What is Stream (on SharePoint)?

Copper Contributor

I have videos at my OneDrive folder with shareable links. 

How can I insert these videos in Stream page without uploading physically but just with links? 

Since there are copyright issue, I can't directly upload the video contents but just links. 

Like building a website, I hope Stream to provide a way to share a video within Stream with only a link to other platform like OneDrive or Youtube. Please help me resolve that issue. Thank you very much in advance. 

6 Replies

@Daniel_Lee82 Can you explain a bit more of exactly what you are trying  to do? 

 

You can't build any customized pages in Stream (Classic). You have to physically upload videos to Stream (Classic). 

 

If instead you use SharePoint which is our go forward solution you can build customized internal pages and feature videos from YouTube, OneDrive, or SharePoint. 

 

Https://aka.ms/StreamPortals 

 

File viewer web part for videos in SharePoint or OneDrive.

 

youtube web part for a video from YouTube. 

 

Stream (Classic) is going to be retired date to be announced later this year and we'll give 1 year notice. But you should start using Stream (on SharePoint) instead now. 

@Marc Mroz Thank you for your reply!

 

We are currently using Stream as a video sharing portal internally. 

So far, there have been only physically uploaded videos. 

Recently, there is a need to share videos in someone's OneDrive Business storage in the Stream portal because I do not physically own the videos but just viewer-rights. 

I hope to harmoniously embed the videos within our Stream site. 

 

Do you mean that Stream (Classic) will disappear in a year or so? 

And will there be only Stream (on SharePoint)?

If it is just on SharePoint page, what's the point of Stream's existence? 

OneDrive is sufficient to build a SharePoint video sharing portal.

 

And please send me links of how to build a Stream (On SharePoint). Thank you very much. 

 

Daniel

 

What I am ultimately trying to do is to share videos internally in a nice format like Stream.

@Daniel_Lee82  - 

 


Do you mean that Stream (Classic) will disappear in a year or so? 

And will there be only Stream (on SharePoint)?

We haven't announced the retirement date yet for Stream (Classic) but are getting ready to either later this year or early next year. We are waiting for the migration tool to be "generally available" before we announce the 12-month window until Stream (Classic) retires. So very likely in the next 1.5 years Stream (Classic) will be fully shut down. 

 

Stream (on SharePoint) is our go forward solution. The migration tool will help your IT admins move the videos out of Stream (Classic) and into SharePoint sites or user's OneDrive. 

 


If it is just on SharePoint page, what's the point of Stream's existence? 

OneDrive is sufficient to build a SharePoint video sharing portal.

 

And please send me links of how to build a Stream (On SharePoint). Thank you very much. 

Stream as a product will still exist but how it works in M365 will change slightly.

  1. All your video files will be stored in SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer the same way you store all other files. This has major advantages in terms of life cycle, permissions, access, information governance, M365 Search, APIs, etc.
  2. The Stream start page (https://stream.office.com) will be an easy way for users to get back to videos they've opened recently, were sent links to, etc. It is not going to be a "single enterprise video portal" like Stream (Classic) was. From looking at usage across Stream (Classic) most videos are watched because users were sent a direct link or the video was embeded into some other web page. Rarely do users actually come to Stream (classic) and browse for videos. 
  3. Videos are now searchable anywhere in M365 you search for other files. You don't have to go to a special place to search for videos just search in SP, Teams, Bing, office.com, etc and video files are shown right next to other files. Videos are searchable based on their title, description, transcript, and chapters.
  4. To build video destinations like what you had with a Stream (Classic) group or channel, you now do that with SharePoint pages and web parts. This allows for much more customization and creativity to feature your videos along side other content. See these guides and walkthroughs: https://aka.ms/StreamPortals 

@Marc Mroz Thank you so much, Marc, please allow me a few follow-up questions so I am a newbie to this. 

 

1. Stream Product Term Definition

You said "So very likely in the next 1.5 years Stream (Classic) will be fully shut down. " and "Stream as a product will still exist but how it works in M365 will change slightly.". What I understand of those is as follows: would you review and confirm the following?


