Item: JW Player
Rating: 8
Author: Bryan Crowe

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use JWPlayer to host both our video and podcasts for our organization. It is managed by the digital products department. The end results (video or podcast) is being utilized by all departments within our organization. It allows us to be highly involved in producing video and podcasts to build our brands and audience engagements.

Pros and Cons

Delivers the video/podcast in the best manner it can - streaming cleanly.
It automatically converts the video in various delivery formats for different devices.

Definitely missing the ability (in and easy way) to have clickable links in the video.
Analytics is a little cumbersome and not very user-friendly.

Return on Investment

It serves our 4 brands well in delivery of both video and podcasts that we produce.
We feel it has presented us with an opportunity at a reasonable rate.

Support Rating

Support is reasonable. I from time to time have made suggestions on improvements that would be nice to see (like the ability to have a clickable link within the video - that is easy to create, without tons of coding) and it seems as though I never see it happen or get much response to "suggestions" to upgrade the software. The good news, other than a few things as I mentioned above, overall, I don't have many "technical issues" in the platform, which is a good thing. On occasion, I have seen some "issues" with the delivery of the video, but it has been pretty scarce. So it is dependable.

Key Insights

Do you think JW Player delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with JW Player's feature set?

Yes

Did JW Player live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of JW Player go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy JW Player again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Illustrator CC, ON24, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Premiere Pro

Likelihood to Recommend

I think they do a great job of converting a video into various formats (file/size) that will accommodate a variety of devices. From computer to phone to tablet, it streams really nice with little or no latency. I would really, really like to see an easy way to add clickable text and links to the video (in a similar fashion to how YouTube does it).

JW Player does what it promises!

Overall Satisfaction with JW Player