Overview of video replacement

With Video Replacement feature Channel Managers can replace a video’s content while the metadata of the video remain unchanged* as well as the video links and embed codes won’t be broken and the viewership statistics for the video won’t be lost.

*There are certain data of the video that are necessary to change when replacing a video, learn about these below in “What happens with video’s properties during and after a replacement?” section.

High level workflow of the replacement process

Replacement – step by step guide

1. Click ‘Replace video’ button under video preview:

2. Before the replacement a warning appears telling that the replacement cannot be undone, so you might want to learn more about what the replacement will mean from the video’s attributes perspective: which of them will remain unchanged and what are the ones that might need review (and possibly change) after the replacement process (see also “Warning message to user before replacement” section). Also in terms of the thumbnail and the generated caption, user can decide right here before the replacement whether they want to keep the existing or want the system to generate new ones:

 Attributes of the video that remain unchanged after the replacement are listed. Also, user can decide whether they want to keep current thumbnail and / or generated caption or they want to get those re-generated after the replacement.

3. Clicking ‘Upload new video’ button means to progress with the replacement process, by clicking ‘Cancel’ user is navigated back to the Video edit page.

4. If you are progressing with the replacement and clicked ‘Upload new video’, then the default file selector opens, and the video can be selected.

5. Video upload process starts and progress is shown to the user (about the different statuses learn more in ”Progress indication during replacement” section): 

6. When upload has been completed and thumbnail has also been generated (if user decided so before the replacement) then user sees a yellow notification bar in Video edit page where the possible further tasks (things to review after replacement) are shown to them. They can also navigate right from the yellow notification bar to the different pages to accomplish these tasks (this section is shown until any user closes it for the particular video):

Elements in the yellow notification bar are dynamically displayed (except the Thumbnail), for instance Chapters is visible if the video has chapters or ‘Reupload caption files’ is visible if user has added any captions to the video. Learn more in ‘“Briefing” to user after the replacement – notification bar’ section.

How to replace a video?

Where to start the replacement process?

Video edit page > Overview > right below the video preview section:

What should a user pay attention to before replacing a video?

Warning message to user before replacement

There are multiple things displayed in this notification overlay:

1. ‘Remains unchanged’ – list of video attributes that will remain unchanged after the replacement:

• Title
• Description – displayed if the video has a description
• Date
• Link
• Labels – displayed if the video has any labels
• Metrics
• Metadata – Displayed if metadata is turned on for the videos on the channel.
• Sharing settings

2. Thumbnail – user can decide whether or not they wish to keep the current thumbnail of the video or they want the system to pick a frame from the new video as a new thumbnail after the replacement has finished.

3. Generated caption – user can decide whether or not they wish to keep the current generated caption of the video or they want the system to generate the caption (according to channel settings) after the replacement.

In case user selects to generate a new caption, the current generated caption will be deleted including all changes the user might have made.

User can decide whether to continue the replacement process (then clicks ‘Upload new video’) or Cancel it.

Progress indication during replacement

Uploading

Right after selecting the new video file, uploading of the file starts (which is the first phase of the replacement process):

Please note if you navigate away from the screen in this phase, your replacement cannot be completed.

Processing

Right after the file has been uploaded it starts to be processed (this is the transcoding process mainly):

First it shows that the video is waiting to be transcoded:

Then transcoding process is in progress:

When the video is being processed you can navigate away from the screen if you like, because the replacement process will be finished anyways.

And finally the video has been processed:

Replacement complete (generating thumbnail if needed)

This is the final step when the thumbnail is being generated for an uploaded, processed video (however if before the replacement user decided to keep existing thumbnail, then this generating thumbnail phase is skipped):

Replacement finished

When the replacement process has been completed, the new video’s thumbnail is shown in the preview (and ‘Replace video’ option becomes available again):

Failed upload/replacement

When you attempt to replace a video that is already under replacement you will get the following message:

“Briefing” to user after the replacement – notification bar

Whenever the video replacement has finished (new upload complete AND thumbnail is generated – if applicable): a replacement notification bar appears on the replaced video's edit page that is visible for all users until any of them closes the section:

Dynamic content of the notification bar

When video has been replaced user might have to:

• “Update thumbnail and chapters”: link to the corresponding tab pages of Video edit page.
• “Reupload caption files”: link to the corresponding tab page of Video edit page and only visible if user has uploaded any captions previously.

What happens with video’s properties during and after a replacement? – Summary

Attributes that remain unchanged

• Stats: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Date: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Video ID: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Title: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Description: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Labels: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Video date: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Uploaded date: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Sharing: link to video remains the same - NO CHANGE!
  
  • Embed code remains the same - NO CHANGE!
  • "Shared with": remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Publishing status: remains the same - NO CHANGE!
  
  • Unpublished scheduled date (if set): remains the same - NO CHANGE!
• Custom metadata: remains the same - NO CHANGE!

Attributes that (might) change by replacing the content of the video

• Length: shows the new content's length after the replacement
• Size:  shows the new content's size after the replacement
• Source: changes to "uploaded"
• Download file link: downloads the new content
• Thumbnail: could be regenerated after the replacement (depends on user’s decision)
• Trim: forgets trim settings
• Chapters: stay there after the replacement, and it is user's responsibility to check whether and how it makes sense for the new video too.  
• Captions:  uploaded and live captions remain there untouched, in terms of generated caption if user decided so (and is applicable according to the channel settings) it will be re-generated after the replacement for the new video.

Actions that user might need to take after the video replacement

See also in “Dynamic content of the notification bar” section.

FAQ

What if I’ve started to watch a video and somebody else replaces its content in the meantime?

• No problem, watching the “old” video can be finished without any issues. The viewer who started to watch the “old” content can finish watching the old content (even if the video got replaced in the meantime) and those viewers who already started to watch the new – replaced – content they will see the new content already.

What if I’ve started a replacement for a video and somebody else wants to replace the video’s content too?

• If there is an ongoing replacement process, the video gets a flag, and this is how it is indicated that a video is under replacement. Users cannot see this flag in the UI and how this works basically is that whilst the video is flagged with this other replacement processes cannot be started for the same video. However, if the replacement (so the upload of the new video) goes wrong for some reasons, the flag will be removed from the video after 3 hours of inactivity in the upload process. This makes it possible that even if a process goes wrong it enables the video later to be replaced.
• When you attempt to replace a video that is already under replacement you will get the following message:

Does IVT still make sense after replacement of the original video?

• If you replace a video with another one that had been improved (and so changed) only from the quality perspective but remained basically the same video with the same length, in this case it still makes sense for you to know if a viewer watched a specific part of your video.
• If you replace a video with another one that has different length it probably doesn’t make that much sense, but there can be cases where it is applicable.

What if I navigate away whilst new video file is uploading after all? 

• When you are replacing a video and just started to upload the new content, there is a notification right below the process indication, that you should NOT navigate away from the page until uploading phase finishes. If you navigate away after all, the replacement process will be stuck and you will be able to re-try it in 3 hours. • If you waited for the new content to be uploaded but you navigate away whilst the video is processing, there is no problem with this, the processing will end eventually, and your video will be replaced.

Will I be able to open the original video after replacement?

• No, and this is also something that the system warns the user right before the replacement. We need to note, that this is not a video versioning where user is able to go back and open or revert to a previous version of a video. This is replacement, which means original content won’t be available once the new content had been added successfully.

Am I able to do Video Replacement via API?

•      Yes!  We have added the ability to use the Video Replacement feature via API,  you can find the API documentation for it at
  
  https://developers.video.ibm.com/channel-api-video-management/replace-videos