Adding chapters can make your video easier to navigate if you have a long video. Viewers can click through to different segments to find the information they need.
Use VTT files to define chapters
Video chapters use the same concept as video captions and the supported format is VTT. The chapters are listed with the timeframe in the VTT file. For example:
For more information on VTT formatting: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebVTT_API
You can check the formatting of the VTT with a free online tool here: https://w3c.github.io/webvtt.js/parser.html
Incorrect VTT file formatting
The api.video API does not return an error for incorrectly formatted VTT files. The response from the API will be 200, however, the captions will not be displayed.
To install your selected client, do the following:
Upload a chapter
To upload chapters for your video, you'll need a .VTT file containing details about where you want breaks to occur in your video. Here are two tutorials that go over how to add chapters to your content:
Choose the video you want to add a chapter to. A pop up displays some details about the video.
Click See details.
Click Chapters.
Click Upload a chapter file. A pop up appears prompting you to add your file.
Click Choose a file, then select the .VTT file you want to use as chapters.
From the drop-down, choose the language the chapter file is for.
Click Upload. You can add one chapter file per language.
List chapters
If you just want to list all the chapters that are available to you, you can send a request with the video ID for the video you want this information for. All chapters will be returned in the response.
List chapters using the dashboard
To list all chapter files for a video, do the following:
Log in to your dashboard.
From the menu on the left, click Videos.
Choose the video you want to see all chapters for. A pop up displays some details about the video.
Click See details.
Click Chapters. You can see all the chapter files that were uploaded here.
Show a chapter
You can retrieve details about a specific chapters file by sending a request with the video ID for the video you want chapter information for, and the valid BCP 47 tag for the specific chapter file.
Show a chapter file using the dashboard
To show a chapter file using the dashboard, do the following:
Log in to your dashboard.
From the menu on the left, click Videos.
Choose the video you want to look at the chapter file for. A pop up displays some details about the video.
Click See details.
Click Chapters.
Click on the chapter file you want to work with. You can set a file to be default or leave it be.
Delete a chapter
To delete a chapter, send the unique video ID with the chapters you want to delete. Include the appropriate BCP 47 language tag. You can only have one set of chapters per tag. Deletion is permanent, so be sure it's what you want to do.
Delete a chapter using the dashboard
You can delete a chapter from the dashboard by doing the following:
Log in to your dashboard.
From the menu on the left, click Videos.
Choose the video you want to delete
Click See details.
Click Chapters.
Click the checkbox by the chapter file you want to delete. This will bring up a trash can icon at the bottom of the screen.
Click the trash can icon to delete the chapter.
Conclusion
If you've created a long video, chapters can make the video easier for viewers to navigate.