Thumbnails and Captions for Audio and Video

Upload Thumbnail for Audio or Video

A thumbnail is an image representation of the audio or video file that appears in the media player before being played. The thumbnail also represents the audio or video file in the item panel, and in the collection’s browse or search pages once the audio or video file has been published. JPG or PNG images can be uploaded, or a frame grabbed from a video file can be established as the thumbnail. Thumbnails may be set as default or deleted (if there are more than one), and downloaded.

Currently, Flash is required to grab a thumbnail from a video.

To upload a thumbnail for an audio or video file:

1. Select an item and open it in the edit tab.
2. Under the media viewer, select Media then Replace Thumbnail.
3. In the dialog window, select Upload Thumbnail and navigate to your file. You can download thumbnails or if you have multiple thumbnails added, you can set individual thumbnails as the default or delete them.
4. If you change the thumbnail after the item published, remember to re-publish to update the thumbnail.

Add Captions to Audio or Video

Captions are text that display over audio or video in the player. A caption file (SRT or DFXP) contains both text and information about when each line of text should be displayed. The caption file (in SRT or DFXP format) can be uploaded to your project from your computer. Any number of captions can be associated with a file. After a caption file has been added, you can select the language. If the language is indicated in the caption file, it will be preselected. If the user has uploaded more than one caption file, a drop-down will appear on the player for selection. If one was marked as the default, it will automatically be selected, while the other uploaded captions will be options in the drop-down. “None” is always an option automatically. The text from the caption file will appear when any user plays the file.

To add and manage captions for audio and video files:

1. Select an item to edit in the edit tab.
2. Under the media viewer, select Media and then Manage Captions.
3. In the caption management window, select Upload Files.
4. Browse to and select the SRT or DFXP file on your computer.
5. When your file appears in the Caption Management window, select Save. You can also change the language for the caption file here by clicking  in the language column next to your file and choosing the desired language. Save these changes and select Close to return to the edit tab.
6. To change the caption file applied to the audio or video, click the closed captioning icon located in the bottom right corner of the player. You will see all caption file options and the option to turn off captions during playback.
7. Return to Media then Manage Captions to download, delete, change the language, or choose a new default caption file.

Kaltura Quality Selection

Depending on the quality of your original media files, the published files may provide the option to select playback quality. If you provided a high quality video that could be played back at a lower quality, perhaps due to slow local network speeds, the user can select the preferred quality for playback. Examples of quality selection may include 360P, 360P HQ, 720P, 720P HQ, or other speeds. Check the options button of the Kaltura player to see what quality selections are available in your media. Remember, quality selection options are dependent on quality variations of the original file (e.g. the less quality variations in the video, the less selection options are available).