A thumbnail gives viewers a quick impression of the content of your video before the video is played. The Blue Billywig player offers two types of thumbnails:
- Moving thumbnail
A moving thumbnail displays a loop containing a 5 second snippet of the video. - Static thumbnail
A static thumbnail displays an image. This could be a static image from the video as well as an image uploaded to the OVP manually.
After uploading a new video, both a moving thumbnail is generated as well as several static thumbnails.
To change the thumbnail for a media clip:
- Navigate to the “Media Library”
- Select a video and open the “Thumbnail” tab:
1.0 | Moving thumbnails
A moving thumbnail displays a loop containing a 5 second snippet of the video and are generated automatically. The moving thumbnail skips the first two seconds of the video and then plays the following five seconds in a loop.
On desktop, the moving thumbnail is displayed when viewers hover their cursor over the video player. On mobile devices the thumbnail starts animating once the video is in view.
Moving thumbnails can be switched off in the Playout ‘start screen’ settings by ticking the box “Disable moving thumbnail”. Learn more about the Playout start screen settings
2.0 | Static thumbnails
A static thumbnail displays a static image before the content is being played. This could be a still from the video as well as an image uploaded to the OVP manually.
When the playout is set to display a moving thumbnail, a static thumbnail will only be visible on desktop when the cursor is not hovering over the player. On mobile a static thumbnail will not be visible when moving thumbnail are enabled.
There are three ways to set a static thumbnail:
- Upload your own custom image;
- Select one of the automatically generated thumbnail images;
- Select a still from the video;
After selecting your thumbnail it’s possible to download the thumbnail.
2.1 | Upload an image
To upload a custom image, click ”Select files”. Use the drag & drop option to add your image or select from a folder on your computer. Both .jpg as well as .png files are supported.
When the image is uploaded, select it and click “Save” in the bottom right corner.
2.2 | Select a frame from the video
Select a frame from the video by clicking “Select thumbnail from video”:
As the media clip is displayed, take a snapshot of the preferred frame by clicking the screen or “Create thumbnail” on the top left:
The snapshots will be displayed beneath the video. To set one of these snapshots as your thumbnail, select a thumbnail, click “done” and save your progress.
2.3 | Download a thumbnail
In specific cases you might want to use your selected thumbnail for other purposes. To download a thumbnail:
- Hover over the thumbnail you’d like to download;
- Click the download icon;
- The source file will start downloading automatically
2.4 | Add a thumbnail set
Add a thumbnail set with a different dimensions when the player is embedded with an aspect ratio that’s different from the video content itself. The available thumbnail dimensions are:
- Widescreen (21:9)
- Landscape (16:9)
- Photo (3:2)
- Classic TV (4:3)
- Square (1:1)
- Poster (4:5)
- Portrait (9:16)
