Introduction

Enterprise Video Platform - being one of the fastest growing industries in the realm of information technology - has seen an exponential increase in the consumption of video content today, following which organizations have been wanting more than just a play button for a smooth video playback. Delivering content in a manner which optimizes user experience and paves the way for enhanced user engagement has become an inevitable need for enterprises which are centered on the production of digital content. Video, being the most effective source of reaching a higher audience for product marketing or viewer outreach purposes, has made it significantly important to focus on how the streaming experience can be made more and more meaningful.


In a world shrunk to live and on-demand video communication with an average audience attention span of only about 60 seconds, engaging a user with the content at hand has become more difficult than ever before.


About Player Templates

With VIDIZMO's enriched player options, customers are allowed to choose from a wide range of controls to optimize viewers' playback experience. Our player templates allow organizations to cherry-pick functions, define its own signature color theme and revolutionize their player for a tailor-made experience that caters to various departments within the company. These options are discussed later in the article.


Supported Media Formats for Player Templates


VIDIZMO supports the following media formats to have their own player templates:

  • Audio Player Template allows you to toggle enable/disable between multiple options such as if you wish audios to be muted by default so that they can be used for embedding and other purposes.
  • Video Player Template allows you to choose which options to include in your video player that will help serve the viewer's purpose and better their experience, such as if it is for a new onboarding employees it is likely for employers to switch on annotations, so that they can be properly assimilated with the application software. Read more about annotations here: Understanding Annotations. Similarly if a template has to be enabled for an inspection team within a department, then the option to analyze the video through seeking frame by frame would help achieve an outcome. Read more about here: Understanding Frame by Frame Analysis.
  • Live Player Template allows you full control to design your live streaming experience in a way that engages users and enjoy the content more, such as enabling theatre mode for live streaming of a product launch announcement gaza.
  • Playlist Player Template allows you to define a default behaviour related to how you would want to play back a list of videos logically grouped together. For example, do you wish to enforce order upon them, which would disallow a user to move onto the next video before viewing the previous one.


Player Type


Apart from our native VIDIZMO player, our architecture offers the flexibility to integrate with different players to offer greater level of customizability for different business use-cases.




Concept


There are certain details associated with VIDIZMO's Player Templates which help you understand the feature's scope in the application and how it works:

  • There are two types of settings that you can configure using Player Templates:
    • Display Settings: Here, you will see options such as Annotations and Quality Selector which merely help a user choose whether or not to display these options in the media player on which the template applies.
    • Behavioural Settings: Here, you will be able to set some default playback behaviour for the user to optimize their viewing experience such as autoplay, enabling which the video will play itself as soon as it is browsed in the web application. Another example is Initialize with low bandwidth which potentially helps enterprises user-define player's behaviour to meet their organizational bandwidth constraints.
  • In VIDIZMO, we allow users to group together videos as Playlists to help achieve an unhindered viewing experience for a chronological list of videos. Playlists have their own player template which help user customize whether they wish to enforce order on the videos in the playlist, etc. However, the player template that applies on individual videos in a player are overridden by the playlist template, which is to say that playback behaviour of individual videos in a playlist shall follow the settings configured in the playlist's template. For example, if the playlist's template has autoplay configured, irrespective of the settings in the individual video player templates, all videos in that playlist shall play automatically.
  • VIDIZMO offers some built-in player templates referred to as Global Templates for every media file format. These templates can not be edited or deleted for following reasons:
    • Global Templates are set as default player template to help in smooth functioning of application when the user does not feel the need to define a custom player template. You will learn more about default player templates later in the article.
    • Secondly, if a user sets a custom-created template as default player template but at a later point in time wants to delete it, Global Template for that media file format is then set as the default player template to avoid any disruption in application workflow.
  • The visibility of some of the options configured in the player template depends upon the configured media settings and portal settings. For example, even if you have enabled comments in the player template but disabled them in the media settings, you would not be able to view the comments icon on the player.
  • When you update a player template, the settings for previously uploaded videos on which the template applies won't automatically be updated. However, you can select "Update all presentations on which this template applies" for the changes to reflect in previously uploaded presentations as well.
  • Only technically advanced users, who are familiar with HTML and style sheets, will be able to style UI elements using custom CSS. To learn more about it, see: Understanding Customized Branding in VIDIZMO.


