Introduction
Clips are videos created from segments of other videos generated by Brightcove Social and other tools. If the clips are created for sharing via Brightcove Social, you may wish to remove their renditions to reduce your managed storage and/or disable them to prevent them from showing up in your video workflows.
Finding clips
There are special search terms for the CMS API to help you locate clips in your account:
q=%2Bis_clip:true- returns only clipsq=%2Dis_clip:true- returns only non-clipsq=%2Bis_clip:false- returns only non-clips (functionally identical to the previous item)q=%2Bclip_source_video_id: video_id- returns clips generated from the specified video
Sample
Request
https://cms.api.brightcove.com/v1/accounts/57838016001/videos?q=%2Bis_clip:true
Response
[
{
"id": "5235328819001",
"account_id": "57838016001",
"ad_keys": null,
"clip_source_video_id": "4752143002001",
"complete": true,
"created_at": "2016-12-04T17:06:20.562Z",
"cue_points": [],
"custom_fields": {
"subject": "Birds"
},
"delivery_type": "static_origin",
"description": null,
"digital_master_id": "5235339325001",
"duration": 24042,
"economics": "AD_SUPPORTED",
"folder_id": null,
"geo": null,
"has_digital_master": true,
"images": {
"thumbnail": {
"asset_id": "5235341448001",
"remote": false,
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235341448001_5235328819001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"sources": [
{
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235341448001_5235328819001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"height": 90,
"width": 160
},
{
"src": "https://brightcove.hs.llnwd.net/v2/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235341448001_5235328819001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"height": 90,
"width": 160
}
]
},
"poster": {
"asset_id": "5235339121001",
"remote": false,
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235339121001_5235328819001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"sources": [
{
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235339121001_5235328819001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"height": 360,
"width": 640
},
{
"src": "https://brightcove.hs.llnwd.net/v2/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/2025/57838016001_5235339121001_5235328819001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235328819001",
"height": 360,
"width": 640
}
]
}
},
"link": null,
"long_description": null,
"name": "greatblueheron.mp4 - Clip-2016-12-04",
"original_filename": "2efadac9-8e36-423c-b988-afcf2cd23c49.mov",
"projection": null,
"published_at": "2016-12-04T17:06:20.562Z",
"reference_id": null,
"schedule": null,
"sharing": null,
"state": "ACTIVE",
"tags": [
"newtag"
],
"text_tracks": [],
"updated_at": "2016-12-04T17:08:41.944Z"
},
{
"id": "5235312567001",
"account_id": "57838016001",
"ad_keys": null,
"clip_source_video_id": "5220368996001",
"complete": true,
"created_at": "2016-12-04T17:07:58.450Z",
"cue_points": [],
"custom_fields": {
"subject": "Birds"
},
"delivery_type": "static_origin",
"description": "Mother and child owls...",
"digital_master_id": "5235341452001",
"duration": 39253,
"economics": "AD_SUPPORTED",
"folder_id": null,
"geo": null,
"has_digital_master": true,
"images": {
"thumbnail": {
"asset_id": "5235339124001",
"remote": false,
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235339124001_5235312567001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"sources": [
{
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235339124001_5235312567001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"height": 90,
"width": 160
},
{
"src": "https://brightcove.hs.llnwd.net/v2/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235339124001_5235312567001-th.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"height": 90,
"width": 160
}
]
},
"poster": {
"asset_id": "5235341824001",
"remote": false,
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235341824001_5235312567001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"sources": [
{
"src": "https://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/v1/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235341824001_5235312567001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"height": 540,
"width": 960
},
{
"src": "https://brightcove.hs.llnwd.net/v2/unsecured/media/57838016001/201612/1897/57838016001_5235341824001_5235312567001-vs.jpg?pubId=57838016001&videoId=5235312567001",
"height": 540,
"width": 960
}
]
}
},
"link": null,
"long_description": null,
"name": "Great Horned Owl - Clip-2016-12-04",
"original_filename": "c0640095-e696-41ea-8e7e-2ebf4d090d69.mov",
"projection": null,
"published_at": "2016-12-04T17:07:58.450Z",
"reference_id": null,
"schedule": null,
"sharing": null,
"state": "ACTIVE",
"tags": [
"bird",
"nature",
"air"
],
"text_tracks": [],
"updated_at": "2016-12-04T17:09:16.967Z"
}
]
Removing Assets
If you are not going to use your clips for any other purpose than sharing the to social media sites, you may wish to reduce your managed storage by removing assets from them. In terms of storage, the renditions make the most difference, but you can remove posters and thumbnails as well, if you wish (this would also help to identify the clips in Studio as not being videos for general use).
