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Arushi Gupta

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Case Studies

ULift, a mobile-based coding education[ company,](https://www.ulift.inc/) provides students with access to the coding education app 'Coding Valley' to improve the coding capabilities of those who want to start an IT startup. With their app and services, you can conduct coding lectures and also practise anytime, anywhere on your mobile phone without having to set up a complicated environment or install a separate program.

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With api.video, they wanted to provide VOD features to their users and were facing problems in distributing them in good quality. 

## Challenge

While ULift  excelled in creating high-quality videos, the challenge lay in efficiently delivering them to users. Recognizing the need to focus on their core competency, they were looking for a solution to streamline video distribution without compromising on quality.

## Solution

Enter api.video. Api.video helped ULift to deliver videos to their users in the desired quality. Api.video was also the perfect solution for them unlike other competitors because of its,

- Intuitive console 
- Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
- Robust [support for mobile natives](https://docs.api.video/sdks/player#mobile) 

Their previous attempt with Wistia fell short due to the absence of support for Adaptive Bitrate Streaming in mobile applications. Api.video not only addressed this gap but surpassed expectations with a seamless, user-friendly experience.

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api.video's pricing policy also aligned perfectly well with their needs, and we were able to give them what they needed without breaking the bank.

## Achievements

Since implementing api.video, ULift has experienced a paradigm shift. They are free from the complexities of video distribution and the team can now channel their energy into enhancing content quality. The intuitive features and Adaptive Bitrate Streaming have also resolved distribution hassles, allowing ULift to offer a superior VOD service to its users.

## Recommendation

When asked what stood out for their team about api.video, they pointed out two things:

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- Firstly, they appreciated the fact that unlike some competitors whose charges escalate with the number of videos, api.video's pricing does not change with the number of videos. And that suited ULift’s case since they had numerous short videos. 

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- Secondly, they applauded the continuous support and prompt assistance they received from our team whenever they were stuck.

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Overall, here's what they have to say for api.video,

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_**“The combination of intuitive design, supportive assistance, and competitive pricing makes api.video a top choice for those seeking excellence in the video streaming domain.”**_

## Way Ahead

In summary, the collaboration between ULift and api.video stands as a testament to how a strategic video streaming solution can empower businesses to thrive in the digital landscape. With a focus on continuous improvement and the pursuit of higher content quality, the partnership of Ulift and api.video is poised to play a pivotal role in ULift's ongoing success. 


_Start using api.video now by [signing-up](https://dashboard.api.video/register) for a free sandbox account._

How ULift leverages api.video’s VOD services for its coding education app

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Erikka Innes

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Husband and wife team Didier Duffas and Valentina Zatevalneva dreamed of building their own digital dance academy - Neva Ballet. Their goal was to make it possible for people around the world to experience the magic of dance for fitness and health. Focused on classical dance techniques and the strength and beauty of Russian ballet, the classes would be open to anyone with the desire to learn. 

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## The right video tool for the Job
There were just a few hurdles standing in the way of their dream. Neither one of them had built a website before and they had no previous developer experience. Additionally, for video they needed a way to create a high quality recording for playback. They wanted something simple to implement, that would be cost effective and easy to manage. They started with Wix and Zoom. Wix's easy-to-use interface made it possible for them to create their own ecommerce site and Zoom allowed them to live stream all of their classes to a small group.

There was just one problem - the live streams. While they were great for live teaching, they wanted to offer customers a **high quality playback** of each class as well as create a backup if anything happened with their Zoom recording. 

This led them to api.video. 

api.video offers high quality HLS live streams that look great in playback, customizable players, easy implementation and reasonable prices. With these three tools combined, their digital dance academy began to take shape.

## Video recording set-up

> "Our job is to provide to our customers online classes in different disciplines based on ballet and all the physical preparation of ballerinas. Valentina used to be a ballerina in the national state ballet in Russia," Didier said. 

To bring the couple's vision to life, Didier set up an ecommerce website with Wix and then turned to setting up their classes. For the video recording implementation, he set up Zoom meetings with recording enabled. Next, he created a [live stream](https://api.video/blog/no-code/start-and-record-a-live-stream-of-your-zoom-meeting/) with api.video, then added it to the Zoom meeting. Any time Valentina opened Zoom to start live streaming a class, she would speak with the class, then when it was time to begin, she cut everyone's mics but her own, started her live stream with api.video, and then with Zoom. 

Didier described the typical class set up for us: "The teacher has the camera filming giving the lesson and at the same time she can see the gallery of Zoom for the images of the students. All our members are not doing live at the same time and we advise them to make live classes sometimes just to participate so we can give feedback. But we mainly use the replay and that's the reason why also we use api.video -- <ins>because we need to provide them with high quality video for the replay.</ins>" 

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They decided to offer the Zoom playback alongside the high-quality api.video playback. Students had access to either playback as many times as they wanted for one week after the class. 

## No code video implementation
With their implementation together, the digital dance academy [Neva Ballet](https://www.nevaballet.com/) was born. They have now been in business for one year, and they offer classes in nine different disciplines, with subscription and a la carte purchasing models available. They have multiple channels for their live streams, and they've not only made it possible for students to take classes from anywhere, but to do so affordably. A monthly subscription to classes starts at 35 euros while others charge double with lower video quality. Individual classes start at 15 euros. Another perk the couple found is that they can teach the classes from anywhere. 

They also found their no-code implementation tremendously valuable because it meant they could manage the site on their own. 

> "We never had any developer. I didn't know how to make a website one year ago. I do everything by myself...It's really cool...For us it's very important because we are autonomous and we can do things...ourselves," Didier told us. 

By not needing a developer except for some help with a menu arrangement in Wix, Didier said they are able to keep costs low, quickly respond to problems and implement improvements. 

> “It would be very complicated for us if we had to ask a web agency or web developer to work for us. Since one year I have made so many changes and we are really in A/B testing mode. I put something, I see a change, I correct it," Didier said. 

The couple hopes to grow their digital academy over time, with more classes and teachers, and they look forward to doing so with the help of api.video. 

> "api.video will help us to evolve." --Didier Duffas


To find out how you can build your own online business with video content, [contact us](https://api.video/contact/) or [sign up](https://dashboard.api.video/register) for an account and try one of our many tutorials and demos.

Case Study: building a digital dance academy without coding

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Case Study: How api.video helped a couple build a digital dance academy without coding

[InEvent](https://inevent.com) is a virtual and hybrid event platform that started by building innovative technology to help organizers with in-person enterprise events. Their goal was to integrate a vast array of tools and data on a single platform including websites, emails, registration scheduling, QR codes and more. If there’s something an organizer needs for an in-person event, InEvent offers it. Their product was distributed  in the US, expanded to Europe, and then Covid struck. In-person events were at a halt, so they decided to expand their offering to include virtual events. 

## Planning for Live Streams
When InEvent decided to produce virtual events, they knew that they would need a way to offer live streams. They needed to be able to reach thousands of people with high quality video footage in real-time and provide that video for on-demand playback later. 

> “We have customers doing multiple sessions at the same time and they have thousands of users watching those sessions. We needed a platform to do a quick RTMP to HLS stream option that we could use on the fly. That’s what api.video does. We needed recordings with adaptive streaming quality. We chose you guys to be one of the providers, because we are growing and we need to have multiple providers for different locations,” said Mauricio Giordano, CTO of InEvent.

