Mux Data FAQs

Answers to common questions about Mux Data.

Mux Data uncovers four key dimensions of video quality of service: playback failures, startup time, rebuffering, and video quality. If your aim is broadcast-quality video streaming, Mux Data enables you to monitor these critical video metrics.

With each Mux Data metric, you can monitor and track what matters to your viewers. For example, Overall Viewer Experience Score is a metric that quickly summarizes your video platform's performance.

To get familiar with more of Mux Data's features, see this introduction to Mux Data.

What is the Mux Data Dashboard and what can you do with it?

The Mux Data Dashboard is an interface that lets you set filters and view graphs that monitor each specific key metric you are interested in. With each metric, you can monitor and track what matters to your viewers.

You can also immediately see what is happening before users do with Anomaly Alerts and Threshold Alerts. It is easy to set these alerts for prompt notifications. Check your dashboard to track the source or sources.

You may want to apply Filters to the alert definition to track only specific data. Finally can also use the List InsightsAPI feature as a way of impact sorting which browsers, devices, regions, CDNs, players, ads and videos are creating the most problems for your viewers.

What is the Mux Real-Time Dashboard and what can you do with it?

The Mux Data Real-Time Dashboard allows you to see your critical metrics in one real-time dashboard. This lets you respond to major streaming issues quickly.

Read this blog post as a great example and resource:

Respond to and Resolve Incidents with the Real-Time Dashboard.

It dives into how to use tools on the Real Time dashboard to investigate the incident, communicate with stakeholders, resolve the issue, and improve your resiliency.

Can I access Mux Data via an API?

Yes, all Mux Data views and metrics are all available through the Data API. Raw video view data can be exported via the API. Additionally, here is a detailed blog post describing how to create graphs using the Mux API.

Where do I find Mux Data Pricing? What features are included in the Starter, Pro, and Media Tier?

Choose a Mux Data pricing plan on the Data Pricing page. Here you can view a breakdown of all features that Mux includes with each tier including Starter tier, Pro tier, and Media tier.

Or, contact our Sales team to acquire more detailed information.

Where do I find all supported metrics, dimensions, and devices?

You can find more Technical Specs here covering all tracked video metrics, available filters, and supported players.

What counts as a view?

A "view" in Mux Data is any attempt (successful or not) to view a video. If the user taps play, the video starts to load and fails, that counts as a single view. If a user taps play, starts watching the video, pauses, then resumes that counts as a single view.

If you are seeing more views than expected in your dashboard or what appear to be duplicate views check on the code that initializes the Mux Data SDK to make sure you are initializing it once per playback attempt.

How is total watch time calculated?

Watch Time is the cumulative amount of time the user spent watching or attempting to watch the video. This metric includes actively playing content, rebuffering, seeking, etc.

If user watches for 90 seconds, has 4 seconds of rebuffering, pauses for 20 seconds, spends 2 seconds seeking by rewinding and then watches 60 more seconds that would total 176 seconds of watch time (90 + 4 + 20 + 2 + 60).

Is Mux Video delivery usage API similar to Mux Data's watch time?

No, these two measurements are quite different. Mux Video's Delivery Usage APIAPI is based on the number of minutes delivered to clients. This is a server-side (CDN) metric. Whereas Mux Data collects metrics from the client-side and calculates watch time based on the user's interaction with the player.

If a user watches a video, rewinds, and watches the video again that content was only delivered one time to the device but it was watched multiple times. In this scenario Mux Video's delivery usage would be lower than Mux Data's watched time.

More commonly, the client will build up a buffer of downloaded video content. The user will watch some of it and then leave before watching the full length of the video. In this scenario Mux Video's minutes delivered would be higher than Mux Data's watched time because the client downloaded more minutes of video than it watched.

Another factor to keep in mind is that because Mux Data runs as a client-side SDK, it is susceptible to being blocked by ad-blockers.

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