Introduction to Video Center

Video Center enables you to upload, version, encode, clip, and manage videos using the Arc XP UI. You can also create live streams and integrate external video services. Video Center adopts the Arc Native Specification (ANS) schema to add details and metadata to videos, including:

• Publication End Date
• Keywords (for SEO)
• Related content
• Ads configuration

Note

For more information about video details and metadata, see Getting started with Video Center on Arc XP product documentation.

Supported formats and codecs

Video Center accepts the following container formats and codecs for Video On Demand (VOD):

Container format	Video Codecs	Audio Codecs
mp4 (recommended)	AV1, AVC (H.264), AVC-Intra, DivX/Xvid, H.261, H.262, H.263, HEVC (H.265), JPEG 2000 (J2K), MPEG-2, MPEG-4 part 2, VC-1, VP9, Uncompressed	AAC, Dolby Digital (AC3), Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3), FLAC, PCM, WMA, WMA2
mov	Apple ProRes, AVC (H.264), AVC-Intra, DivX/Xvid, DV/DVCPRO, H.261, H.262, H.263, HEVC (H.265), JPEG 2000 (J2K), MJPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 part 2, QuickTime RLE, Uncompressed	AAC, MP3, PCM
mpg	MPEG-1, MPEG-2	AAC, AIFF, Dolby Digital (AC3), Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3), MPEG Audio, PCM

Tip

The Video API enables you to import videos using the Arc Native Specification (ANS) schema. See How to write the minimum ANS for a viable video document.

Video Center features

This section provides an overview of Video Center’s more advanced features.

Live streams

Video Center enables you to schedule events and create live streams. You must contact Arc XP Customer Support to provision the live streaming feature in your Arc XP environments. To set up a live stream, you must also provide an encoder that outputs HLS or RTMP streams. For more information, see Getting started with live video in Video Center.

Virtual channels

With Video Center you can use the videos you already have in Video Center to create 24/7 streaming experiences, with native in-stream advertising before and after each video. For more information, see How to use virtual channels.

Ad insertion

Video Center supports dynamic ad insertion through AWS Media Services MediaTailor into your VOD and live streams. You must specify a URL template for the Ad Decision Server URL. For more information, see Setting up dynamic ad insertion in Video Center.

Closed captions

Video Center uses .srt files to generate closed captions. You can also sync videos with external CC providers.

Geographic restrictions

You can enable geographic restrictions for individual videos or entire video categories by changing the Global Settings of your Arc XP organization. For more information, see Managing geographic restrictions.

Video Center player (PoWa player)

The PoWa player is the default Arc XP video player. You can customize the PoWa player by adding CSS styling attributes to fit with your organization’s branding. For more information, see Video Center player container and Video Center player settings.

Video Arc blocks and components use the PoWa video player by default. If you are using Arc Blocks, you can take the video block and the video component as a starting point to further customize your video experience. For more information, see Components and blocks storybook and Ejecting (forking) and Arc Block

Video APIs

Video Center has two APIs, one for content administration and one for public content retrieval. The content administration Video Center API enables you to do the following:

• Import videos programmatically
• Regenerate video URLs
• Delete videos

The public content retrieval Video API is a read-only API that enables you to retrieve video content from Video Center.