Kaltura Terminology

Scope and Target Audience

The following pages introduce you to some of the terms commonly in used within Kaltura’s technical and applicative documentation. This document is mainly targeted to assist technical oriented readers in understanding unfamiliar concepts, while they review Kaltura’s technical materials.

Preliminary technical terminology

• Open Source

  [wikipedia][OSI]
  Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Kaltura Partnership Related Terms

• Kaltura Partner

  A person or an organization with an account on the Kaltura system. Commonly, it is possible to become a Kaltura Partner either by manually signing up, or by registering to Kaltura during the installation process of a Kaltura
  application.

• Partner ID

  A numeric identifier, uniquely identifying one Kaltura Partner within the Kaltura database.

• Sub Partner ID

  A numeric identifier originally defined to enable sub partitioning of Kaltura partnership. For a specific partner: Sub Partner ID = 100 X Partner ID.

• Web Service Secret

  A unique user-level security string assigned to a specific Kaltura Partner. This is used by the Kaltura servers as a key for authenticating user web sessions initiated by client-side applications utilizing Kaltura technology.

• Admin Web Service Secret

  A unique admin-level security string assigned to a specific Kaltura Partner. This is used by the Kaltura servers as a key for authenticating admin web sessions initiated by client-side applications utilizing Kaltura technology.

• Partner Account

  All information stored within the Kaltura database related to a specific partner. Partner account includes partner identifiers, partner’s security secrets, information on partner website, partner server settings etc.

• User

  This term is commonly used within Kaltura documentation to represent an end-user using Kaltura applications within a Partner’s website.

• Kaltura Network

  A network of rich-media, video content and it's metadata shared by the Kaltura partners and users across the network of Kaltura servers on the hosted edition (will be opt-in in CE and EE editions).
  The content is shared under CC to encourage re-use of free content and re-mixing.
  It is on an opt-in base, and partners with secured or proprietary content can choose to opt-out from being a part of the Kaltura network.
  The Kaltura network enable partners to collaborate, share and remix content, increasing syndication and improve visibility for SEO and wider audience reach.

Kaltura Technology Related Terms

• Kaltura Web Services (Kaltura API)

  Kaltura Application Programming Interfaces. These are well defined server-side interface methods that expose Kaltura’s core technology to client-side web implementations. Read more about Kaltura APIs...

• Partner Services (PS)

  An additional name describing the Kaltura API.

• Kaltura API Client Libraries

  Client side implementations provided by Kaltura to enable convenient processing of HTTP requests/responses while using Kaltura servers APIs. Read more about client libraries...

• Entry

  Kaltura’s database and API representation of a basic content entity, including properties describing its type, storage location and related metadata.

• Entry ID

  A string identifier generated by Kaltura servers to uniquely identify one entry within Kaltura database.

• Media Entry

  An entry representing media content of a specific media type (video, video mix, audio, image, etc)

• Video Mix

  A video made up of two or more entries.

• Playlist

  A list of entries that were grouped and ordered to be streamed one after the other.

• Media filter

  A set of media entry related parameters and a specific querying logic used for conditional selection of media entries from the Kaltura database. Media filters are commonly in use at gallery implementations for displaying media according to different criteria, such as: media uploaded after a specific date, media tagged with specific tags, media created by a specific user, etc.

• Kaltura Session (KS)

  This term is commonly used within Kaltura documentation to describe the string identifier generated by Kaltura for web session authentication. Read more about Kaltura Session...

• Kaltura Metadata

  "Data about other data". This term is commonly used within Kaltura documentation to describe the information being stored within the Kaltura database with relation to a specific entry. This may include: name, tags, admin tags, creation/modification dates, description, partner data etc.
  In some cases this may also relate to the Kaltura Mix SDL (the XML that represent the Kaltura Mix Sequence).

• Tags

  A non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to an entry to help describe it and allow it to be found again through a search.

• Admin Tags

  A non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to an entry to help describe it and allow it to be found again through a search by an administrator. Admin tags can only be added by the system administrator.

• uiConf

  This term is commonly used within Kaltura documentation to describe the internal configuration xml of a specific Kaltura widget. This xml includes the settings of the widget’s appearance and functionality.

