VNIS Video Stream Analytics is a collection of interactive charts that provides insights into the user’s video engagement and quality of experience (QoE).
It is a powerful tool to help users make informed decisions on how they can improve their conversion rates and their video marketing strategy.
Video Stream Analytics is available in 2 levels:
- Video Stream Analytics for all videos, and
- Video Stream Analytics for individual videos.
You can access Video Stream Analytics for individual videos by navigating to ‘ Analytics’ > ‘Stream’ (or ‘Stream‘ > ’Analytics’), and then by selecting your target video under the ‘Top videos list’.
Video Stream Analytics for individual videos has 4 sets of charts:
- Main engagement chart
- Global distribution chart
- Engagement chart
- Quality of experience chart
Main engagement chart
The main engagement chart consists of 3 sub-charts, namely: Views, Unique viewers, and Playing time.
This chart provides insights that can help users to track the success of their videos by measuring how many people are watching your videos and for how long.
Views
Views chart counts the number of views of your selected video in a given period of time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
Unique viewers
Unique viewers chart counts the unique viewers of your selected video in a given period of time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
Playing time
Playing time chart sums up the playing time of your selected video in a given period of time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
Global distribution chart
The global distribution chart lists the countries where your selected video is gaining traction in a given period of time. It ranks countries based on views, unique viewers, and playing time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
This chart can be used to identify where your videos are being viewed the most and also to evaluate the success of your video in your target region.
This chart works together with the main engagement chart.
If you select ‘Views’ (‘Unique viewers’, or ‘Playing time) on the main engagement chart, then you will see the ranking of ‘Views’ (‘Unique viewers’, or ‘Playing time) on the global distribution chart.
Below shows the Global distribution ranked in terms of Views.
Engagement chart
The engagement chart provides insight on how viewers are engaging with your selected video in a given period of time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
Specifically, it measures the:
- average time (in hours) each viewer spent watching the video,
- how many viewers were able to pass the 3-, 5-, and 10-second mark, and
- how many viewers finish watching the video.
When combined with the main engagement charts, these charts can provide more holistic viewer engagement insight which can be used to assess the conversion rates and the success rate of your videos.
Quality of experience chart
The quality of experience chart provides insights on the overall streaming performance of your selected video from the perspective of a viewer, and is reported within a given period of time. You can set the date range and filters for this chart.
Quality of experience is summarized into a single score called the Overall Viewer Experience.
Overall viewer experience
This score provides an idea of the general experience of viewers when they are watching the video.
A score of 100 means every viewer had a satisfying experience, and a score of 0 means that every viewer had a frustrating experience.
This score is derived from 4 video streaming performance scores, namely: Playback success, Startup time, smoothness, and video quality.
A. Playback success
This score focuses on whether a video played back successfully. Successful playback provides insights on: a) Did the video play without an error? b) Did the user actually get to playback, or did they exit before playback started?
Higher playback success means lesser errors in playback. A failure that ends playback is a 0, while a video that plays through without failure is 100. A view that is terminated by the viewer before playback starts (an “Exit Before Video Start,” or EBVS) is given a score of 50.
Key metrics under playback success are:
- Playback failure percentage: gives the percentage of video views that failed to play due to an error. Playback failures can happen at any point during video playback, causing the playback to end prematurely.
- Exit before video start (EBVS): captures how frequently viewers abandon a video (e.g. close the page/app or click the back button) before a video starts because it is taking too long to load.
B. Startup time
This score describes how happy or unhappy viewers are with startup time.
Longer startup times mean lower scores, while shorter startup times mean higher scores.
Key metric under startup time is:
- Video startup time: measures the time that the viewer waits for the video to play after the page is loaded and the player is ready. It specifically measures from when the player has been instructed to play the video, either directly by the user or via autoplay, to when the first frame of the video is showing and the playhead is progressing.
C. Playback smoothness
This score measures the amount of rebuffering a viewer sees when watching video.
A higher Smoothness Score means the viewer experiences less rebuffering, while a lower score means a viewer sees more rebuffering.
Key metric under smoothness is:
-
Rebuffer percentage: measures the volume of rebuffering that
is occurring across the platform. Specifically, it measures
the rebuffer duration as a percentage of watch time.
- Rebuffer Duration is the sum of the time viewers spend rebuffering on the platform or the given set of video views.
- Watch Time is the sum of all time viewers spend watching the video, inclusive of rebuffering time.
D. Video quality
This score measures the visual quality a user sees by comparing the resolution of a video stream to the resolution of the player in which it is played. If a video stream is significantly upscaled, quality generally suffers, and viewers have an unacceptable experience.
A higher video quality score means the viewer experiences high-quality video, while a lower score means a viewer experiences unacceptable video quality.
Key metric under video quality is:
-
Weighted average bitrate: the time-weighted average of the
indicated bitrates that a viewer experiences during a video
stream. It is calculated from the amount of time spent at
each bitrate while a video is played.
- The bitrate value is the indicated bitrate from the video manifest for the rendition that is used for each segment of playback.
For practicality, you can use the QoE scores and metrics to identify the issue/s that are causing a bad viewers’ experience. Once you identify the issue, you can devise a strategy to eliminate or minimize the occurrence of the issue.
Date range controls
You can set the date range of the charts by using the date range control which you can find on the top right portion of the main engagement chart.
You can set the date range using the preset ranges.
You can also set the date range using the ‘ Date range’ option.
