The General Concept of API
First, let’s discuss the general notion of API. API stands for Application Programming Interface. This is a software mediator that facilitates the interaction between several programs. Let’s put it simple: imagine you are going to get married. Of course, you want this day to be special and strive to have the best photographer, videographer, caterer, florist, etc. However, you have no idea how to manage everything and reach out to all these people. So, you find a wedding organizer who will help you with everything and fulfill your most overwhelming desires. In this case, the wedding organizer is like an API that takes your desires into account, delivers them to those in charge, and lets you receive the necessary services.
The more complex examples of APIs are weather apps and widgets. When looking for any weather app, you may find thousands of them on AppStore and GooglePlay. However, in reality, the majority of such apps are based on the same weather APIs that allow them to link with a comprehensive weather forecast database.
What is a Video API
As competition in the business arena is becoming more and more intense, many companies do their best to come up with innovative ways of delivering video content to their customers. Logically, demand creates supply, making developers design new video apps to meet all business requirements. And here, video APIs come to their rescue, giving them access to particular video services.
There are multiple types of video APIs depending on their function. It’s possible to write a whole book enumerating all of them. But we’d like to dwell on the one that has become particularly popular: a video conference API.
With such a video API type, group video chats, real-time videos, and screen sharing can be easily customized. This can be implemented in various ways. For example, if you are developing an educational app, you may use video conference API to make communication between teachers and students possible in the virtual classroom; or if you strive to create an internal app for communication within your company, feel free to apply this API type to make video calls possible.
Top 3 Best Video APIs
There are a lot of video APIs, but we’ve tried to identify top 3 that are surely worth mentioning.
1. Banuba Video Calling API
Banuba Video Calling API – an easy-to-start solution will make your users’ experience really unique. It is packed with numerous video effects, face AR masks, picture-in-picture mode, etc. Feel free to bring your products to life by integrating and customizing Banuba Video Calling API in your app.
2. Twitch API
Twitch is known as an interactive livestreaming entertaining service. No wonder its API is so popular! It offers its users interactive experiences and real-time communication, granting access to this world-famous video service. Everything you need to get started is to have a Twitch account.
3. Cloudinary Video API
Cloudinary video API includes real-time video transcoding, content-aware compression, and quick video transformation. Plus, its video player is rather lightweight, so developers can get access to its elements and configuration.
Benefits of Video APIs for Business
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Video API = Time- and Resources-Saver
With the help of video APIs, developing video apps has become both easier and faster. As the number of video APIs is enormous, developers can create streaming apps, social apps, or educational apps in just a few clicks. And all the time saved may be spent on improving the app functionality and general performance.
By the way, we have something else to offer to save even more time for developers and companies in general: Banuba products. Banuba is a company that provides businesses with AR technologies, filling their apps with the most powerful augmented reality features. You can find more details about Banuba products on the company website.
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Video API = Increased Scalability
The size of videos can be quite large, and storing such heavy files can take up a lot of space on the server. Sounds rather impractical, doesn’t it? Luckily, certain video APIs grant access to cloud storage systems, like Google Cloud Storage API, Box and Dropbox APIs, etc. With their help, you can save space on the web server by storing data on the cloud.
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Video API = Video Optimization
The use of video APIs can help you automate the conversion of uploaded videos into various formats. Also, they make it easier to make video files more optimized for browsers and mobile devices.
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Video API = Security
Video APIs are well secured. So, while integrating one into your app, you also integrate all its high data security standards.
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Video API = Clear Understanding of Processes
The fact that video APIs are becoming more and more common makes all the processes within them more or less transparent. The documentation is usually well-written, while tech support is always at customers’ disposal. So, again, this facilitates developers’ work greatly.