Using api.video, InEvent was able to quickly set up high quality live streams and make use of the recording feature, which allows for high quality HLS playback. InEvent uses WebRTC for a number of their sessions, but in order to broadcast those sessions to hundreds or thousands of people, they use an RTMP stream. And it’s this stream that gets saved so event attendees can come back to rewatch event sessions later or catch a session that they couldn’t attend in real time. 

> “We create a composite video from a webRTC session. Let’s say you have a meeting with 4 or 5 people, we need to get the video feed of each person and compile them into a layout. Then we need to create an RTMP stream. Then, you guys give us an HLS that we can distribute to thousands of people,” Giordano explained. 

## InEvent and api.video
Something InEvent finds extra useful about working with api.video is that it’s one of the few companies in the video space that creates simultaneous mp4 and HLS recordings. This allows InEvent to offer content for immediate download once everything has been recorded. 

Now that Covid is slowing down a bit, Giordano says that InEvent will transition to offering hybrid event solutions. Their virtual event capabilities will be offered as part of their in-person events. The goal is to create experiences where people online can join in-person events from their computers and comment, chat and interact with the event in real-time. Along the way, api.video will be there to help provide beautiful video viewing experiences for everyone.


How InEvent used api.video to produce events

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Case Study: How InEvent used api.video to produce virtual and hybrid events

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Erikka Innes and Anne-Sophie Poupard

Based in Paris, [Coverd](https://www.coverd.co/) is a company that offers smartphone insurance. And they’re revolutionizing their industry. 

Where other coverage providers only offer insurance from date of purchase, Coverd can offer plans for post-purchase smartphones. According to one of their co-founders, Nicolas Schwartz, the company got its start based on a single observation - that smartphones are a key part of everyday life for people everywhere, and a lot can happen to a smartphone. 
Anything from losing the phone, breaking it, drowning it, you name it, smartphones are susceptible to many disasters great and small. And the insurance for them, if you’ve ever tried using it, is all about the insurance company getting out of paying for damages to your phone. This is not the case with Coverd. They’re a low-cost, completely online option that covers all risks, and doesn’t make the user commit to anything. 

So where does api.video come in? Let’s find out. 

## The need to centralize video content
When Coverd was first starting out, they needed a way to document damages to user phones. 
Because the company is completely online, they required a simple, effective way to ensure customers weren’t committing insurance fraud. 

“*We started with photos at first*,” said Nicolas Schwartz, co-founder and CTO of Coverd. “*Then we moved to video, but it was very manual. We collected videos through email or chat. It was complicated to centralize all these videos, and sometimes the size was too big to be sent through email*.” 

## Finding the right solution
Coverd needed an easy-to-implement, high quality video solution that centralized their claim information. 
This would allow them to process more claims, and more easily check the damage on their customers’ phones. 

That’s when they discovered api.video. 

They knew that they wanted a video on demand solution where customers could upload videos of their damaged phones from anywhere. Once they had their design in place, they turned to api.video. “*The documentation was clear and the API was easy to use, so we were able to finalize our integration quickly*,” Schwartz said. 

Two key features that were important to Coverd were keeping the [videos private](https://api.video/blog/product-updates/video-access-management-how-to-create-deliver-and-manage-private-videos-and-what/), since only their back office would use them for claim evaluation, and [fast transcoding](https://api.video/blog/product-updates/api-video-encoding-times-2h-2021-edition/) and upload. 

api.video delivered on all fronts, and continues to be a part of their revolutionary smartphone insurance solution. 

If you are interested to know more about our end-to-end solution and how you can integrate videos into your own product, you can ask questions in our [community](https://community.api.video/) or [create a free account](https://dashboard.api.video/register) to get started.

How video helped Coverd to improve their customer support

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Case Study: How video helped Coverd to improve their customer support

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Company News

I was in Bordeaux last week for a quarterly meeting of api.video and just while sitting at the desk working on something important, I happened to overhear a conversation on a nearby table. It was about work-from-home (WFH) and what all my colleagues would do had they been at home at this time. 

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Intrigued, I went on to talk to them.

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Little did I know that remote work was such a game-changer for them, not just for their daily grind but for the very fabric of their workplace happiness and productivity. 

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So, I tried to dig in a bit more and I got to know the highs, the lows, and everything in between of the work-from-home escapade at api.video.

## 1. The parent perspective

We’ll start with talking about new moms and dads that have been juggling work and their babies, like a boss. 

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It is not news that the impact of work from home on childhood education and parenting, as well as quality of life and happiness levels, is indescribable. If you’re a parent, every minute at the office is a minute spent not seeing your child grow, laugh, cry, dance, and smile. From attending a child’s school events to caring for family members, remote work gives you, as a parent, valuable time that you can spend with your loved ones.

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Zoltan, Technical Writer at api.video and a newly turned dad shares how WFH has helped him,

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_"Async work allows me to give more time to my wife and kid. I'm able to take part in household chores and balance out the workload with my wife, which I wouldn't have been able to do had I had to be in the office."_

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From Margaux perspective, mom of a 2 year old and the Office Manager of api.video,

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_"As a mum, it’s refreshing to be able to handle my time as I please so I can take care of my kid and all health appointments or daycare topics. I know that as long as my tasks are handled, I have the flexibility to manage my day and it makes me more eager to be productive during my working hours."_

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Yohann, a Front-End Engineer whose daughter will be 7 months old soon, loves that he can be with his daughter in her nascent years.

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_"I love the fact that I never have to choose between witnessing my daughter’s firsts (her first steps, her first word, her first hiccup) and working. I love how WFH enables me to do the best I can for my daughter, during work hours and after."_

## 2. Healthy, inexpensive home-cooked meals FTW

Do you remember eating a cold bagel to work? Or having your lunch spill in the car? Or maybe forgetting your afternoon snack? Grabbing (too much) coffee with (extra) sugar on the way to the office?
These are things of the past with WFH.

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Remote work means you get to eat affordable, delicious, home-cooked food every day. This can mean the world to people with a tight budget, dietary restrictions, ambitious fitness goals… and it sure does mean a lot for the average foodie! 

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Jean Baptiste, our Video Team Lead, would agree. He says,

_"Working from home means I get to eat delicious home cooked food, because in the office you only eat fancy food (😉)."_

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Sebastian Marin, our Video Editor shares the same thought, more so because he feels what he eats reflects on the skin.

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_"Working from home has been a game-changer, especially when it comes to keeping things healthy. Being the face of the company for all those videos is no joke, right? Well, turns out, whipping up home-cooked meals daily has been my secret sauce.
Having my office and kitchen in the same spot has also made life easier. I get to fuel up with meals that suit both my taste buds and the hectic work life. No strict diets or anything – just good, balanced stuff."_

## 3. The most hated – daily office commute and undone laundry

The addition of office commute to your day's time gives you 30, 50, or 120 minutes more to enjoy your day. This means more time to sleep, less stress in the mornings, and more leisure time in the afternoon. All this time is yours — for you to make the best out of it! 

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Sébastien Girard, our SEO Manager, loves how he can easily manage household chores along with office responsibilities with WFH. He says,

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_"Being able to do the laundry during weekdays and not having a pile of clothes ready for the weekend is what I love about WFH! I also love the fact that I no longer need to waste time commuting (and eventually not catching a cold outside or on the bus) but I can just get up and be ready to work straight away! I can also catch a quick trip to the grocery store if needed, and I love that freedom."_

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Olivier Lando, the Head of Ecosystem at api.video, also loves the fact that he can manage home-related chores easily with WFH. He says,

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_"Working from home, I never need to miss any parcel deliveries haha. Plus I am able to have coffee breaks with my wife who also works from home, and that makes me love WFH even more."_

## 4. Geographical boundaries cease to exist

One of the best things about working from home, something that everyone loves, is that you can enter exceptional workplaces, without moving an inch from your sofa. No need to worry about uprooting your family to the city, or losing your friend group to the suburb!

