Video

This section describes working with video in Dynamic Media.

The following step-by-step workflow description is designed to help you get up and running quickly with adaptive video sets in Dynamic Media. After each step are cross-references to topic headings where you can find more information.

Video in Dynamic Media is an end-to-end solution that makes it easy to publish high-quality Adaptive Video for streaming across multiple screens, including desktop, iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows mobile devices. An Adaptive Video Set groups versions of the same video that are encoded at different bit rates and formats such as 400 kbps, 800 kbps, and 1000 kbps. The desktop computer or mobile device detects the available bandwidth.

For example, on an iOS mobile device, it detects a bandwidth such as 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi. Then, it automatically selects the right encoded video from among the various video bit rates within the Adaptive Video Set. The video is streamed to desktops, mobile devices, or tablets.

In addition, video quality is dynamically switched automatically if network conditions change on the desktop or on the mobile device. Also, if a customer enters full-screen mode on a desktop, the Adaptive Video Set responds by using a better resolution, thereby improving the customer’s viewing experience. Using Adaptive Video Sets provides you with the best possible playback for customers playing Dynamic Media video on multiple screens and devices.

The logic that a video player uses to determine which encoded video to play or to select during playback is based on the following algorithm:

1. Video player loads the initial video fragment based on the bit rate that is closest to the value that is set for "initial bitrate" in the player itself.
2. Video player switches based on changes to the bandwidth speed using the following criteria:
   1. Player picks the highest bandwidth stream below or equal to the estimated bandwidth.
   2. Player considers only 80% of the available bandwidth. However, if it is switching up, it is more conservative at only 70% to avoid overestimating and immediately switching back.
      

For detailed technical information about the algorithm, see https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/av/+/master/media/libstagefright/httplive/LiveSession.cpp

For managing single video and Adaptive Video Sets, the following is supported:

• Uploading video from numerous supported video formats and audio formats and encoding video to MP4 H.264 format for playback across multiple screens. You can use predefined adaptive video presets, single video encoding presets, or customize your own encoding to control the quality and size of the video.
  • When an adaptive video set is generated, it includes MP4 videos.
  • Note: Master/source videos are not added to an Adaptive Video Set.
• Video captioning in all HTML5 video viewers.
• Organize, browse, and search video with full metadata support for efficient management of video assets.
• Deliver Adaptive Video Sets to the web as well as to desktops, and mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, Android™, Blackberry, and Windows phone.

Adaptive video streaming is supported on a variety of iOS platforms. See Scene7 Viewers Reference Guide.

Dynamic Media supports mobile video playback for MP4 H.264 video. You can find Blackberry devices that support this video format at the following: Supported video formats on Blackberry.

You can find Windows devices that support this video format at the following: Supported video formats on Windows Phone

• Play back the video using Dynamic Media Video Viewer Presets, including the following:
  • Single video viewers.
  • Mixed Media viewers that combine both video and image content.
• Configure video players to meet your branding needs.
• Integrate video to your website, mobile site, or mobile application with a simple URL or embed code.

See Dynamic video playback.

See also About HTML5 Viewers in the Adobe Scene7 Viewers Reference Guide.

The Dynamic Media HTML5 Video viewer presets are robust video players. You can use them to avoid many common issues that are associated with HTML5 video playback and issues associated with mobile devices such as lack of adaptive streaming delivery and limited desktop browser reach.

On the design side of the player, you can design all of the video player’s functionality using standard web development tools. For example, you can design the buttons, controls, and custom poster image background using HTML5 and CSS to help you reach your customers with a customized appearance.

On the playback side of the viewer, it automatically detects the browser’s video capability. It then serves the video using HLS streaming (adaptive video streaming). Or, if those delivery methods are not present then HTML5 progressive is used instead.

By combining into a single player the ability to design the playback components using HTML5 and CSS, have embedded playback, and use adaptive and progressive streaming depending on the browser’s capability, you extend the reach of your rich media content to both desktop and mobile users and ensure a streamlined video experience.

