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Note: The following blog post describes a component of Azure Media Analytics. In order to learn more and learn how to get started, please read the introductory blog post on Azure Media Analytics.

Video Thumbnails

Have you ever searched for a video on Bing? One of the greatest features of the video result page happens when you hover over a result – a short “summary video” plays in the place of the thumbnail.

The Azure Video Thumbnails Media Processor lets you create a short series of clips or “highlights” for a video, just like this! You can use these motion thumbnails to create a short, five-second video preview to show users when they hover over the thumbnail of the video in your portal as I mentioned before, or even to generate fiveminutes of sub-clips for your long keynote. By tweaking the parameters in the Video Thumbnail media processor, you can use our powerful shot detection and concatenation technology to algorithmically generate a descriptive subclip. Here are some examples of what our Motion Thumbnail media processor can do:

Original video and motion thumbnail result

Today we are ready to announce the Azure Video Thumbnail Media Processor for a public preview at no cost, for a limited time.

The video above was processed with the default settings, and the simplest JSON configuration:

{"version":"1.0"}

If the defaults aren’t perfect for you, there are a few different knobs you can turn by preparing a configuration preset. For this free public preview release, you will be able to adjust the following parameters:

outputAudio True or False, specifies whether or not the resultant video contains any audio.  Default is True.
fadeInFadeOut True or False, specifies whether or not fade transitions are used between the separate motion thumbnails.  Default is True.
maxMotionThumbnailDurationInSecs Integer, specifies how long the entire resultant video shall be.  Default depends on original video duration.

Here’s an example 10-second highlight reel along with its associated configuration preset:

{
    “version”: “1.0”,
    “options”: {
        “outputAudio”: “true”,
        “maxMotionThumbnailDurationInSecs”: “30”,
        “fadeInFadeOut”: “false”
    }
}

Getting started

To get started with Azure Video Thumbnails, use the Media Analytics sample project from the Media Analytics introductory blog post with the following two pieces:

task configuration
{
    'version': '1.0',
    'options': {
        'outputAudio': 'true',
        'maxMotionThumbnailDurationInSecs': '10',
        'fadeInFadeOut': 'true'
    }
}
Media Processor name “Azure Media Video Thumbnails”

Want to learn more about Azure Media Analytics? Check out the introductory blog post.

Have questions or comments on Video Thumbnails? Contact us at amsanalytics@microsoft.com.

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