3.04.3 Liveplayer (Live streams)

Live Player is designed to help Mediabank users extract media clips from live broadcast streams and publish them to the Library for further processing. 

Mediabank Liveplayer acts as the tool to extract highlights from the event and the Library is the distribution platform for further distribution/publishing.

Get started

From the Mediabank main menu, locate and click the Live Player button.

 The Live Player opening screen will appear, waiting for you to select an input source. It should be similar to the below example. 

Selecting a source

The opening screen of the Live Player will appear, partly illustrated below. The illustration shows the top left side of the Live Player opening screen.

1. To return to the Mediabank Main menu, click on the "Mediabank Live Player" icon.
2. Select a source. To get started, select a stream from the Drop-down menu

 Once selected, the live stream will appear in the "Live Player" window and automatically play the stream live.

The control bar

Hovering with the mouse pointer over the player window will activate the control bar. The Live Player starts with the "live" view, but the user can actually move "back in time" making use of the Live Player buffer. In the example below the user can read from the "Total buffer" that there is a close to one-hour buffer zone available. (Different streams may have different buffer sizes). The user can navigate very efficiently in the buffer zone by dragging the "marker" to the left or right. Even if the stream is live you can navigate as far back as the buffer allows and create clips.

The status bar and Live Player buttons

The Live Player has three different states. "Live", "Preview" and "Buffered". The buffered state is shown in the above illustration, displaying only time. The below illustration shows the status bar displaying the local time of the source stream.

1. The "Live Player" presents the live stream source location time. The red dot with "Live" indicates that the user is watching a live stream.
2. Audio track - If the stream contains additional audio language tracks, it is possible to select the appropriate. 

(The user may, at this point already marked a clip with In/Out stamps from the live stream but not yet created the clip.)

1. Same as above. The PREVIEW indicates the user simply watching a clip that contains a "mark in" time and a "mark out" time.
2. Audio track - If the stream contains additional audio language tracks, the user may select the appropriate track before creating the clip.

To navigate to the beginning, or the end of the clip, just click on the In: xx.xx.xx.xx or out: xx.xx.xx.xx markers

 The navigation buttons

There is also a short cut-through keyboard function available.

Spacebar = pause/play

 

The letter i = mark in with the corresponding o = mark out.

 

You can also use the arrow buttons on your keyboard to navigate.

Left/Right = 1 frame back or forward.

Up/down = 1 second back or forward

 

 

Creating a clip

Creating a Clip is easy.

1. Watch the live or buffered stream and press (1) "mark in" to mark the beginning of the clip.
2. The Live Player will then
   1. Mark the starting point (2) (orange text) down to frame level (hh:mm:ss:ff)
   2. Create a (2) poster image
   3. Automatically (2) suggest a title. (live stream name + the clip starting time) You may overwrite it.
3. Then press (3) "mark out" to set the end time of the clip
4. The (4) "out" time is set.
5. It is possible to add a (5) descriptive text
6. It is also possible to use the (6) "Preview" button to watch the clip. The user is free to navigate with the player control buttons to move back and forth through the clip. Navigate with the accuracy from 10sec, 1sec, and down to frame level. Press "mark in" or "mark out" to adjust the clip.
7. Finally, (7) create the clip. The clip can have a minimum length of 5 sec and a maximum length of 30 min.   

 

 

The Clip storage (Your Clips | All clips)

All clips will be stored in the Live Player storage area. Users can choose to list their clips only, or include clips from group members as well. All the clips that are published to Library are stored with the Tag "LivePlayerClip" making it easy to locate within the Library.

 

Note!

It is not possible to select multiple clips for upload. Only one clip can be uploaded (published) at the time.  

 

The below clip view explains the options available. As with the "Live Player", it is possible to hover over the clip to enjoy the same control bar. In addition, users may watch the clip in full-screen mode by clicking on the square bracket in the control bar.

 

Each clip "contains" a media player, allowing users to watch the clip inside the thumb view and at the same time follow the live stream in the main "Live Player" window.

 

Note!

When playing the Clips, the sound from the "Live Player" will be muted. Users must manually adjust the "Live Player" sound back to the preferred level from the control bar. 

 

 

 Download or Publish the Clips to Library

 

 Looking at a clip, you have four options. Click the poster to start the mediaplayer, delete the clip, download it, or publish it to the library.  

 

Selecting (2) "Download Clip" will download the clip to your computer/server with the same properties as the broadcast stream but it will be in a compressed format.

 

Selecting (3) "Publish to Library" will initiate an upload to Library.

 

 

 

Depending on the live broadcast stream quality, users will have two different options when publishing. (1) "Send web quality clip to Library resulting in clips with the same preferences as downloading it to your own computer/server.

(2) "Order to the library from......." will publish the clip as streamed. Mediabank will not compress it. 

If no recording is initiated, then there is no place to extract the broadcast stream from, and the (3) "Error" message as shown in the above illustration will appear.

 

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End of article