Dacast
About Dacast
dacast (formerly vzaar) is an online video hosting platform for businesses that allows you to publish your videos online in an easy and fast way. The software contains multiple customizable design options to ensure your video aligns with your company's branding. Add logos, calls to action, subtitles, social sharing, languages, watermarking and more. The range of tools also allows for encoding, security, analytics, API's, and content management.
This professional video platform is multi-compatible and can be played on PCs, Macs, IOS (iPhone & iPad), Android, and Windows 7. It offers a range of additional features and benefits to facilitate in the uploading, encoding, quality setting, appearance, security and management of your videos. This software is affordable for all company sizes, with pricing options for small business as well as large enterprises.
Key benefits of Dacast
The player you want
Full customization. Add your logo, calls to action, subtitles, social sharing, languages, watermarking, colors and a lot more.
The tools you need
An extensive set of tools for encoding, security, analytics, API's, and content management.
Play anywhere
PCs, Macs, IOS (iPhone & iPad), Android, Windows 7 ...all backed by a truly global content delivery network.
Awesome Support
Reach out via phone, email or live chat & we'll aim to get back to you within 1 business day. Super responsive support from real human beings.
API
Integrate our video platform into your own web application by using our developer API.
Video Dimensions
Have your videos encoded to any dimensions you want. Choose from one of our preset video sizes (small, medium, large, or HD), or enter in your own.
Video Quality
Set the video bitrate (video quality) you need, or let vzaar automatically work out the sweet spot between file size and video quality (compression) for you.
Audio Quality
vzaar encodes audio (both for video files and audio only) at the 128K high quality. You have the option to set it higher at 256k.
RTMPe
An extra level of security. Encrypted streaming makes it more difficult to download your video because the location of the complete file is hidden. This combined with SWF Verification ensures you content is only served in your authorized video player.
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Reviews
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- Industry: Nonprofit Organization Management
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Reliable and easy to use
Reviewed on 08/10/2019
We use it extensively to stream weekly tutorials, as well as live feed conferences and events....
We use it extensively to stream weekly tutorials, as well as live feed conferences and events. Overall, our experience has been very positive and you can quickly talk to a real persona if you get stuck or something´s not working.
Pros
Dacast is a solid streaming platform backed by an excellent support team which have helped me sort out configuration and integration into our e-learning platforms. I also like the fact that it´s highly customizable and integrates well into OBS studio and HTML pages, as well as Facebook. All in all, the quality/value for money ratio is well worth it.
Cons
The latency is annoying (can be up to 15 secondes) and the upgrade payment to eliminate it is really too expensive.
Response from DaCast
Hi John! Thanks a lot for your comments, we take the point on the pricing. We are always trying to find cheaper solutions to put on the market, we will announce it if we have anything new on this!
- Industry: Religious Institutions
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Weekly for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Quick & Easy Setup for your Church
Reviewed on 26/03/2021
Overall, we have been using Dacast's Streaming Starter Package since July 2020 and have had zero...
Overall, we have been using Dacast's Streaming Starter Package since July 2020 and have had zero issues. I am extremely pleased with the service and that our church members are able to watch Online, via Facebook and other Social Media, or by hosted page from our Website. Additionally,
Pros
I am new to Webcasting, and was apprehensive initially when deciding on a streaming service. However, once I tried Dacast and saw how simple, quick, and easy it was to use I was convinced. I love that we have the ability stream our church services and that Dacast works with OBS which is what we use to create our streams. Additionally, after streaming, we have the added capability of hosting our recording as a Video On Demand option for those that were not able to catch the live stream. Also, the other reason that I chose Dacast was that our streaming and video hosting service is not competing with millions of others on free or publicly accessible options. It does require an investment upfront (I am using the starter package) and have not run out of capacity nor has anybody that connects has filed any sort of complaints. This service functions as advertised and I think it is well worth the investment, especially for teams that are new to web .
