide your videos from Vimeo and domain-level privacy
- Source-file downloading options available
- Create as many Groups, Channels, and Albums as these are unlimited
Vimeo Pro members get Portfolio and Review pages which are not available with Plus. Other features are listed below:
- The option to host commercial content
- High Definition video
- Advanced Analytics
- Unlimited customizable video Portfolio sites
- Unlimited HD embedding
- Fast, priority uploading
- Super-customizable and brandable video player
- HTML5 support with the Vimeo Universal Player
- Full mobile, tablet and connected TV compatibility
- Unlisted video review pages
- Third Party video player support
- Optional original file storage
It is worth mentioning that there is a 50GB storage space limit and 250,000 embed plays. You can buy more space or embed plays with their add-on packages.
While YouTube has the largest user base and biggest reach, vimeo’s strength is its professional looking player, paid packages are ads free and gives users more control over your video and the way you share it.
Facebook (Free)
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It is not a video sharing platform but do you know that you can add not only photos but videos to Facebook. Simply login to Facebook website or app and use the Upload Photo/Video option. This may not be immediately obvious when you are on the website.
Click on your Update Status box, and choose Photo from the tab. You will see a link to Upload Photos/Video. This is great for sharing videos to your friends and family or on your page to your fans or in your group to members of your group but the reach would be limited to friends of your friends, fans and members. Nevertheless, these are more focused and targeted audience.
If you use Facebook for teaching and learning, sharing videos on your timeline, page or group will work very well especially when most students are already on there. Now, we are not talking about primary school children, some schools and parents are strongly against that but more of the young persons category, sixth forms, undergraduates and post graduates.
Equally, you can still share videos uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo or any of the video sharing sites on Facebook by simply copying the link and pasting it on your status.
Conclusion
The above list is just a small sample of online video platforms for teachers. Teachers can find dozens more if they look in the right places. There are many different kinds of video platforms available, both free and paid for, for teaching purposes. Those who are interested in using these tools to enhance their own teaching will take heart in seeing how plentiful they are, and teachers can rest assured that they have plenty of options when it comes to choosing the format that works best for their needs.