Native Video Hosting on Skilljar LMS or Embedded Video?

Skilljar's learning management system (LMS) supports streaming video that is directly uploaded to our platform, as well as video embedded from external hosts like YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo, and Brightcove. If you are delivering video training, which option should you choose? Here's a quick guide to the pros and cons of each.Native Video Hosting on SkilljarThis is our default recommendation. We automatically create web-optimized, mobile-responsive versions of your videos in various sizes for computers, tablets and smartphones when you host your videos with Skilljar (this is called transcoding). Our native video hosting offers several advantages to embedded video:

• Centralized content management: You have a single place to upload, store, and manage your training content. No need to subscribe to an additional service or configure advanced permissions between two systems.
• Integrated video analytics: We report in-video engagement in our dashboard along with the rest of our learning analytics.
• Advanced player functionality: You can specify advanced video functionality such as disabling fast forward, requiring videos to be watched completely, and enabling video downloads (optional). If you offer compliance training, some of these features may be especially helpful. You can also edit video thumbnails directly from our content management dashboard. In the future, we will be supporting even more player features like interactive transcripts.
• Security: All video lessons automatically require trainee log-in, minimizing the risk of unsecured links. Video files are stored using secure URLs.
• Deliverability and troubleshooting: Our video player has been optimized to deliver into corporate and academic environments. If there are any deliverability issues, we have a series of test pages for diagnosing the correct configuration for IT departments. We can configure streaming protocols (adaptive vs progressive download, RTMP vs HTTP) at both organization-wide and individual trainee levels.

Embedded Video

There are also great reasons to use embedded video. Skilljar makes this very easy via copy-and-paste embed links in our content management dashboard. Here are common reasons to use embedded video:

• External content: You're adding or curating video that others have created and posted on YouTube (or other video sites) as part of your course.
• Version control: If your videos are also used for marketing purposes, such as on a YouTube channel, or you already have a corporate license with another video host, it can be easier to maintain one version of your videos rather than uploading into multiple systems.
• Additional features: Some video hosts offer additional features like in-roll advertising and branching scenarios that Skilljar does not.

Conclusion

Skilljar's learning management system (LMS) makes it easy to deliver video training to your audience. There are pros and cons for native video hosting with Skilljar, or embedding video from another platform. Fortunately, our platform provides flexibility to mix and match different options depending on your needs.