Short Video SDK is a comprehensive toolkit for video operations, including recording, trimming, editing, splicing, and uploading. The SDK supports Android and iOS platforms and comes with a fully customizable, open-source UI to help you quickly adapt to diverse business needs.
Benefits
Quick integration and cost-effectiveness
The product-level SDK can be integrated in as little as two hours. This saves you the time and resources required for in-house development and helps you quickly implement short video features in your app.
Easy-to-use APIs
Short Video SDK provides easy-to-use and open APIs. The Professional Edition includes a fully customizable, open-source UI.
Comprehensive features
The SDK supports resumable recording, real-time filters, face retouching (integrated with Alibaba Cloud's Queen SDK and FaceUnity's AR video effect SDK), and face sticker API. You can import local videos for compression and cropping, and apply advanced features such as themes, animated stickers, subtitles, and music.
Stable and reliable performance
The video technologies are stable, reliable, and commercially proven in over 1,000 applications.
AI-powered video creation
High-quality video templates are available to help you generate creative videos with minimal effort.
Highlights
A demo app is available for you to try out video recording and editing features provided by Short Video SDK.
Video recording
The SDK supports features such as duet recording, resumable recording, clip deletion, tap-to-shoot, press-and-hold-to-shoot, basic retouching, real-time filters, flashlight, real-time watermarks, camera switching, resolution setting, built-in face library for face stickers, multi-track mixing, and speed adjustment. The Professional Edition can be integrated with third-party face AR capabilities for advanced retouching features.
Video editing
The SDK supports basic video editing features such as cropping, adding music, and splicing. It also supports adding special effects, including filters (static and animated), transitions, captions (standard and bubble), stickers (static and animated), voice effects, and doodling (with adjustable brush size and color).
Animated stickers
In the editor, you can add animated stickers at any point in the timeline and adjust their duration.
Drafts
You can save videos as drafts and continue editing them from the draft list. The drafts also support cloud synchronization.
Features
The following table describes the features of the Short Video SDK and their availability in the Basic, Standard, and Professional editions.
✓ indicates that the feature is supported, and × indicates that it is not.
Feature | Description | Basic | Standard | Professional | Note | |
Interface | Default UI | The SDK provides a default UI. You can perform custom development for the layout, interaction, and interface. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Basic capabilities. |
Custom UI | The SDK provides UI interaction source code for customization. You can replace icons, change background colors, or redesign it completely. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Video recording | Resolution and aspect ratio | Supports HD, SD, and UHD recording in multiple aspect ratios, such as 16:9, 4:3, and 1:1. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Some capabilities are basic. Others are provided free of charge in the Professional Edition. |
Definition | Supports configurations of frame rate, quality profile, Group of Pictures (GOP), and bitrate. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Multi-segment recording | Supports resumable recording and continuous recording. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Custom duration | Customizes the maximum and minimum recording duration. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Speed adjustment | Supports slow-motion and fast-motion recording. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Shooting control | Controls recording settings, such as aspect ratio, camera, flashlight, exposure, focal length, and focus. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Screeshot | Captures the current frame and saves it as an image during recording. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Background music | Adds music to the recording screen. Music resources are provided by third parties and are charged separately. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Real-time watermark | Adds watermarks during recording. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Real-time filter | Switches filters during recording preview. Custom filters are supported. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Real-time effect | Adds effects such as jitter and split-screen during recording preview. Custom effects are supported. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Face sticker | Utilizes a built-in face recognition feature to add stickers and other decorative items to faces. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Face recognition API | Supports integration with third-party face recognition services to add face stickers. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Custom rendering | Captured data can be custom rendered through callbacks. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Basic retouching | Applies real-time retouching during recording and smoothly adjusts the intensity. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Advanced retouching | Supports integration with third-party retouching services to provide effects such as skin smoothing, rosy cheeks, skin bleaching, eye enlarging, and face slimming. Alibaba Cloud's Queen SDK and FaceUnity's AR video effect SDK are supported and are charged separately. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Duet recording | Records a duet with an existing video to create a split-screen effect. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Multi-track mixing | Mixes multiple audio tracks in real time. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Echo cancellation | Cancels echo from the recording source. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Noise reduction | Removes noise from audio during recording. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
View recording | Records a specified View (screen) to generate a video. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Multi-source recording | Combines the camera view, screen-recording view, and local videos in real time to generate a single video. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Cropping and trimming | Image cropping | Resizes images to fill the screen or crops away parts. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Basic capabilities. |
