Media ID with multiple sources
Perhaps there could be a little more information published on the analytics Media ID parameter ?
I'm using a self hosted player / self hosted content model. From what I've experienced so far it appears the you can't set a Media ID parameter for individual URLs within a sources block of playlist item. So if you are delivering the same content in HLS, MPEG-DASH, (and fall-back to progressive download) formats, then the mediaid entry appears to be required to be defined at the playlist item level.
For example, this appears to work:
playlist: [{
title: "myplaylist item 0",
mediaid: "12345678",
sources: [{
file: "http://server:port/application/moniker:myfile.mp4/playlist.m3u8",
},{
file: "http://server:port/application/moniker:myfile.mp4/manifest.mpd"
}]
}],
but this doesn't appear to work:
playlist: [{
title: "myplaylist item 0",
sources: [{
mediaid: "23456781",
file: "http://server:port/application/moniker:myfile.mp4/playlist.m3u8",
},{
mediaid: "34567812",
file: "http://server:port/application/moniker:myfile.mp4/manifest.mpd"
}]
}],
However, in the dashboard it appears that the Media ID is expected to be assigned to a specific content URL, so I have been registering this as an external URL something like:
http://server:port/application/moniker:myfile.mp4
Understandably this causes the dashboard preview to break as progressive download is not available in this case, however the analytics do appear to record embeds and plays if either the HLS or the DASH version of the URL is used.
However are the analytics doing anything special with that URL apart from the preview feature ?
If not, as there is still no sign of player domain whitelisting, then doesn't this question the accuracy in the analytics if someone should happen to copy your embed code (including your player licence key and the Media ID values) and just update the URLs to point at their content elsewhere ? Their content will presumably be associated with the Media ID and thus be included in the analytics counts.
Finally, how frequently are the analytics in the Dashboard supposed to update and what are embeds and plays actually measuring ? From my initial tests, it appears to take several hours to see any change in values presented in the dashboard, and then they don't appear to accurately reflect what I'm doing with the player client. For example, if I refresh the web page that the player is embedded in 20 times, then the analytics may only show one or two additional embeds. Same with plays - the analytics don't appear to reflect what I'm actually doing on the player. Are plays only counted following a playlist load or do they count every time the play button is pressed (or playback invoked via the API) ? e.g. does 'playlist load' -> 'play' -> 'pause' -> 'play' -> 'pause' -> 'play' count as one play or three plays ?
Perhaps there could be a little more information in this area made available on the website ?
