Your 2023 Lightcast Rewind

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance
to work hard at work worth doing."

(Theodore Roosevelt)

Reflecting on 2023, we're buzzing with gratitude! It's been a powerhouse year of fresh features and major enhancements - thanks to our valued clients and their insightful feedback.

Let's hit the rewind button and replay the game-changing product launches. A big high-five to the masterminds behind them – your tireless efforts have amplified our client service!

Sub-User Accounts

One of the most requested and celebrated features that has been built and enabled for all package levels in 2023. With this feature account owners can share access to their account with their team members and revoke that access if needed. In addition, they can choose what sections of the Media Cloud the sub-user will have access to.

Our clients are absolutely thrilled with it!

Twitter (X) Video Publishing

Similar to our Facebook and YouTube Video Publishing features, clients with Video Growth and larger package levels will have the ability to upload videos from their Media Cloud directly to their Twitter (X) account.

This remarkable tool streamlines publishers' operations, improving efficiency and simplifying workflows, proving to be an invaluable asset.

Twitch Live Streaming

Another great feature we released in 2023 for Video Power and larger packages is the ability to stream Live Events to Twitch, a popular online live-streaming platform for gamers and content creators. Twitch supports Live Broadcasts and Simulated Live, and can repeat live events every week.

Another incredible time saver for our publishers!

Amazon AWS S3 Uploader

We're always excited to expand the variety of ways you can upload content into the Media Cloud. This year we integrated Amazon S3 into the Media Cloud, which works similarly to the Dropbox uploader: you choose which type of media should be uploaded and processed – video or audio.

After successful uploading, the media file is sent directly for encoding and is added to your account ready for use.

Unpublish Date for a Media Item in a Channel

Similar to our well-known and popular “Scheduled Publishing” feature to automate the publishing of your content to a Channel, we released a new feature to automate the unpublishing of your media item from a Channel.

Put your publishing needs on auto-pilot and save yourself valuable time!

Player Configurator Extensions

Both the Share and Embed options for Players (which have always been available for Channel players and Single File Players) have been added to the Player Configurator to easily change the Share and Embed options for your players on any website and app where the player is embedded without the need of updating existing embed codes.

Another productivity tool to streamline your workload and let you concentrate on what matters most - creating outstanding content.

Alternate payment feature

With this new and convenient feature for subscription payments, it is now possible not only to change a credit card used for a specific subscription but also to pay a certain invoice with a different card. You can manage your alternate payments from the “Billing” page in your Media Cloud.

If you have a subscription set to Wire Transfer, you can now pay any successive invoice by credit card instead of wire transfer if you like.

Sub Channel Player Background Image

You can now upload a Player Background Image for your Sub Channels just like for Channels. It's a fantastic way to visually showcase what you're all about. Users get a quick snapshot of your content, helping them decide if it's what they're looking for.

Media Settings Page

Our new Media Settings page allows you to easily enable/disable our two quality levels for 4K encoding and playback (only for packages with 4K encoding included) along with helpful information about 4K encoding, how these qualities appear in the Lightcast Web Player, as well as consumption rates for playback.

Another feature of the Media Settings page is choosing how you want to handle surround sound mixes during encoding.

Analytics Center

Scheduled Reports can now be edited instead of having to delete them and create a new one. Also, a back button has been added to the Custom Reports Builder to easily go back and make changes when creating a report.

This productivity tool is going to be your new best friend in your report creation process!

App Framework Improvements

Tireless efforts have been made to enhance and broaden our app frameworks, aiming to improve usability, grant greater control, and secure compatibility with all app platforms.

Stay tuned! More app extensions and improvements are in the pipeline. The best is yet to come!

For a full picture of our 2023 releases, check out our release page.

We wish all of our valued clients a happy, healthy, and successful New Year! As we usher in the new year, we remain committed to providing superior service and fostering strong relationships. We look forward to continuing our journey together in the upcoming year!

Your Lightcast Success Team