Cons
Where I believe the product could use some improvements is on the Analytics area. I think that there should be some options or features that allow us to track specific users. In our case, I would love it if I could assign some sort of "Credential" or "ID" to users so that when they either watch online or watch "recordings", I could be able to track who where the users. There are other reports, hwo
Reasons for Switching to Dacast
I chose Dacast because I provided what I really wanted from a streaming service: A professional and easy to use interface, No Ads or Suggested "other" videos, and I wanted to be able to host my own recordings after the fact. Dacast provides all these things at a reasonable price.- Industry: Broadcast Media
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 0.0 /10
Lot of investment
Reviewed on 01/06/2022
You guys need to realize that if we have trouble using your program we fail our customers and they...
You guys need to realize that if we have trouble using your program we fail our customers and they will not hire us. Our customers ARE Your customers. If we fail you fail
I would check to when most of your streaming happens. I’m gonna guess the weekends and nights. So when do you offer support? I be never gotten you when I needed you the most and it had cost me business. People are already suspicious of streaming and I have to use all the elite features or I can’t separate from Facebook streamers. Most importantly they must be easy to use.
Pros
The layers are good. It follows logic. The audio is a bit confusing.
Cons
There are so many variables that you have to be Very good problem solver and completely knowledgeable about product and how third party interacts
Response from DaCast
Hello Larry, thank you for leaving a review! We are always trying to find ways to improve our platform and make it more user friendly. Could you please let me know what it is specifically that you are finding challenging so I may be able to further assist you? Thank you!
- Industry: Religious Institutions
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
Ideal for church live streaming
Reviewed on 21/07/2022
Dacast has been a valuable platform by which we can connect with our parishioners, both local and...
Dacast has been a valuable platform by which we can connect with our parishioners, both local and in remote locations.
Pros
The Dacast platform provides great value for money.
The move to the Limelight CDN platform has give much lower latency, and a generally improved connection experience for viewers.
Works seamlessly with OBS and most hardware encoders.
Cons
Some viewers have difficulty making a connection to a live stream, since connection to the video feed is not automatic once the streaming url is displayed.
Analytics are not fully available on the basic plan, and sometimes do not show at all.
Brand image does not always display in the same location of the streaming window, depending on the aspect ratio of the device used to view the stream.
Multi bitrate streaming appears to be unavailable with the Limelight platform.
Alternatives Considered
YouTubeReasons for Switching to Dacast
Dacast is an add-free platform. Inaccurate labelling of copyright breaches by Youtube, unmanageable means of recourse.- Industry: Religious Institutions
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
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Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
Solid Church Live Stream Platform
Reviewed on 18/07/2022
Excellent reliability. Been streaming with Dacast for sever years now and never had a failure....
Excellent reliability. Been streaming with Dacast for sever years now and never had a failure. Solid, reliable streaming every time
Pros
Dacast gives us all we need to live stream our services at a competetive price. We're not a huge ministry so price is important to us, and other providers don't seem to get that and offer such competetive rates for small users who want to grow
Cons
The customised OBS version needs updating. You don't have to use it, but it's a good option for new starters
Dacast FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Dacast.Q. What type of pricing plans does Dacast offer?
Dacast offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: USD 0.00/month
- Pricing model: Subscription
- Free Trial: Available
Starter Plan The Starter plan costs $39/month and comes with 1,000 GB of bandwidth per month (1.2 TB / year) and 50 GB of storage. The plan is ideal for affordable streaming to small groups. Event Plan The Event plan goes for $63/month and comes with 6 TB of bandwidth upfront and 50 GB of storage. This plan is best suited for broadcasters who want to host one-time or occasional live events. Scale Plan As its name suggests, the Scale plan is built for businesses and organizations who are ready to take things to the next level. This plan costs $188/month when billed annually and includes 24 TB of bandwidth per year and 1 TB of storage. Custom If your needs exceed the resources available with the other three plans, Dacast is willing and able to provide you with a unique pricing package for high-volume plans of any size. Please contact us for custom pricing.
Q. Who are the typical users of Dacast?
Dacast has the following typical customers:
Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000
Q. What languages does Dacast support?
Dacast supports the following languages:
English
Q. Does Dacast support mobile devices?
Dacast supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Dacast integrate with?
We do not have any information about what integrations Dacast has
Q. What level of support does Dacast offer?
Dacast offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support, 24/7 (Live rep), Chat
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