I've uploaded a video, but the thumbnail appears to be the first frame of the video, and I can't change this without changing the first frame.
This isn't ideal, as the video has an animated logo opener, so the first frame is just a white background. I'd prefer to upload a thumbnail of the full logo instead, while keeping the video as is.
I've tried an alternative where I've uploaded the video to YouTube, added a thumbnail through the YouTube publish process, then added this to the Rise course via the embedded video option, but the thumbnail appears blurry for some reason.
Any solutions or workarounds would be appreciated.
Hi, Craig! Rise displays the first frame of a video as a thumbnail. If you want a specific image to be displayed as your video thumbnail. You can use Replay 360 to edit your video or another video editing tool, and add your desired image for the thumbnail at the start of the video. I hope this helps!
Thanks Lea, but that's not an ideal solution. As mentioned in the original post, the video has an animated logo opener, so the first frame is just a white background. I'd prefer to upload a thumbnail of the full logo instead, while keeping the video as is.
Hi Craig! Thanks for letting us know how we can make Rise even better for your needs. I'll share this with my team, and we'll let you know here if we make changes that will help!
I have a slight variation on this issue. When I export to PDF (to make a printed "Student Guide") everything looks great - except - the videos. My videos are hosted up in Wistia and we put an embedded link in RISE 360. We had to do this to avoid the video compression RISE was doing that caused the videos to appear "soft". Wistia does have the ability to generate a "Thumbnail" and this is what is displayed in the RISE project until you play the video then the video is streaming from Wistia. All is GREAT! Until.........I try to export to PDF. As the video is streaming from the CDN it seems like the first frame is somehow "laggy" and that first frame gets blurred to the point that the text on that first frame is unreadable. With other projects I have with the video embedded within RISE we do not see this issue. Has anyone else seen this behavior. Lea -- do you have any suggestions? The only thing I can think of right now is to manually edit each PDF and paste my own screen capture / thumbnail into the PDF which will be quite time consuming................I forgot to mention that my videos all begin with an opening animation as well.
I went ahead and created a case (03660991) for you with our support team. My colleagues should be reaching out soon to investigate your issue. Can you please include on your reply to them your PDF and the embed code you used to add the file to your course? Thanks!
I'll add you to the list so that you'll get notified if this feature gets released or if we make changes that will help! Thanks for letting us know you need this feature.
Similar to Marcus, we house our videos in Kaltura and it has a way to generate thumbnails. I embed all videos into Rise360 using iframe link. Everything looked great, and it continued to look great for several weeks. But today! First the intro thumbnail in the video went blurry. Then all videos went blurry. If I reload the iframe link, it looks fine until I close and reopen the course. Back to blurry. What changed? Rise360 seems to compress the generated thumbnail in the video. I have 34 videos and would rather not have to create thumbnails and reproduce every video.
Can I ask if the issue is happening to all videos that you embed in an iframe? For reference, here's what an embedded video looks like on my end for comparison:
To isolate the issue, try using the embed code below on an embed block in your Rise 360 course.
If the preview of the code above appears clearly, please check with an administrator of Kaltura to see why the previews are becoming pixelated when they are embedded on a web page. If the code above appears pixelated as well, try using a different browser or your browser's private/incognito mode to see if this makes any difference.
Jose, thanks so much for reaching out. The embed code you shared looks perfect in Rise360.
Because I thought the issue had to be the generated thumbnails we added to each video in Kaltura were being compressed and pixelated in Rise360, I went through every video and cut off the first 1 second so that the video title would be the first screen in the video. I assumed once we uploaded these into Kaltura without a generated thumbnail, all would work fine. The first set of videos and the edited set all look perfectly fine in Kaltura, in the web viewer, and in our LMS hosting site, Totara.
If I can't find an alternative solution, I guess I can resort to just uploading the videos into Rise360, which is fine. I just like using embedded media when I can.
Jose, I'd like to add one other observation, if I may.
The Rise360 course I built in January was published into Totara on 1/18/24. At that time, the embedded videos looked fine, and they still look fine. However, eight days ago around 2/20/24, this pixelating started happening in Ries360 in this very same course. I was going to republish an updated version of this course, but could not because of the video presentations being blurry. So we are still using the version that was published on 1/18/24 in Totara until we figure out why the video in Rise360 are blurry.
So what happened on 2/20/24 with Rise360? Why did my embedded videos look perfectly fine for about 3 weeks straight, and were and are still fine since the course was published on 1/18/2024 into Totara? How are the embed links from Kaltura be working fine in a published version of my course but not working well in the unpublished version of the course?
I did try publishing the course again to see if perhaps that would clear up the issue.
It was so strange. 8 days ago. I was working in my course, and suddenly the intro video went blurry but the other 33 videos looked fine. Then over the course of 30-60 seconds, all the videos went blurry.
I guess, because of what I'm describing, I'm not convinced Kaltura is the problem, since the very same embed links are working fine in a published version of this same course.
Don't know if these details are helpful. But as others have suggested, a thumbnail generator in Rise360 might be nice.
Again, thanks for reaching out. Rise360 is a fun and flexible product to work with.
