Delve Networks Blog » Mika Ramin

Product Update: Added Player Languages Localization

Mika Ramin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:24:02 +0000

The Limelight Video Platform product team is pleased to announce the added player languages for localization in Arabic, Hindi, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese.

You can find more information on Player Language here.

Want to Learn How to Seamlessly Publish Video Content to Your Website? Join Us for a Webinar on January 18th at 11 am PST

Mika Ramin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:23:03 +0000

Join us for a live webinar demonstrating Limelight Video Platform. During the 30-minute session, we will show you how quick and easy it is to stream video from your website.

Space is limited, so reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/602105762

Attend this LIVE Webinar and see the following:

Brief introduction to Limelight Networks
Walkthrough of Limelight Networks online video platform
Video encoding in the background
Working with meta-data
Building channels via drag-n-drop
Customizing a video player
Using ad-networks
Publishing on-demand videos
Publishing LIVE streaming events

Plus, get your questions answered in a live Q&A session. All registrants will receive a white paper offering ten tips to choosing an online video platform—Register now!

Title: Demonstration of Limelight Video Platform

Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Time: 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM PST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Limelight Video Platform Update on Creating Restriction Rules

Mika Ramin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:36:52 +0000

For many of our publishers, enabling restriction rules is an essential tool for limiting where their video content can be viewed. Whether they want the content to be restricted to a specific domain or geo location, they have the capability to do this.

When a domain or geo location is ‘unknown’ the benefit is currently given to the viewer, allowing the media to play. For example, this occurs when the viewer has disabled JavaScript, or another instance is when there is no IP record for the geo location. Publishers that require strict enforcement now have the ability to enable ‘Strict Enforcement’ to ensure their content will only be viewed where they want it.

This can be enabled under the ‘Settings’ tab followed by selecting the ‘Content Restriction’ tab. Publishers can now specify ‘Strict Enforcement’ when declaring their restriction rules.

Limelight Video Platform Adds a New Analytics Report for Improved Viewership Tracking

Mika Ramin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:42:22 +0000

The Limelight Video Platform team is constantly adding and improving new features. We pride ourselves in having a comprehensive set of analytics native to our player.

Most recently released is a new set of analytics reports that provide granular data on viewership’s Operating System, Browser, and Device platform. Now LVP publishers can easily determine how videos are being accessed and watched.

Limelight Video Platform: Update to Existing Player Templates

Mika Ramin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:40:45 +0000

Check out our new and improved player templates. Publishers can easily customize to create their own unique player to match the look and feel of their website. Also, we now have an audio only player.

Live Video Streaming Brings SXSW Conference to Global Fans

Mika Ramin — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:37:14 +0000

The most critical factor in SXSW’s decision to employ Limelight was its integrated video platform and content delivery services. Limelight Video Platform provides video storage, content management, and reporting and analytics capabilities that seamlessly integrate with Limelight’s private global network infrastructure to ensure maximized performance, reliability, and scalability. In addition to the benefit of only working with one solutions provider, SXSW also noticed:

Simplified workflow by managing LVP and content delivery services within the same interface
Increased speed in the transfer of large volumes of video files by providing a dedicated line between the enterprise’s physical location and a Limelight point of presence (POP) on the edge of its network
Optimized ingestion points by detecting the fastest possible ingest route, made possible due to intimate knowledge of the ingress performance of various POPs in Limelight’s network
Reduce reliance on a single originating data center and improve player responsiveness and viewer experience by caching the player, playlists, and all metadata information at the edge
Maximize viewer experience in near real-time as network conditions change by providing real-time information from Limelight Internet Health Monitor to the LVP

*Reposted from LLNW website

Online Video Publishers: How well do you know your audience?

Mika Ramin — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:30:21 +0000

As online video grows in popularity, so does the need for publishers to know their audience. So, I ask you-how well do you know your audience?

Let’s get down to the basics-according to comScore there are currently about 13.5 million people watching online video with an average of 17 hours each per month. Granted, this is a pretty broad statistic, but now you know you have the opportunity to reach millions of viewers with your online video. Now you just need to figure out how to target the right audience for you.

Getting to know your audience is like dating. You have to go out a few times before you can determine whether they like what you have to offer. Vice-versa, you have to gather info from them to determine if they are a good fit for you. It’s the same process with publishing online video, but unlike dating you can’t meet every person watching your content to determine what content is appealing to your audience.

More and more of you publishing online videos face the same problem of not really knowing whether your audience is even watching your content. Fret no more my friends-LVP has a fully comprehensive solution to help you gather the data and information to determine what content is most effective.

With LVP analytics you can really start to understand the extent of your reach to your audience. By having the ability to evaluate your performance you can really start to extend your scope and delve into strengthening your viewership.

Even knowing what devices your audience is using to watch online video is important. Having this knowledge will help you determine what devices you need to push your content out to.

Reelseo conducted a survey of 1000 people and found that 68 percent of people watch online video on their laptops, 52 percent on their desktops, and 17 percent on a mobile device such as iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc. They also said that over the course of the next year to expect the mobile video consumption to increase by at least 20 percent.

