Viewer Experience

Review a viewer's sessions, summary metrics, and session details for a selected time period.

Updated 2026-10-19 viewer, experience, dashboard, vsi

Viewer Experience gives customer care teams the details of a viewer's streaming sessions for a given time period. Summary and session-level metrics show the number of plays, total minutes watched, Streaming Performance Index (SPI), startup and playback failures, rebuffering, and average peak bitrate. From there, open the performance measurements for each session.

For intervals of less than 20 days, data is displayed for up to 200 of the most recent sessions. For intervals of more than 20 days, data is displayed for up to 500 of the most recent sessions.

Open Viewer Experience by clicking a viewer ID on a Diagnostics page, or by selecting Viewers in the navigation pane and entering a viewer ID or public IP address (IPv4 or IPv6). Summary metrics appear at the top, followed by that viewer's sessions in order of session start time.

Viewer IDs can also be obtained from Viewer Sessions and from alert data.
Viewer Experience summary with SPI 100, five plays, an AI summary, and a played session in the list
Click a session ID to open the session timeline for session events and timeline analysis. Viewer and session timeline data for live sessions may be delayed by 7 to 15 minutes.

To open Viewer Experience:

  1. In the navigation pane, click Viewers. In Viewer ID or Public IP Address, enter a viewer ID or a public IP address (IPv4 or IPv6), then click the search icon.

    The viewer ID is passed from the player in the c3.viewer_id metadata tag. Viewer IDs also appear in Viewer Sessions, AI Alerts, and Session Source Data (SSD) files.

  2. Or, in Trends, click the Diagnostics icon for a metric, select a 3-hour period in the time series, and open the Viewer Sessions tab. Click a data bucket to list sessions, then click a viewer ID.

  3. On the Viewer Experience page, use the date picker to select 24 Hours, 7 Days, 30 Days, Live, or a custom date range.

Viewer Experience includes:

  • Viewing experience metrics for every session in the selected time period.
  • Session data for each session, such as session ID, start and end times, playing time, device name, and session status.
  • Session details with metrics and metadata for a selected session.
For sessions longer than 24 hours, the timeline shows a rolling 24-hour window. For an ongoing session, the window is the current time minus 24 hours. For a session that has ended, the window is the session end time minus 24 hours.

Viewer Experience Metrics

Viewer Experience metrics summarize the viewer's overall experience during the selected period. In this example, the viewer had 2 plays, a high SPI score, very low startup time, low rebuffering, and a high average bitrate.

Summary metrics for 2 plays, with SPI 100, VST 0.516 seconds, rebuffering 0.145%, and average peak bitrate 7.6 Mbps
If Video Startup Time (VST) is not captured or is not available, the page shows VST as -3.

Viewer Experience Metrics in Live Mode

The summary includes every session in the selected period. Live mode shows only active sessions, so the summary and the session list can differ. Summary data is not applicable in Live mode.

Live mode message stating that summary data is not applicable for Live mode

AI Summary (Beta)

AI Summary generates a consolidated summary of all video sessions for a viewer ID or public IP address. It aggregates session-level performance and engagement data into a high-level overview of session behavior and performance. Analysis of the key metrics identifies patterns and deviations, and presents concise insights without requiring a review of each session. This shortens troubleshooting and supports decisions at the viewer or IP level. AI Summary follows existing data access controls and reporting, so summarized insights stay within the same access rules as the underlying sessions.

AI Summary panel with an executive summary and key insights for a viewer ID

Session Data

Session data describes the basic performance of each session. This example shows three sessions that played. Up to 49 sessions are displayed on a page.

Three played Apple iPhone sessions, each with playing time and a connection induced rebuffering ratio of 0%

Session Details

Click a session row to show or hide detailed performance data. Use the details to identify issues such as excessive rebuffering and video startup delays, and to see whether an issue is limited to the selected viewer or also appears for that viewer's city and ISP/ASN. If the issue is widespread, use alerts and dashboards to investigate the cause.

Session details panel open beside the session list, with viewing experience for the session, city, and ASN

Click Customize to change the displayed metadata. Additional metadata is available for configured dimensions. Use the pin icon to keep a column at the start of the table.

Customize menu with Session ID, Viewer ID, and Session Start Time pinned, plus device and ISP dimensions

Hover over a column name to sort the column or search for a specific value.

If the city and ASN where the session originated are not among the top 200 cities and ASNs by video traffic, % Complete for the city and ASN is shown as 0%. For Live and DVR video, % Complete for the session is shown as -1.

The following table summarizes the session-specific performance data that appears.

Session Status Displayed Performance Data
Played
  • Avg. % Complete
  • Rebuffering Ratio (Rebuff)
  • Average Peak Bitrate
  • Video Startup Time (VST)
  • Connection Induced Rebuffering Ratio (CIRR)
  • Video Restart Time (VRT)

Video Start Failures Technical (VSF-T)

Video Start Failures Business (VSF-B)
  • Rebuffering Ratio (Rebuff)
  • Average Peak Bitrate
  • VSF Error Codes
Exits Before Video Start (EBVS)
  • Rebuffering Ratio (Rebuff)
  • Average Peak Bitrate

Video Playback Failures Technical (VPF-T)

Video Playback Failures Business (VPF-B)
  • Avg. % Complete
  • Rebuffering Ratio (Rebuff)
  • Average Peak Bitrate
  • Video Startup Time (VST)
  • Connection Induced Rebuffering Ratio (CIRR)
  • Video Restart Time (VRT)
  • VPF Error Codes
Not Played
  • Rebuffering Ratio (Rebuff)
  • Average Peak Bitrate

All statuses (Played, VSF, EBVS, VPF, and Not Played) also display metadata:

  • Content metadata: Stream URL, isAd, Content Category, Asset Name
  • Location metadata: Location, ISP & ASN, IP address
  • CDN metadata: CDN
  • Device metadata: Device Name, Device Operating System, Device Manufacturer, Device Hardware Type, Device Operating System Version, Browser Name, Device Model, Device Operating System Family, Device Marketing Name
  • Player metadata: Player Name, Player Framework Name, Player Framework Version
  • Other metadata: tags configured and passed to the player during integration

For metric definitions, see the Metric Dictionary.

View the session tags in Session Details. The Advance Tags toggle shows more tags. The Other Metadata section shows the tags that are enabled as dimensions.

Advance Tags view of session details, including content, location, CDN, device, and player metadata

Save, Share, and Make Default

Click the kebab icon, then select Save, Share, or Make default.

Kebab menu with Make default, Share, Save, and Export

Export Session Data to a CSV File

Export the viewer's session details as a comma-separated values (.csv) file. Open the file in a spreadsheet or another analysis tool.

To export, click the kebab icon in the upper right, then click Export.

Device Validation

Device Validation checks that metadata set during integration is accurate. Accurate metadata is what Conviva uses to build filters for analysis.

For device validation of CDN, device metadata, custom tags, and metrics, see Device Validation using Viewer Module.