1) Stream (Classic) = Which means a web page that holds all the videos and a destination for all employees to come to watch. = Disappear.
2) Stream = "Stream as a product will still exist ..." Will exist even after the new Stream (on SharePoint) shows up = a video storage space without having a web page showcasing all the videos.
3) Stream (on SharePoint) = "What is this?" = Will exist.
3-1) If we can store videos in OneDrive and can embed them into a SharePoint page via web part? What is the point of the existence of Stream? And why is this at all called as "Stream (on SharePoint?), not OneDrive videos on SharePoint? It seems nothing to do with other than OneDrive and SharePoint.
3-2) I inserted the links of videos in OneDrive into a SharePoint site for a test purpose, and when I played it, I found it was playing on Stream as follows: does that mean the video streaming/playing engine behind OneDrive or other MS M365 products is Stream?

Daniel_Lee82_0-1663118705616.png

Daniel_Lee82_1-1663118835462.png

3-3) Web part definition

I inserted the links to the OneDrive videos into the SharePoint web page. Did I use a web part? If it means something else, please provide me with a brief guide for that. I am wondering whether I did it right or not. 

 

2. Our future enterprise video sharing platform

We need a central place to store all the videos worthy of being shared with and watched by every member of our organization, not just teams/email video link sharing. What are possible options? 

1) Build a SharePoint portal containing all the videos for employees for internal purposes.

2) Are there any other options? Maybe Power Apps Page? 

 

Thank you very much. Daniel

 

 

@Daniel_Lee82 

 


@Daniel_Lee82 wrote:

@Marc Mroz Thank you so much, Marc, please allow me a few follow-up questions so I am a newbie to this. 

 

1. Stream Product Term Definition

You said "So very likely in the next 1.5 years Stream (Classic) will be fully shut down. " and "Stream as a product will still exist but how it works in M365 will change slightly.". What I understand of those is as follows: would you review and confirm the following?


1) Stream (Classic) = Which means a web page that holds all the videos and a destination for all employees to come to watch. = Disappear.


The web.microsoftstream.com service is Stream (Classic). We announced 2 years ago the intention to retire this service and move scenarios and use cases into M365 proper inside of SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer, etc. Now we are getting close to being able to announce an actual date of retirement. We are waiting for our migration tooling to be GA which likely will happen later this year or early next year. At that time we'll give 12-months notice for everyone to migrate their videos into SharePoint/OneDrive and then we'll shut down Stream (Classic). 

See for more info: https://aka.ms/NewStream and https://aka.ms/StreamRoadmap 

 

Stream (Classic) was a "video portal" and a "single destination" but as we look at aggregated telemetry from Stream (Classic) users didn't actually use it as such. Most videos get viewed from direct links or from being embeded into other web sites and into the organization's intranet. Or people would link to a set of videos on a specific topic in a "channel". 

 

Stream (on SharePoint), which is uploading your videos in the flow of your everyday work to the places you are already using inside of SharePoint, Teams, Yammer, OneDrive is our go forward solution. We are bringing all the video playback, metadata, and special video experiences directly into M365 where all other files are stored. Thus we get to gain the benefits of that broader SharePoint file storage and downstream capabilities. By storing your videos in OneDrive/SharePoint now your videos:

  • are part of M365 Search (anywhere you search in M365 your videos are found based on what's said in them and metadata)
  • have APIs (videos can be handled with the MS Graph Files APIs)
  • participate in Information Governance (eDiscovery, Legal Hold, Retention, DLP)
  • have the same life cycle management as any other file
  • have deep analytics for view counts over time and which part of the video was viewed
  • Can be natively part of your intranet with web parts, pages, sites, the Viva company feed, and Viva Connections

You can build video destinations for videos on specific topics or even to aggregate all the videos across SharePoint, but we think that organizations should just weave videos into their other intranet sites and destinations along with other files. Videos should just be a natural part of your workflow instead of needing to be siloed on the side in a specialized portal.  See this link for more info: https://aka.ms/StreamPortals 

 

3) Stream (on SharePoint) = "What is this?" = Will exist.

