Additional metrics are available to track video start failures due to business logic, such as user limits, or technical video start issues. For more details, see Video Start Failures Business and Video Start Failures Technical.
The error codes associated with Video Start Failures are passed by the player to Conviva to indicate either a connection failure or streaming failure. If a session had an error and subsequently received heartbeats and continued to successfully play, it does not contribute to VSF.
If an error is not generated when the video terminates before starting, the video termination is counted as an Exits Before Video Start (EBVS) instead of VSF.
As a percentage, the metric shows the percent of viewing attempts that terminated with VSF in the selected interval.
VSF is an important measurement of service quality and audience engagement, especially when a large percentage of video starts terminate due to VSF. You can use the VSF metric to monitor the proportion of Attempts that terminate with VSF errors. A high VSF count or percentage, or a significant increase in this metric, can be an indication of declining overall player performance or the likelihood of increased viewer abandonment.
VSF is counted in the interval in which the failure occurs. For more information about intervals, see the Metric Dictionary.
Video Start Failures is available in the following formats:
- Video Start Failures — the total number of VSF during the selected time period.
- Video Start Failures summary — the total number of VSF during the selected time period for the top content assets.
- Video Start Failures time series — a time series for the selected time period, where each point is the number of VSF during the selected time period.
Diagnostics Widgets
The Video Start Failures Diagnostic presents detailed information about all instances of specific error codes for the selected data point. If you choose real-time data, you see the error codes as the VSFs occur.
The drill-down widgets on the VSF Diagnostic let you see where failures are occurring by CDN/Resource and ASN, and which assets are affected most often. You can also see the extent of the impact by looking at the number of impacted requests and how that number translates to a percent of attempts.
The widgets on this page are connected. The top of the page shows Video Start Failures on a timeline. When you select a data point, the Failures by Error Name widget shows the error codes associated with the selected data point.
You can then click on an error code to see data segmented by dimension.
Video Start Failures
You can click on any point on the timeline to see the error codes and other related information. For real-time data, you can point to a spot on the timeline to see the percent of VSF at that moment. For a detailed definition of VSF, see the Metric Dictionary.
Video Start Failures by Error Name
The error codes associated with Video Start Failures indicate either a connection failure or streaming failure. This table shows which errors occurred, the total number of attempts impacted by each error, and the percentage of attempts that experienced each error. Depending on the player, a single Video Start Failure can have multiple errors associated with it. Click an error name to see the data segmented by dimension.
For real-time data, you see the error name, the number of impacted plays, and the % of attempts.
Failures by CDN — for the selected error, this table shows each affected CDN, along with the total number of impacted clients and percentage of client attempts to experience an error for each.
Failures by CDN and Asset Name — for the selected error, this table shows each affected CDN, along with the requested object and the total number of impacted clients and percentage of client attempts to experience an error for each.
Failures by CDN and Asset Number — for the selected error, this table shows each affected CDN and its affected ASNs, along with the total number of impacted clients and percentage of client attempts to experience an error for each.
Failures by CDN, Asset Name, and Asset Number — for the selected error, this table shows each affected CDN and its top five affected ASNs, along with the asset that was requested, the total number of impacted clients and percentage of client attempts to experience an error for each.
Related Details
| Metric Details | Description |
|---|---|
| Dashboards and Metric Presentation | Trends, MetricLens, Error Analysis, Viewer Sessions, Diagnostics |
| Dimensions | Filter this metric by specific dimensions to understand the impact and narrow the root cause analysis. For example, filtering for specific ISP and player dimensions can narrow the root cause of the VSF to a known provider and player type. |
| Diagnostics | See Diagnostics Widgets above for the VSF Diagnostic view. Also see the Diagnostics quick guide. |
| Manual Alert Support | Yes. Receive alerts when VSF errors occur based on customizable alert conditions. This event should fire only once per video view. For more information, see Alerts. |
| AI Alert Support | Yes. For more information about setting AI alert sensitivity and receiving AI alerts for this metric, see AI Alerts. |
| Metric Adjustment | None. |
For more metric definitions, see the Metric Dictionary.