Studio Jumpstart: Making Your First Video Cloud Player

This quick tutorial will get you started with Video Cloud. You'll learn how to create a player, upload some videos, define the videos in a playlist, assign the playlist to a player, and publish your player in a web page.

This tutorial will give you basic knowledge to navigate the Video Cloud studio and get your videos published. This tutorial is the first in a series of getting started tutorials that will help you understand the basics of publishing video with Video Cloud Studio.

If you're more comfortable getting to know the Video Cloud Studio first, read Getting Started with the Video Cloud Studio to get an overview of the Video Cloud Studio and to walk through the Studio modules and menus.

In this tutorial, you will learn about:

• Logging into Video Cloud Studio
• Creating a player in the Publishing module
• Getting the publishing code
• Creating content
• Adding your playlist to the player
• Publishing your player

Logging into Video Cloud Studio

Go to the Video Cloud Studio at https://my.brightcove.com and log in with your Video Cloud username and password.

Creating a player in the Publishing module

In a hurry? You can skip this step, and use the Chromeless Video Player with Tabbed Playlists that's already in your account. Skip ahead to Getting the Publishing Code.

You create players using the Publishing module in the Video Cloud Studio. To open the Publishing module, click the Publishing icon in the navigation header:

Navigate between different modules in Video Cloud studio. The Publishing module is in the middle of this navigation bar.

Create a player

To create a player, click New Player in the toolbar at the bottom left corner of the Publishing module:

The New Player and New Template buttons in the Publishing module.

In the Create New Player dialog, name your player and select a template to use. In this example, we pick the Tabbed Navigation 3.0 player template.

The Create New Player dialog with a name and selected template.

At this point, you could edit settings and customize styles for your player. For now, accept the default settings and style.

Getting the publishing code

The Publishing module can instantly generate the code you use to publish your player in your web pages:

1. Select the player you want to publish. If you skipped ahead to this section, select the Chromeless Video Player with Tabbed Playlists.
2. Click the Get Code button in the toolbar to get the publishing code for your player.  Select JavaScript. 
   • If you don't have a web site available for testing, select Player URL  in this step. This will provide you with a link to your Video Cloud player on a blank web page that you can use for testing and that you can send to others for review.
3. In the Get Code dialog, click Copy Code. This copies the player's JavaScript code onto your clipboard.
4. Paste the publishing code into a file. You will use this later when you place the player in an HTML page to publish it.

Create content

In a hurry? You can skip this step, and use the sample videos already in your Video Cloud account. Skip ahead to Adding your playlist to the player. 

Go to the Media module by clicking the Media icon in the navigation header:

The Media module icon looks like an open folder.

The All Videos view displays any videos you have already uploaded in your media library. The All Players view displays the new player you just created and any other Video Cloud players you might have.

1. Click Add Videos to add new videos to your media library.
   
   Video Cloud supports most video format types and files up to 2 GB in size.




The Upload Manager

2. Select the files you want to upload from your file system and click Upload All. If you want, you can download bc_sample_media.zip (52.3 MB) so that you have some sample videos to test with. You will need to extract the sample files from the zip folder to your local machine before uploading them to the Studio.

Making a playlist

In a hurry? You can skip this step and use the playlist named Sample Playlist that's already in your account.

Make a playlist that you can add to your player:

1. Click the New Playlist button at the bottom left corner of the Media module


The New Playlist button in the Media module.

2. In the Create Playlist dialog, select Manual and give your playlist a name.


The Create Playlist dialog appears. Here you can select the settings for your playlist.

3. Click the Add Videos button and select some videos to add to your playlist.
4. Click Save & Close.

Adding your playlist to the player

Now that you have a player and a playlist, add the playlist to the player, so that the player has some content to play. If you skipped ahead to this step, you can use the Sample Playlist that is already in your account, under Favorites. This is a smart playlist that automatically includes all videos in your account that are tagged with the word 'sample.'

1. Click All Players.
2. Select the player to add content to.
3. Click Add Playlists and select the playlist you want to play back in the player.
4. Click Save & Close.

Publishing your player

You now have a player with a playlist assigned to play in it. If you don't have a web site available to test with, you can view your player by loading the Player URL you copied previously in a browser window. If you want to see the player on your web site, publish the player now:

1. Create an HTML page on your HTTP server.
2. Open the file where you saved your publishing code.
3. In your HTML page, paste the JavaScript code within the page's <body> tag and save your page.

You can now view your HTML page. On the page, you'll see the Video Cloud player, playing the playlist you assigned to it.

What's next...

Now that you've published your first player, explore more things you can do with Video Cloud:

• Quickly publish a single video to a player
• Customize players
• Video Tutorial: Resizing Players
• Add descriptions, tags, thumbnails, still images, bumpers, and more to your videos
• Create smart playlists
• Set advertising policies 

Help and support

The Video Cloud Studio Home page includes links to Brightcove's Support Center and Developer Center, which include user documentation, FAQs, video tutorials, forums, blogs, and more. There's also a link that provides web-based contact with Brightcove Customer Support. Read Where to Find the Help you are Looking for.