To remove assets, you will use the asset endpoints of the CMS API. The logic is simple: first GET the assets to retrieve their ids in the Video Cloud system, and then DELETE them:
Usually there will be only a single poster and thumbnail to delete, but there will generally be multiple renditions, so if you are going to do this programmatically, you will need to loop over the array of objects returned by the GET renditions request and delete the renditions one by one. Below are the relevant API endpoints and some sample code (JavaScript + a proxy written in PHP to make the API requests) to perform the tasks of removing the assets.
Asset endpoints
Here are the relevant asset endpoints you will need to remove assets. For all these endpoints, the base URL is:
https://cms.api.brightcove.com/v1/accounts
Renditions
GET renditions
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/renditions
DELETE a rendition
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/renditions/rendition_id
Posters
GET posters
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/poster
DELETE a poster
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/poster/poster_id
Thumbnails
GET thumbnails
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/thumbnail
DELETE a thumbnail
/account_id/videos/video_id/assets/thumbnail/thumbnail_id
Sample app
Below is sample code for an app that finds all the clips in an account and then removes all renditions, as well as the poster and thumbnail for each clip.
HTML
<fieldset>
<legend>Inputs</legend>
<p>Account id: <input type="text" name="account_id" id="account_id" value=""></p>
<p>Client id: <input type="text" name="client_id" id="client_id" value=""></p>
<p>Client secret: <input type="text" name="client_secret" id="client_secret" value=""></p>
<p><button id="goBtn">Remove all clip assets</button></p>
</fieldset>
<h2>Results</h2>
<pre id="status"></pre>
JavaScript
var BCLS = (function (window, document) {
/**
* this scripts assumes that HTML elements with ids shown
* in the following assignments exist in the page that
* calls this script.
* Alternatively, store the client_id and client_secret
* in the proxy (NOT in a client-side script!)
* and the account_id value here
*/
var account_id = document.getElementById('account_id'),
client_id = document.getElementById('client_id'),
client_secret = document.getElementById('client_secret'),
status = document.getElementById('status'),
goBtn = document.getElementById('goBtn'),
videoCount = 0,
videoNumber = 0,
totalCalls = 0,
callNumber = 0,
renditionNumber = 0,
videoData = [],
renditionData = [],
posterData = {},
thumbnailData = {};
/**
* sets up all API requests and handles the responses
* @param {String} type the request type
*/
function setUpRequest(type) {
var baseURL = 'https://cms.api.brightcove.com/v1/accounts',
endpoint,
responseDecoded,
// recommended limit value for best performance with CMS API
limit = 25,
options = {};
options.client_id = (client_id.value) ? client_id.value : null;
options.client_secret = (client_secret.value) ? client_secret.value : null;
switch (type) {
// get a count of clips
case 'getCount':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/counts/videos?q=%2Bis_clip:true';
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'GET';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
if (response) {
responseDecoded = JSON.parse(response);
videoCount = parseInt(responseDecoded.count);
// calculate total calls needed to get the video clips
totalCalls = Math.ceil(videoCount / limit);
setUpRequest('getVideoClips');
}
});
break;
// retrieve the clips
case 'getVideoClips':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos?q=%2Bis_clip:true&limit=' + limit + '&offset=' + (limit * callNumber);
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'GET';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
if (response) {
responseDecoded = JSON.parse(response);
// add new clips to videoData array
videoData.push.apply(videoData, responseDecoded);
}
// increment the call number
callNumber++;
// are we done?