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Additionally, once you start working, you do not need to be restricted to one single place only. You could be heading two towns over, escaping to a close friend’s AirBnB, or flying off to your favorite location. As long as you find and create a home where YOU feel comfortable, it is a win-win. 

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Alix Manté-Martini, the People Operations Specialist at api.video says,

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_"Remote working enabled me to overcome the geographical constraints arising from my husband's career path – his pursuit of becoming a winemaker in Corsica. Being fully remote, I get the choice to grow in my chosen field (International Human Resources) and develop my career path in a location (Corsica) where there are no such jobs. So with WFH, I've been able to bridge the gap between my career goals and the constraints of living on an island not particularly known for its openness to international professional opportunities. And that enables both my husband and I to follow our career aspirations without compromises and to craft careers that align with our passions."_

## 5. Productivity at its best and the unsaid feeling of trust

As per a recent report by Harvard Business Review, employees working remotely reported much higher job satisfaction than office workers. This job satisfaction led to employee productivity of remote workers. Another report from Future Form states that workers with full schedule flexibility reported 29% higher productivity and 53% greater ability to focus than workers with no ability to shift their schedule.

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Well, it is safe to say that probably, it is the elimination of long commutes and workplace distractions that improves energy levels and helps you focus on the job. It’s also partly because of the adoption of new technology to communicate and collaborate, as well as the reduction of pointless meetings and “face-time”. 

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Thomas Pellegatta, a Full-Stack Developer at api.video, finds himself most productive at home. He says,

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_"WFH is great because you can focus well on topics that need concentration and your undivided attention. Plus, you can dress however you like and being super comfy makes me more productive!"_

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Moreover, WFH also builds a sense of ownership and trust for a lot of people. They work with an implicit understanding that the work they have requested from other teams will be done and will be done on time. 

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On this note, Alexandra Demopoulos, Pricing Lead at api.video says,

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_"WFH for me represents freedom and trust. ‘Freedom’ that allows you to set your own working environment standards and ‘trust’ that your coworkers can count on you to deliver in time and find what they need when they need it! It also embraces transparency and proactive collaboration, making any get-together events exciting and even more meaningful."_

## 6. An office space just the way you like!

Remote work means your office is truly yours, to make of it as you please.

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What could be better than having picture collages all over the walls of your home office? Or have sober colours and fur carpets that scream ‘you’? What about a huge plant beside your work desk? 
Personalizing an office space means more than just furniture. With WFH, you get to do what makes you more productive – be it listening to your favourite music, using a scent diffuser, or playing with the lighting to suit your needs.

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And if you’re bored of your desk? Just ditch it.

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Relax on the sofa. Use your backyard. Turn your kitchen counter into a standing desk. Head to the park, the coffee shop,the cafe, the library, the co-working space— all you need is a comfortable seat and some wifi. 

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For Sebastian and Arushi who work at api.video from Italy and Germany respectively, office spaces look very different. While Sebastian, the video editor at api.video has set up his workstation at home and loves it to death, Arushi has made co-working places and cafes her workstation. 


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Gokul Kailasam, the Product Marketing Manager at api.video also takes the help of music to make working from home less boring, and focus better. 

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_"I listen to LoFi songs and do strategic work/write copy that requires my full attention. They really help me concentrate better."_

## A different perspective – Work from office

While a quick message on Slack or a visual meeting on Zoom can save you the time that an in-person meeting would take had you made a commute, often a quick message on Slack is not as quick. It gets tedious at times to explain things over a message and that may often cause miscommunication. More so, in a message, you often don’t know the tone, intent and urgency of the task which is clearer in a face-to-face conversation.

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Our CEO and co-founder, Cédric Montet, agrees and personally, he finds it better to come to the office, wrap up work and leave for home. 

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_"I prefer to work at the office to put a clear separation between work & life. I’m a father of 2 (4y and 1.5y) and I want to make sure I’m really « with them » so I try to not mix everything. My routine is to bring them to school, have a coffee at a bar to switch my mind before going to the office and have the same transition moment with a 20 min walk at the end of the day before going home to switch off as much as possible. I can read and reply to messages & emails at home but my phone is off between 7:30 and 8:30pm (bedtime for them). Otherwise, I deeply prefer to work with people in person rather than by Zoom."_

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However, from a CEO’s perspective where he has to interact with several people and teams in a day, he feels,

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_"As a CEO my views have evolved (and are still evolving). We raised our series A during Covid without a chance to meet people, so remote was the best way to be. Hiring remotely at that time helped us widen the reach across the globe – and that’s where the best talents thrive and live! But, sometimes I also feel that it takes more effort to communicate in a remote setup than it would take were we all in the same space."_

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Along similar lines, Gokul Kailasam mentions that although working from home enhances his concentration, there are moments when he feels a sense of loneliness. He says,

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_"I would love it if I could come to the office twice a week to see some colleagues and exchange banter with them. It would be fun."_

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Arushi Gupta (author of this blog) and a Content Manager for api.video shares similar feelings. She feels,

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_"Working from home gives me the chance to take my morning jog without rush, sip my coffee in the comfort of my pyjamas and spend the early hours of the day with myself. But I would love to come to the office 2-3 days a week because a lot of my work requires other teams’ involvement and it becomes easier to collaborate when we’re all present in the office. Also, interacting with my colleagues at the office gives me a chance to perceive their human side, distinct from their work, which I find to be crucial."_

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Despite completely working-from-home, the api.video team tries to come together at least once every quarter for some in-person laughs, beers (or wines) and sumptuous food together. Otherwise we see each other virtually on Zoom calls, Scribble game meetings and the bi-weekly Townhalls. 
Now, as the year ends and the curtain falls on our virtual workspaces, let us raise a toast to the coming year of remote endeavors—may your internet be swift, your coffee strong, and your virtual meetings glitch-free! 





Between code and comfort: The inside scoop on api.video’s WFH chronicles

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Cédric Montet

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Product updates

We’re wrapping up a huge Q1 at api.video!
 
This is the perfect moment for a review of what happened these last weeks and what our next milestones are. :)
 
First: **people**! Because nothing reflects more on the product and ‘what’s next’ than the people contributing to it!
 


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The team has grown to 26 people in Q1, I’m so happy to have welcomed:
* Erikka (🤝 Developer Relations), Joelle (📈 Growth Product), Julie (🎨 Design) and Thomas (🛠 Full-stack Developer) in the Growth team
* Olivier (🔄 Head of Ecosystem) in the Ecosystem Team
* JB (⛓ Head of core) in the Core Team

and 5 more to be announced these next weeks :)
 
Remote from day 1, it’s awesome to have (in just 6 months) great multi-cultural talents from the US, Italy, UK, France, Australia, China and Russia!
 
Every team will keep hiring this quarter, don't miss our offers [here](https://jobs.api.video/) (or drop us an email at hello@api.video)!