See above and read https://aka.ms/NewStream

Stream (on SP) will be the application and service in M365 to help you search, play, record, and enhance videos that are stored in M365 directly in SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, and Yammer. 

 

3-1) If we can store videos in OneDrive and can embed them into a SharePoint page via web part? What is the point of the existence of Stream? And why is this at all called as "Stream (on SharePoint?), not OneDrive videos on SharePoint? It seems nothing to do with other than OneDrive and SharePoint.

 


Stream as a brand name and product will exist. We are calling it "Stream (on SharePoint)" right now to differentiate it from "Stream (Classic)". We added the "(on SharePoint)" to indicate that the files are stored in SharePoint. The files can be stored in SP, ODB, Teams, or Yammer. All apps that store files in M365 use SharePoint as the underpinning base technology, even OneDrive is just dressed up special SP site for a single user.

 

The existence of of Stream is the app that plays video (and audio) files in M365, allows you to add transcripts, chapters, comments, thumbnails, get embed codes. It is also the place that you'll go to find videos FOR YOU (shared with you, recommended for you, recently accessed, etc) as well as the place you can record a short video, enhance it with metadata, and share it out. (But the files will always be in ODB, SPO so that they work like any other Word, PPT, Excel, PDF, file, etc.)

 

3-2) I inserted the links of videos in OneDrive into a SharePoint site for a test purpose, and when I played it, I found it was playing on Stream as follows: does that mean the video streaming/playing engine behind OneDrive or other MS M365 products is Stream?

Daniel_Lee82_0-1663118705616.png

Daniel_Lee82_1-1663118835462.png

 


The top image looks like the Stream (Classic) web part inside of SharePoint. This is still the old solution. 

 

The bottom picture is our new "Stream web app" that plays the videos stored in SP, ODB. This is the new solution. Our team has hundreds of engineers building video streaming and video experience directly into SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer, and beyond. 

 

To get something like the top image "a list of videos" see this guide: https://aka.ms/StreamPortals

 

Use the Hero, Highlighted Content, and File Viewer web parts on a SP page pointed at videos uploaded directly to a SP site. 

 


2. Our future enterprise video sharing platform

We need a central place to store all the videos worthy of being shared with and watched by every member of our organization, not just teams/email video link sharing. What are possible options? 

1) Build a SharePoint portal containing all the videos for employees for internal purposes.

2) Are there any other options? Maybe Power Apps Page? 


Normally organizations have multiple kinds of uses cases for videos. Some videos are more team/department, some are one off sharing, and other videos are of high value sent out from the CEO/corporate  communications team/HR, etc.  In the past the only solution you had was to upload them all to a "single enterprise video solution" because that's how those solutions work, even Stream (Classic). It wasn't because that was the best way, it was because that was the only way, video playback is hard at scale and so you historically had to have specialized solutions dedicated to video playback.  

 

Now we are saying that all of SharePoint and M365 is your enterprise video solution. Videos can be in the flow of your other work and existing processes...

  • For one off video sharing just upload a video wherever you upload other files and share a link.
  • For team / department sharing, upload those to your team SP site like you would any other file and link to the document library, folder, or build a SP page with highlighted content web part or feature videos on the team site home page. 
  • For high value all-company content put them on your intranet itself, feature them on the home page, build a set of dedicated pages with highlighted content web parts, use the tools you would for creating the rest of your intranet and weave videos into those directly.

 

If you want to watch our session from last year's Ignite it's a good summary of what's all possible. We'll have a new video for this Ignite in a month as well: 

 


 

 

@Daniel_Lee82  It might resonate more if you think of Stream (on SharePoint) this way:

1) Vastly improved video (and audio) playback, inside any service that uses SharePoint for files. Including OneDrive, Teams, and Yammer.

2) A new Stream-branded start page in office.com, similar to the start pages for Excel, PowerPoint etc.

3) "Stream" branding around #1 and #2.

 

This transition may be confusing to many especially those with investment and association with Stream Classic, you're not the only one.