With the growing trend of mobile video consumption also comes the need to have the right set of tools to accomplish this. With that being said, LVP offers a complete mobile solution to optimize transcoding for mobile devices along with many other video publishing features. You can also use our open APIs to create mobile apps and sites. Another great feature is the smart device detection utilities. As you get to know your audience, you can fine-tune your delivery using our tools.

Knowledge is power. The more you know about your audience, the more success you’ll have with your online video publishing. Let us help you keep it simple and stress free! You have enough on your plate-LVP provides all the tools to help you target the right audience for you.

How to Add Closed Captioning

Mika Ramin — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:25:40 +0000

Closed Captioning Guide

Audience and Overview

This guide is intended for all publishers that wish to enable closed captioning or subtitles in the LVP player. Closed captioning is the display of text on the video screen in order to communicate spoken dialogue. The audience for closed captioning is typically those individuals that are hard of hearing. However, they can also be used to display a translation (AKA ’subtitles’) to non-native speakers of the video language. Closed captioning can be enabled by simply uploading a caption file for each of your media.

1.0 Enabling Closed Captions

The workflow to enable captioning is quite simple. Once a caption file is uploaded for a media the LVP player will automatically display a caption-control on the screen. The steps below walk you through this process.

Create a DFXP formatted caption file for each of your media. See Section 2.0 for information on creating DFXP files.
Login to your LVP account and select a media. In the ‘Media Properties’ upload your caption file. Only files with an extension of ‘dfxp’ or ‘xml’ will be recognized.

Once a file has been uploaded for a media the embedded players will display a caption-control. If the control does not appear after approximately ten minutes, double check your DFXP file for errors. See Section 2.2 for troubleshooting suggestions.

1.1 Disabling Captions on a Player

By default, if closed captions are associated with the media the caption-control will automatically show in the player. However, if you would like to disable closed captions on a specific player or tweak the appearance/location of the captions you may do so by adjusting the controls in the Player Builder.

Note: The player preview within the Player Builder will not display a sample of your caption settings. You must generate an embed code for your player to evaluate the result of the settings.

2.0 DFXP Caption Files

The Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP) is an XML-based standard developed by W3C for the representation of time-based text, or captions. The LVP player reads the XML, outputting each line of text on the screen in accordance with the ‘begin’ and ‘end’ time. An example of a properly formatted DFXP file is below. See Appendix A for an example of a DFXP file for captions in multiple languages. If multiple languages are represented, the LVP player will automatically display the list of languages in the player caption-control.

Narrator: Someone watching a car accelerate toward light speed would see something very strange. It would seem as though the car itself were getting shorter and that time for the person in the car was slowing down. However, you wouldn’t see these effects until the car began to approach the speed of light. At 90% of the speed of light the car would appear to shrink to 44% of its usual length. This thought experiment answered Einstein’s old question about what he would see if he traveled along with a beam of light. He simply couldn’t make the trip for at the speed of light, length would contract to zero and time would stop.

2.1 Creating Caption Files

If you are familiar with the DFXP standard or feel comfortable with the example above, you can easily use a text editor to create the caption files yourself. However, it is extremely important that you use an editor that saves your file with UTF-8 encoding or some of your characters may not display properly. If you do not want to create these files we recommend the following companies that offer creation services:

3PlayMedia (website)
SubPLY (website)
dotSub (website)

2.2 Troubleshooting

This section provides troubleshooting information for DFXP files. If you are experiencing problems with your captions, see the suggestions below.

Captions are Not Showing

Caching Time – The addition of caption files may take up to ten minutes to reflect.
Player Builder Settings – Verify that you have not inadvertently disabled captions on your player.
Verify XML Format – Verify that your XML is properly formatted. See here for an XML validator.
Verify Namespace Declarations – Your captions will not show if you are missing the required namespace declarations. Make sure that your DFXP file contains the following in the header:

