Use a Placeholder Video

You can use a placeholder video that plays while the video your customers want to watch processes. Video files are generally large and take a bit of time to optimize on the first request in order to display to all the various formats and resolutions that your Image Manager video policy specifies. As an alternative to delivering the original version during this time period, we offer the ability to serve a placeholder video while the processing takes place. To use videos with Image Manager, you must set up an Image Manager Video rule in your delivery configuration in Property Manager. Videos require this separate rule and also use different policies than Image Manager images. Learn how to configure your Image Manager video policy to use a video placeholder.

How to

  1. Select the appropriate Control Center account (one with access to the applicable product).
    • In the new Akamai Control Center UI, use the top-right menu in the header to select the account.
    • In the classic Luna UI, use the Context Selector to select the account.
  2. Enter the name of the property in the Find Context field.

    The Property Details screen displays.

  3. Click Open Version # at the top of the page and select the version number.

    The Property Manager Editor displays.

  4. Click Add Rule, then select Image Manager Video, and click Insert Rule.

    The Image Manager rule appears in the Property Manager Editor.

    Adding the Image Manager Rule
  5. Select the match criteria for the rule in the If section. Specify the file extensions of your videos.
  6. In the Image Manager Video behavior, complete these fields:
    Image Manager Behavior Settings
    Field Action
    Video Optimization Settings
    Enable Set to On to enable video optimization.
    Scale for Mobile Turn on to scale videos down to the maximum screen resolution (as determined by the user agent) for smaller, mobile devices.
    CAUTION: This can affect page layout, so it is important to test on many devices with different screen sizes and resolutions.
    Use Best File Type Turn on to convert videos automatically to the best file type for the requesting device. This feature produces the smallest file size that retains video quality, based on the user agent and initial video file.
    Region Pick a location close to your site’s heaviest traffic. (If the region of heaviest traffic varies, choose United States.) Image Manager distributes cached objects from here to edge servers.
    Traffic Settings
    Pristine Videos CP Code Required. Select the Content Provider (CP) code for traffic between Image Manager and your origin, where your original videos reside.
    Derivative Videos CP Code Required. Select the CP code for traffic serving derivative videos to end users.
    Policy Set (API Key)
    Policy Set Type Select Standard to use the default name, based on your property name. Select custom to create a custom policy set name.
    Policy Set Name (API Key) Keep note of this set name, which associates a set of Image Manager policies with this instance of the Image Manager behavior. You will need this value when setting up your policies in Image Manger's policy manager. You should put the word video in this name, so you know that this in a video policy when you select it in Image Manager.
  7. Click Save, push the configuration to staging, and exit Property Manager.
  8. Click Image Manager in Akamai Control Center and select your contract and policy set name (Hint: your video policy ends with “-v” and we’ll call it out as (Video) in the drop down.
  9. Click Manage Policies.
  10. Select your policy and click View/Edit Staging Policy in the Actions menu next to your policy.
  11. From there you can tune your video policy just as your would for images under the Workflow section. Select Derivative Quality to set your quality level and select Derivative Widths to set your resolution breakpoints. The last thing you’ll select is your Placeholder Video.
  12. You can choose Original Video, Fixed Value, or Variable.
    • Original Value is just as it implies, we serve your original source video until we are done processing the renditions. This works well when source videos are small in file size and duration. However, this could impact user experience so we offer two other solutions.
    • Fixed Value allows us to serve a static placeholder video. This could be a promo video or an announcement to your customer that your video is coming soon. This is a one size fits all approach.
    • Variable allows for additional flexibility. It allows multiple placeholder videos to be used based on whatever variables you’d like to set. This is more advanced and requires the creation of policy variables and leveraging them to create a dynamically generated URL.
    Note: Your placeholder video should be of a reasonable resolution, duration, and file size. It displays only temporarily until the optimized video appears and as such is a “one size fits all” video.
  13. Save and test your policy on staging and then push it to production when it is ready.