We have released many new features, driven by our roadmap and nurtured by your requests (please [keep adding some](https://roadmap.api.video): meeting your needs is our #1 priority!:
* **Download a high quality MP4 from go.api.video without enabling the MP4 support property**. - Previously, if you downloaded an MP4, you had to do so with the MP4 support property enabled. This was a problem if you didn’t want your end users to be able to download a video. Now, you can download a video through the dashboard no matter the property setting, but the setting still applies for your users.
* **Create a private live stream**. - Everyone’s (yes, really! everyone!) been asking for private live streams and we are proud to announce you can now create them! Just like with private videos, you use a one-time token that a user can use to access a video. This prevents sharing. The token makes the video accessible to a user one time for one web session.
* **Our first webhook, which notifies you whenever a new video is created in api.video**. - We’re also happy to announce that api.video now offers webhooks. What’s currently available is a webhook that notifies you whenever a new video is created. Over time, we’ll add additional triggers. Let us know what you think and what you’d like to see in the future!



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## Adding New Developer Tools
 
You already know our mission: help you make online videos available worldwide as quickly as possible. That means helping you stay focused on your use case without having to spend months frankensteining together a mashup of services (like separate transcoding, storage, CDN, and database solutions).
 
But we wouldn’t be a best in class API without providing you shortcuts to integrate api.video! To make api.video easier to use, we’ve taken the time to build out new tools and improve upon existing ones. We now provide:
* **Two new SDKs: one for Java and one for Golang** - Our new SDKs are auto-generated, meaning we’ll be able to keep them up-to-date with the latest changes to our API much more easily. We’ve rolled out Java and Golang, with plans to roll out additional SDKs for React, Python, and more. As part of the SDK overhaul, we fixed the SDK player so that you can now start a new video when another video finishes playing without needing to create a new player instance. If you have suggestions for what you’d like to see in our SDKs, or what kind of SDK you want, please let us know, we love feedback!
* **Three stand alone modules for analytics tracking: generic, video.js, and hls.js** - We added the stand alone modules for analytics for developers who don’t want to use our player. You can track 3rd party players in detail with these.
* **Survey about no-code platforms to see which they you would want and what features** - For no-code, we wanted to know what platforms are most popular, and which our community would like to see, you can contribute [here](https://community.api.video/c/no-code-solutions/15)!

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## Improving Reliability, Scalability, and Diagnostics
This quarter we learned a lot about site reliability, scalability, and the importance of diagnostic tools for everything we build. The result was we launched our own EDGE Infrastructure!
 
At api.video we deeply believe that the Internet has been for text, not video, and we are all sick of latency, buffering and bad quality when we want to enjoy video content. To drastically improve the whole online video experience, great code is not enough without an infrastructure designed specifically for video.
 
We plan to release our new infrastructure to the EU region in just a few weeks and the US before the end of Q2. We can’t wait to help all of you benefit from this major improvement :)

Last but not least:

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/26gsjCZpPolPr3sBy" width="480" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/latenightseth-thanks-thank-you-26gsjCZpPolPr3sBy">via GIPHY</a></p>

Usages have never been so intense, all metrics — new videos uploaded, transcoded, and delivered — grew three digits this quarter!

It’s fantastic to chat with all of you on a daily basis to discover your use cases, understand your needs and roll up our sleeves to help you succeed!

Let’s pursue this discussion on the [community forum](https://community.api.video) or drop me a line cmontet@api.video!

2021: Wrapping up a great Q1 at api.video

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Since day one of its existence, api.video has invested not only in cutting-edge technology but also in the strategic management of our video encoding, hosting and delivery ecosystem since day one.

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One of those investments was to have our own video infrastructure.

&nbsp;

And building and maintaining our infrastructure is not a mere corporate choice; it's a commitment to the future of video streaming. We recognize that when it comes to the technicalities of video streaming, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Each company or individual has its unique requirements, and an in-house infrastructure enables us to finely tailor our system to cater to these specific demands.

&nbsp;

_(If decoding text feels like a secret mission for your eyes, switch gears and dive into the video.)_



## A proprietary video infrastructure that powers seamless video experiences
While we are proud of the fact that we have a proprietary infrastructure, the reason we have built it is to help YOU. So let's dive in and see how our infrastructure empowers us to give you exactly what you need for your videos.

&nbsp;

## 1. Autonomy over video monitoring and performance

We build every stack of our video infrastructure and when it goes into production, it is monitored continuously to take immediate action if needed. We also closely measure the technical performance of your video delivery using [Golden Signals](https://sysdig.com/blog/golden-signals-kubernetes/) – error, saturation, traffic and latency – which ensure that your videos are delivered with consistent quality, even during high-traffic periods. This means that your videos will play smoothly, no matter where your audience is located. 

&nbsp;

This autonomy over our infrastructure gives us the power to take care of video delivery and performance end-to-end, so you can focus on creating great content, knowing that your videos will be delivered smoothly to your audience. 

## 2. Flexibility to expand and give you what you need for your videos
We have the elasticity to expand/offload to a cloud provider, based on your needs, ensuring high performance no matter how many minutes of videos. 

&nbsp;

Not only this, having our own infrastructure means more flexibility to be able to offer you functions as per your need. Let's say you need a special feature like AI integration or auto-captioning on all your videos. We can easily accommodate it by adding custom hardware or deploying a solution fit for your use-case.

## 3. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) that offers global delivery
We partner with the best CDN provider in the world to help deliver your videos anywhere with minimal latency. With a robust CDN that has a vast network of 140+ points of presence worldwide, we offer robust transmission, reliable connections, and cutting-edge tools to deliver live streaming video across the globe.

## 4. Video encoding at <u>zero cost</u> supported by ASICs

Our infrastructure uses Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) based encoding, an innovative hardware-based encoding that is faster, greener, and cheaper than CPU-based encoding by an order of magnitude. Using ASICSs means lower power consumption costs, which is why we are able to offer [video encoding at zero cost ](https://api.video/blog/product-updates/video-encoding-pricing-update/)to you. 

## 5. Security of videos by default and reliability at all times

For reliability, your videos are always stored in two or more data centers so that server failures never result in loss of data. **You get a 99.999999999% (eleven nines!) storage durability with us.**

With token-based private videos, [custom domains](https://api.video/blog/product-updates/custom-domains-for-api-video/), AES Encryption, your videos are secure with us by all means.

## 6. Video storage and delivery in the US and the EU

One of the most important parts of our infrastructure is our ability to offer you the freedom to decide where you store your videos. This means that you can [select the storage location](https://api.video/blog/product-updates/introducing-multi-region-video-hosting/) that best suits your needs, whether for compliance with local laws or for faster performance for your users. 


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On top of the freedom to choose your storage location, we have recently updated our infrastructure with delivery servers in North America, and improved our CDN services in the region. This initiative guarantees faster, more efficient video delivery within North America and means that your American users will experience faster and higher quality video playback than ever before.

&nbsp;

With this update, you can have multi-region storage for your videos. So now, if you are working on a project in Europe and one project in the US, you can benefit from multi-region storage. Each Project you will create within your account will hold a different API key, and its own settings, including the video storage location. This means that you can link each project to a single region based on your customer's video storage preferences, taking your reach global. 

## Wrapping up

Unlike competitors relying solely on hyperscalers, api.video has forged a different path. While the  approach of others may seem convenient, scaling up often leads to increase in costs. In contrast, our [self-managed infrastructure ensures cost efficiency](https://api.video/product/video-infrastructure/), offering stability and scalability without the unpredictability of escalating bills as volumes rise.

&nbsp;

At api.video, our goal is to provide you with the highest quality video streaming experience, and our investment in owning and managing our infrastructure underlines our dedication to this goal. 

