HTTP Progressive Download supports seeking within H.264 encoded videos (i.e., MP4, F4V, and MOV). Clients may seek to a particular position in the video, regardless of whether the video has already been cached by the user agentRefers to software that acts on behalf of a user. For example, a web browser (e.g., FireFox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer) is a user agent. A web browser will make HTTP/HTTPS requests based on user actions (e.g., requesting a web site or clicking a link). that requested it. Additionally, it allows you to programmatically start and/or end a video at a particular point in time.
Key information:
An H.264 streaming module must be installed on the origin server and it must be configured to support seeking for H.264 encoded assets. Seeking functionality has been properly configured on our CDN origin servers for MP4 assets. For all other H.264 file formats, please contact your CDN account manager to activate it on our CDN storageRefers to a server used for CDN storage. The close proximity of our CDN origin servers to our POPs ensures optimal conditions for the delivery of data from CDN storage to your users. solution.
Each seek request will be cached when unique query string caching mode has been enabled. The recommended practice for this type of cache configuration is to exclude seeking parameters (i.e., ec_seek and ec_end) from the cache-keyA relative path that uniquely identifies an asset for the purpose of caching. Our edge servers use this relative path when checking for cached content and when caching content. By default, a cache-key will not contain query string parameters. via Rules Engine's Cache-Key Query String feature. This allows viewers to seek within your content without caching multiple versions of the same asset.
HTTP Progressive Download supports the following seek parameters:
Rename the above parameters to match the name of your player's native parameter via Rules Engine's H.264 Support Video Seek Params feature.
Both of the above parameters are optional. However, the seek end parameter (i.e., ec_end) requires the seek start parameter (i.e., ec_seek).
A video player may be implemented with a scrubber bar (aka seek bar). A user can jump to a particular position in the video by clicking on the desired position in the scrubber bar.
Setting up this functionality requires either of the following:
Provide a hint to your video player to use "ec_seek" instead of its native parameter.
Please refer to your player's documentation to find out how to configure it to use ec_seek instead of the default seek parameter.
The "ec_seek" parameter is unnecessary when using JW Player 6.
Once you have configured your video player to use the "ec_seek" parameter, a user can jump ahead to portions of the video that have not yet been downloaded to his/her computer. This can be performed using a player-specific seeking parameter. For example, JW Player uses "start" as can be seen in the following code fragment:
file: "http://wpc.0001.edgecastcdn.net/000001/Video01.mp4",
'http.startparam': 'ec_seek',
start: 30
The above sample code assumes that the requested video was encoded using H.264 format. It will seek 30 seconds into an H.264 encoded video.
The above scenario assumes that a user chose to skip ahead to a portion of the video that had not been already downloaded to his/her computer. However, you may also configure a link to always start at a certain position. In such a case, our CDN will always generate truncated video content that starts at the specified position.
By default, seeking within a video will allow the viewer to view the entire video from that point forward. Alternatively, define the seek end parameter (i.e., ec_end) to stop playback before the end of the video. Our CDN service will only serve the content that falls between the specified seek start and end time.
Define a starting and ending position for an H.264 encoded video (i.e., MP4, MOV, and F4V) by setting the ec_seek and ec_end parameters to the desired position. Calculate a starting or ending position by the number of seconds elapsed from the beginning of the video to the desired point in time.
Seek start syntax:
Seek end syntax:
Implement seek support on a custom media player by setting it up as indicated below.
Seeking within a video protected by Token-Based Authentication requires appending the ec_seek parameter to the token value. A token value must be the first query string parameter in the requested URL.
Example:
Edgecast CDN