Glossary of Zype Terms Glossary of Zype Terms

Glossary of Zype Terms

The Zype developer portal uses some predefined language to reference certain aspects of the platform. We thought it might be helpful to have a glossary section so that you can be sure we’re on the same page. Below is a list of terms that we use and their definitions.

 

Platforms


Your Site

When we reference “Your site”, we’re talking about the site where you display your video content.

Zype.com

The public facing website at: https://www.zype.com/

Zype Developer Portal

The public facing website geared towards developers who are using the Zype Platform.

Zype Platform

The client-facing tool that’s used to manage your zype content.

 

Users


Admins

Administrators have access to your instance of the Zype Platform. They also have additional permissions and can take more actions than a typical user.

Subscribers

The population of your viewers who are paying to view your content.

Consumers

The population of the general public who are watching your video content.

 

Video Technology Terms


AES-128

The Advanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is based on a design principle known as a substitution-permutation network, combination of both substitution and permutation, and is fast in both software and hardware. Unlike its predecessor DES, AES does not use a Feistel network. AES is a variant of Rijndael which has a fixed block size of 128 bits, and a key size of 128, 192, or 256 bits. By contrast, the Rijndael specification per se is specified with block and key sizes that may be any multiple of 32 bits, both with a minimum of 128 and a maximum of 256 bits.

Bitrate

In digital multimedia, bitrate represents the amount of information, or detail, that is stored per unit of time of a recording. The bitrate depends on several factors: The original material may be sampled at different frequencies. The samples may use different numbers of bits. The data may be encoded by different schemes. The information may be digitally compressed by different algorithms or to different degrees.

Codec

A codec encodes a data stream or signal for transmission, storage or encryption, or decodes it for playback or editing. Codecs are used in videoconferencing, streaming media and video editing applications. A video camera’s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) converts its analog signals into digital signals, which are then passed through a video compressor for digital transmission or storage. A receiving device then runs the signal through a video decompressor.

DPT

Zype’s Dynamic Player Technology allows Admins to create player rules which govern the video source that is used to serve content to a consumer based on their region and device.

HLS

HTTP Live Streaming is an HTTP-based media streaming communications protocol implemented by Apple Inc. as part of their QuickTime, Safari, OS X, and iOS software. It works by breaking the overall stream into a sequence of small HTTP-based file downloads, each download loading one short chunk of an overall potentially unbounded transport stream. As the stream is played, the client may select from a number of different alternate streams containing the same material encoded at a variety of data rates, allowing the streaming session to adapt to the available data rate. At the start of the streaming session, it downloads an extended M3U playlist containing the metadata for the various sub-streams which are available.

M3U8

The Unicode version of “m3u” is “m3u8”, which uses UTF-8 Unicode characters. “m3u” and “m3u8” files are the basis for the HTTP Live Streaming format used by Apple to stream video to iOS devices.

Resolution

The display resolution of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution is controlled by different factors on different devices.

Transcoding

The process of breaking down videos into multiple renditions (480, 720, 1080, etc.).

 

General Terms


GIF

The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.

HTTP

HTTP functions as a request-response protocol in the client-server computing model. A web browser, for example, may be the client and an application running on a computer hosting a web site may be the server. The client submits an HTTP request message to the server. The server, which provides resources such as HTML files and other content, or performs other functions on behalf of the client, returns a response message to the client. The response contains completion status information about the request and may also contain requested content in its message body.

JPEG

In computing, JPEG (seen most often with the .jpg or .jpeg filename extension) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality.

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation, is an open standard format that uses human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. Although originally derived from the JavaScript scripting language, JSON is a language-independent data format. Code for parsing and generating JSON data is readily available in a large variety of programming languages.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics is a raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was created as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), and is the most used lossless image compression format on the Internet.

REST

Web service APIs that adhere to the REST architectural constraints are called RESTful. HTTP based RESTful APIs are defined with these aspects: base URI, such as http://example.com/resources/ , an Internet media type for the data. This is often JSON but can be any other valid Internet media type (e.g. XML, Atom, microformats, images, etc.), standard HTTP methods (e.g., GET, PUT, POST, or DELETE), hypertext links to reference state, hypertext links to reference related resources.

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable. The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality and usability across the Internet. It is a textual data format with strong support via Unicode for different human languages. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures such as those used in web services.

VOD

Video on-demand (vs live video)

AVOD

Advertising-based monetization

TVOD

 Transactional-based monetization (purchase, rental)

SVOD

Subscription-based monetization (monthly or annual plan)

 

Zype Platform Terms


API Key

Each instance of the Zype Platform has its own API Key for accessing data using our RESTful API.

App Key

The unique key used to identify your video app.

Category

Categories help Admins organize their video library. Categories require a title and multiple values for the category. For example, the title of your category might be Genre and the values might be: Action, Comedy, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Fantasy, History, Horror, Romance, Mystery, Music, Sci-Fi, Thriller, War.

Devices

The device being used to stream content by your viewers.

Pass Plan

A purchasable group of content restricted by a set amount of time

Plans

A plan is a subscription model that viewers can subscribe to in order to view premium content.

Player

A player is used to display your video content to a viewer.

Player Key

Each instance of the Zype Platform has its own Player Key for viewing videos through their associated players.

Player Request

A player request is logged every time a viewer requests a video to provide Admins with analytics on a number of video data points.

Player Rule

Admins can set rules for which video source is served to a particular device or region utilizing Zype’s Dynamic Player Technology.

Playlist

Playlists are objects that hold many video objects. They are used to create and curate a lineup of videos to be served to your viewers.

Presets (VOD & Live)

You can specify presets for your videos including height, width, duration, bitrate, etc.

Redemption Codes

Codes that entitle consumers to specific content.

Revenue Models

We use industry standard acronyms to reference video revenue models like SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), AVOD (Advertising Video on Demand), EST/DTO (Electronic Sell Through / Download to Own), Free, etc.

Subscriptions

A subscription links a consumer to a plan and allows them to view premium content.

Thumbnail

A thumbnail is typically a screen capture of a video that is used to give viewers a static visual representation of a specific point in the video.

Video

A video object that contains both audio and visual content.

Video Apps

The Zype Platform allows you to create and manage custom video delivery applications on devices like Roku, Chromecast and more. We call these Video Apps.

Video Import

Your video sources will generate video imports that you can use to finalize the creation of your videos.

Video Source

A video source on the Zype Platform is one possible origin point for video content. Examples might include Youtube, Hulu, etc. A single video may have many different sources associated with it.

Video Upload

A video upload is the other possible origin point for video content on the Zype Platform.

Zobjects

A Zobject is a specific instance of a certain Zobject Type. Zobjects for the Zobject Type: Actor, for example, might include: Robert Downey Jr, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey.

Zobject Type

Zobjects offer Admins a way to model information in an object oriented way. In order to use zobjects, you’ll first need to create a zobject type with the fields you want to use to store information. Some example zobject types include: Actor, Director, Carousel Item, Bonus Feature Video. The Zobject Type: Actor would probably need a field: “Name”.

Embed Code

generated code snippets to publish videos, playlists, and widgets to the web

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