CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wistia, the video platform of choice for business, today announced Vulcan, its entirely new, viewer-first video player, built to provide the best experience to viewers while offering businesses a rich feature set and advanced integrations with marketing automation and CRM solutions. Responsive to any screen or window size, Vulcan gives viewers unprecedented control over their viewing experience from a thumbnail preview to variable playback speeds and in-player social sharing capabilities.
“We believe that amazing customer relationships are built with video, and we want to do everything we can to make the viewing experience as seamless and delightful as possible. Vulcan, our brand new player, is entirely focused on creating the best viewer experience possible,” said Chris Savage, CEO, Wistia. “Vulcan surpasses every other video player on the market regarding its feature set, marketing automation and CRM integrations, and - critically - the size of the player. Wistia’s player is now 2.7x smaller than the market leader, which makes a critical difference to businesses that want to ensure their videos load with speed and ease.”
Vulcan’s feature set makes it the industry leading video player for businesses. Those features now include:
- Minimal Design and Brand Customization: Vulcan puts the focus back on the video content itself with its clean design. Businesses can also brand the player to ensure a consistent look and feel on site.
- 4K and 360-Degree Video Support: High-quality content can drive engagement and grab an audience’s attention; Vulcan goes all the way up to 4K and supports 360-degree video as well.
- Adaptive Streaming: Viewers’ connections can change quickly and vary by device. Built using HLS format, Vulcan monitors those connections every three seconds and automatically changes between six different streaming levels to prevent buffering, while always providing the best viewing experience - it’s also optimized for mobile.
- Responsive Embeds: The ability to scale with the responsive design of a brand’s site is critical to ensuring a consistent viewer experience across device types (desktop/mobile). Vulcan resizes with ease, keeping controls out of the way on smaller screens.
- Thumbnail Preview: Knowing what will be on screen when you click play is critical for today’s viewers, and making that small image readable is key. Removing the guesswork, Vulcan offers thumbnails as a viewer drags across a playbar.
- In-Player Social Share Bar: Social sharing with Vulcan is directly inside of the player, so viewers don’t need to leave the video to spread the word or look at an off-brand share bar below the video player.
- Playback Speed Controls: Viewers can now watch video at the speed that best suits their needs. Beta usage shows one-third of viewers watch video faster than real-time when given the option. Flexibility and choice drive up engagement.
- Screen Reader Compatibility: Vulcan is fully compatible with screen readers enabling greater video accessibility for viewers.
- HTML5-Only: Vulcan is Wistia’s first HTML5-only player; Flash is getting left behind. This means videos will continue to load and play smoothly on site, even after Google officially ends Flash support.
“Video content is a key asset as businesses seek to be more human. We designed Vulcan to provide a modern, minimal, viewer-first video player to help keep the focus on your content and your brand,” said Brendan Schwartz, CTO, Wistia. “We want your video to look beautiful, play perfectly, and create a deeper relationship with your viewers. We think Vulcan is a huge step forward for business video, and we're super excited about it!”
About Wistia
Wistia is the video platform of choice for business. We enable marketing, sales, training, and more to harness the engaging and connective power of video. Our technology solution provides world-class video hosting, marketing tools, and analytics to help companies grow. Wistia boasts an impressive customer portfolio across industries, with top brands including Amway, HubSpot, MailChimp, Sephora, and Tiffany & Co., leveraging Wistia to form authentic connections with customers, employees, and more.
We’re on a mission to make business more human. Founded in 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wistia serves more than 200,000 businesses in over 50 countries. Learn more at wistia.com and follow us on Twitter @wistia.