&nbsp;

_Create your [free sandbox account](https://dashboard.api.video/register) with us now and see what lies on the other side._




How api.video’s global infrastructure enables seamless video performance

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Artem Matinian

Tutorials

It’s natural that one will think about integrating videos into their project. There are so many use cases for a video that we cannot even start to count. From user-generated content like Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, and the likes, through e-learning apps, personal trainers, e-shopping, and the list goes on and on, there’s no limit to what you can do with moving images that zoom across the fiber optics as digital signals from one place to another. 

&nbsp;
 

Is there are catch, though? How easy is it to implement videos into your project, app, or website? In this article, we will look at the options, challenges, and solutions for getting video infrastructure up and running.

## The Casual Cloud Vendor ☁️

Probably, the first thought of every developer (with a mainstream line of thinking) is AWS. It comes naturally, as most of the existing infrastructure is probably set up on AWS, Azure, or the like. Who can blame you? it’s convenient, easily scalable, and…. can get quite expensive. Not only that, it might be difficult to implement as well; think about:

&nbsp;
 

- Having DevOps that specialize not only in AWS but also in the video area
- If you don’t have such a team, then you’ll need to hire people for that.
- Time-consuming setup
- High price

Here’s the implementation list of all the different services to deploy and setup to have video-on-demand with AWS:

That’s not all; you’ll also have to build the client that uploads the videos yourself and plus all of the front-end. You can already understand the costs and time involved with this project. 

&nbsp;

“Alright”, you say, now what? isn’t it better to just build the whole architecture myself? what’s the point of using AWS if it’s costly, complex, and resource intensive?

##The DIY solution 🛠️

Let’s go with this simple idea. You want to create an upload button where users upload their videos to your app or website. You already have quite a few users and you know that the feature will be adopted quite quickly, right?

&nbsp;
 
The minimum requirements are:

&nbsp;
 

- Rent a server for $120/month (i.e Cloudflare, DigitalOcean and the likes) with the following available resources (vCPU: 4, 16GB of memory, 250GB HDD)
- Install a web server like Apache, Nginx
- Create a hosting logic on your server
- Find a third-party video player
- Create your application and add an upload button to allow your users to send their videos created with their last smartphone model.
- Allow the user to play their videos freshly uploaded with the video player
- Deploy your application on the server

&nbsp;
 

It does sound easier than AWS, right? why is the AWS solution so complex? why all of these services?

&nbsp;
 
You launch the service, and it seems to run smoothly for a few hours, and then you start to get some emails from customers, like:
&nbsp;
 

MichaelScott777 says:
```
💡 My playback is really choppy, and it takes forever for the video to load! why are you so slow (that’s what she said 😀)
```
TheShrute909 exclaims:

```
💡  Why is the video is so slow?!?!?!??!!?!? it takes the video 5 hours to show! help!!1
```

&nbsp;
 
Your users are calling out that the playback experience is poor. There is a lot of buffering before the video starts to play.

&nbsp;
 

So you start Googling around, and you discover that you can’t just upload the video; you need to encode it with different qualities, plus if you want to stream the videos, you also need to implement some specific protocols, and you start going down the rabbit hole: HLS, DASH, H.264, HEVC, AV1 and etc. “WHAT THE HELL IS ALL OF THIS?” you ask.

&nbsp;
 

Then you stumble upon something that seems like salvation: [FFmpeg](https://ffmpeg.org/)! a video processing “Swiss knife” you hail in victory and pound yourself on the chest. You’ve made it. After several weeks of sleepless nights and 59.7 coffee cups later, it’s installed, it’s running, and magically does the job (you don’t really understand how completely, but it works).

Everything seems to run smoothly, but you are afraid to touch anything as you focus on your main product, and if you start messing around with the video monster again, you might sink more time into it. But then your users start to ask for more features around video:

&nbsp;
 

CryptoKing001 is asking for this feature:

```
💡 Heellooo!, how can I know how many people watched my videos? <3 <3 <3
```


You grab your head in fear, and the anxiety builds up. You can’t sink in more resources into that video thing, and that 3rd party video player I’ve used doesn’t provide analytics (!!!!). So, you decide to outsource the whole thing, although you did have a limited budget setup for this project, so you go over budget.

&nbsp;
 

The app seems to be running fine for a few weeks, and many users upload their videos daily. You check your monitors and discover that you are running out of disk space! the product is minutes from being down because of all of this video thing; eventually, it goes down, and you generate some bs message to your users about vertical scalability that they have no idea what you are talking about. Eventually, you rent more servers and add more disk space; the product is up again, but, again, you are way over budget already with that analytics stuff; now you have to pay more for space (argh!). At least you’ve evaded a disaster, but you get a new complaint:

&nbsp;
 

obee1kanobeeeeeeeeeeeee writes:
```
💡 why the videos don’t play after I upload them???? I have to wait for 5 minutes before it plays. MY VIEWERS ARE COMPLAINING!!! FIX IT!!!
```

Your head is already missing half of the hair it used to have before you started the project, and now this?! 

&nbsp;
 

You start investigating and find out that you have 100% CPU utilization on the video server; remember that magical salvation that you installed on the server: FFmpeg? now it gobbles up most of the CPU to encode the videos. So, you write another bs message to your users about encoding and some stuff you don’t even know about (and your users don’t even care), and you start sinking more money into the project. You buy more CPU and start scaling again.

&nbsp;
 
Few months past. You don’t need to buy shampoo anymore (at least that’s a good thing, you can save some money), most of your attention has shifted into scaling these wretched video servers, you are now an expert in video encoding and delivery, but you are losing users as they have no interest in your product, as all of your investment and resources went into this video project black hole.  You’ve hired more engineers that are dedicated to doing the video project, and the budget for the video project already went out of control a long time ago.

You look back and think, how did I end up here? what could I have done better? would it be better to go with AWS? or maybe there are other solutions I could have considered?

## The Perfect Solution

Like with any other service, reinventing the wheel would probably lead to huge financial implications, but as we’ve seen AWS is not perfect as well. However, there are APIs that can solve this problem by providing you with a scalable and easy-to-use service, like api.video.

&nbsp;
 

- With api.video creating an upload scenario and even more is a matter of minutes.
- api.video has a far lower cost than AWS (check the cost calculator [here](https://api.video/pricing/aws/)) or DIY
- api.video has a strong infrastructure that is scalable and reliable
- api.video gives you the ability to select the storage location of yoru videos in the US or in the EU. This will ensure that your video content adheres to all relevant legal standards for you or your customers. 

&nbsp;
 

Check out the [get started guide](https://docs.api.video/vod/get-started-in-5-minutes) to get started in 5 minutes or create a [sandbox account ](https://dashboard.api.video/login) for free to explore api.video on your own!

Should I build my video infrastructure from scratch?

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Should I build my video infrastructure from scratch? Challenge accepted

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Alix Manté-Martini

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Louise Baraille

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Lou-Anne Lévénard

As a full-remote start-up evolving in an ever-changing and highly-innovative market, we rely on our core values to shape our culture and guide our ways of working to stay ahead of the market. These values are not just words on a page but the principles we want to live and breathe daily.

This article will explore our core values and how they help us create a positive and productive remote work environment.

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## Act fast

Acting fast is essential in a tech start-up environment. Priorities are constantly changing, and the speed of actions is crucial to stay ahead of the competition.

