Media Library

Overview

The Media Library is a feature that allows you to upload and encode your video files for use in the Training Center. 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, Images, Documents, Interactive Videos, or Audio files.

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.

Note: You may only upload up to 100 files at one time, and there is an automatic “timeout” after 4 hours. If your videos are not done uploading within that 4 hour time limit you will see an error that says “File Not Found”. If you hit this limit, simply close the Media Library upload screen and open it again and begin uploading again.

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:

Framerate	We’ll use the frame rate of the source file if it is provided in the metadata. Otherwise, we use 30 FPS
Still Image	5 seconds into the first segment

Other Settings:

Size: 1920 x 1080

Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Bitrate	8000 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz

Size: 1280 x 720

Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Bitrate	5000 k
Audio Bitrate<	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz

Size: 960 x 540

Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Bitrate	2500 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz

Size: 640 x 360

Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Bitrate	750 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz

Size: 480 x 270

Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Bitrate	400 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz

MP4 – High & MP4 – Low

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

MP4 High

Size	1920 x 1080
Bitrate	8000 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz
Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

MP4 Low

Size	960 x 540
Bitrate	2500 k
Audio Bitrate	384 k
Audio Sample Rate	48000 kHz
Video Codec	MPEG-4 AVC (H.264)
Audio Codec	Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)

Troubleshooting

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

• Error: File could not be found. Please try re-uploading
  • 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.