The AdUnity AUV is an easy to use web application that allows for quick video cutting and sharing designed to work with both livestream feeds and local files.
The AdUnity AUV allows users to have access to a video library generated from livestream video cuts based on a weekly schedule or even local files that can then be edited and shared. The tool was designed based on the needs of news professionals who wanted to be able to share parts of their live coverages and feeds on the spot without the need for powerful machines with dedicated video editing software and vaste amounts of storage space.
The AdUnity AUV tool uses the HLS protocol for improved speed and ease of use. HLS or HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based media streaming communications protocol implemented by Apple Inc.. It works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each download loading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. As the stream is played, the client may select from a number of different alternate streams containing the same material encoded at a variety of data rates, allowing the streaming session to adapt to the available data rate. At the start of the streaming sessions, HLS downloads an extended M3U playlist containing the metadata for the various sub-streams which are available.
The main purpose of the AdUnity AUVis to facilitate the editing and sharing process of video files from either livestream feeds and/or local files by automating part of the tasks and providing a sleek and easy to use web interface.
AdUnity AUV can be set to automaticaly save video cuts from an online streaming video source based on a weekly schedule called the Cuts Schedule.
The cuts are automaticaly added the the User's Library and named accordingly to the name their were given in the Cuts Schedule section. A one day example from a Cuts Schedule can be seen in the following image:
The video cuts generated from a similar schedule to the one pictured above will populate the user's Library and are easily recognizable by their blue background titles. These are labeled as Raw Stream cuts and are available for editing as soon as they are saved.
In order to edit a Raw stream labeled video, the user must first create a copy of the video by pressing the edit a copy button in the Library listing. This will create a copy of the desired cut labeled Raw stream edit that is available for editing.
Appart from the scheduled livestream cuts, the user can create a custom cut by selecting the Stream from live archive option from the Create dropdown menu. By selecting a stream from the left hand side menu, the user can select a Stream start date from up to seven days prior to the current date. The cut has a standard time frame of two hours. The end date is therefore autocompleted. Hitting the Save button will create a new Live Stream Edit labeled cut in the User's Library.
Local files can be manually uploaded by the user. The file is added to the User's Library with a Video upload label and it's available for publishing imediatelly. Local file uploads are not available for editing.
In order to appeal to a higher number of devices, only videos converted to the mp4 digital format using the libx264 encoder can be uploaded into the AUV library. The maximum single file size upload is 250Mb.
Both Raw Stream edit and Live Stream Edit labeled cuts can be edited by using the video editing tools found under the player section of every editable video cut.
The User can navigate through the video timeline either by using the mouse or the move forward/backward buttons under the video player. In order to remove or keep a specific section of the video, the User must mark both the beginning and the end of the desired section using the mark as selection start/end buttons and then either press the remove between markers button or the remove outside markers button accordingly.
A History of all the users' actions can be found on the right hand side of the page.
Both Raw stream edit, Live Stream Edit and Video Upload labeled videos can be made available to the public domain by publishing them.
After a video edit is published, it can be shared by using its Embed URL. The URL is obtained by pressing the published video's share button either while in the editing screen or in the Library listing. Published videos are marked with a green "Published" text followed by the date and hour when the respective video was published.
Both Raw stream Edit and Live stream Edit labeled video can be downloaded if the "On publish generate mp4" option is ticked before publising the video. The video file will become available for download after aproximatively 1-2 minutes and can be accessed by pressing the Download mp4 button. If the download is no longer needed, the downloadable mp4 file can be removed by pressing the Remove mp4 button.
The User has the ability to start streaming the livestream feed directly to Facebook or Youtube by using the Facebook/Youtube live stream option under the Create dropdown menu.
This will create a Facebook live stream or Youtube live stream labeled item in the Library listing. The user must choose one of the two available options from the Publish url field (Facebook or Youtube) and provide a Stream key accordingly for the desired streaming platform.
The Stream start date and Duration (max. of 240min) can be set using their respective option.
The livestream can be managed by using the Start and Stop buttons provided in the interface. A Check status button and an Output log are also available for debugging purposes.
Depending on their origin or current state, videos are labeled as such:
| Label | Usage |
|---|---|
| Raw stream | Video cut generated from the livestream feed based on the Cuts Schedule. Can be copied for edit. |
| Raw stream edit | Copy of the Raw stream that is editable by the user. Can also be published and shared. |
| Live stream edit | Custom livestream cut generated by the Stream from live archive option in the Create menu. Can be edited, published and shared. |
| Video upload | Generated by the Video from file option in the Create menu. Can be shared. |
| Facebook live stream | Library entry generated by the Facebook/Youtube live stream option from the Create menu. Is used to start a Facebook live stream from a livestream feed. |
| Youtube live stream | Library entry generated by the Facebook/Youtube live stream option from the Create menu. Is used to start a Youtube live stream from a livestream feed. |
Video player tag example:
<!-- Video player tag START -->
<div class="au-video"
data-au-account="57100025007405" data-au-site="site.example"
data-au-options='{"title":"Video title", "analytics":"UA-XXXXXXXX-X", "live":false}'
data-au-sources='[
{"src":"//stream.adunity.com/stream/playlist.m3u8", "type":"application/x-mpegurl"}
]'
data-au-related='{"title":"Title of related article ", "url":"//www.related-article.html"}'
data-au-ads='[
]'>
<p>Video will appear shortly. Please disable your ad blocker if you have one.</p>
</div>
<script src="//content.adunity.com/aulib.js" async></script>
<!-- Video player tag END -->
Customizable video player tag parameters: