The Next Phase For the New Version of Stream

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** The earlier version of Stream will now be known as Microsoft Stream (Classic) and Microsoft Stream will continue as the name for the new version.

In the past year, we've seen explosive growth for video in the workplace. Video has become central to engagement, communication, and productivity as more organizations than ever before embrace asynchronous work.

Leading the evolution of workplace video, the Microsoft Stream team embarked on a journey to integrate fast, intelligent video across Microsoft 365. We announced a new vision for Stream—one in which users can create, share, discover, and manage video —just as they would any other file in Microsoft 365. As we set off on this journey, we identified four key milestones to reach:

• saving meeting recordings to Microsoft 365
• achieving high-quality playback and scale parity with Stream (Classic)
• bringing innovation to the new version of Stream
• migrating existing Stream (Classic) customers

We're glad to announce we'll be entering the next phase of our journey to the new version of Microsoft Stream in Q3 2021. In this phase, we're on track to start bringing new experiences for sharing, discovery, and video playback on top of the Microsoft 365 file experience.

Here’s a breakdown of the Microsoft Stream journey below:

Teams Meeting Recordings Saved in Microsoft 365

The first step on this journey was to improve Teams meetings recordings by saving them in OneDrive and SharePoint, like any Office file. This has helped unlock new value and many long-awaited features for our customers. We’ve since taken steps to address limitations associated with this change by answering many of the questions we received and will be rolling out a block download feature for non-channel meetings.  For more information on Teams meeting recordings in OneDrive and SharePoint: https://aka.ms/tmrodsp

 

Playback Quality and Scale

The next step on this journey involves bringing high-quality playback and scaling from Stream (Classic) into video across Microsoft 365—including Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Alongside core processing and playback improvements, we're adding Content Delivery Network (CDN) support for video playback. These are the first few improvements expected to roll out in this phase - with continued investments in this area over the coming year, including a new and improved video player

 

Advancing Stream Innovation

In Microsoft 365, video files get compliance, governance, and immediate access to the many file innovations available to other Office file types, not just today but also in the future. This means the Stream team can focus more innovation on video and audio experiences across Microsoft 365. The first of these coming to the new version of Stream include videos on SharePoint pages, the Stream web app, and improved video analytics.

Featuring videos on SharePoint pages

When you upload video files to SharePoint Online sites, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams, or Yammer communities, you can easily build modern pages with existing web parts in SharePoint sites to feature those videos for your viewers. See how you can create beautiful pages featuring videos uploaded to the M365 files experience today.

Stream web app

The Stream web app will soon be part of office.com, bringing together videos from across your organization, and providing a consolidated list of videos shared by other users. Users will also be able to create, upload and find videos, with the entire user experience - along with search - tightly integrated with the rest of Office.com

Improved video analytics

For creators and admins, we are working on analytics that provide deeper insight into video engagement and interaction. This includes a viewership heatmap developed on top of analytics already available in Microsoft 365 today.

 

Migration

At the migration step, we’re taking a two-pronged approach—help customers prepare and make migration as pain-free as possible. Along these lines, we plan to release detailed migration documentation in March 2021 and the migration preview tool in summer 2021.

In summary, we’ll start bringing new experiences for sharing, discovery, and video playback on top of the Microsoft 365 file experience from Q3 2021. As we power through the next key milestones on this journey, we remain resolved to deliver an exceptional product experience, continue supporting Stream (Classic) customers, and advance innovation around fast, intelligent video. Check out the support documentation below for more information and follow the Microsoft 365 Stream roadmap to stay up-to-date with changes coming to Stream.

Support Documentation

The new version of Stream

Teams meeting recordings

Migrate from Microsoft Stream (Classic) to the new Microsoft Stream

[Joel_Meine]

Can you provide any more clarification on when 'Sharing Stream videos/channels to individuals outside the O365 network" will be introduced? This feature-set has been mentioned multiple times in previous Stream blogs & product announcement posts, however not much granularity on where it is in the project feature backlog. Thanks 

[Kevin Crossman]

@Joel_Meine When they say "share Stream videos" they are referring to "New Stream" aka videos stored in OneDrive and SharePoint. This leverages the same external sharing capabilities that ODSP offer today.

