Nearly a year after it entered preview, Microsoft's enterprise video-sharing service, Stream, is now launching into general availability. As what can be described as a sort of YouTube for businesses, Stream helps organizations "securely upload, share, manage and view videos."
As Stream is meant for sharing videos internally, security is a big part of the service. Encryption and authenticated access are both utilized, along with management through Azure Active Directory and Office 365 Groups.
Additionally, Microsoft is leveraging some other interesting intelligence features that let you do some pretty unique things:
- Speech-to-text transcribed audio—Transcribed audio becomes searchable text. Simply type in descriptive keywords to jump to any point in a video they are spoken.
- Face detection—With face detection, viewers can see where each person in the video is shown throughout the video. A clickable timeline indicates every place they appear.
- Linked timecodes—Timecodes are displayed within the comments section and are linked to the text transcripts or table of contents, so you can jump to a specific point in the video.
Microsoft Stream is launching to Office 365 customers in 181 markets and 44 languages worldwide. The service can be found in the Office app launcher or at the Microsoft Stream website. It's also worth noting that Office 365 Video customers will be transitioned to Stream starting in the second half of 2017.
