Name is required.
Email address is required.
Invalid email address
Answer is required.
Exceeding max length of 5KB

Video views vs Time Viewed


How does view count correspond to time viewed?

Example 1. Here is a table of statistics per month, gathered from the JWPlatform analytics, from one of our clients.

Month | Video Views | Time Viewed | Time per view
November | 286 | 1.75 h | 0.37 min
December | 409 | 2.57 h | 0.377 min
January | 253 | 89 min | 0.35 min
February | 135 | 54.6 min | 0.4 min
March | 77 | 1.87 h | 1.45 min
April | 27 | 52.1 min | 1.9 min

All the videos are automatically generated and approximately 30 - 40 seconds (0.5 - 0.7 min) in length. From November 2014 to February 2015, we had 0.3 - 0.4 min per video view. But now the things are changing: view count is descending and time viewed is ascending, hence the ratio is more than one minute per video view.

Approximate number of videos created along these months:

December | 88
January | 37
February | 37
March | 57
April | 36

Example 2. Another client shows 203 video views for April (April 3 to May 3), corresponding to 3.74 hours viewed, which leads to 1.1 min per video, though videos are all 30-38 sec long. So this is not limited to one account.

Finally, questions.
- Why such an inconsistency?
- If a user opens the webpage with player, plays the video, then plays it again - does JWPlatform count one view or two?
- Which of the two numbers (views vs time viewed) is more reliable/accurate?

Thank you!

2 Community Answers

k...

User  
0 rated :

Seems that we have found the reason.

Here are screenshots of statistics screen for two videos. Both had zero views at first. Then, first video was played back once on a mobile device (Android 4.4 KitKat, Google Chrome browser). URL: http://vboostlive.com/a/walser_toyota_scion/car-sales/xdozg1t/walser/

Statistics:

http://i60.tinypic.com/20zphl5.png

You can see that we have 36 seconds viewed, but view count is zero. But there WAS actually a view.

Now, another video was viewed in a PC (Linux, Google Chrome). And it got one view.

URL: http://vboostlive.com/a/walser_toyota_scion/used-cars/tfy1kgu/scion/

Statistics: http://i58.tinypic.com/2419qnd.png

Seems that video view counter does not count mobile views. It is a HUGE problem for us because our business depends on that statistics.

Randy

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Hello Kiersten,

When loading the videos via a mobile device views will not update as it is counted as a download within mobile. You would however see the View number update on desktop.

Randy

This question has received the maximum number of answers.