Blog Video Encryption and Conferencing for WordPress

Video SubTitling and WebVTT

Originated in 2010 by the web hypertext application technology group, WebVTT stands for web video text track and sometimes abbreviated as VTT which is the file extension of WebVTT.

Web Video Text Tracks Format is simply plain text which is used as a format for displaying timed text tracks such as subtitles or captions using the track element. The primary purpose of using WebVTT files is to add text which overlays to a video.

WebVTT enables you to edit the color and font of the captioned text. Not every caption formatting method has the option of editing the appearance of the text; this makes WebVTT among the best formats.

How To Create WebVTT File:-

1. Open a new file in Notepad.

2. To start type “WEBVTT” to indicate “.vtt” file and then press enter two

times to leave a blank line. You can also include a title or comment before the

caption sequence.

3. Enter the beginning and end time code using the format:

Hours:minutes: seconds.milliseconds

00:00:00.000

If you want to add a sequence indicator, such as a “1,” do so on a

separate line above the timecodes and then press “Enter”.

4. Start your captions from the next line and try to keep about 32

characters limit with 2 lines per caption. This will help viewers in not reading

too much and the captions will not take much space on the screen

5. After the last text line press “Enter” two times to leave a blank line and

indicate a new caption sequence.

6. Repeat these steps until you have not completed the transcript.

7. After completing, to save the file go to → Save.

8. In “File Name” options type the name of the transcript using “.vtt” in

the end.

9. In “Save as type” select “All Files” and then save the file.

10. Now you are ready to upload your captions.

How WebVTT Is Different From SRT:-

SRT (SubRip Text Format) is a simple text file and contains the captions display format for the video which is easy to use.

WebVTT files require UTF-8 encoding, while it is not required in an SRT file.

In WebVTT you can separate the seconds, mili-seconds with a “Dot” while in SRT you can separate the seconds, mili-seconds with “Commas”

You can add metadata and description in VTT files and it also allows you to add comments using “NOTE” within the frame while in SRT files you can not add the metadata and description.

In SRT files frames are required to be separated by cue identifiers while in WebVTT they are optional.

Why should we use a WebVTT file:-

WebVTT is a popular subtitle format and is also format choice for HTML5 video as it provides greater flexibility. You can also add information such as frame placement, styling, and comments. Some of the common platforms which use WebVTT are Vimeo, Brightcove, JW Player, Video.js, MediaCore, MediaPlatform, YouTube, etc.

A WebVTT file contains several types of information about the video like-

Subtitles, Captions, Descriptions, Chapters, Metadata, etc.

VAST & VPAID: Why They Are Important For Video Advertising.

For the past few years, video consumption is increasing quickly. Many advertisers and marketers have adopted video marketing and it is becoming an effective advertising medium.

If you want to optimize your video ads to increase its view engagement, standard-based advertising should be a part of your advertising planning.

About 36% of consumers say that they trust video ads and these ads are expected to generate up to $15.4 billion total ads spend.

What Exactly Are VAST & VPAID:-

VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) is a script which gives information to the video player. It facilitates and standardize the communication between video players and video ad server and based on ad requests coming from the VAST tag. The video ad server will return the creatives criteria about which ad to play, how the ad will show up, how long it will last, and whether users can skip it or not.

VPAID (Video Player Ad-serving Interface Definition) is a script that instructs a video player about which ad to play, length of the ad, when to surface the ad and where to place the play, pause function, etc. It allows their video players to accept more advertisement types and viewers can know more about the ad content in a single click. It helps you in seeing how individual ads are performing and engage the viewers with your advertisement.

Difference Between VAST & VPAID:-

VAST uses an XML script to give the video player specific instructions and establish this universal standard set of rules between video players and ad units, this ensures that the video ads run easily on all video players. It eliminates the cost and time traditionally associated with custom coding in-stream video ads.

VAST is important because it enables video players and ad servers to offer the same language. It benefits advertisers by It helps publishers by creating more monetizable and compatible demand.

While VPAID uses JavaScript to give the video player instructions and creates new ad interactivity and offers an enhanced solution on top of VAST. It supports all kinds of media files players and script including HTML5.