Customizable Options

Following is the list of customizable options in a player template categorized in a user-friendly manner to highlight aspects of the playback experience that those options help redesign. Using these, you can toggle on/off settings or define beforehand certain behavioural properties of the player, like autoplay, for a bespoke viewing experience.


User Experience

  • Preserve User Settings allows you to control if settings selected by a particular user should be cached in their session and are replicated every time they play back any video in the portal conditioned that Preserve User Settings option is enabled in that video.
  • Bookmark allows you to bookmark the link to a media asset in your browser for easy and convenient access.
  • Full Screen Mode allows you to view video in a full-screen mode.
  • Theatre Mode allows you to play back your video in a theatre mode, where the video frame is expanded for an ideal experience while displaying other VIDIZMO navigation options.


Streaming Experience

  • Autoplay will playback the video content as soon as it is browsed via the web application or any other page it has been embedded into. This allows organizations to control the interactive experience they create with the viewer using their content.


Note: To enable the autoplay feature, users may need to adjust their browser settings due to recent policy changes. Some browsers restrict autoplay functionality based on their media engagement index. To learn more about Chrome's policies, see Autoplay Policy Changes, which are more or less similar for all major browsers, including Firefox, Safari, and Edge.


  • Initialize with low bandwidth is a unique control to help optimize data transfer for smoother playback. This option, if enabled, customizes your player in a manner to play the lowest quality rendition of video available until chosen otherwise by the user. This helps in fast content delivery due to a considerable decrease in bandwidth usage.
  • Seek Frame by Frame is a rare capability that will help video content producers, processing experts and analyzers still time. Seek Frame by Frame is an unparalleled tool that helps you navigate through a video frame by frame, i.e. to drill down to 1/30th second of the moment (second) captured in a video and see its details. This is the most granular level of visual detail that can be extracted from a video content. To learn more about it, see: Understanding Frame by Frame Analysis.
  • Allow Seek Forward is a convenient way for a user to jump to a point in a video. This can be useful if a person is re watching a video and they intend to skip to their desired scene, or the user is interested in a specific scene or duration of a video, then they can make use of the seek forward capability of the player. Yet, for Learning Management Systems, instructors intend that students can not skip crucial parts of a lecture to jump to a quiz within video that they may not be able to take consequently. For such scenarios, it is very convenient to toggle this option off and enforce sequential video traversal in order to jump to the latter parts.
  • Allow Seek Backward is helpful in going back to a point in the video where you would like to revise a concept, reinforce a theory or simply enjoy part of the video from that point onwards. Toggling it off along with replay, can serve as a brilliant use-case for disabling students to go back to a point in the lecture, especially when you plan on evaluating their attentiveness by a quiz later on.
  • Muted allows you to mute your audio-visual content by default whenever it is played back until turned on by the user. This allows enterprises to cater to the varying audience and their interested level of engagement with the content, while ensuring an intrusion-free digital space for the user. 
  • Quality Selector is the common control allowing users to select multiple quality renditions for the video to modify and optimize their viewing experience as per their needs. However, some organizations would ideally disable it to allow playback using only a fixed rendition which is not only optimal for their video content but also helps fasten delivery.
  • Speed is another action control that allows users to define the speed at which they want to play the video for added convenience. Some may want to play it twice as faster to skim through the content and get an overview of what is being delivered, while some may want to absorb it a little more by playing it back at 0.25 times the original speed, given it is a step-by-step tutorial of a system configuration.
  • Closed Captions is another option allowing you to toggle subtitles on/off in a video. With VIDIZMO's advanced 3rd party human transcription services, this option has become of integral importance to get more value out of the video, previously unattainable. To learn more about it, see: Understanding Human Transcription in VIDIZMO.
  • Loop enables you to decide whether a video will keep playing in a loop once finished, or just once. Looping small videos like a quick guide to pronounce certain brands or an introduction of how a product can be used, can prove to be immensely user-engaging depending upon the right content.
  • Play original content (wherever possible) when processing has not yet finished or has failed enables you to play back content (if it's in a format supported by browser) even if it has yet not undergone processing. This powerful feature allows you to capture thumbnails and perform other activities even before transcoding.




