Thumbs

Every video within Bits on the Run has an accompanying thumbnail. This is either a frame extracted from the video or a custom image uploaded to the system. Custom images can also be uploaded for channels.

By default, videos have a thumbnail extracted from the video at 10 seconds. Channels have no default thumb.

Scheme

Thumbnails are requested with the key of the video or channel and an optional width of the image.

http://content.bitsontherun.com/thumbs/KEY-WIDTH.jpg

Here’s an example of both a thumb with width setting and one without:

Parameters

KEY

The key is an 8 character code (e.g. 9ke9KW4b) you can request through the /videos/ API Class or /channels/ API Class. Alternatively, it can be copy/pasted from the details page of a video or channel in the Dashboard. It uniquely identifies that video or channel.

WIDTH

If you do not provide a width, an image with the original dimensions of either the video or uploaded image is returned. If you do provide a width, a resized version of the original is returned. It can be any of the following:

  • 40
  • 120
  • 320
  • 480
  • 720

The aspectratio of the original is always respected, so the heigh of an image depends on the dimensions of the original. The only exception is the 40 thumb, which is always returned in 4 by 3 (40x30 pixels). For widescreen videos, the left and right edges are cut off when generating this thumb.

Format

All thumbnails are returned as JPEG files at 85% quality. Other qualities of formats are not available.