See also About HTML5 Viewers in the Adobe Scene7 Viewers Reference Guide.

For desktop and mobile adaptive video streaming, the videos used for bit rate switching are based first on all MP4 videos in the Adaptive Video Set.

Video playback occurs using either HLS or progressive video. HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) is an Apple standard for adaptive video streaming that automatically adjusts playback based on network bandwidth capacity. It also lets the customer “seek” to any point in the video without the need to wait for the rest of the video to download (see also HTTP Live Streaming). Progressive video is delivered by downloading and storing the video locally to a user’s desktop screen or mobile device.

The following table describes the device, browser, and playback method of videos on desktop computers and mobile devices using the Scene7 Video Viewer.

The following graphic shows the overall authoring workflow of videos that are uploaded and encoded by way of DMGateway and made available for public consumption.

The following are best-practice tips for encoding source video files.

For advice about video encoding, see the following:

• Article: Streaming 101: The Basics — Codecs, Bandwidth, Data Rate, and Resolution: www.adobe.com/go/learn_s7_streaming101_en.

• Video: Video Encoding Basics: www.adobe.com/go/learn_s7_encoding_en.

When you encode a video file, use a source video file of the highest possible quality. Avoid using previously encoded video files because these files are already compressed, and further encoding creates a subpar quality video.

The following table describes the recommended size, aspect ratio, and minimum bit rate that your source video files should have before you encode them:

You can obtain a file’s metadata by viewing its metadata using a video editing tool, or using an application designed for obtaining metadata. Following are instructions for using MediaInfo, a third-party application, to obtain a video file’s metadata:

1. Go to this web page: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download.

2. Select and download the installer for the GUI version, and follow the installation instructions.

3. After installation, either right-click the video file (Windows only) and select MediaInfo, or open MediaInfo and drag your video file into the application. You see all metadata associated with your video file, including its width, height, and fps.

When you choose or create a video encoding preset for your master video file, make sure that the preset has the same aspect ratio as the master video file. The aspect ratio is the ratio of the width to the height of the video.

To determine the aspect ratio of a video file, obtain the file’s metadata and note the file’s width and height (see Obtaining a file's metadata above). Then use this formula to determine the aspect ratio:

width/height = aspect ratio

The following table describes how formula results translate to common aspect ratio choices:

For example, a video that is 1440 width x 1080 height has an aspect ratio of 1440/1080, or 1.33. In this case you choose a video encoding preset with a 4:3 aspect ratio to encode the video file.

Bitrate is the amount of data that is encoded to make up a single second of video playback. The bitrate is measured in kilobits per second (Kbps).

When selecting a bitrate encoding, there are two types you can choose:

• Constant Bitrate Encoding (CBR) - During CBR encoding, the bitrate or the number of bits per second is kept the same throughout the encoding process. CBR encoding persists the set data rate to your setting over the entire video. Also, CBR encoding does not optimize media files for quality but does save on storage space.
  Use CBR if your video contains a similar motion level throughout the entire video. CBR is most commonly used for streaming video content. See also Using custom-added video encoding parameters.
  
• Variable Bitrate Encoding (VBR) - VBR encoding adjusts the data rate down and to the upper limit you set, based on the data required by the compressor. This means that during a VBR encoding process the bitrate of the media file dynamically increases or decreases depending on the media files bitrate needs.
  VBR takes longer to encode but produces the most favorable results; the quality of the media file is superior. VBR is most commonly used for http progressive delivery of video content.

When should you use VBR versus CRB?
When it comes to selecting VBR versus CBR, it is almost always recommended that you use VBR for your media files. VBR provides higher quality files at competitive bitrates. When you use VBR, be sure you use with two-pass encoding, and set the maximum bitrate to be 1.5x the target video bitrate.

When you choose a video encoding preset, take into account the target end user’s connection speed. Choose a preset with a data rate that is 80 percent of that speed. For example, if the target end user’s connection speed is 1000 Kbps, the best preset is one with a video data rate of 800 Kbps.