When we act fast, it creates a sense of urgency and momentum. Therefore, we encourage our team to make rapid decisions and take actions to move projects forward. While we take the time to pause, observe, share, analyze, and think, it doesn’t slow us down. We do it in productive and agile ways, allowing us to be more responsive to our market.
&nbsp;

&nbsp;


**"In the Customer Care team, acting fast is the key to ensuring that we provide timely and actionable responses to our users. In certain situations, such as during a live stream, quick and effective solutions are critical to avoid unpleasant experiences for the customer.**

**When we receive a customer request, we shift our priorities and focus on finding an appropriate answer to reduce response time and ensure satisfaction. To do so, we use our internal communication channels to identify relevant stakeholders and collaborate with them to address client issues, sometimes involving several teams to solve a single issue."**
>Joséphine, Account Manager (Bordeaux, FR)

&nbsp;
&nbsp;
## Grow through humility

By approaching our work with a humble attitude, we create a culture of learning and growth, where everyone has room to share their ideas and can be sure their voices are heard. 

We encourage feedback, seek out learning and development opportunities, and always look for ways to improve. We consider there are no silly questions, and everyone is valued for their curiosity or contribution.  

By growing through humility, we are able to stay agile and adaptable in a constantly changing market.
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

**"I can feel humility among team members when I have new ideas and approaches, which makes me feel respected and encouraged to collaborate. At the end of a meeting or call, our team can come up with innovative solutions that will contribute to our growth."**
>Diego, technical Support Engineer (Lyon, FR) 

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&nbsp;
&nbsp;

## Be reliable

As a remote company, we understand the importance of reliability. Our clients and peers rely on us to deliver high-quality work, meet deadlines, and be responsive and supportive to their needs. 

What matters to us is not the number of hours worked or physical presence but rather the quality of the delivery. While we don't expect everyone to follow a traditional 9-to-5 schedule, we expect everyone to be responsive, dependable and take the necessary time to assist one another when their contribution is needed to solve issues or create value. 

This is how we build trust both internally and externally, which is essential for long-term relationships.
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

**"Joining a tech company with no technical background can be intimidating. You’re wondering if you’ll understand the product well and if you’ll be able to contribute to meetings and have an impact on operations. At api.video, it’s possible thanks to the amazing talents we have. 
&nbsp;
We are surrounded by individuals who take the time to answer any questions you may have and explain concepts you may not grasp. This support further extends in projects where team members from different teams join together to solve issues and trust in the work they each put in."**
>Louise, Head of People (Amsterdam, NL)

&nbsp;
&nbsp;
## Be transparent

As a remote company, it is even more important for us to track and share information. 

We document most of our processes and actions to ensure transparency and availability of information at any moment.

We encourage our team members to communicate their schedules and availability with their colleagues so that everyone can collaborate effectively and efficiently.

We also share our goals, progress, and challenges in and across teams and ask for help when needed. Our feedback culture is important to us: having transparent feedback helps us improve and celebrate our actions. Therefore, openness and honesty between us are key to continuous improvement and a nice place to work.

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&nbsp;

**"Being transparent at api.video means that whenever I ask anyone a question about anything, I receive a clear answer and an explanation of the reasoning behind it. Having more context on a topic helps me get a bigger picture and a more thorough vision.**
**Also, I can say what I really feel and be confident it will be listened to and taken into consideration."**
>Clément, System Engineer (Toulouse, FR)

&nbsp;
&nbsp;
## Be bold

In a start-up environment, it's important to maintain an innovative mindset. That's why we give our coworkers as much space as they need to be as bold as they can. Being bold doesn't mean we take inconsiderate risks, but we encourage our team to be innovative and creative in their work.

We value boldness as it allows us to challenge the status quo and find new and better ways of doing things, which is essential to differentiate from the competition.

&nbsp;
&nbsp;

**"Being bold for me at api.video means that I am not afraid to speak up, take initiatives to make things happen, own my mistakes, and sometimes take calculated risks. I feel like my opinion counts, allowing me to drive a positive change and make an impact."**
>Aya, Front-end engineer (Belgrade, SRB)

&nbsp;
&nbsp;
## Take ownership

Taking ownership means taking responsibility for our work and actions. We encourage our team to nurture accountability and drive their projects strongly. 
We trust our coworkers and encourage them to do their best. The whole team is ready to help you if you need support and coaching. 

Decision-making is supported by continuous communication on progress and outcomes across the company.

&nbsp;
&nbsp;

**"When I first started working here, we began exploring ways to better serve new customers. One of my team members took the initiative to build a new onboarding process from scratch. He went above and beyond to ensure we offer it to new customers who just signed up, in order to deliver value as quickly as possible."**
>Christian, Head of Customer Care (Canary Island, ES)
&nbsp;

&nbsp;


These values - acting fast, growing through humility, being reliable, transparent, bold, and taking ownership - guide the team in creating a positive and productive remote work environment. 

It is important to note that these values alone don’t drive the company’s culture, but it is the team members who embody these values in their daily behaviors and actions. By living out these values, api.video team fosters an environment where everyone has the opportunity to learn, grow, and make a positive impact.

If you want to know more about api.video, feel free to visit [our website](https://api.video/), and if you are interested to join us, please check out [our career page](https://jobs.api.video/)!

Empowering through values: api.video's core principles

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Video upload

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When considering building your project or website, you went through several languages and eventually settled for PHP. It’s a great language, easy to pick up and it can help you build your own project within minutes. 

&nbsp;
 

However, with all the great things that come with PHP, there are also some challenges. For example, how do you upload videos with PHP, while also making sure that users have a good experience while uploading and streaming these videos?

&nbsp;
 

You are probably already aware of some of these challenges, otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this article. 😄

## How to upload a video: A step-by-step guide

For the sake of this example, let’s stick to the basics and build a very simple video uploader on an existing PHP server. The workflow is quite simple:

&nbsp;
 
1. Your PHP server shows the user a file selector.
2. The file selector lets the user pick a file from their device.
3. The selected file is delivered in a multi-part form to the PHP server.
4. The PHP server then uploads the video to [api.video](https://api.video/) for transcoding, hosting, and delivery.

&nbsp;
 
Now, let’s start with creating a simple PHP server. You can skip the Preparation if you already have PHP implementation set up.

## Preparation

### 1. Sign up to api.video for free

[Let’s create a free account with api.video.](https://dashboard.api.video/register) We’ll handle the video transcoding, hosting, and delivery for your viewers.

### 2. Install PHP

You can skip this step if you have PHP already installed. If not, you can find instructions in the [PHP official installation guide](https://www.php.net/manual/en/install.php).
&nbsp;
 
Alternatively, you can use MAMP to create a local server environment. Visit the [official MAMP website](https://www.mamp.info/en/windows/) for more information.

### 3. Install Composer

In order to get all the respective libraries for the use case we are building here, you’ll need a package manager. Let’s install Composer, a simple package manager for PHP. Check out the instructions on how to download and install Composer [here](https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md).

### 4. Create a PHP server folder

1. Let’s a new folder for the app. Choose any name for the project.
2. Create a new file called `server.php` inside that folder.

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Now that you’re all set, let’s begin with the process.

## Create the video uploader frontend

We’ll start by setting up the PHP server and the multipart form.

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1. The server will receive a request: we will check that the request type is [GET](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods/GET).
2. We will also check that and that the URL that the user is hitting is `/`. This means that the user landed on the main page.
3. The multipart type form is necessary if the user uploads a file through the form. Give the form a `name` and an `id`. We’ll use it later on.