VPAID tags help advertisers to track video ad performance, viewability, completion rate, and click-through rate by allowing users to fill in a subscription form, complete a survey, or even play a game through the video ad.

Conclusion:-

VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) and VPAID (Video Player Ad-serving Interface Definition)are mutually beneficial to advertisers and publishers because VPAID builds by adding a new level of interactivity and provides more capabilities than VAST. These two specifications have different purposes and can be used together, rather than independently.

VIDEO CONFERENCE SERVICE IN 2019

With so many options available in 2019 “Video Conference” has got the first place at all levels of business. It acts as a tool to keep the employees connected with one another in an organization.

With an increase in remote work, it is important to choose the right video conference solution for your business.

Our recommendation for Top Video Conference Services in 2019. This will help you in finding the best options available at all levels of business.

What to expect in 2019:-

The technological trends have majorly impacted the demand for video conference services and emerge as one of the most effective modes of communication for decision making. The use of this mode not only increases work efficiency but also reduces the costs associated with employees meetings. Remote workers and mobile employees can communicate with one another in a more immersive format.

Currently, the value of the enterprise video conferencing market is expected to accelerate to $20 billion by 2024.

Rising implementation of technological innovations has left most enterprises with little choice other than to develop and use modern conference rooms equipped with the facilities of flexible video conferencing. There are mainly three technological trends that are defining the video conference industry growth:-

1. Changing technology landscape like – Machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT), etc.

2. The establishment of conferencing facilities worldwide and has impacted on the market outlook.

3. The adaptation of the cloud-based video conference services is the rising popularity and has encouraged companies to adopt it and has delivered top-notch services in the video conferencing industry.

Features of video conference services:-

Participants:-

The number of participants plays a great role in choosing a video conference service. Some service providers limit the number of participants to under 10 while some providers can accommodate thousand at one time. So you have to choose the perfect provider according to the size of your business.

Video and audio quality:-

Video and audio quality are the key components of any conference. The quality should be good enough so that it should not provide distractions to users on the other end. While choosing the conference services make sure that the audio and video qualities are in good working order.

Dial-in Numbers:-

There are several times when not everyone is able to join a video conference. To provide those participants with a way to join, most video conference solutions provide dial-in numbers to call and can listen to the audio-only.

Screen sharing:-

One of the most important features is the ability for presenters to share their desktops. A huge benefit of cloud-based video conference service is to share documents, spreadsheets, presentations or anything else you want to share from your system.

Integrations:-

A video conference service integrates with your online calendar or email and makes scheduling video conferencing simple. When a meeting is scheduled then updates and details for joining the meeting are automatically uploaded to your calendar and sent via email.

Whiteboard:-

This feature allows the conference participants to type or draw on the board and can even upload an image or document. One can highlight or edit on a specific area of images or documents. Some additional functions such as zoom control, pointers and shape are also provided.

Group chats:-

Video conference services must include an in-app chat tool that allows the user to send and receive messages while attending the meeting. This useful tool helps participants in sharing an opinion without interrupting the speaker.

Cloud storage and Recordings:-

This feature allows you to record and store both video and audio. This is useful for meetings where the big decision is taken, for webinars that include useful training material. It also helps in reviewing the meetings or decision taken while interacting with the client.

Conclusion:-

Now It’s not hard to say why video conferencing is recognized as a major trend. Video conferencing provides better, faster and cheaper communication. So choose the right video conference service which fits best according to the level of your business otherwise choosing a wrong video conferencing software or trying to integrate incompatible services could end up costing you down the road.

How HTML5 video format works :

The controls attribute add video controls like lay, pause, and volume.

It is good to include width and height attributes.

The source element allows specifying alternative video files which browser may choose from.

The text between the <video > and </video > tags will only be displayed in browsers that do not support the <video> element .

HTML video tag

Tag	Description
<video>	Define a video or movie
<source>	Defines multiple media resources for media elements, such as <video > and <audio>
<track>	Define text tracks in media players

Attributes

Autoplay; A Boolean attribute, the video automatically begins to playback as soon as if can do so without stopping to finish loading the data.

Preload: This attribute Hint the browser about whether optimistic downloading of the video itself.