List of Languages are Missing Make sure your file contains an XML language declaration for each language in the body. Even if you have only one language, you must still include the language declaration. xml:lang=”en”> Narrator: Someone watching a car accelerate toward light speed xml:lang=”es”> Narrador: Si se observara a un auto acelerando a la velocidad de la luz xml:lang=”de”> Sprecher: Wer ein Auto beobachtet Appendix A The following is an example of a properly formatted DFXP file containing multiple languages: Narrator: Someone watching a car accelerate toward light speed would see something very strange. It would seem as though the car itself were getting shorter and that time for the person in the car was slowing down. However, you wouldn’t see these effects until the car began to approach the speed of light. At 90% of the speed of light the car would appear to shrink to 44% of its usual length. This thought experiment answered Einstein’s old question about what he would see if he traveled along with a beam of light. He simply couldn’t make the trip for at the speed of light, length would contract to zero and time would stop. Narrador: Si se observara a un auto acelerando a la velocidad de la luz se vería algo muy extraño. Parecería como si el mismo auto estuviera encogiendo y como si el tiempo pasase más lento para la persona del auto. Pero no vería estos efectos hasta que el auto empezase a acercarse a la velocidad de la luz. Al 90% de la velocidad de la luz, el auto parecería encogerse hasta el 44% de su longitud normal. Este experimento fue la respuesta a una vieja pregunta de Einstein sobre lo que vería si viajase a la velocidad de un rayo de luz. Simplemente no podría hacer el viaje porque a la velocidad de la luz, la longitud se reduciría a cero, y se detendría el tiempo. Sprecher: Wer ein Auto beobachtet das bis fast Licht - geschwindigkeit beschleunigt würde etwas sehr seltsames sehen. Es würde ihm vorkommen, als ob das Auto kürzer wird dem Autofahrer dagegen schiene es daß die Zeit langsamer ablauft. Dieses würde sich aber erst dann bemerkbar machen wenn das Auto in die Nähe der Lichtgeschwindigkeit kommt. Bei 90% der Lichtgeschwindigkeit würde das Auto bis auf 44% seiner normalen Länge schrumpfen. Dieses Gedankenexperiment antwortete auf Einsteins alte Frage was er wohl sehen würde wenn er auf einem Lichtstrahl mitreiste. Doch solch eine Reise ist unmöglich denn bei Lichtgeschwindigkeit würde die Länge auf Null schrumpfen und die Zeit würde stille stehen.

Retailers, Show Me a Video of Your Shoes! Mika Ramin — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:09:37 +0000 Louboutins, and Manolos, and Jimmy Choos! Oh, My! Like most girls, I have an obsession with shoes. Whenever I see an ad of the latest Christian Louboutins with their beautiful crimson bottoms, my heart begins to race a little faster. It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But, what would a video be worth? A million? How about a billion?! After last month comScore’s release reporting 6.2 online video sessions being viewed by consumers, I think it’s safe to say retailers will be using more and more online video marketing to drive their business. This also means that in order for retailers to achieve optimal results they need a reliable means of publishing their content to the web. Using Limelight Video Platform is a sure way to deliver their content efficiently. Let’s face it; the days of traditional advertising are over. Retailers are going to have to make the shift to using LVP to publish their online video in order to meet the high demand of consumers desire to watch online video ads. This is actually great news for retailers. Have you ever been online shopping for nothing in particular and on a whim bought a pair of beautiful stiletto strappy sandals? And, then when they finally arrive you bring them to meet the rest of your wardrobe and realize you don’t have a single thing to wear with them? More times than not, I have buyer’s remorse and sadly return the shoes. According to reelseo, retailers can expect to see a decrease in returns by 60 percent just by using online video ads over traditional print because now consumers have a video to show them exactly how and what to wear those shoes with. So by the time they them home, they already have several outfits picked out to wear with their new shoes. In addition, retailers can expect an increase in conversion since consumers are twice as likely to buy off a site with online video ads. LVP is a comprehensive tool that provides the best user experience for consumers watching retail ads. And the great thing about using LVP is they can track how many people are watching their videos, when they’re dropping off, and help them target their most profitable demographic with LVP analytics. So, listen up retailers! Want to know what really makes us girls want to click our heels and wish we were shopping in your store? Show us a video of your shoes! Check out some of our current retail customer video players: Coastal Contacts: http://www.clearlycontacts.ca/glasses/frames/joseph-marc-4023-black/prod24033.html Fasig-Tipton: http://www.fasigtipton.com/fasig-tiptontv/index.asp?t=4 LVP Will Help Drive Business: comScore’s June 2011 Release Mika Ramin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:38:02 +0000 comScore recently released their June 2011 online video ranking that shows viewership at an all-time high with 6.2 billion viewing sessions. With the growing trend of online video growth, it’s now a necessity for companies to acquire Limelight Video Platform services to publish video content and grow their business. In June, U.S. viewership rose to 178 million with an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. That’s the equivalent of a person spending two full work days and then some dedicated to just watching online video content. With numbers rapidly skyrocketing, businesses who aren’t already publishing videos need to get on board if they want to keep up. Monetizing video content has never been easier, especially since 2.2 billion minutes last month was solely dedicated to video ads. So not only do businesses have the opportunity to drive their growth in sales, but also have just as great of an opportunity to monetize their content. The U.S. population is enthusiastically watching online video, which means they are also watching video ads. Last month alone, 49 percent of the whole U.S. population was exposed to online video ads, which amounted to 5.3 billion total ads. If you’re not already participating with online video publishing, you need to be. There are so many benefits to using online video. With such a vast following, you can actually start to see what the best videos are for your brand and pinpoint the exact demographic you want to reach with LVP analytics. Knowledge is power. And using LVP will give you a benefit over competitors. You need to know who is watching your video content and whether they are engaging with your videos. You can use this information to your benefit to scale your competitor. In terms of your own personal gain, using LVP will allow you to monetize, determine overall viewership, track your video viewing growth, find out how many unique hits your video content has, and the time viewers spend watching your content. Join the trend and drive business to a whole new level with LVP.