Formats
Article Topics: Formats, Sets, Worker
Before uploading your videos to the CMS, you should consider the video quality you want to present to your visitors. If you wish to display 720p videos only, 1080p and 720p, or any other combination of video quality, you will need to specify to NATS which video formats you want to make available. This is done in the Content Management Admin's Formats section.
Available Formats
When viewing the Formats in the admin, you will be presented with a list of your available Formats. Whether you're uploading content in your desired resolutions or planning to transcode a high-resolution video down, you will need a format configured to accept the video.
Content Format Settings
When adding a new format, you will be presented with several settings, including the following:
Name - The name of the format. When naming videos to skip the transcoding process, this name must be appended to the video name.
See File Name Convention for further details.
Display Name - The name of the format that will appear on the Member Area.
File Container - Choose between MP4 and WEBM videos.
Video Codec - Choose between h264(most common format), h265, VP9(open source, used for webm)
Video Preset - Determines the quality and speed of the video processing.
Video Tune - Adjust various filters for the format.
Video Bitrate - Video Bitrate for the format. Leave blank for default.
CRF - Constant Rate Factor for use with H264 or H265, sets the quality. The higher the CRF value, the worse the quality you'll have. Leave blank for default.
Audio Codec - Choose between AAC, MP3, or copy from the source video directly.
Audio Bitrate - Audio Bitrate for the format.
Vertical - Intended orientation of the format.
Horizontal - Intended orientation of the format.
Square - Intended orientation of the format.
Y Resolution of Video - The height of the video resolution in pixels.
These settings can always be updated by clicking the option button of the respective format. NATS will use the Y Resolution of a video to determine what format to use. This ensures that a landscape video with an example resolution of 1920p x 1080p is not confused with a vertical video with a resolution of 1080p x 1920p.
Transcoding
Transcoding is a Process of the CMS Worker that involves Formats. Transcoding in NATS is done by the CMS Worker, which can be placed on any server of your choice, although we recommend using a server separate from your NATS installation for better performance.
You can use a server capable of transcoding your content, or you can take advantage of your local hardware and have your video editing software transcode your videos. If you opt for this option, you'll have to ensure the files are named appropriately.
File Naming Convention
When uploading videos, appropriately naming files can help avoid the transcoding process, which you might want to do if you have content in bulk and wish to put less strain on your workers' server.
For example, suppose you have a 1080p video titled "video.mp4" that you wish to upload, and you have 720p and 480p formats available in your NATS install. To avoid using the worker's transcoding process, you would use your video editing software of choice to export the 720p and 480p versions of your video and rename them to "video-720p.mp4" and "video-480p.mp4" respectively.
Video Orientation
The Video Orientation of a content format is important to get right since you would not want to upload a 4k video, which traditionally has a resolution of 3840p x 2160p, into a content format that was set for a 4k vertical with a resolution of 2160p x 3840p.
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