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Content Adjustment Settings

Whether it is via an RSS feed, FTP feed, manual upload, or via the MediaItem API (the settings are described in the API documentation), content ingested into yospaceCDS can be adjusted in a variety of ways. This article describes what these options are and how to set them.

In the RSS Input Feed Set-up, FTP Input Feed Set-up and Upload Content screens, a collapsible section is provided for Content Adjustment Settings. If the section is collapsed, click this section to expand it to see the available options.

Volume Multiplier

Depending on the source of the content and how it was originally intended to be consumed, you may find it is necessary to adjust the volume to make it more audible on mobile devices.

The volume adjustment setting takes a value and multiplies the signal level by this amount. Therefore if you want to halve the signal level, enter a value of 0.5 or if want to add 50% to the signal level set the value to 1.5. The perceived volume change and the signal level are not equivalent.  Most people will perceive a 50% perceived volume increase if you set the signal level increase to 2. 

Crop Image

The Crop Image option allows you to trim the video in the horizontal or vertical spaces independently. This is useful if the content has been digitised from a broadcast source and contains 'overscanning lines'. The value you specify is a percentage of the available space that will be taken off equally from either end. For example, if you specify 5% on both top and bottom, then 2.5% will be trimmed from the top and bottom of the frame each.

Aspect Ratio Change

This setting allows you to define how yospaceCDS handles situations where the video that is to be delivered has a frame aspect ratio different to the original. For example, you have uploaded 16:9 aspect ratio content but the content is being delivered to a device that can only handle a QCIF frame size (which is 11:9, or 4:3 depending on whether the device has square screen pixels).

The possible modes are:

  • Crop to Fit: The video will be trimmed either vertically or horizontally to match the destination aspect ratio. Therefore, given our example of an input 16:9 with a narrower 4:3 output, the result will be that the 4:3 output will have content cut from the left and right of the frame. This setting is appropriate if the 16:9 has been composed with a 4:3 safe zone.

    Example of 16:9 cropped to 4:3

  • Mixed crop and letter/pillarbox: The video will fit to the target aspect ratio by using both techniques of adding black bands and cropping the video. Given the example of a 16:9 source being adapted to the narrower 4:3 format, approximately half of what would've have cropped from the left and right sides if Crop to Fit had been chosen will be cropped, and approximately half the amount of black bands will appear on the top and bottom if the Letterbox/Pillarbox option had been chosen.

    Example 16:9 mixed crop and letterbox to 4:3

  • Letterbox or pillarbox: The video will have black bars added to either the top and bottom (letterboxing) or left and right (pillarboxing) to fit the destination aspect ratio. In this mode none of the original video is lost to cropping, but it is also the most inefficient in terms of usable display area being occupied by the picture. Given the example of a 16:9 source being converted to a 4:3 aspect ratio, black bars will appear on the top and bottom of the picture, effectively insetting the original 16:9 image into the 4:3 frame.

    Example 16:9 letterbox to 4:3

  • Stretch to Fit: In this mode, the video will be stretched from its source aspect ratio to its destination aspect ratio. If a 16:9 was stretched into a 4:3 frame, the effect would be that objects within the picture would appear narrower.

    Example 16:9 stretch to fit 4:3

Truncate

Using this setting, it is possible to chop off a specified number of seconds from the start of the video. This is useful if the source of video has a preamble 'slate' that you do not wish end users to see. The value you specify can be a decimal number.

Thumbnail Snapshot At

Specifies the number of seconds (which can be expressed as a decimal number) into the video at which the default thumbnail is taken. If the video is being read from a RSS or an FTP feed that specifies its own thumbnail, this setting has no effect, as the specified thumbnail is used instead. It is possible to manually set the thumbnail of content by editing an item within a Content Group also.