Wistia Introduces Vulcan, a More Social Online Video Player

Big news this morning from Wistia, the online video platform (OVP) that specializes in video marketing: It's unveiling Vulcan, its new online video player. There's a lot to like about this player, which is fast, flexible, and fully featured.

Here are a few reasons Vulcan gets a gold star:

Lightweight: Page load is important to brands, so we love that this player is 2.7x smaller than the market leader.

Social: Viewers can post to their favorite social networks without leaving the video. Look at the image below to see the social controls.

Customizable Appearance: Go with the sleek minimal default look or add your company's branding.

Future-Ready: When your brand is ready to experiment with 4K or 360-degree video, Vulcan will be right there with you.

Adaptive: A modern player needs to support adaptive streaming, which ensures viewers get the best video quality possible for their connection. Wistia streams six different resolutions of each video, and Vulcan monitors the connection every three seconds then switches to a different resolution stream when needed.

Responsive Design: It's critical nowadays for brands to support responsive design, ensuring that their pages look correct on desktop or mobile screens. Vulcan is responsive-ready, keeping controls out of the way on smaller screens.

Thumbnail Previews: As viewers drag the playhead along the timeline, they'll see a changing thumbnail image that shows what's happening in the video.

Speed Controls: One-third of viewers prefer to speed up video playback to save time, Wistia says. This player gives them the option.

What's more, Vulcan is HTML5-only. Flash support will never slow your pages again.

"Video is the best way to build more human customer relationships. And, Vulcan is our solution for businesses that understand that value," says Chris Savage, CEO of Wistia.

"With Vulcan, businesses can quickly and easily present high quality video that's on brand and delivers the best user experience—no annoying buffering—easy to watch, easy to share, and viewable on all screens."

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net