Configuring the video and audio viewer (FileNet® P8 only)

About this task

You can configure the IBM® Content Navigator video viewer to allow your users to view and stream videos and audio files. Additionally, users can create bookmarks at any point in the video.

For all video formats (.mov, .avi, .h264), it is recommended that you transcode the video file to an MP4 file before you upload. This action enables instant playback because MP4 files are natively supported by all browsers, therefore MP4 files do not need transcoding.

The IBM Content Navigator video viewer supports the following file formats and their associated MIME types:
  • MP4, video/mp4
  • M4V, video/x-m4v
  • MOV, video/quicktime (When the Quicktime file contains h.264 video and AAC audio streams.)
  • Web M, video/webm (Chrome and Firefox support WebM natively. There is limited support in Edge and Internet Explorer 11, and extra configuration is required, which you can find in the Microsoft documentation. Safari does not support WebM.)
The viewer also supports the following audio file formats and their associated MIME types:
  • MP3, audio/mpeg
  • MP4, audio/mp4 (Content Navigator assumes that the MP4 is a video file and will try to display a video thumbnail. Since this is an audio file, a thumbnail is not displayed.)
  • M4A, audio/x-m4a
  • M4B, audio/x-m4b (Internet Explorer 11 does not support playback of M4B files.)
Important:

Playback for files over the 2 GB cache limit might not work properly. Videos that are not DASH optimized are played as they are being downloaded to the browser cache. This can cause issues during playback.

When installing and deploying IBM Content Navigator to WebSphere Application Server using the configuration tool, the files on a high availability system might have cached static files on the system. In this case, the video.js files will be missing because the server has cached the directory. Therefore, a system administrator must clear the cache on WebSphere Application Server. For instructions on how to clear the cache, see https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21978198.

To view videos in IBM Content Navigator, transcode them to MP4 format by completing the following steps:

Procedure

  1. Use a transcoder, such as FFMPEG, to transcode the video file to MP4 format.

    Example: An input video is 1080p and a lower-bandwidth 720p video for streaming is required. The following sample command can be used to generate such a video:

    ffmpeg -i {your video file here} -acodec aac -c:v libx264 -x264opts 'keyint=24:min-keyint=24:no-scenecut' -b:v 2400k -maxrate 2400k -bufsize 1200k -vf 'scale=-1:720' -movflags +faststart video-720.mp4

    Note that the settings in the example might not be optimal for all cases, but you can use the following parameters to optimize video creation.

    Parameter descriptions
    • -acodec aac: Specifies the audio encoder to use, which in this example is audio aac codec. This audio codec is supported natively in all browsers.
    • -c:v libx264 -x264opts: Specifies the video codec, which in this example is libx264, an H264 video encoder. This video codec is supported natively in all browsers.
    • 'keyint=24:min-keyint=24:no-scenecut': keyint sets the maximum GOP (Group of Pictures) size, which is the group of frames contained between two I-Frames. This helps to ensure stable playback and seeking.
    • -b:v 2400k: Specifies the target (average) bit rate for the encoder to use, 2400k is the current preference for quality and for keeping the video size small.
    • -maxrate 2400k: Specifies a maximum tolerance for the bitrate of the video file, which helps ensure that it does not go above the 2400k limit.
    • -bufsize 1200k: Sets the buffer size for when to check the current bitrate while encoding; this helps limit the bitrate.
    • -vf 'scale=-1:720': Sets the video aspect ratio.
    • -movflags +faststart: Enables fast start for the video so that it can be played back immediately upon upload.

    This creates a 720P version of the video file in the .mp4 format with a max bitrate of 2400k.

  2. If this is a new upload, upload the transcoded file and the video will be ready for playback when the upload is complete.

    If you are modifying an existing video file, the new MP4 must be uploaded by using ACCE as a content element alongside the original video. When uploading, you must upload the original video file first and then the transcoded MP4 file. If you do not maintain that order, the video viewer will not start playback.