Uploading Process

What is happening exactly when you upload a video to Spotlightr.

Updated over a week ago

When you upload a video to Spotlightr there are few things that happen:

  1. The video file is validated. Is it a video file type that we accept?

  2. If validated, the file is uploaded

  3. Once uploaded, the file begins the conversion and transcoding process



Conversion & Transcoding

The first two steps above are self-explanatory. Let's review what happens when Spotlightr is converting, optimizing and transcoding your video file.

As soon as the upload is complete the conversion and transcoding process starts to run in the background.

Transcoding

Uploaded videos to Spotlightr will be transcoded which will recode the video file to ensure it's using a single video codec. This is an optimization process that is necessary to ensure your video file can play across all major browsers and devices.

Multiple Resolutions

When you upload a video file that is 1080 resolution for example we will transcode and optimize the file at that resolution and also create multiple lower resolutions for better streaming for anyone with slower internet speeds. None of these optimized and transcoded files are available for you to download. They are only used with Spotlightr.

Resolutions currently supporting are:

  • 360p

  • 720p

  • 1080p

  • 4K

We will automatically serve to your viewers the highest resolution possible. And with the gear icon in the player controls, viewers with lower internet speeds can switch resolutions and watch the video in a lower resolution.

Please be aware that this gear icon with additional resolutions will not appear in your live videos until the optimization and transcoding process described above has finished. Once done, the icon will appear.

The original uploaded video file is kept in your account as well for storage purposes. This is the original file that you uploaded without any Spotlightr processing. This can later be downloaded back to your machine.


Encryption

If encryption is selected during upload ("Secure My Video"), your video will be encrypted and converted in .m3u8 format. Without encryption, your video will stay in it's original format, usually .mp4


How Long Does This Take and What Else Should You Know

After uploading your video, when you are customizing it you will notice a loading animation appear next to Settings:

If you click on the Settings tab, you may see this:

And if you try to get embed code or watch page link, then you will also see this that says your video is still processing:

These are notifications that your video is still being processed and optimized as described above. Some features may not work until this processing is done.

You may still customize the video and even add the embed code somewhere or share the watch page link. But if a feature isn't working correctly, or the video is buffering/stuttering, please be patient and wait for this process to complete and try again.

Again, the icon in the player controls will NOT appear until this entire process is complete. So please be patient.

The average time it will take to finish the process will be about 60% of the video's length. So a 3 minute video will take around 1 minute 40 seconds to complete the process.


Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I just uploaded a video and...

     ...I don't have the button to choose the resolution?
     ...It does not appear in My Files?
     ...my used storage space is still 0%?

Your video is uploaded, however, it still needs to be optimized and converted and that process may take some time, depending on the size of your video. Please be patient. The conversion process takes about 60% of the time of the length of the video. So a 3 minute video will take around 1 minute 40 seconds to finish. A 10 minute video will take around 6 minutes to finish, etc.

All resolutions will be available and your original video file will appear in "My Files" soon.

Please note, if you did not upload the video to Spotlightr but instead linked a URL to Spotlightr then you may not see multiple resolutions depending on the source. You will also not have the file available in Spotlightr to download. Please see the article on hybrid hosting for more info.

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Q: Can we delete the original file after it's been converted & encoded?

Yes, by navigating to Account Settings >> My Files. There you will see the list of uploaded videos in it's original format.

If you delete this file, the Spotlightr video(s) created from it will not be affected and will continue to play. Those are completely separate from this original video file that was uploaded.

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Q: Can I delete any of the lower resolution files?

Not at this time. You would need to completely delete the Spotlightr video along with all of the other resolutions.

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Q: Why do I have pixelated background for uploaded videos? Why are my videos blurry?

First check to make sure the video is being served in a high resolution

If that is not the problem, check your original video file just to make sure there are not issues with that. Ensure that there are none of the same issues in the same spots of the video

If that's still not the problem, you may want to follow these directions to optimize the video and then re-upload to Spotlightr.

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Q: What is the quality of linked videos?

Linked videos are not converted or altered at all by Spotlightr, so the resolution change icon is not available for videos linked external sources. When linked we are playing the video from it's source using our player. The video file is NOT being migrated or added to Spotlightr storage.

The quality of the linked videos is "as is", and that means that we are streaming the best available resolution from the source.

Youtube is an exception as we are able to pull multiple resolution videos from Youtube (except for 1080 which we cannot pull at this time).

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Q: Why I can't change the resolution for my videos migrated from Wistia? 

Any videos migrated from Wistia are imported in in the original (highest) resolution, so the quality is "as is", and there is no option to change the resolution while watching. You would need to reupload the original video file to Spotlightr for multiple resolutions to be created.

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