You can add videos to your IBM Video Streaming account by recording your live broadcasts, or by uploading previously recorded content using IBM Video Streaming upload tools. This article describes the different upload capabilities offered by IBM Video Streaming .
Video upload capabilities
Upload in your browser
- Browser-based video upload for admins (via the Dashboard)
- Browser-based video upload for viewers (user-generated content coming soon)
- Aspera-accelerated browser-based video upload for admins
Upload through the API
Upload using professional services
- Video file and metadata import from other platforms (eg. Amazon S3 storage)
- Video file and metadata import from hard drive
Please contact your account representative to learn more about professional services.
Video file formats
Supported formats and file types
- Container: mkv, mp4, mov, flv, avi, wmv,mpeg2
- Video codec: h264, h263, mpeg4 (and variants), vp6, vp8, theora, wmv
- Audio codec: mp3, aac-lc, nellymoser, pcm (16 bit max), speex, vorbis, wma
Specifications
Requirements
- Max file size: 10 GB
- Minimum length: 4 sec
- Minimum bitrate: 64 kbps
Recommendations
- Video Codec: h.264
- Audio Codec: AAC-LC
Quality | Resolution | Video Bitrate | Audio Bitrate | Audio Sample Rate | Frames Per Sec | Video Codec | h.264 Profile | Key Frame Interval | Audio Codec | Audio Channels |
Low | 480x270 | 400 kbps | 64kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | Baseline | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Mono |
Med | 640x360 | 400-800 kbps | 96kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | Main | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Mono or Stereo |
High |
960x540/ 854X480 |
800 - 1500 kbps | 96kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | Main | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Mono or Stereo |
HD 720 |
1280x720 | 1,500 - 4,000 kbps | 128kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | Main | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Mono or Stereo |
HD 1080 |
1920x1080 | 4,000 - 8,000 kbps | 192kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | Main or High | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Stereo |
4K | 3840X2160 | 8,000 - 25,000 kbps | 192kbps | 48kHz | 25 / 30 | h.264 | High | 1 Second | AAC-LC | Stereo |
Details: Browser-based video upload for admins
- From the dashboard, click the upload button in the top right of your screen.
- Select the channel you wish to associate this video with.
- Click Videos to go to the video management page. You'll see the Upload button and also be able to browse any previously recorded or uploaded videos for this channel.
- Before the upload starts, you need to enter some details for each video. Name is the title that will display in the video list and above the player during playback on the channel page. You also need to enter a Description, although this can be the same as the Name field. Note that you can change this information later. When details for all videos are complete, click Upload to start the import process.
- Upload time depends upon the speed of your internet connection, and you track progress by watching the progress bar for each video. Video files can be large, so allow some time for this process to complete and do not navigate away from the page while uploading is underway (this will cancel the upload).
- After upload completes, videos may need to be re-encoded to ensure they can playback successfully on all devices. For shorter videos, this happens almost instantly. Longer videos are placed in an encoding processing queue on IBM Video Streaming servers, and you can check progress for this step below your video upload. (*Note that you can see any files which could not be encoded here also. Files with bad data, or an incompatible format will show up here with Error as their status.)
- You are free to start uploading additional videos while encoding is underway. When complete, your videos will appear in the Videos tab. By default, the most recently uploaded or recorded videos appear first in the list, but you can also choose to sort them alphabetically. From within the Videos tab you can preview them, edit their details, make them private or public or re-download and delete them.
- Click on a video thumbnail to start playback from your channel page. Your browser will navigate to the channel page and start to play (videos need to be marked public for this to work.) The URL shown in your browser gives the link you can share with others to let them watch this content on your channel page.
- For larger files and faster uploads, please see the instructions for Aspera accelerated video upload.
Details: XML Mass Video File Transfer
The IBM Video Streaming XML video upload tool allows you to transfer large video libraries to your IBM Video Streaming channel.
Requirements
- Videos must be hosted on a server where they can be accessed via HTTP or FTP links without any redirects or authentication.
- Links entered in the XML file must end with a valid video file extension, such as .mkv, .mp4, .mov, .flv, .avi, .wmv, etc.
- The XML video upload tool does not allow for transfer via authenticated FTP or any other method that requires logging in.
- Your XML file should be sure to contain this header:
- Your <tag> section should contain no spaces.
How to use the XML video upload tool
The XML file must be created in the following format
-
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <videos> <video> <channelId>YOUR_CHANNEL_ID_HERE</channelId> <title>THISISTHEVIDEOTITLE</title> <description>THISISTHEVIDEODESCRIPTION</description> <tags> <tag>THISISAVIDEOTAG</tag> </tags> <url>http://yourdomain.com/video_file.mp4</url> </video> </videos>
- Once the XML file is created, host it on your own server.
- In your dashboard, navigate to the XML video upload tool.
- Enter the URL of where the .xml file is hosted.
- Hit OK
- The tool will first import and read the xml file, then it will begin importing the videos. The status of the video imports can be viewed on the same screen. The importing is done between the servers, you can navigate away from this page with no effect on the import.