Now we are creating 5 thumbnail images and providing direct http access to them for use within your HTML or application. Here are the details:
2 X Poster Images: Width = 640 pixels and the Height is resized proportionally to your source video dimensions. The poster image is used as the default image displayed within the player before the user clicks the play button. First poster image is taken at 10% mark of the duration of the source video and the second one is taken at the 00:00:01 time stamp of the video. To obtain the image @ 00:00:01, please use http://cf.cdn.vid.ly/5u4h3e/link.jpg, where "5u4h3e" is your individual vid.ly url code. To access the poster image at the 10% mark, please use http://cf.cdn.vid.ly/5u4h3e/poster.jpg.
3 X Thumbnails Images: All three have the width of 210 pixels and the Height is resized proportionally to your source video dimensions. The three thumbnails are taken at the 33%, 66%, and 90% duration marks of your source video and can be accessed directly by using http://cf.cdn.vid.ly/5u4h3e/thumbnail_1.jpg, http://cf.cdn.vid.ly/5u4h3e/thumbnail_2.jpg, or http://cf.cdn.vid.ly/5u4h3e/thumbnail_3.jpg Where "5u4h3e" is your individual vid.ly url code.
If you've selected Rackspace as the CDN for Vid.lys created via the API, the formatting for thumbnails will look a little different. Format your URLs to pull thumbnails as follows. Just make sure to swap out the shortlinks! This reformatting guide below will help alleviate any pains caused by Access Denied errors on attempts to pull thumbnails.
Poster Images:
http://c197913.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/5c5l3c/poster.jpg
http://c197913.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/5c5l3c/link.jpg
Thumbnail Images:
http://c197913.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/5c5l3c/thumbnail_1.jpg
http://c197913.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/5c5l3c/thumbnail_2.jpg
http://c197913.r13.cf1.rackcdn.com/5c5l3c/thumbnail_3.jpg
We are currently working on the next generation of thumbnail control within the Vid.ly API which could include the ability to customize thumbnail output even further by specifying the number, size, and time stamp of the thumbnails on a per vid.ly basis, so we are eager for your feedback about how you would like to see this implemented.