Integrating custom video players with Video Cloud Reports

This topic describes how to make sure custom video players are identified properly in the Video Cloud Reports.

In almost every case, Video Cloud players automatically integrate with the Video Cloud reports system. This means that the player loads, video plays, and bandwidth data displayed on the Video Cloud Studio Reports page show the corresponding player name. This applies to all Video Cloud players created in the Video Cloud Studio Publishing module, including all players made with standard player templates, custom BEML players, and custom players created using the Video Cloud Player APIs. There are a few cases, however, in which there will be no built-in reporting integration:

• A player you build from scratch that uses direct CDN asset locations for playback
• A player you build for a native mobile video applications using our iOS or Android mobile SDKs

How Video Cloud identifies a player for reports

The Video Cloud reporting system correlates a video asset with a video player based on the player ID, by looking at the reporting arguments passed within the query string. For instance, for the following asset, the player ID would be 12345678:
http://brightcove-18-fc.dl.llnw.net/media/53633/53633-my_asset-H-264.mp4?playerId=12345678

If the playerId parameter is not present, the reporting system will treat the asset as belonging to an unknown player and UNKNOWN (-2) will be displayed as the player name on the Reports page. For example:

How to pass a player ID

If you have custom players, and you have UNKNOWN (-2) reported as the player name on the Reports page, you can fix it by making sure that the playerId parameter is passed along with the video asset. This is the case for both streaming and progressive download. Here are two ways to pass a player ID for a custom player and ensure that you get useful reporting data for assets viewed in custom players:

Use the player ID of a dummy player

Create a dummy player in the Publishing module. This player will only serve the purpose of providing a player ID and name for the custom player. Make sure you don't also use the dummy player to play videos, or else its reporting data will get combined with the data from your custom player. Get the player ID for the dummy player from the Publishing module and use that player ID when loading video into the custom player.

Use an arbitrary ID

Pass an arbitrary ID when loading video into the custom player. This ID can be any string that isn't also the player ID of a player that already exists in your account. The arbitrary ID will be displayed in the Video Cloud Reports like this: UNKNOWN (arbitrary ID).