• Kaltura Server Notifications

  HTTP POST requests that are sent upon specific media events from the Kaltura servers to a URL on partners` host servers. Kaltura server notifications enable partners to integrate with Kaltura’s technology in a way that is synchronized with media events occurring on Kaltura’s servers. An example to Kaltura server notification is the entry_add notification, sent upon the completion of entry creation at Kaltura servers. Partner’s can process this notification and enable or display this entry at their web site, only when it was actually added to Kaltura servers.

• Kaltura Client Notifications

  HTTP POST requests that are sent upon specific media events from a specific Kaltura widget to a URL on partners` host servers. Kaltura client notifications enable partners to integrate with Kaltura’s technology in a way that is synchronized with media events occurring on Kaltura’s servers as well as with Kaltura widget’s control events. An example to Kaltura client notification is the entry_add notification, sent by the KCW widget upon the completion of entry uploading widget step. Partner’s can process this notification and enable partner specific metadata setting for this entry at their web site, aligned with the KCW widget’s steps

Kaltura Product Related Terms

• Kaltura Widget

  Self-contained client-side components encapsulating graphics, media functionality and events control along with direct access to Kaltura APIs.

• Kaltura Application

  Self-contained, client-side combination of Kaltura widgets and server APIs, tailored to support specific media workflows or as an extension to a specific web content platform.

• KDP

  Kaltura Dynamic Player. Kaltura widget for media playing, providing graphics and direct API access for media streaming, playing, sharing, sound control, advertising and more. Read more...

• Playlist

  Kaltura widget that is a part of the KDP widget for encapsulating a list display of selected media items, providing graphics, and direct API access for media navigation and activation functionality. Read more...

• Gallery

  Kaltura Gallery (KGallery) services enable an efficient visual display of media files, hosted on a Kaltura server, providing a list of entries on the page. Read more...

• KCW

  Kaltura Contributor Wizard, Kaltura widget for content ingestion; a flash wizard that provide an easy to use, friendly, and customizable user interface for uploading and importing media and content. Read more...

• KSU

  Kaltura Simple Uploader, a headless (no user interface) Kaltura flash widget for content upload. Read more...

• KSE

  Kaltura Standard Editor, Kaltura standard video editing widget. Read more...

• KAE

  Kaltura Advanced Editor, Kaltura semi-professional video editing software. Read more...

• KMC

  Kaltura Management Console. Kaltura admin application for content management, application creation and configuration, account management and reporting. Read more...

• Kaltura Hosted Edition

  Kaltura's full-featured SaaS Open Source Video Platform hosted on the Kaltura servers. Try Free Trial...

• Kaltura Community Edition (CE)

  A self-hosted, community supported version of Kaltura's Open Source Online Video Platform. Read more...

• Kaltura Enterprise Edition (EE)

  A self-hosted Kaltura supported version of Kaltura's Open Source Online Video Platform that includes dedicated professional support, integration with proprietary encoding solutions, decentralization, clustering, and other enterprise level features and services.

Internet Technology Related Terms

• SWF

  ‘Small Web Format’ by Adobe. This is the dominant format for displaying "animated" vector graphics on the web, also supporting audio, video and many different possible forms of interaction with the end-user. Read More...

• Embedding Adobe Flash Object

  Inclusion of an Adobe Flash object within an html page to enable its display by an Adobe Flash player plug-in application. The Flash object is embedded using the OBJECT and EMBED html tags. Learn about KDP Embed...

• SWFObject

  An open-source JavaScript library used to embed Adobe Flash content within web pages while dealing with player version detection and avoiding broken SWF content. Read More...

Media & Networking Related Terms

• Streaming

  Transmission of digital audio or video, or the listening and viewing of such data without first storing it. Streaming is mostly measured by the amount of bandwidth consumed while serving content. Read more about media streaming in Wikipedia.

• Transcoding

  Direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another. Read more about media transcoding in Wikipedia.

• CDN

  A content delivery network or content distribution network is a system of computers networked together across the Internet that cooperate transparently to distribute content for the purposes of improving performance and scalability. Read more about media streaming in Wikipedia.

• Aspect ratio

  The ratio between the width and the height of a video. Most common ratios are: 4:3 – Normal screen, 16:9 – wide screen.

• FLV

  Flash Video is a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player or other browser plug-ins. Currently the most popular format for embedded video on the web.

• Thumbnail

  A small version of an image, or an image representing a video, used for preview purposes.