Live streaming is continuing to get a lot of mind share these days from both content providers and technology companies. The latest example in the latter category is Brightcove, which yesterday introduced in beta the Brightcove Video Cloud Live, a module to support live streaming across multiple devices.

A key part of Video Cloud Live is the recently announced Brightcove Zencoder Live Transcoding service, which provides live transcoding as a scalable API. This obviates the need for content providers to purchase and maintain their own hardware for encoding live events. This in turn reduces cost and complexity of running live events, making them far more feasible to offer to viewers. The Zencoder service also produces multiple adaptive bitrate streams so that users on various devices get the right stream for them.

The new module is offered within the same Video Cloud interface, with content providers creating players that can include the same branding and monetization as their on demand streams. There is also real-time monitoring of viewers and quality levels. Subsequent to the live event, the stream is automatically archived for on-demand access. Video Cloud Live is available for Pro and Enterprise customers with pricing based on number of event hours and quantity of output streams.

The Brightcove Live announcement follows a recent move from competing OVP thePlatform adding live features to its mpx platform. No doubt there will be others to follow as cloud-based encoding emerges as a key enabler of live streaming.