Interactivity Options

  • Annotations is a brilliant application-wide interactivity tool that you can choose to turn on/off on your player, introduced to enhance collaboration between team members and associates. Annotations allow you to leave small notes, tags, or comments in a video intended to achieve a lot within a limited canvas of a video frame. It helps redirect the user/viewer's attention to a particular still of a video and to focus on an object/facet which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. To learn more about annotations, see: Understanding Annotations.
  • Comments integrated within, adds a unique touch to VIDIZMO player. Here, you can switch whether or not you wish to allow users to view, add, modify or delete them directly via the player. In case of embedding, this helps expand user engagement and interactivity options while also maintaining the access control of who can comment and which comments get approved for display. To learn more about it, see: How to Configure Comments in Portal.
  • Sharing allowing multiple controls to be incorporated into the player for quick sharing options to other platforms such as facebook, linkedin, or via email, etc. You can always switch them off for maintaining privacy and confidentiality of content.


Additional Insights

  • Face Recognition Data is a specialized VIDIZMO feature that allows users to extract meaningful insights from the video content for further analysis like facial data including their occurrences in a video, and celebrity recognition with their respective description. To learn more about it, see: Understanding Video Insights.
  • OCR Data is another VIDIZMO feature giving you further insights into textual data identified from within your video content. This is of primary importance when videos become a source of educational tool for learning or onboarding purposes, and OCR data can help prepare lecture or process notes for enhanced convenience for the use of content.


Playlist Options

  • Enforce Order is a custom option that is only available in case of a playlist. It allows users to arrange the videos in a chronological or logically sequential manner and lock the order for an optimal viewing/user experience.
  • Auto Advance is another option limited to playlists in VIDIZMO. It allows users to advance to the next media in a playlist without having to manually switch to the next. This is ideal to provide a smooth and uninterrupted learning experience for students or employees going through a playlist related to a technical concept or business process model. 


Custom CSS

VIDIZMO allows advanced branding option for your player using custom CSS. There is a SASS template which can be modified to brand almost all aspects of the player such as the colour of the play icon or the way the seek bar/timeline of the video appears. Customizing the player to a standard design helps create brand awareness and maintain brand identity through all mediums of communication. To learn more about it, see: Understanding Customized Branding for Player.


Default Player Templates

VIDIZMO offers the functionality of setting a Default Player Template for every media (Audio, Video, Live, Playlist) to define a widely-accepted set of configurations for the respective media player. For every media file uploaded, its corresponding default player template is selected which can then be changed by the user if required. To learn more about how to do it, see: How to Change Default Player Template.


Use-Cases

There are multiple industry use-cases for customizing Player Templates and tailor the multitude options VIDIZMO provides for advanced video streaming and interactivity. Some of them are listed below:

  • Organizations, dedicated to governing and regularizing operations and events concerning sports worldwide, have founded technologies like VAR (Video Assistant Referee) responsible to automate all crucial decision-making processes. Such organizations benefit greatly from the video insights VIDIZMO player provides and the capabilities of analyzing a video frame by frame. These options exclusively help delve into details of the video stream of a football match to power you with the right video breakdown and analysis tools to call out on fouls/penalties, etc.
  • Online Learning Management Systems can custom-design their player to provide an optimum student learning experience. Here, Auto Advance can come of great use for a series of lessons covering a core concept in one of the students' opted courses, where as other options such as seek frame by frame might not be of great use and can be turned off using the highly configurable templates.
  • Enterprises centered on video production as a primary medium of marketing their product and services have an added responsibility of maintaining their brand identity when publishing video content for public access. The motive of such campaigns is not just enhanced content outreach but to develop a greater sense of brand awareness in the targeted audience. In this process, VIDIZMO player helps companies custom-design their player as per their brand's signature colors and style, for a unique product/service recognition throughout all mediums of communication where the video content is shared, embedded or played.