October 2023 Summaries

Mux has introduced new playback modifiers for video streaming infrastructure that allow users to manipulate manifests at playback time. These include min_resolution, which controls the minimum resolution of delivered content, and rendition_order, which determines the order in which renditions are exposed. By combining these modifiers with existing max_resolution functionality, users can tailor the streaming experience for different tiers of viewers. Mux Data is recommended to monitor playback experiences and run A/B tests when using these features.

Mux has introduced baseline video assets as an alternative encoding tier for on-demand videos, offering cost-effective solutions for simpler streaming use cases where high encoding costs may be restrictive to businesses. Baseline assets are built on the same infrastructure as smart assets and include features such as best-in-class streaming video infrastructure, premium multi-CDN delivery, free Mux Data monitoring, and Mux Player. However, there are some limitations with baseline assets, including fewer renditions, lower maximum visual quality, and unavailable features like MP4 support and auto-generated captions. Baseline assets are available to all pay-as-you-go customers today, and more pricing levers are in development.

Video streaming remains a challenging task due to the numerous hard problems that need to be solved, such as massive compute for encoding, globally distributed content delivery, and playback across various devices. The internet was not designed for video at scale, making it an expensive endeavor. Over the next year, Mux plans to address this issue through new features, technical innovation, and price decreases. Video should be priced as a commodity with basic streaming being inexpensive and advanced features available for purchase. Pricing by the minute aligns incentives better than pricing by GB. Mux is working towards making video a utility like water or electricity, simplifying its integration into applications.

Mux Player 2.0 has been launched, improving upon its predecessor based on user feedback. The new version features a cleaner pre-play state, tasteful animations, and an accent color that can be customized to match the developer's branding. Notable features added since 1.0 include quality selectors, multi-track audio selectors, multiple captions track selectors, built-in minimal and microvideo themes, and support for iOS and Android apps using AVPlayer and Media3 APIs, respectively.

Mux has introduced automatic captioning for on-demand video assets as a public beta feature. The new functionality uses OpenAI's Whisper model, a state-of-the-art speech recognition implementation that runs entirely on Mux's infrastructure without sending videos to third-party vendors. This feature is included in Mux's video encoding at no additional cost. Automatic captioning for on-demand content aims to make it easier for users to create accessible customer experiences and paves the way for future features such as sentiment analysis, translation, content summarization, moderation tools, and more.