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I have previously blogged about Video Hosting Options for Drupal web sites. In that discussion, I talked about Kaltura, Amazon S3 and BrightCove. Others have also commented about Viddler and Twistage.

We have recently been involved with another video site which uses the Ooyala Backlot system. For the most part, Ooyala is very similar to the tools provided by Brightcove and Kaltura, however, there are a few features that we are really impressive.

1) Extensive ADs Management System
Using the Ooyala Backlot system, the administrators can easily insert overlays, pre-rolls and other advertisement into the videos. The great thing is that a lot of these integration does not require any programming knowledge. This allows for the easy management of Ads by non technical staff members.

2) Detailed Analytics System
While a lot of the other video hosting platforms also provide analytics support, the analytics provided by Ooyala is really extensive. The system shows where and when video content is delivered. It also shows which network the viewers are coming from. The administrators can also see how engaged users are as the videos are played. All of this information helps the site owners in figuring out the best ways for positioning video content.

In terms of integration, while there is no Ooyala Drupal module at this time, Ooyala has an extensive JavsScript API. There is also an ActionScript API for Flash based integration. For our project, we used the JavaScript API. Ooyala also has its own video search tool that can be used for your Drupal site. We find to be even more effective than the internal Drupal search system.

We will provide more information about the technical details of the integration once we have completed the project. We will also talk about how we have integrated a chat feature on Ooyala video pages using the XMPP API.