CLIPPING

When first logging into CLIP2VU, if you have the Clipping permission, you will be taken to the above page which allows you to generate clips from live channels. If you only have the Syndication permission, you will be taken to the Library section.

Channels

On the leftmost side, you will see a list of channels available for clipping. These are configured in the VUALTO CONTROL HUB (VCH) Clipping page. Clicking on these channels will switch your current stream to that channel. If the start and end times for the clip have been changed, switching channels will create a new subclip under the current one. Otherwise, it will simply replace it.

When switching from a VOD clip, a new subclip is always created.

For more information on clips, visit Time Selectors, Subclips, and Thumbnails.

VOD Channel

At the top of the list of Channels there will be a VOD option. Clicking this will display a window showing all of the VOD clips in the system. You can then select one to load instead of a live channel to clip from.

When you select a VOD asset, you can either press Select to load it in the main CLIP2VU Player. Or you can press Preview to view the clip before selecting it.

This display supports a few filtering options, such as: Event Type, Category, and if the clip was uploaded or created in CLIP2VU. There is also a basic search box.

Stream Range

Above the player, you can see two datetime pickers, a set button, and a reset button. These are used to set the initial range you would like to clip from. By default, this is the last two hours; this can be configured on a per client basis. The values can be set to any range within the stream’s DVR window. Be aware that longer ranges can cause longer loading times for the player. Pressing Reset will reset the times to the configured range, with end time being the current time.

Thumbnail Seeking

Note: A new Live Clipping Control is now available which replaces the Thumbnail Seeking user interface.

If you see something similar to the above, see the Live Clipping Control documentation

If enabled, below the player is a seekbar which displays a row of thumbnails from that stream. This bar will display 10 thumbnails, evenly spaced from the start and end times of the range selected. These thumbnails are loaded when the stream is loaded; as a result, it may take a few seconds to display.

If thumbnail seeking is not enabled, or the system was unable to retrieve the thumbnails, a regular seek bar will be displayed instead.

Time Selectors, Subclips, and Thumbnails

When the page loads, when a channel is selected, or when the stream range is set, you will see content being played in the player. As explained in the previous section, you will either see a thumbnail seek bar, or a regular seek bar below the player. The handles on either side of the seek bar can be used to set the start and end times of the clip.

Under the seek bar, you will see further controls. In the example image above, this is split into three rows:

• Seek Controls
• Clip
• Thumbnail

The seek controls allow you to move the current time in the player in set increments. In between these controls is a read-only text box displaying the current time in the player. To the right of these controls are two buttons: Set In and Set Out. These are used to set either the start or end time of the clip to the current time in the player.

The Clip row shows you the current set clip times. CLIP2VU allows you to set multiple clip times, which will be stitched together in the generated clip. When you have finished setting up your first clip time simply press Add Clip, another clip row will be added, resetting the start and end times for the new clip.

You can then use the clipping selectors to set the times for that clip. You can click between clips to edit their start/end times at any time. The active clip is highlighted blue. When clicking between clips, the selectors on the player will update to reflect the selected times. You can also click and drag each clip to rearrange the position of them when stitching them together, playing in order of the highest clip in the row to the lowest.

If you require an added clip to be deleted then pressing the X button on the right hand side of that clips row will remove it. This button only appears when there is more than one clip.

The Thumbnail row shows you the frame which will be used as the clip’s thumbnail. When pressing Set Thumbnail, the current time from the player will be used. If no time is given, or the selected time does not fall within the clip range, the first frame of the clip is used.

Keyboard shortcuts

There are a number of keyboard shortcuts available within the tool. These are:

• left arrow & right arrow - seek +/- 5 seconds
• < & > - seek +/- 1 frame
• I & O - set the start & end points

Metadata

Below the clipping selectors, there is a section for default and custom metadata; this is where you set the metadata for your clip. By default there are five fields: Title, Description, Tags, Bitrates, and Categories. Title is the only required field, as shown by the red asterisk.

Tags are comma separated and will update to display inside a blue box when correctly set.

Bitrates allow you to set the bitrate of your clip, these options are taken from the stream’s manifest. If you do not select a bitrate then they are all used. This option is only available when clipping from a single source.

When the clip is generated all metadata fields will be reset.

Custom Metadata

The Selected Metadata dropdown allows you to select which custom property workflow you would like to use. These are configured in VCH. Currently, the supported fields are:

• TextField
• TextArea
• DateField
• TimeField
• CheckBox
• SelectList

These can be configured to be required, if applicable.

You can find out more about Property Workflows in their section of the docs.

The Generate MP4 ready for syndication checkbox is used if you intend to publish your clip to social media. If this is not checked, an MP4 will have to be generated before a clip can be published. More detail into publishing is given here

The Generate Clip button will submit your clip, it will appear on the right hand side, alongside previously generated clips, with the thumbnail Submitting…. More info in the next section

Generated Clips Column

Generated clips are displayed on the right hand side of the player and page. These clips are user specific, you can only see clips made by yourself. These are displayed in descending order from their creation date.

When you generate a clip, it appears at the top of this list; initially it will have the thumbnail Submitting…, if this is successful, it will update to Generating…. It will then become available, a refresh of the browser page is not required to see this process. Once the clip has completed generating, the thumbnail will update to the appropriate thumbnail for the clip.

If clip generation is not successful, a popup will appear informing the user. If this occurs, and after confirming all details are correct, retrying still doesn’t work, contact your support representative.

To delete a clip simply click on the X button on the right of the row for that clip. You cannot delete a clip whilst it is generating.

If the clip has been generated successfully, you can click on that row to load a preview window. This window displays the clip itself, and the metadata for that clip.

On the right hand side of this preview window, there is a link to syndicate the loaded clip to social media. This takes you to the Add Publication view, however this button will not be available to users who do not have access to the Syndication platform. More detail can be found here

Search Clips

Searching through the clips can be done using the search input, displayed above the generated clips section in the top right hand corner. You can search via keywords and/or a date range. Keyword search will search through titles, tags, and custom properties.