if (callNumber < totalCalls) {
// get the next batch
setUpRequest('getVideoClips');
} else {
// got all the clips
// update status
status.textContent =+ videoData.length + ' video clips found \n';
// reset the callNumber
callNumber = 0;
setUpRequest('getRenditions');
}
});
break;
case 'getRenditions':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[videoNumber].id + '/assets/renditions';
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'GET';
// update status
status.textContent =+ 'fetching renditions for clip ' + videoData[callNumber].name + ' \n';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
if (response) {
responseDecoded = JSON.parse(response);
renditionData = responseDecoded;
// update status
status.textContent =+ renditionData.length + ' renditions found for clip ' + videoData[callNumber].name + ' \n';
if (renditionData.length > 0) {
setUpRequest('deleteRendition');
} else {
setUpRequest('getPoster');
}
} else {
// no renditions
status.textContent =+ 'no renditions found for clip number ' + videoData[callNumber].name + ' \n';
setUpRequest('getPoster');
}
});
break;
case 'deleteRendition':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[videoNumber].id + '/assets/renditions/' + renditionData[renditionNumber].id;
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'DELETE';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
// there should be no response unless there was an error
if (response) {
status.textContent += 'Delete rendition response: ' + response + ' \n';
// keep going anyway
renditionNumber++;
if (renditionNumber < renditionData.length) {
setUpRequest('deleteRendition');
} else {
// done with renditions, do poster
setUpRequest('getPoster');
}
} else {
status.textContent += 'Rendition deleted for ' + videoData[callNumber].name + '\n';
renditionNumber++;
// check to see if there are more renditions
if (renditionNumber < renditionData.length) {
setUpRequest('deleteRendition');
} else {
// do the poster
setUpRequest('getPoster');
}
}
});
break;
case 'getPoster':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[videoNumber].id + '/assets/poster';
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'GET';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
if (response) {
posterData = JSON.parse(response);
setUpRequest('deletePoster');
} else {
// no poster, do the thumbail
setUpRequest('getThumbnail');
}
});
break;
case 'deletePoster':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[videoNumber].id + '/assets/poster/' + posterData.id;
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'DELETE';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
// no response unless something went wront
if (response) {
status.textContent += 'Delete poster response: ' + response + ' \n';
// try thumbnail anyway
setUpRequest('getThumbnail');
} else {
// success; do thumbnail
status.textContent += 'Poster deleted for ' + videoData[callNumber].name + ' \n';
setUpRequest('getThumbnail');
}
});
break;
case 'getThumbnail':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[callNumber].id + '/assets/thumbnail';
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'GET';
makeRequest('options', function(response) {
if (response) {
thumbnailData = JSON.parse(response);
setUpRequest('deleteThumbnail');
} else {
// if no thumbnail, go on
videoNumber++;
if (videoNumber < videoCount) {
setUpRequest('getRenditions');
} else {
// done
status.textContent += 'Finished!';
}
}
});
break;
case 'deleteThumbnail':
endpoint = '/' + account_id.value + '/videos/' + videoData[videoNumber].id + '/assets/thumbnail/' + thumbnailData.id;
options.url = baseURL + endpoint;
options.requestType = 'DELETE';
makeRequest(options, function(response) {
// no response unless something went wrong
if (response) {
status.textContent += 'Delete thumbnail response: ' + response + ' \n';
// do next video anyway if any
videoNumber++;
if (videoNumber < videoCount) {
setUpRequest('getRenditions');
} else {
// done
status.textContent += 'Finished!';
}
} else {
// success
status.textContent += 'Thumbnail deleted for ' + videoData[callNumber].name + ' \n';
// do next video if any
videoNumber++;
if (videoNumber < videoCount) {
setUpRequest('getRenditions');
} else {
// done
status.textContent += 'Finished!';
}
}
});
break;
default:
if (console) {
console.log('default case: we should not be here');
}
}
}
/**
* send API request to the proxy
* @param {Object} requestData options for the request
* @param {Function} [callback] callback function
*/
function makeRequest(options, callback) {
var httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest(),
response,
requestParams,
dataString,
proxyURL = 'https://solutions.brightcove.com/bcls/bcls-proxy/clips-proxy.php',
// response handler
getResponse = function() {
try {
if (httpRequest.readyState === 4) {
if (httpRequest.status >= 200 && httpRequest.status < 300) {
response = httpRequest.responseText;
console.log('raw response', response);
// some API requests return '{null}' for empty responses - breaks JSON.parse
if (response === '{null}') {
response = null;
}
// return the response
callback(response);
} else {
alert('There was a problem with the request. Request returned ' + httpRequest.status);
}
}
} catch (e) {
alert('Caught Exception: ' + e);
}
};
/**
* set up request data
* the proxy used here takes the following request body:
* JSON.stringify(options)
*/
// set response handler
httpRequest.onreadystatechange = getResponse;
// open the request
httpRequest.open('POST', proxyURL);
// set headers if there is a set header line, remove it
// open and send request
httpRequest.send(JSON.stringify(options));
}