&nbsp;
 
Copy this script into your `server.php` file:

Now let’s do a quick test run! 

&nbsp;
 

1. Open your `cmd` or `terminal` 
2. Navigate to the PHP folder you've stored the project in

3. Run the PHP server (this command will run the file server.php on your local machine on port 8000)

4. Navigate to localhost:8000 on your browser

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If this is the first time you are working with PHP, then congratulations - you’ve just created your first PHP website!

## Create the backend

Now that the frontend part is done, let’s set up the backend. The backend’s job is to:

&nbsp;
 

1. Receive the videos from the frontend
2. Send the videos over to [api.video](https://api.video) in order to make sure your users have the best experience while uploading and streaming.

### Configure file uploads in PHP

Let’s enable file uploading, and configure the size of the files your users can upload. To configure this, we need to find the `php.ini` in your implementation.

&nbsp;
 

1. In your terminal, type:

This should give you the following output:

Navigate to the php.ini file, and change or add these following values:

You can choose smaller or larger values than 150M. Now let’s save it.

### Receive the video files

Before the file is sent to [api.video](https://api.video), it has to be stored locally. This is only temporary and you can delete the file after your server uploads it to api.video.

This is the workflow we’ll follow:

&nbsp;
 

1. First, we create a new “endpoint” that accepts `POST` requests to an `/upload` endpoint. Remember our multipart form? It is actually already set up to submit the file to `/upload`. Multipart form are set to `POST` by default. So, we will create an `if` statement to handle that.
2. Once a `POST` request will hit this endpoint, it will pass in the file. We pick it up and save it in a `/uploads/` directory in the PHP server folder. Let’s create the `/uploads` folder inside the PHP project folder:

Now edit the server.php file and add this code we just described:

With this code, we take the file name and store it in the `/uploads` folder with the [move_uploaded_file](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.move-uploaded-file.php) function.

&nbsp;
 

Awesome! Now we have a cool server that can ask the user for a file. Let’s run the server again to test it. Start the PHP server again:

Navigate to localhost:8000 and this time, select a file to upload and click on Upload Video. After the file is uploaded, you should see it in the /uploads folder in your PHP server project.

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## Upload the videos to api.video

You’re more than half-way done, great job! 

&nbsp;
 

Now, you only need to add a small thing to all the mix. After uploading the video to your PHP server, you can just give your users public access to this file, and let them play it, right? 

&nbsp;
 

Not quite. There’s a lot of science behind delivering a video. While it can be delivered directly from your PHP server, your users may see issues with the playback: long loading times, and even issues with loading the video at all. It comes down to transcoding the video to different qualities, hosting the video on a scalable environment and having a good enough CDN that will deliver the video fast. You also need a capable player that will have all the options that your users need, without having to pour vast amount of money and resources into expensive services.

&nbsp;
 

With around ten simple lines of code, you can make sure your users have the best experience while watching and uploading their videos.

### Add api.video to your code

Now that you have an api.video account, grab your [API key from the dashboard](https://dashboard.api.video/project-settings/api-keys) and paste it in as the value of `$apiKey` in the `server.php`:

Notice that we are also initializing the api.video client library. So, we need to run the Composer in order to get these libraries inside the server’s main folder.

&nbsp;
 

1. Let’s make sure that Composer is installed.
2. Open the terminal again and run these commands:

3. After the packages are installed, run the PHP server again:

## Deliver the videos

Let’s try upload a new video in your `localhost` environment. 

&nbsp;
 

Since we implemented api.video in the code, uploading a video will give you a response with different parameters, including the assets. The assets are actually the video you just uploaded in different streaming formats (HLS and mp4). You’ll notice that you also have an `iframe` parameter, which is your video embedded in an `iframe`. Let’s display the video as soon as it is ready. We’ll add a bit more code to retrieve the status of the video, so once it’s ready, we can display it in the `iframe`.

&nbsp;
 

Let’s add a status request to our code:

We’ve added a `while` loop that checks the video status. If the video is playable (which means that api.video finished transcoding it), we can take the `iframe` asset, embed it, and display it to the users. This part is handled in echo `$response->getAssets()->getIframe()`.

&nbsp;
 

Now save your code, upload a new video via `localhost`, and enjoy the show! 😊

&nbsp;


To start using api.video and see how this works, [sign-up](https://dashboard.api.video/register) for a free sandbox account now.

How to upload a video file in PHP

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api.video is proud to announce a brand new PHP client for our video API. Our old PHP SDK will be deprecated. You can continue to use it, but it will no longer be updated. Instead, the new PHP client will stay up-to-date with all our new feature releases. 

Like our other clients, it's autogenerated and handles authentication for you, including refreshing your access token when needed. It also handles paginated responses and chunked uploads for large files. A unique aspect of this client is that it is also [PSR-18](https://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-18/) compliant. This makes it more reusable as it reduces the number of dependencies and lowers the likelihood of version conflicts.

