Sources and formats
Nine platforms are supported by name, any other page is attempted as well, and your own files upload directly. Your own files cover more than web video: camera masters and edit-suite formats work too.
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Platforms
Supported by name means we keep a working route to it. Getting a video off one of these sites is its own problem, and it is ours rather than yours.
| Source | What is specific about it | URLs |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | Videos, Shorts and unlisted links. Public captions are used when the uploader wrote them, which is both free and more accurate than transcribing. | youtube.com/watch, youtu.be, youtube.com/shorts |
| TikTok | Videos and photo carousels. A carousel has no clock, so each slide is one second: second 0 is slide 1, second 1 is slide 2, and the answer says so. | tiktok.com/@user/video, vm.tiktok.com |
| Public Reels and posts, including photo carousels. Anything behind a private account has to be uploaded instead. | instagram.com/reel, instagram.com/p | |
| X (Twitter) | Videos in public posts. | x.com/user/status, twitter.com/user/status |
| Facebook and Meta Ad Library | An ads-library link is a video like any other, so an advert is something you watch second by second rather than describe from its caption. Watch, Reels and public posts work the same way. | facebook.com/ads/library/?id=…, fb.watch |
| Vimeo | Public videos, including ones embedded on another page. | vimeo.com/…, player.vimeo.com |
| Twitch | Clips and VODs. | twitch.tv/…/clip, clips.twitch.tv |
| Hosted video in posts. | reddit.com/r/…, redd.it | |
| Dailymotion | Public videos. | dailymotion.com/video |
| Any other page | Attempted: a landing-page hero video, a webinar recording, a direct .mp4 or .m3u8 address. This works on a great many sites and is not a promise. A page that keeps its video behind a sign-in can still refuse, and then you upload the file. | example.com/launch, cdn.example.com/reel.mp4 |
| Your own files | Uploaded once and reused for every later question. This is the route for anything private, anything unreleased, and anything that never was on a platform. | an export, a screen recording, a camera master |
File formats
What we can read once the file is here. A longer list than the platform one, and a less interesting one except at the two ends.
Web and delivery
What comes off a platform or out of an export preset.
Camera and edit suite
Production formats, not just web video. A file from an edit suite is read the same way an mp4 is.
Refused, by name
Camera raw needs the camera maker’s own software to open it. We refuse these by name and tell you which export to make instead, rather than failing with something obscure.
How the source is handled
Four things are true of every video before a question is asked of it, and each one changes what an answer means.
- A 16:9 video pasted into a 9:16 frame is two thirds black bars. The picture inside is found first, so you never pay for the padding and no answer describes it.
- Files from a broadcast chain are often interlaced. That is put right before anything is read, because otherwise the comb pattern looks like movement.
- Ask about one moment and one moment is fetched, not the whole video. Three minutes of a two hour podcast costs three minutes.
- When a video cannot be reached, the answer names the reason and the next move. Where uploading the file is the fix, it says so.
How to send a file is on the REST API page, and how your agent sends one for you is on the connect page.
Questions
- Can Playhead analyse a TikTok video?
- Yes, including photo carousels. A carousel has no clock, so each slide is one second: second 0 is slide 1, second 1 is slide 2. The answer says so rather than implying the post has a running time.
- Can it analyse an ad from the Meta Ad Library?
- Yes. A facebook.com/ads/library link is a video like any other here, so an advert is something you watch second by second rather than describe from its caption.
- Does it work with any website?
- Any page is attempted, and a great many work: a landing-page hero video, a webinar recording, a direct .mp4 or .m3u8 address. It is not a promise. A page that keeps its video behind a sign-in can still refuse, and then you upload the file.
- Can it read production formats like MXF and ProRes?
- Yes. MXF covering XAVC, XDCAM, AVC-Intra and DNxHD, ProRes in MOV, plus GXF, LXF, TS and DV. Camera raw files such as .r3d, .braw, .ari and .crm need the camera maker's own software, so we refuse those by name and tell you which export to make instead.
- What about private videos?
- A link is not enough when the video is not public. Upload the file instead. That is the route for anything private, anything unreleased, and anything that never was on a platform.