Currently, there are 3 supported video formats for the video elements MP4, OGG, WebM.

OGG format is an open container format designed to provide efficient streaming and manipulation of high-quality digital multimedia.

The MP4 format is used to store audio and video, it can be used to store other data like a subtitle. It also allows streaming over the internet.

WebM format also contains audio, video and text and allows streaming also.

Browser Support :

The below-given table shows which video formats are likely to be supported by a given browser.

Internet Explorer and safari support only MP4 video format, chrome, Opera and Firefox support MP4, WebM and Ogg format,

Browser	MP4	WebM	Ogg
Internet Explorer	Yes	No	No
Chrome	Yes	Yes	Yes
Firefox	Yes(from Firefox 21 From Firefox 30 for Linux)	Yes	Yes
Safari	Yes	No	No
Opera	Yes( from opera 25)	Yes	Yes

Conclusion: MP4 format is more compatible as compared to other formats, it supports all popular browsers so as a web designer we can prefer this for adding videos

Why We Require Video Delivery Format For Web

Video has come a long way since magnetic tapes were involved and it’s time to ensure that you’re using the best format for displaying video content on your website. Including videos helps make your content easier to connect with the people. If you’d like to have greater control over your video then the HTML5 video is your solution. the HTML5 only works with a few file formats (currently) – MP4, OGV, WebM, and WebVTT – and each format has at least one strong reason to employ it.

One of the biggest sources of confusion about the video is not realizing that the file format is completely different from the video format. So we are always dealing with two formats, not one. Sometimes files formats are called container formats because they are the containers for the actual video. In fact, the video format is the flavor of compression that is used in the video.

# MP4 – It is the most widely used media format for the digital devices and many platforms support MP4 which makes it universal video format around the world. The MP4 can also store video files, audio files, text, and still images and they can retain high video quality while maintaining relatively small file sizes.

# OGV – OGG was originally designed as an audio compression package in the early ‘90s but matured over the next two decades. What started as a workaround led OGG to give birth to OGV, a digital multimedia file format redesigned for efficient streaming over the internet. The format does not (currently) work with any version of Internet Explorer nor Safari.

# WebM – Introduced in 2010, WebM is a completely open-source video format which delivers the highest quality video in real-time, adjusting file weight depending on connection and processing power. It is designed and developed with widespread web use and sharing in mind and has its compatibility with Chrome on Android devices.

# WebVTT – WebVTT was developed by W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) in 2010. It is the most compatible video tag format currently available. The cross-operating system and cross-browser support WebVTT and make it the logical choice for videos on any website.

How Progressive Download Works?

Progressive download is a method which is used to stream media from the web server to the client such as a video player on a laptop or mobile phone. Without using progressive download a client has to download the entire media file before video playback can start. Media files are typically large, so users must wait a significant time before they can watch the video, resulting in disappointing user experience. With progressive download, only a small part of the video file has to be downloaded before playback begins. The progressive download is video delivered by a regular HTTP web server rather than a streaming server. In most instances, the video delivered using this technique is stored on the viewer’s hard drive as it is received and then it is played from the hard drive.

How RTMP STREAMING Works?

Real-Time Messaging Protocol was basically a protocol developed by Macromedia (owned by Adobe). It gained its popularity for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet between a flash player and a server. There is a direct pointer from the media server to flash player, and only data corresponding to that pointer is held by the flash player. A video player is used for sending the streams file corresponding to its screen size and internet connection speed. In RTMP streaming process it is ensured that if a viewer is initially viewing a high-quality stream at high bandwidth and after some time if the internet speed drops then the video player will immediately switch to a lower resolution stream. In this process, there is no storage of any kind of data on the computer.

How HTTP STREAMING Works?

HTTP live streaming is the streaming which can host the streamable content without a streaming server because of the HTML5 and hypertext transfer protocol. HTTP Streaming is a push style type data transfer method that allows a web server to continuously the send data to a client over a single HTTP connection that remains open indefinitely. With HTTP Streaming, the server is configured to hold on to a specific request from a client and keeps the response open so that it can pass data through it. When updates pertaining to the request are available along server-side, the server sends the response through the request-response channel and only closes the connection when explicitly told to do so.

