I have a requirement to replace default Kaltura Player with some alternative players like Plain HTML5 player or Dash player or JWPlayer etc…
Currently the videos or hosted on kaltura server community edition, we will change later to OnPrem edition.
My questions are:
If i use some other video players does it track the video analytics information of the hosted videos in KMC.
If it doesn’t tracks, is there anyway to send those analytics information from UI through javascript to Kaltura server to track those info and show in KMC Analytics tab.
Can we create any custom parameters for video analytics along with kaltura provide analytics information, through UI or API.
Please let me know if anyone has at least little information on this.
My first question would be why you feel using Kaltura’s own player does not answer your needs? It is highly customizable, is FOSS under AGPLv3 and naturally integrates best with Kaltura’s backend.
As per your questions:
The player sends an HTTP request to the server to register a playback event, like so:
GET //api_v3/index.php?service=stats&action=collect&format=3&ignoreNull=1&clientTag=php5%3A15-07-02&apiVersion=3.2.0&event%3AobjectType=KalturaStatsEvent&event%3AclientVer=3.0%3Av3.7&event%3AeventType=1&event%3AeventTimestamp=1435951273.8994&event%3AsessionId=SANITY-TEST-5596e0a9db938&event%3ApartnerId=101&event%3AentryId=0_9zhhwwlg&event%3AuiconfId=23448179&event%3AcurrentPoint=0&event%3Aduration=5&event%3Aseek=&event%3Areferrer=http%3A%2F%2Fjessex%3A80%2Fsanity%2Ftests&event%3AisFirstInSession=&ks=djJ8MTAxfM4Kyg-XsNJrjgkg9D8bhTa4Z6LQd6f3ug6XeklxYPWQ98e8zwT2y1ODG3dY0dS0YHc85HOEXlUd-41B2FnUecH_TeIAJnqPd40G2--pgQae&kalsig=553c890034d29e5622750a87b74677b9
The analytics process, DWH, then parses the access log looking for these entries and continues to populate the DWH tables accordingly. This means that you will need to make a similar call yourself if you choose to not use the Kaltura player.
There the stats API service, which you can use calling the collect() action.
Since we have a client lib for JS, you can use it for that.
Thanks for quick reply,
Now i understand how to send statistics information of videos from any player to Kaltura server to view the analytics info in KMC under analytics tab.
Please correct me if i’am wrong, so far it is clear that the Kaltura Stats API service is collecting information with predefined variable like event:eventType, event:eventTimeStamp, event:duaration, etc. and passing these data to the Kaltura Server and populating the DWH tables through which we are able to view the Analytics information like Top Content, Content Drop-off, Content Interactions, etc.
My question is, can’t we add custom metrics/fields to this Stats Service API or other services and pass those data to the Kaltura server and show those data in the KMC UI as Custom Analytics as per our business requirements.
Please let me know about the feasibility of this feature or other alternatives if any.
Considering that Kaltura is FOSS, with some work, you can do anything:) However, there is no built in mechanism for it.
This would involve:
changing the core so that it knows to handle additional parameters and regenerating client libs to reflect that
changing the DWH DB schema to be able to hold that data
changing the ETL process to be able to process this data
All in all, I’d say it is certainly an effort but you can do it if you wish.
An alternative is to set up Google Analytics [or another mechanism] and put that on your embed pages to report additional parameters.