Media Library (302)

Overview

The Media Library is a feature that allows you to upload and encode your video files for use in the Training Center and throughout your VT System. Once you put a video in your Media Library, you can use, and reuse it as many times as you like.

You can add new files to the Media Library by navigating to 302 – Media Library on the Super User Dashboard, or you can also access it from your 301 – Create/Edit Courseware area.

As a best practice, we suggest naming your files something easy to remember for when you access them to build your training. This file name is for your internal reference only and is not displayed to users on the front end.

Each file type will have a color coded icon next to the thumbnail, letting you know what type of file it is.

The different file types are:

• Videos (mov, mp4, wmv, avi, mkv, webm)
• Images (jpg, gif, png, webm, etc.)
• Documents (pdf, txt, doc, xls, csv, ppt, etc.)
• Audio (mp3 only)
• Interactive Videos (json files generated by the Interactive Studio are stored here for use in Courseware and Interactive Landing Pages)

If you hover over the “3 dots” on the right-side of the file, you’ll see the following options:

• Preview – this will open a preview of the file.
• Copy – this will copy the link of the file so you can place it where ever need be.
• Edit – this will allow you to change the file name, add an internal description, add tags, and also copy a link to the file to your clipboard.
• Remove will allow you to delete the file all together. It will prompt a window that will ask you if you are sure to delete this file selected.

Tags

You can add “tags” to any piece of media in your Media Library. Once you tag a file, you’ll then be able to filter your main view by that tag, for easier file organization. You can add as many tags as you like to each piece of media.

Encoding Settings

When we encode your videos, we encode at the highest quality settings available – however that means you will want to have as high quality video as you can to start with – the ole’ Garbage In = Garbage Out analogy. Below are some answers to commonly asked questions about this process to best assist you in making your video look the best they can.

What video format should my source video be?

The Media Library can accept any format of video and file type that you upload, that is indeed a video (a Powerpoint file is not a video, no matter how many “cool” slide transitions you know how to make – nor is an Animated GIF… sorry). The files that seem like a video file but are not, will be distributed to either the “Images” tab or the “Documents” tab.

What resolution or size should my source video be?

We playback videos at a 16:9 ratio, ideally your source video should be 1920 (width) by 1080 (height). However any size of 16:9 will scale in fine. If your video is not a 16:9 ratio, we will help you and add a “pad” around it to fill up the space to that ratio. We don’t goof up your video by stretching it to an odd size that looks bad.

Common 16:9 ratios

Encoding Types

The most commonly used (and the default selection) for encoding is “Standard”. When using System Features such as the New Main Menu, you’ll want to leverage the “Background Video” Encoding Type. Outlined below are the core differences between them:

• Standard:
  These are high quality streaming videos for use in the Training Center, Welcome Messages, Callouts, and more.
• Video Background:
  Used only in visual page layouts. These are shorter videos – without an audio track – that are optimized for great quality and fast load times.

How long will it take to encode my video?

That depends how fast your Internet upload speed is to upload it, and then also how long (in duration) your video is to encode it.

The process goes like this:

• We will upload your video, and you will see a progress bar on this process. A five minute video typically takes less than 30 seconds to upload.
  
  
• We will encode your video to all of the different target formats to be compatible across desktop and mobile formats. A five minute video typically takes about three minutes to encode.
  
  

Tip : Once your files are done uploading, and have begun encoding, you may close the upload window. We will notify you through email when each file has been uploaded.

What type of video player do we use?

It isn’t any “type” of video player – it is our “Custom VT Player” which uses industry standard elements with a lot of customization specific to our System.

What quality will the video playback for users?

The LSVT video player plays back video leveraging adaptive streaming – so the best quality video is played back based on the User’s connection, and it will dynamically change and adapt to the User’s bandwidth automatically, should their bandwidth change or become erratic during the playback of a video. On desktop, Users can override the automated quality detection and set the playback quality themselves by clicking the ‘gear’ icon from within the video player controls on the lower right.

Note: Safari used on Desktop and mobile devices do not allow for a way to change the quality manually, and handles all quality switching automatically.

Encoding Output Settings

For optimum results we encode using the following settings:

Other Settings:

Size: 1920 x 1080

Size: 1280 x 720

Size: 960 x 540

Size: 640 x 360

Size: 480 x 270

MP4 – High & MP4 – Low

Videos are encoded using different settings based on the source video:

MP4 High

MP4 Low

Troubleshooting

This section will help troubleshoot any errors you may be running into during the upload and encoding process.

FAQs:

I uploaded a lot of files but none of them are showing up in the Media Library as "Video is Encoding..."

The first thing you should try is to hit the "refresh" button on your web browser to see if the screen just needed to be reloaded. If that does not show your files, please continue reading below...

There are several considerations that can help you determine if there is a problem with the encoding process that you should contact us about, or if it's simply taking a long time.

1. Your file might be waiting "in line" to be encoded. If several files are uploading at the same time, the number of available encoding slots will be reduced (kind of like lanes on a highway - if there are too many cars, traffic slows down) - and additionally if the files ahead of you in line are 60-90+ minutes, they could be holding that encoding spot even longer
2. If you've uploaded 20+ files at once, you will likely only see one or two "Video is Encoding..." messages at a time - again this is due to the limited number of available encoding slots at a time. Your files will all be encoded eventually.
3. Check the video resolution, is it one of the recommended / common 16:9 ratios? If your video is too small, like say the size of a post-it note (something like 500x300), that would not meet the minimum requirements to encode properly. If this appears to be the case, open the video again in your video editing software and re-export it at a larger resolution.
4. If you added a large batch of files to upload and came back to an error that says "File Not Found," it is likely because your session has timed out. You are limited to uploading 100 files at one time, and there is an automatic "timeout" after 4 hours. If you believe you hit this limit, simply close the Media Library upload screen and open it again and begin uploading again.
5. If your video appears to upload about 10-15% but then quickly switches to "Encoding..." and never appears in the Media Library, please contact us and provide a link to the file you are attempting to upload so we can troubleshoot it further. it could be related to a recent issue that has been resolved, but it could likely be similar.

If none of these seem to be the case, please contact us and we'll help.

I can now see my video as "Video is Encoding," but it has been a long time and hasn't finished yet - what should I do?

Consider the length of the video - if it is a very long video, such as something over 60-90 minutes - it is likely still processing. Videos can typically take 15-20 minutes per hour of duration to encode - so if you upload a 2 hour video it may take 30-40 (or more) minutes to complete.

If you encounter this, make a note of the time that they first began to encode - if it has been over an hour, and your video was relatively short, please try uploading the file again - and if it is still not encoding, please give us a call or email and we'll help.

I uploaded a 60 minute video, but after it is encoded it only plays to 20 minutes and then stops?

Sometimes when you export your video from whichever video editing or other program you were using, it looks like on the surface the video is all in one piece - but from time to time the file may be "corrupt" and will need to be exported from your program again.

One way you can check to see if your file is corrupt is to try playing the video and fast forwarding through the video to various points, until the end, to see if it is playing back correctly. Chances are, the video will play fine up until the point of corruption - (So the example above, it would stop playing around the 20 minute mark.) This would tell me definitively that the file was corrupt and I needed to export it again.

File could not be found...

This error typically means your internet connection may have been interrupted during the upload process. Try to upload the file again – if it continues to show this error, please contact us.