I had a chance to talk to some people at permissionTV. They have some really nice services and software. In particular I was very interested in their PDK, Permission TV Platform Development Kit. It made me think of think specifically of the pros/cons between paying to license something like this or building on an open source project like JV FLV Media Player. The integration of the PDK with permissionTV's backend PTV video management system is certainly nice, but could also be served by home-grown integration with any number of back-end systems.

It comes down to well-known buy/build tradeoffs which need to be evaluated in the context of the specific resources, goals and challenges of a particular business opportunity. There's no easy answer other than doing due diligence and making a timely decision.

What's perhaps even more interesting is the pyschological and political factors that go into buy/build decisions and vendor choice. Sometimes these factors determine the decision and it's important to make them conscious and explicit.

Currently, our custom video players are doing what we need, so I have no pressing need. However, it's good to be thinking about these things now as we will soon need to decide between polishing and rolling out advanced features I've prototyped on DRLabs in open source code, or getting advanced video player features from a partner or vendor.