Thumbnails generation

July 2024

What’s changing

MK.IO is now allowing you to generate thumbnails for your VOD content.

Who is impacted

CMS — Generated thumbnails can be used as a cover image for content catalog or EPG

Playback clients — For clients compatible you can side load the sprite VTT file to enable scrubbing

Why you would use this / Why it matters

There are multiple uses cases where you will need thumbnails or sprites. MK.IO is flexible enough to empower you to generate the thumbnails you need.

Additional details

By default MK.IO will generate a single thumbnail image with the transcoded content. A single JPG image with a 50% size relative to the highest resolution track

For advanced use cases, all you need is create your own transforms to generate the set of images you need and eventually aggregate them in sprite files.

Thumbnails generation is only available for MP4 content and requires a server manifest (.ism) file provided as input to the job. If you have assets in smooth streaming format you will first need to convert them using one of the Asset Conversion Transform we provide.

To enable downloading the thumbnails or sprites files, a download streaming locator will be needed on the asset.

Getting started

There is no change required on your side to enable thumbnail generation during transcoding. We've taken care of that for you. Any new transcoding job will generate a thumbnail automatically.

To create your own thumbnails use case, we have prepared a few samples for you to look at in this page Generate thumbnail images.

You can then use the at will to enrich user experience through using a cover image or enable content scrubbing.

Availability & rollout plan

Thumbnail generation is available in all regions starting July 9th 2024.

There is no additional charge associated to thumbnails generation.