You can install our new client with:
```composer require api-video/php-api-client```

And the entire client is available in the GitHub repository here: 
[https://github.com/apivideo/php-api-client](https://github.com/apivideo/php-api-client)

In addition to the documentation we have at docs.api.video, you can find client-specific documentation in the GitHub repository. If you are looking up parameters, we recommend that you refer to the content provided in the client respository first. Some information may be tweaked to make it easier to create and use the client. There's a docs page for each part of the API here: [https://github.com/apivideo/php-api-client/tree/main/docs/Api](https://github.com/apivideo/php-api-client/tree/main/docs/Api) 

PHP is fast, flexible and widely used in web applications. We hope you'll enjoy using our new client to code your video projects! 



api.video announces a new PHP client

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Delegated Upload

Python

api.video offers delegated uploads! For uploading video, this means you can create an authorization token, and choose how long your authorization token lasts, anywhere from a few seconds (this might be a bit extreme) to forever. The value in using a delegated upload token is that you don't expose your api key, authorization token, or refresh token. All you need is the delegated token you create. You can create tokens for users if you want them to be able to do uploads and you can delete tokens at any time if they are compromised, or no longer needed.

## How does a delegated video upload differ from a regular video upload?
Glad you asked! There are a few differences. If you use the regular upload endpoint, you must: 
* Use the authorization token you retrieve with your API key.
* Create a video container with any details you want to provide about your video.
* Upload your video into the video container you created. 

If you use the delegated video upload endpoint, you must:
* Create a delegated token for use with the delegated upload endpoint.
* Upload your video - api.video creates the container for you. You don't provide more detail than the file title. 

You can use the delegated token for as many uploads as you like, or delete the token if you don't need it any longer. You can add details about your video later using the update a video endpoint. 

## The Authorization Flow for Delegated Uploads 
You use your api key to authenticate and get a token. Then, you use your token to request a delegated token. The delegated token may be used for uploads through the delegated upload endpoint only. What's great about it, is if you want you can create and give this token to someone else to make uploads with. You can give the delegated token an expiry time, or let it last forever. Don't worry, you can also delete tokens if one of then is compromised, or if you don't need it any longer. 

## What's in this tutorial
We'll go over a code sample for: 

* Uploading a Video Under 200 MiB with a Delegated Token
* Uploading a Video 200 MiB or greater with a Delegated Token 

## Delegated upload for video under 200 MiB
<a title="RRZEicons, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/, via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Upload.svg"><img width="256" alt="Upload" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Upload.svg/256px-Upload.svg.png"></a><br>
If you have a video under 200 MiB, upload is fairly straightforward. Here's the code sample: 

### Walkthrough - Delegated Upload for a Video Under 200 MiB

The start of this you're probably familiar with by now if you've tried the other tutorials. You're going to add the requests library, grab your API key (you can use sandbox or production, the difference being that for sandbox all video will be watermarked), and authenticate so you can get a token. 

### Retrieve a delegated token for video upload

Use your access token to set up the bearer auth header you'll need to retrieve a delegated token. For the body of your request, you need to add a value for the **ttl** field. TTL stands for time-to-live. In this walkthrough, we are setting ttl equal to 0, which means the token will last forever. You can set the token to other lengths of time in seconds. 

After you've set the payload, send your request, then retrieve the delegated token from the response. Armed with your shiny new token, you're ready to upload your video! 

### Upload your video that's under 200 MiB

To upload with the token, you need to send with the application/vnd.api.video+json header. Then the token is sent as a query field. The payload will be your video file, opened in binary. The title of your uploaded file will be the same name as the title of the file you send. 

## Delegated upload for video 200 MiB and bigger

This section shows you how to complete a chunked video upload. Because some of the code is the same as what was in the walkthrough directly preceding this one, we'll post the code sample, then focus in on what's different. 

After you get your delegated token, there are a few differences in the code to be aware of. Our read_in_chunks function stays the same, but for the upload function, notice that we set a videoId variable. This is because we are going to need to retrieve the videoId. 

Because api.video creates the video container for you on a delegated upload, you don't know what videoId you're uploading to. This is fine if you're uploading a complete video, but if you're sending your video in chunks, you need to tell the server what video container you want to send the chunks to. When you send your first upload request for a chunked video, include the Content-Range header (the only header you'll need) and then retrieve the response from your request. 

Get the videoId from the response, and in subsequent requests, you include the videoId. Like so: 

As you can see here, we use a few different tools from the requests library to make the subsequent requests. Your token for authenticating is a query parameter. The videoId goes in the body of your request. And you attach your file chunk as a file. 

If you change the name of the file in your requests (the spot where it says "file name here") then your file will be named to match that. Use the same title in both places for "file name here" in the code. The file you open for upload won't be referenced, because in a chunked upload, the request doesn't get the name of the file, it just has a chunk of the file attached each time. So it's a little different than a regular upload. 

There's only one step left for your chunked upload, and that's to use the function: 

Ta-da! You've done it! You've uploaded a video or a chunked video... or at least read all about it. In future posts, we'll go over how to manage your tokens. 

## Posts you may also like...
* [Upload a Video with the api.video API Using a Public URL (Python)](https://api.video/blog/tutorials/upload-a-video-with-the-api-video-api-using-a-public-url-python/)
* [Upload a Video From Your Computer with the api.video API (Python)](https://api.video/blog/tutorials/upload-a-video-from-your-computer-with-the-api-video-api-python/)
* [Upload a Big Video File Using Python](https://api.video/blog/tutorials/upload-a-big-video-file-using-python/)

Delegated uploads for videos large and small

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Android

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Thibault Beyou

Kotlin

This article is about how to easily add an upload mechanism from [api.video](https://api.video) to your Android application with a specific component from the Android API client and the Android video uploader called the UploadService.

In your Android application, if you use the `upload` API with the [Android API client](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-client) or the [Android video uploader](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-uploader), you might have noticed that it is not a piece of cake. Here are the main reasons why:

- **NetworkOnMainThreadException**: on the modern Android version, you must not perform network calls on the main thread; otherwise your application will crash with an `android.os.NetworkOnMainThreadException` . As `upload` is a synchronous API, you must call it from a Thread.
- **Background**: performing long-running tasks in your Activity is forbidden, so if the user sends your application to the background while an upload is in progress, the system might kill the process at some point and the file will never be uploaded
- **Upload management**: with the `upload` API you can't just cancel a running upload, you can't efficiently perform multiple uploads unless you have implemented it in a separate Thread.

At some point, you will have to implement the `upload` API in a dedicated Thread or an [Executor](https://developer.android.com/reference/java/util/concurrent/Executor) or, even better with [Kotlin coroutines](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/coroutines-overview.html). It might be a lengthy task if you are not familiar with these components. A Thread won't be able to handle uploads when the application is in the background. If you are already familiar with Android Services, you know that implementing a Service is a good solution for this kind of issue. Let's have a deeper look at this component.

## 1. Android Service

According to Android [documentation](https://developer.android.com/guide/components/services):

"A [Service](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service) is an [application component](https://developer.android.com/guide/components/fundamentals#Components) that can **perform long-running operations in the background**. It does not provide a user interface. Once started, a **service might continue running for some time, even after the user switches to another application**. Additionally, a component can bind to a service to interact with it and perform interprocess communication (IPC). For example, **a service can handle network transactions**, play music, perform file I/O, or interact with a content provider from the background."

Nice!

There is another interesting part about the service:

"When a service is running, it can notify the user of events using [snack bar notifications](https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/notifications/snackbar)
 or [status bar notifications](https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/notifications/build-notification)."

For a type of service called Foreground Service, your service must display a notification. The notification can look like a text, but it can also be an audio player.

When you start looking for Service notifications, they are everywhere.

service-notifications-android-app.png

Why am I talking about notifications? Because it would be nice to have a notification showing the upload's progress. Right? Like this:

progress-notification-example.png

So, if your application requires uploading files to [api.video](https://api.video/), the solution would be to call the `upload` API from an Android Service.

I have an excellent news for you: **the [Android API client](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-client) and the [Android video uploader](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-uploader) comes with a fully customizable Service whose purpose is to upload files, called UploadService.**

## 2. api.video UploadService

The UploadService is the easiest way to upload video files to [api.video](https://api.video) on Android.
It supports:

- upload with video id
- upload with upload token
- progressive upload
- progress notification of the upload of the current file
- success notification
- error notification
- multiple uploads: it uploads files from an internal queue
- cancel the upload of a specific file or all files

Here is a small video to show how it’s used in the [‣ example](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-uploader/tree/main/examples/service):

### UploadService notification customization

The UploadService comes with many levels of notification customization:

- Notification color and icon
- Notification messages
- Notification itself. You can choose not to display progress or to display the name of the file currently being uploaded. For example, notifications could have a Stop button.

To customize the UploadService, the first step is to extend the UploadService:

If you have a closer look at the UploadService constructor, you will notice that you can change the notification icon and color with:

To have more controls over the notification, you can override `onUploadProgressNotification`, `onUploadErrorNotification`, `onUploadStartedNotification`, `onUploadCancelledNotification`, `onUploadSuccessNotification`, `onLastUploadNotification`.

There is a solution for each of your requirements!

### Implementation

As with every service, you have to declare it in the `AndroidManifest.xml`

As the UploadService is a Foreground Service (a special type of service), you also have to add:

Nice. We are almost done. You have to start it and bind it. Fortunately, there is a static API to simplify its usage:

As startService binds your application to the UploadService, you must call UploadService.unbindService when your application is put to background.

Once you have access to the service, you can call upload API for a video id

## Conclusion

With the UploadService, uploading a video to [api.video](https://api.video) has never been this easy! For a complete example with the UploadService, check out the [‣ example](https://github.com/apivideo/api.video-android-uploader/tree/main/examples/service).

And we're done! To start building right now, check out our **[docs](https://docs.api.video/)**
and **[sign up for a free account](https://dashboard.api.video/register)**

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