What is HLS Encryption? Is HLS Encryption effectively secure against piracy?

HLS Streaming ( HTTP Live Streaming) is a streaming protocol which is used for the video content across the computers and mobile devices. HLS encryption refers to video streaming using HLS protocol where the video files are encrypted by using AES-128 algorithms. The key exchange takes place through the secure HTTPS protocol and also allow for the usage of initialization vectors to optimize the protection.

You can protect your videos with 128bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) HLS encryption to protect your videos from unauthorize download attempts with tools and video downloader such as Internet Download Manager. Making it by far one of the most secure platforms to stream and secure your videos and it makes sure that your videos are secured using the latest protection technologies.

How To Protect Videos Using AES – 128?

The HLS mentions only one aspect of key retrieval which is by using the URL from which the key can be loaded should be a part of the manifest file. Most often, we see a number of different approaches for protecting the decryption key:-

1. By Protecting the manifest:-

This is the way through which we can hide the URL to the decryption key. It does not provide more strong security as the URL might leak or could be intercepted on the network.

2. Using Authentic Cookies:-

Authentic cookies can be sent by the video player with the request key. This allows the server key to check which user is requesting the key. If the user is not allowed to access the stream, the key will not return back and the user which have proper authentication will receive the decryption key.

3. Using Signed URL:-

Signed URLs can be used for providing unique representation to each user. A user-specific representation will then contain a link for the decryption key which will contain an authentication token. The server can then check the authentication token and determine whether the key can be accessed or not.

Is AES-128 protection Safe?

The first question while dealing with videos protection is “How safe is this protection?” AES is a symmetric encryption algorithm which is designed to be efficient in both hardware and software. This algorithm is adopted as the standard encryption algorithm by the U.S. government for encrypting sensitive data. The usage of AES encryption has recently become the part of common encryption and it might be safe to say this level of AES encryption will not able to replace soon.

Which is More Important? FPS or Video Resolution.

What’s supposed to be a nice design feature that adds to the overall impression of a website can turn into a nuisance for visitors if they have to wait for all elements to load and display correctly. one way for optimizing videos for web design is to reduce the video’s file size, which will help to drastically improve page load times and playback performance. However, as each of these factors Frame rate and Video resolution affect the size of the video. Having a high Frame rate and a good Video resolution would increase the size of the video, it may be in the best interest of a web designer to go for both frame rate and resolution so it becomes confusing to understand which one is more important.

Videos are main aspect, used in 90% of sites mainly 34% promotional videos, 31% demonstration videos, 31% demonstration videos, 26 % entertainment videos, 22% news videos, 4% User Generated Content (UGC), 3 Other. It should be optimized with mobile phones as 63% of web surfing is done on Mobiles.[1]…

Why Does Frame Rate Matters?

The term FPS stands for “frames per second” and is also called “frame rate”, referring to both recording and playback speed when talking about video. In regards to shooting, the frames per second measurement are how many frames or images are taken in one second. Frame Rate is the frequency at which the display refreshes. Frame rate options are 24 or 30, 60, 120 and 240. 24 or 30 is determined by the “base frame rate”.

While it won’t make your image look sharper, it only improves usability and makes animations and effects appear nicer and better on the screen.

Why Does Video Resolution Matters?

Video resolution in a display device refers to the number of distinct pixels that could be displayed in each dimension. It is usually quoted as width× height. The video resolutions you see like 360p, 480p, 720p, or 1080p represent the number of horizontal lines a video have from top to bottom. A 480p video is made up of 480 lines stacked one on top of another, with each line being 852 pixels wide. In other words, a 480p video has a resolution of 852×480 pixels.

For comparison, a 720p HD video has 720 lines that are each 1,280 pixels wide, this means that it is more than twice as sharp as the same video at 480p and can be viewed on a much larger screen.

Conclusion –

Higher quality video is always the most desirable. As a web designer if I have to go with these two then I will shake hand with the video resolution because while designing a web the video size matters a lot so it’s better to choose a video of higher resolution rather than FPS. A video of lower size and higher resolution will consume less time to load and will provide a great experience to the users.