Configurable default thumbnail frame for video files

Introduction

When a video file is checked into Zoom, every time a thumbnail of the video file is generated. The thumbnail is the first frame of the video. Prior to Zoom 6.0, the default frame was not configurable and always the first frame was treated as the thumbnail.

From Zoom 6.0 and above, the user has the option to select any frame at a specified percentage of the total video duration. There are two ways to specify the video percentage at which the frame has to be selected for the thumbnail.

Video thumbnail frame percentage setting in Web Management Console

From the Web Management Console, the percentage can be set which will act as a global setting across all clients connected to the server.

  1. Open the Web Management Console on your browser and log in as a user with superadmin privileges.
  2. In the left sidebar, click Server Control Panel.
  3. Click on Thumbnail Settings and a dialog will open.
  4. Specify a numerical value for the field Video thumbnail default frame percent as specified in the image below.
  5. Click on Save.

 Video thumbnail percent setting

Video thumbnail frame percentage setting from Zoom Client

The video thumbnail frame percentage can be set from a zoom client also. If a client wishes to override the global video thumbnail percentage setting that the Zoom server has set, the zoom client can do so. There are 2 fields whose values have to be updated and can be done by the following ways:

  1. From Z settings, users can set the percentage and allow it to be used instead of the global thumbnail frame percent setting.
    1. Open Zoom settings by clicking on the Z icon on the taskbar.
    2.  On the sidebar, click  Advance Properties.
    3.  Navigate to the property DEF_VID_THUMB_PERCENT and set its value to a valid percentage.
    4.  Navigate to the property USE_GLOBAL_VIDEO_THUMB_PERCENT and set its value as false.

    Z-settings-video-thumb-percentage

  2. The user can directly edit zoom.properties and add the video thumbnail frame setting.
    1. Locate the zoom.properties. Location of the file in different platforms given in the table below:
      OS Path
      Mac /Users/username/.zm/
      Linux /home/username/.zm/
      Windows C:\Users\username\.zm\
    2. Open the file in a text editor.
    3. Add a new property key: DEF_VID_THUMB_PERCENT.
    4. Set its value to a valid percentage: DEF_VID_THUMB_PERCENT=30
    5. Add a new property key: USE_GLOBAL_VIDEO_THUMB_PERCENT.
    6. Set its value to false (to override global setting): USE_GLOBAL_VIDEO_THUMB_PERCENT=false
    7. Save the file and restart the Zoom ClientProxy.
 In order to reset to the default behavior of using the first frame, set the thumbnail percentage value to 0.

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