This table describes the data rate of typical connection speeds.

Resolution describes a video file’s height and width in pixels. Most source video is stored at a high resolution (for example, 1920 x 1080). For streaming purposes, source video is compressed to a smaller resolution (640 x 480 or smaller).

Resolution and data rate are two integrally linked factors that determine video quality. To maintain the same video quality, the higher the number of pixels in a video file (the higher the resolution), the higher the data rate must be. For example, consider the number of pixels per frame in a 320 x 240 resolution and a 640 x 480 resolution video file:

The 640 x 480 file has four times more pixels per frame. To achieve the same data rate for these two example resolutions, you apply four times the compression to the 640 x 480 file, which can reduce the quality of the video. Therefore, a video data rate of 250 Kbps produces high-quality viewing at a 320 x 240 resolution, but not at a 640 x 480 resolution.

In general, the higher data rate you use, the better your video looks, and the higher resolution you use, the higher data rate you need to maintain viewing quality (compared to lower resolutions).

Because resolution and data rate are linked, you have two options when encoding video:

• Choose a data rate and then encode at the highest resolution that looks good at the data rate you chose.

• Choose a resolution and then encode at the data rate necessary to achieve high-quality video at the resolution you chose.

When you choose (or create) a video encoding preset for your master video file, use this table to target the correct resolution:

In the United States and Japan, most video is shot at 29.97 frames per second (fps); in Europe, most video is shot at 25 fps. Film is shot at 24 fps.

Choose a video encoding preset that matches the fps rate of your master video file. For example, if your master video is 25 fps, choose an encoding preset with 25 fps. By default, all custom encoding uses the master video file’s fps. For this reason, you do not need to explicitly specify the fps setting when you create a video encoding preset.

For optimal results, select encoding dimensions such that the source video is a whole multiple of all your encoded videos.

To calculate this ratio, you divide source width by encoded width to get the width ratio. Then, you divide source height by encoded height to get the height ratio.

If the resulting ratio is a whole integer, it means that the video is optimally scaled. If the resulting ratio is not a whole integer, it impacts video quality by leaving leftover pixel artifacts on the display. This effect is most noticeable when the video has text.

As an example, suppose that your source video is 1920 x 1080. In the following table, the three encoded videos provide the optimal encoding settings to use.

Dynamic Media recommends using MP4 H.264 video encoding presets. Because MP4 files use the H.264 video codec, it provides high-quality video but in a compressed file size.

You can automate the publishing of on-premise Adobe Experience Manager video assets directly to a YouTube channel that you have previously created.

To publish video assets to YouTube, you set up Adobe Experience Manager Assets with tags. You can associated these tags with one or more YouTube channel. If a video asset's tag matches the tag of a YouTube channel, then the video is published to YouTube. If the video asset does not have a tag, then it is not published to YouTube.

Publishing to YouTube bypasses the Processing Profile system in AEM and, therefore, the video encoding profile as well. This bypass occurs because YouTube has its own encoding so a video Processing Profile is not necessary. In most cases, however, it is expected that you will have already had your video assets go through a Processing Profile. When you bypass the Processing Profile/Video Profile and publish directly to YouTube, it simply means that your video asset in Adobe Experience Manager Asset does not get a viewable thumbnail.

Publishing video assets to YouTube servers involves completing the following tasks to ensure safe and secure server-to-server authentication with YouTube:

1. Configuring Google Cloud Settings.
2. Adding one or more channels to YouTube.
3. Setting up tags for publishing.
4. Setting up YouTube in Adobe Experience Manager.
5. Automating the setting of default YouTube properties for your uploaded videos.
6. Publishing videos to your YouTube channel.
7. Verifying the published video on YouTube.
8. Linking YouTube URLs to your Web Application.

You can also unpublish videos to remove them from YouTube.

To publish to YouTube, you need a Google account. If you have a GMAIL account then you already have a Google account. If you do not have a Google account, you can easily create one. You need the account because you need credentials to publish video assets to YouTube. If you have an account already created, then skip this task.

