Setting Up RSS Output Feeds

RSS Output Feeds provides the means to publish the contents of a specified Content Group. You can only publish the contents of a single Content Group, so if you want to published an aggregation of multiple Content Groups, you will need to create an amalgam Content Group and feed it with multiple Input Feeds.

To set-up an RSS Output Feed, you will need to configure the following settings:

Name: The name of the Output Feed. This is passed to the output generator and therefore, depending on the Feed Type you select may appear in an appropriate field within the consumer facing output.
Description: The name of the Output Feed. This is passed to the output generator and therefore, depending on the Feed Type you select may appear in an appropriate field within the consumer facing output.
Copyright: If the Feed Type you select has a copyright field, it will be populated with text you supply here
Feed Type: See the section below on feed types.
From Content Group: Select the Content Group from which the Output Feed will publish content.
Identifier Prefix: You can use the Identifier Prefix to set the first four digits of the ID that is generated by yospaceCDS for the output feed (which is used as the URL). This might be useful to allow you to identify your feeds by URL if you have feed numbering system in place, for example. Leaving this field blank will generate a random Identifier prefix.
Limit Output: Allows you to limit the number of items published on the feed. The n most recent items are published in the event that there are more Media Items in the Content Group than the limit you have set. This is especially useful if you have have created a Content Group from multiple feeds.
DRM: When this option is selected, yospaceCDS will prevent devices that understand forward-lock DRM from forwarding downloaded video content to third parties. yospaceCDS supports different DRM schemes (including OMA DRM) and applies the correct one for each device it detects.
State: When an Output Feed is inactive, accessing its URL will result in an error.

Feed Types

When you select the Feed Type for an Output Feed, you are choosing the type of system that can read the feed, the video quality and the means by which the videos are delivered. This section explains the options available to you.

Feed Type / Syntax

You can choose from the following types of feed:

Podcast: allows users to access your content by subscribing to your feed using iTunes. Your content can then be played by iPods and iPhones when they are synchronised with iTunes. yospaceCDS provides the option for Audio-only podcasts, where the audio portion of your videos is extracted and delivered.
Nokia Video Center: Provides a feed compatible with the Nokia Video Center application available on high end Nokia phones, such as their Nseries product family. The application provides an easy means for users to access and keep up to date with video feeds.
Standard MRSS: Provides a standard Media RSS feed. You should choose this option if you are intending to surface video within your own mobile site, or in an application you are building for a device. More information on MRSS can be found here.
EyeVibe: Provides a feed that can be surfaced in EyeVibe, the UK's largest video community. This is a community operated by Yospace as is available on all UK networks. There is more information available on our EyeVibe product page.
Test WAP Page: This option formats the feed as a simple WAP 2.0 page. Just enter the feed URL in your phone and you be able to browse and access the videos.

Quality

A variety of qualities are offered against most feed types. Quality is quoted in kilobits per second and is the encoding rate of the combined video and audio tracks of the content. The available qualities are:

50k - Low Quality. This should be used for feeds that will be accessed over 2/2.5G networks.
100k - Standard Quality. This is the lowest common denominator for 3G bearers.
200k - Medium Quality. Suitable for higher speed 3G bearers and 3.5G bearers.
400k - High Quality. Recommended for Podcasts, WiFi, or 3.5G (HSDPA) bearers only.
600k - Very High Quality. Offered on Podcasts only.
800k - Highest Quality. Offered on Podcasts only.

Delivery

yospaceCDS can deliver video to end users in two ways: Download or Stream.

The buzzword 'video streaming' is often incorrectly used, therefore it is necessary for us to clarify the difference between download and streaming in the context of yospaceCDS. The difference between these two delivery mechanism lies in the network protocols used to deliver them, rather than the user experience, which is where the term is often misused.

Download delivers the video using HTTP. Some devices, such as the iPhone or some Blackberry devices download content and start to play it before it has completed downloading. This is known as progressive download; the ability for yospaceCDS to offer progressive download is primarily reliant upon whether the device's video player supports it. Google Android devices and the iPhone support progressive download, while many standard mobile phones (including Symbian devices) don't, for example. In the case, of Google Android the downloaded file must be 'hinted' for progressive download in order for it to function properly. yospaceCDS detects for this and carries out this treatment automatically. Users of most mobile phones, however, must wait for the download to complete before they can start watching it.

Streaming delivers the video using a combination of protocols, RTSP, RTP and RTCP. RTSP is responsible for setting up the streaming session, RTP is responsible for delivering the video data, and RTCP is a control protocol to allow the handset and server negotiate the streaming speed, and playback position. Under moderate to good network conditions, Streaming delivers an excellent user experience, because the user is able to start watching the video with a very short delay. RTP/RTCP is a much more network efficient means to deliver video content and therefore streaming playback will happen sooner than progressive download under the same network conditions. When a video file is streaming to a handset, the server is serving video packets almost in realtime. The handset (if the player offers the controls to the user) is able to seek forward and backward through the video and the server simply streams the parts of the video that the handset requests. Under a progressive download scenario, the device must load the whole file to be able to seek to the end of it, with streaming this is not required.

Choice Mode


The standard choice page as displayed on a Nokia N95.		A branded choice page as displayed on a Nokia N95.

Standard MRSS and Test WAP Page Feed Types are also offered in a "Choice" variant. When using a feed of this type, users are presented with a page allowing them to choose the quality and delivery method for their video. The choice page will only offer options that are appropriate for the user's device and geography. For example, in some countries mobile operators do allow streaming, and therefore if yospaceCDS is aware of this, the streaming option is not presented.

It is possible to customise the appearance of the choice to match the style of your mobile site. The current version of yospaceCDS requires Yospace to do this on your behalf, but in future versions it will be possible for you to do this yourself.

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