15 Replies
Hi, Craig! Rise displays the first frame of a video as a thumbnail. If you want a specific image to be displayed as your video thumbnail. You can use Replay 360 to edit your video or another video editing tool, and add your desired image for the thumbnail at the start of the video. I hope this helps!
Thanks Lea, but that's not an ideal solution. As mentioned in the original post, the video has an animated logo opener, so the first frame is just a white background. I'd prefer to upload a thumbnail of the full logo instead, while keeping the video as is.
Hi Craig! Thanks for letting us know how we can make Rise even better for your needs. I'll share this with my team, and we'll let you know here if we make changes that will help!
Hi all! Was a solution found to create a thumbnail for the video?
It would be really useful to have the option to change the thumbnail displayed. Hoping this feature is added soon.
I have a slight variation on this issue. When I export to PDF (to make a printed "Student Guide") everything looks great - except - the videos. My videos are hosted up in Wistia and we put an embedded link in RISE 360. We had to do this to avoid the video compression RISE was doing that caused the videos to appear "soft". Wistia does have the ability to generate a "Thumbnail" and this is what is displayed in the RISE project until you play the video then the video is streaming from Wistia. All is GREAT! Until.........I try to export to PDF. As the video is streaming from the CDN it seems like the first frame is somehow "laggy" and that first frame gets blurred to the point that the text on that first frame is unreadable. With other projects I have with the video embedded within RISE we do not see this issue. Has anyone else seen this behavior. Lea -- do you have any suggestions? The only thing I can think of right now is to manually edit each PDF and paste my own screen capture / thumbnail into the PDF which will be quite time consuming................I forgot to mention that my videos all begin with an opening animation as well.
Hi Marcus,
I went ahead and created a case (03660991) for you with our support team. My colleagues should be reaching out soon to investigate your issue. Can you please include on your reply to them your PDF and the embed code you used to add the file to your course? Thanks!
Adding my request to create an option to load a thumbnail! This would save a lot of editing time.
Hi Traci! I understand what you mean.
I'll add you to the list so that you'll get notified if this feature gets released or if we make changes that will help! Thanks for letting us know you need this feature.
This post was removed by the author
It's weird that this has been an issue for years, there are multiple posts on this and it's still not resolved?!
Similar to Marcus, we house our videos in Kaltura and it has a way to generate thumbnails. I embed all videos into Rise360 using iframe link. Everything looked great, and it continued to look great for several weeks. But today! First the intro thumbnail in the video went blurry. Then all videos went blurry. If I reload the iframe link, it looks fine until I close and reopen the course. Back to blurry. What changed? Rise360 seems to compress the generated thumbnail in the video. I have 34 videos and would rather not have to create thumbnails and reproduce every video.
Hi Kevin,
Can I ask if the issue is happening to all videos that you embed in an iframe? For reference, here's what an embedded video looks like on my end for comparison:
To isolate the issue, try using the embed code below on an embed block in your Rise 360 course.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbKAqjbVE4s?si=H6uaArseyR_v0pfq" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>If the preview of the code above appears clearly, please check with an administrator of Kaltura to see why the previews are becoming pixelated when they are embedded on a web page. If the code above appears pixelated as well, try using a different browser or your browser's private/incognito mode to see if this makes any difference.
Jose, thanks so much for reaching out. The embed code you shared looks perfect in Rise360.
Because I thought the issue had to be the generated thumbnails we added to each video in Kaltura were being compressed and pixelated in Rise360, I went through every video and cut off the first 1 second so that the video title would be the first screen in the video. I assumed once we uploaded these into Kaltura without a generated thumbnail, all would work fine. The first set of videos and the edited set all look perfectly fine in Kaltura, in the web viewer, and in our LMS hosting site, Totara.
If I can't find an alternative solution, I guess I can resort to just uploading the videos into Rise360, which is fine. I just like using embedded media when I can.
Jose, I'd like to add one other observation, if I may.
The Rise360 course I built in January was published into Totara on 1/18/24. At that time, the embedded videos looked fine, and they still look fine. However, eight days ago around 2/20/24, this pixelating started happening in Ries360 in this very same course. I was going to republish an updated version of this course, but could not because of the video presentations being blurry. So we are still using the version that was published on 1/18/24 in Totara until we figure out why the video in Rise360 are blurry.
So what happened on 2/20/24 with Rise360? Why did my embedded videos look perfectly fine for about 3 weeks straight, and were and are still fine since the course was published on 1/18/2024 into Totara? How are the embed links from Kaltura be working fine in a published version of my course but not working well in the unpublished version of the course?
I did try publishing the course again to see if perhaps that would clear up the issue.
It was so strange. 8 days ago. I was working in my course, and suddenly the intro video went blurry but the other 33 videos looked fine. Then over the course of 30-60 seconds, all the videos went blurry.
I guess, because of what I'm describing, I'm not convinced Kaltura is the problem, since the very same embed links are working fine in a published version of this same course.
Don't know if these details are helpful. But as others have suggested, a thumbnail generator in Rise360 might be nice.
Again, thanks for reaching out. Rise360 is a fun and flexible product to work with.
Hi Kevin,
Nothing major was introduced to Rise 360 involving embedded content, but I do find it strange that your embedded videos became blurry all of a sudden. If republishing your videos doesn't fix the quality issues, please open a case with our support team here so we can take a closer look at what happened.