To configure Google Cloud settings:

Publishing videos to YouTube requires that you have one more channels. If you have already created a YouTube channel, you can skip this task, and go to the next task Setting up tags for publishing.

To add one or more channels to YouTube:

To publish to your YouTube channels, Adobe Experience Manager associates tags to one or more channels. If you intend to use the default tags, then you can skip this task and go to Setting up YouTube in Adobe Experience Manager.

To set up tags for publishing:

You can automate the setting of YouTube properties on upload of your videos. You accomplish this by creating a metadata processing profile in AEM.

To create the metadata processing profile, you are first going to copy values from the Field Label, Map to property, and Choices fields, all found in Metadata Schemas for video. Then, you will build your YouTube video metadata processing profile by adding those values to it.

To automate the setting of default YouTube properties for your uploaded videos:

Now you need to associate the tags you just added in the previous task to video assets. This process lets Adobe Experience Manager know which assets to publish to your YouTube channel.

To publish videos to your YouTube channel:

Publishing times can vary greatly depending on numerous factors that include the format of your master video, file size, and upload traffic. The publishing process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Also, be aware that higher resolution formats are rendered much more slowly. For example, 720p and 1080p take significantly longer to appear than 480p.

After eight hours if you you still see a status message that says Uploaded (processing, please wait), try removing the video from our site and uploading it again.

To optionally verify the published video on YouTube:

You can obtain a YouTube URL string that is generated by Dynamic Media after you publish the video. When you copy the YouTube URL, it lands on the Clipboard so you can paste it as necessary to pages in your website or application.

To link YouTube URLs to your web application:

When you unpublish a video asset in Adobe Experience Manager, the video is removed from YouTube.

To unpublish videos to remove them from YouTube:

Video Reports display several aggregate metrics across a specified period of time to help you monitor that published individual and aggregate videos are performing as expected. The following top metrics data are aggregated for all published videos across your entire website:

• Video Starts
• Completion Rate
• Average time on video
• Total time on video
• Videos per visit

A table of all published videos is also listed so you can track the top viewed videos on your website based on total video starts.

When you tap a video name in the list it shows you the video’s audience retention (drop-off) report in the form of a line chart. The chart displays the number of views for any given moment of time during video playback. When you play the video, the vertical bar tracks in synchronization with the time indicator in the player. Drops in the line chart data indicate where your audience drops off from disinterest.

If the video was encoded outside of Adobe Experience Manager Dynamic Media, the audience retention (drop-off) chart and the Play Percentage data in the table are not available.

See also Configuring Dynamic Media Cloud Services.

By default, the first time you enter Video Reports, the report displays video data starting at the first of the current month and ends with the current month's date. However, you can override the default date range by specifying your own date range. The next time you enter Video Reports, the date range you specified is used.

For video reports to work correctly, a Report Suite ID is automatically created when Dynamic Media Cloud Services is configured.  At the same time, the Report Suite ID is pushed to the Publish server so that it is available for the Copy URL feature when you preview assets.  However, this requires that the Publish server be already set up.  If the Publish server is not set up, you can still publish to see the video report, however, you will need to return to the Dynamic Media Cloud Configuration and tap OK.

To view video reports:

If you are using an out-of-box video viewer provided by Dynamic Media, or if you created a custom viewer preset based off of an out-of-box video viewer, then no additional steps are required to view video reports. However, if you have created your own video viewer based off the Scene7 HTML5 Viewer SDK, then use the following steps to ensure the your video viewer is sending tracking events to Dynamic Media Video Reports.

Use the Scene7 Viewers Reference and the Scene7 HTML5 Viewers SDK to create your own video viewers.

See Scene7 Viewers Reference Guide.

Download the Scene7 HTML Viewer SDK from Adobe Developer Connection.

See Adobe Developer Connection.

To view Video Reports based on a video viewer that you created using the Scene7 HTML5 Viewer SDK:

You can extend the reach of your videos to global markets by adding captioning to single videos or to Adaptive Video Sets. By adding captioning you avoid the need to dub the audio, or the need to use native speakers to rerecord the audio for each different language. The video is played in the language that it was recorded. Foreign language subtitles appear so that people of different languages can still understand the audio portion.

