Is Kaltura suitable for VOD catalog only?

We currently have an internal only VOD solution using a Polycom product and Wowza Streaming Engine. The Polycom app is just used for users to browse VOD and when they stream video the Polycom app generates an RTMP URL pointing to Wowza for JWPlayer to use. We’re not happy with the features and capabilities of Polycom, but want to keep Wowza as our streaming engine. Unfortunately, Wowza doesn’t offer a nice front end for users to browse and play content yet. Kaltura is an attractive solution, but it doesn’t appear to be officially supported with Wowza. Can anyone comment if they’ve seen much integration where Kaltura can act as a VOD catalog and use another app for a streaming engine? Thanks

Hello,

Kaltura does utilise Wowza for live streaming, see:

For other functionality, such as uploading videos, playback which is not live, adding metadata, etc, Wowza is not needed. Only needed when doing live streaming.

Thanks for the info. I hit that link originally, but it was a bit misleading since it starts halfway down the page talking about webcam integration so I didn’t think to scroll to the top.

I managed to get a vanilla Kaltura CE install going and have accessed the admin consoles successfully. One thing I’m confused on is the VOD catalog for end users. Does Kaltura offer out of the box layouts to where we just upload content and let users hit the site or are we expected to build our own site and just embed the content from Kaltura?

Hello,

Apart from management tools, such as Admin Console and KMC, Kaltura CE will provide you with HTML embed codes which you can then embed in your site.
If you want a full video portal for end users, we do offer Kaltura MediaSpace but that is not FOSS and costs money.
You can see an example of it at videos.kaltura.com.

Great, this is what I was looking for. Thanks