Uploading Poster and Thumbnail Images

In this topic you will learn how to upload poster and thumbnail images using the Media module.

Videos in your Video Cloud account have associated poster and thumbnail images. These images allow viewers to pick which videos they want to see in a playlist or other listing of your content. Poster and thumbnail images can be seen in the following areas:

  • In the Media module, the thumbnail image is displayed next to the video; the poster image will appear in the preview player on the video properties page
  • The thumbnail image will appear when publishing a playlist
  • The poster image is displayed in the playback area of the video player after the player loads and the video metadata is available; the poster will display until the viewer presses the play button

For videos that are uploaded to Video Cloud, poster and thumbnail images are created automatically by taking a snapshot from the source video at the midway point. The size of the poster and thumbnail is based upon the dimensions specified in the ingest profile used when uploading the video. If you don't like the default images that were captured, you can upload other images or capture new images to use as the poster and thumbnail.

When uploading custom poster and thumbnail images, we recommend:

  • Poster image - Recommended aspect ratio of 16:9 and a minimum width of 640px
  • Thumbnail image - Recommended aspect ratio of 16:9 and a minimum width of 160px

When you upload new poster and thumbnail images, the image dimensions will be based upon the image dimensions specified in the default ingest profile for the account. For information on increasing the quality of poster and thumbnail images, see Increasing the Quality of Poster and Thumbnail Images.

Steps to upload new images

To upload a new images, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Media module.
  2. Click the link for the video you want to edit.
  3. Locate the Images section.
  4. Hover over the Poster/Thumbnail image and click the upload button.
  5. Browse and select a new image. It may take a minute for the processing to complete and for the images to appear in the Media module.

Limitations

  • images should be no larger than 4K resolution, and no more than 2MB in size.
  • Larger images can be uploaded, but may result in slower response times and increased error rates.