Captioning also allows for greater accessibility by using closed captioning for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Dynamic Media has the capability of converting caption files to JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. This conversion means you can embed the JSON text into a web page as a hidden but complete transcript of the video. Search engines can then crawl and index the content to make the videos more easily discoverable and give customers additional details about the video content.

See Serving static (non-image) contents in the Scene7 Image Serving API Help for more information about using the JSON function in a URL.

To add captions or subtitles to video:

You can make your long form videos easier to watch and navigate by adding chapter markers to single videos or to Adaptive Video Sets. When a user plays the video, they can click the chapter markers on the video timeline (also known as the video scrubber) to easily navigate to their point of interest, or immediately jump to new new content, demonstrations, tutorials, and so on.

If desired, you can create and brand your own custom video viewer with chapters instead of using a video viewer preset. For instructions on creating your own HTML5 viewer with chapter navigation, in the Adobe Scene7 Viewer SDK for HTML5 guide, reference the heading “Customizing Behavior Using Modifiers” under the classes s7sdk.video.VideoPlayer and s7sdk.video.VideoScrubber. The Adobe Scene7 Viewer SDK is available as a download from Adobe Developer Connection.

You create a chapter list for your video in much the same way that you create captions. That is, you create a WebVTT file. Note, however, that this file must be separate from any WebVTT caption file that you may also be using; you cannot combine captions and chapters into one WebVTT file.

You can use the following sample as an example of the format you use to create a WebVTT file with chapter navigation:

In the example above, Chapter 1 is the cue identifier and is optional. The cue time of 00:00:000 --> 01:04:364 specifies the start time and end time of the chapter, in 00:00:000 format. That last three digits are milliseconds and can be left as 000, if preferred. The chapter title of The bicycle store behind it all is the actual description of the chapter’s contents. The cue identifier, the starting cue time, and the chapter title all appear in a pop-up in the video player when a user hovers their mouse pointer over a visual cue point in the video’s timeline.

Because you are using an HTML5 video viewer, ensure that the chapter file you create follows the WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks) standard. The chapter filename extension is .vtt. You can learn more information about the WebVTT captioning standard.

See WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks format

To add chapter markers to video:

You can choose from one of ten thumbnail images automatically generated by Dynamic Media to add to your video. The video player displays your selected thumbnail when a video asset is used with the Dynamic Media component in the authoring environment of AEM Sites, AEM Mobile, or AEM Screens. The thumbnail serves as a static picture that best represents the contents of your entire video and further encourages users to click the Play button.

Based on the total time of the video, Dynamic Media captures ten (default) thumbnail images at 1%, 11%, 21%, 31%, 41%, 51%, 61%, 71%, 81%, and 91% into the video. The ten thumbnails persist meaning that if you decide to choose a different thumbnail later on, you do not need to regenerate the series. You preview the ten thumbnail images and then select the one you want to use with your video. If you want to change to default you can use CRXDE Lite to configure the time interval that thumbnail images are generated. For example, if you only wanted to generate a series of four evenly spaced thumbnail images from your video, you can configure the interval time at 24%, 49%, 74%, and 99%.

Ideally, you can add a video thumbnail anytime after you upload your video but before you publish the video on your website.

If you prefer, you can choose to upload a custom thumbnail to represent your video instead of using a thumbnail generated by Dynamic Media. For example, you could create a custom thumbnail image that has the title of your video, an eye-catching opening image, or a very specific image captured from your video. The custom video thumbnail image that you upload should have a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (minimum width of 640 pixels) and be no larger than 2MB.

When you configure and save the new default time interval, your change automatically applies only to videos that you upload in the future. It does not automatically apply the new default to videos that you previously uploaded. For existing videos, you must regenerate the thumbnails.

See Adding a video thumbnail.

To configure the default time interval that video thumbnails are generated,