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@Joel_Meine That feature - external sharing - exists today in the new version of Stream. The new version of Stream will be fully integrated across Microsoft 365 - leveraging capabilities existing today (and in the future) in SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Graph, and others, to unlock new value for Stream customers.

[Von Zantua]

Are we getting the option where to save MS Teams meeting recordings? 

[AvrilEdmond]

Can I seek some clarification on whether the 'auto captioning' functionality will still be available in the new version of Stream and along with this will the functionality to 'Edit Auto captions' still be available through the Stream interface? With accessibility regulations this is a feature we rely on heavily and so it would be good to know what is going to be available on the new platform.

[Jenny Bruce]

I'd like to second @AvrilEdmond's question about auto-captioning and extend seek clarification about the excellent transcripts function that was also in classic Stream.  Also, what's happening with the other newer tools that allowed the user to create their own videos of actions on their screens - for example to prepare training guides.

The transcript and captioning functions are critical to organisations like mine who must meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 criteria to provide both captions and transcripts for users.

[adamwhite81]

looking forward to Sharepoint reimagined 2022

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@AvrilEdmond  @Jenny Bruce We're working to ensure Stream (built on SharePoint) has parity - in terms of playback and scale - with Stream classic. This means, starting this summer, that auto captioning, transcripts, and other similar features will become available through the Stream on SharePoint player experience.

[jakobschaefer]

I'm wondering why "trim" and other video editing options, which were available in Stream Classic, are not mentioned on the roadmap or "unavailable features" (Features in Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint) - Microsoft Stream | Microsoft Docs). Are there concrete plans to allow the trim feature again? I'm using it very often and this is a reason why our customers still opt out from the new stream.

[Žilvinas Jonaitis]

@Von Zantua There is an option to select where MS Teams meeting recordings are saved. It's Stream (Stream Classic) or OneDriveForBusiness (Steam on SharePoint). However, currently it could be set via PowerShell for Teams only:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity "Your_Meeting_Policy_Name" -RecordingStorageMode "OneDriveForBusiness"

Note: cloud recording must be enabled in your policy prior setting its storage mode.

[Stefan_Koch_AEB]

Hallo zusammen,

ab wann kann man das Sharepoint Video Template nutzen? Gibt es dann weiterhin das zentrale Stream new Portal oder wird das durch das Sharepoint Template ersetzt? Was passiert mit den Berechtigungen für den Stream Admin? Braucht dieser dann Sharepoint / OneDrive Berechtigungen?

[Thomas Maier]

Are there some more information about the "Content Type". 

I remember this slide - but there is actually nothing like this in SharePoint? Did "Content Type" mean a really content type in SharePoint?

[jhende1915]

I would like to +1 the comment by jakobschaefer above about availability video trim and other editing options in the new version of Stream. 

[Marc Mroz]

@Thomas Maier - I'm not sure where that video and slide came from, but we never created an official SharePoint "Content Type" to be used in Stream (on SharePoint). We are just adding all our new video features (thumbnails, chapters, transcripts, comments, etc) directly to the normal "Document Content Type" in SharePoint and ODB. Thus any video file uploaded to a document library can have these new "Stream" video features without needing to do anything with "Content Types". So if you want to make your own custom Content Type for videos you should extend from the normal "Document Content Type".

Marc Anderson did a blog post on this a while back: Creating Custom Content Types for Stream in SharePoint | Marc D Anderson's Blog (sympmarc.com)

[Marc Mroz]

@jhende1915 - We are working on brining clipchamp into M365 enterprise for full video editing and creation in 2023. We are also investigating a simple "hide" feature where you can hide parts of a video directly in Stream without needing to do a full trim/edit.