Video cropping and trimming | Resizes videos to fill the screen or crops away parts and trims videos to the desired length. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Original ratio trimming | Trims videos while maintaining their original aspect ratio for faster processing. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Video transcoding | Sets the codec, bitrate, GOP, and frame rate to generate videos with different compression ratios. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Basic video editing | Video import | Imports local videos for editing. For more information, see Video editing on Android and Video editing on iOS. | × | ✓ | ✓ | Provided free of charge in the Professional Edition. |
Frame preview | Displays the frame at the playhead's position in the preview window as you move along the timeline. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Video snapshot | Renders the current frame on the timeline and saves it as an image. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Multi-clip splicing | Combines multiple videos and images sequentially into a single video file. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Multi-source mixing | Arranges multiple videos in a single frame based on the specified positions and sizes, and mixes them into a single video. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Picture-in-Picture (PiP) | Overlays a video on the main track to create a picture-in-picture effect. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Background music | Adds music to a video. The music is not affected by time effects. Music resources are provided by third parties and are charged separately. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Local dubbing | Adds local audio to a video. Time effects such as fast-motion and slow-motion are supported. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Special effects | Time effects | Supports fast-forward, slow-motion, reverse, and repeat. | × | ✓ | ✓ | Provided free of charge in the Professional Edition. |
Adjustment | Adjusts the brightness, white balance, sharpness, vignette, and contrast. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Static filter | Adds LUT filters or shader-based filters and switches between them in real time. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Animated filter | Adds animated filters such as soul-out and motion trail. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Transition | Adds transition effects such as move, fade in/out, and blinds between videos and images. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Keyframe animation | Animates videos and overlays (such as stickers and subtitles) with position, scale, and other transformations. Custom animations are supported. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Static sticker | Adds static images at any point in the timeline and adjusts their duration. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Doodle | Adds drawings with adjustable brush style, size, and color. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Outro watermark | Adds a watermark at the end of the video with a customizable duration. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Custom rendering | Rendered decoded frame data through callbacks. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Noise reduction | Applies noise reduction to the audio. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Audio fade in/out | Applies fade-in and fade-out effects to the audio. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Mute | Removes the original audio and music from the video. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Voice effects | Transforms the original audio with a variety of fun voice effects, such as high-pitched or deep voice. | × | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Animated sticker | Animated sticker | Adds an image sequence (animated sticker) at any point in the timeline and adjusts its duration. | × | × | ✓ | Corresponds to Animated Stickers on the ApsaraVideo MediaBox buy page. |
Theme template | MV | Adds and switches MV effects. | × | × | ✓ | Corresponds to MV on the ApsaraVideo MediaBox buy page. |
Subtitles | Standard | Adds multiple text boxes with specified position, size, angle, color, and font at specified start and end times. | × | × | ✓ | Corresponds to Subtitles on the ApsaraVideo MediaBox buy page. |
Bubble | Adds a background image to the text. Animated backgrounds and text borders are supported. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Word art | Adds multi-colored text styles with artistic effects. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Flipping subtitles | Controls text entry and exit times and animation effects based on templates. | × | × | ✓ | ||
Drafts | Draft | Saves a video as a draft after recording or editing to resume editing later. | × | ✓ | ✓ | Provided free of charge in the Professional Edition. |
Other | Album selection | Filter videos from the album, including by duration. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Provided free of charge in the Professional Edition. |
Thumbnail | Extracts frames at specified time points to generate thumbnails. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Video information | Extracts common video information, including resolution, frame rate, and codec. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
Upload to ApsaraVideo VOD | ApsaraVideo VOD supports features such as media asset management, cloud transcoding, and content moderation. | ✓ Note Supports integrating the Upload SDK to upload videos to ApsaraVideo VOD. | ✓ Note Supports integrating the Upload SDK to upload videos to ApsaraVideo VOD. | ✓ Note Supports integrating the Upload SDK to upload videos to ApsaraVideo VOD. For editing and composition scenarios, the core upload class is encapsulated. | ||
Technical support | Provides technical supports for Short Video SDK. | Dedicated DingTalk group | ||||
License management
You must obtain a license before using Short Video SDK. For more information, see Obtain an SDK license.
Supported formats
The following table describes the media formats supported by Short Video SDK.
Type | Format |
Video | MP4, MOV, and FLV |
Audio | MP3, AAC, and PCM |
Image | JPG, PNG, and GIF |
Resource description
Short Video SDK requires resources, such as face recognition models, filters, and animated filters. You have two options for managing these resources:
Server: You can host these resources on your server and download them when your app starts. This approach is recommended, because it reduces your app's initial download size.
APK: You can also package these resources into the APK. However, the SDK cannot load resources directly from the APK's assets directory. Therefore, you must copy the files to the SD card before initializing the SDK.
All resource files and detailed usage instructions are available in the SDK package.
Fill modes
When the aspect ratio of a source image or video differs from that of the output, you need to select a fill mode.
Short Video SDK supports two fill modes:
Mode | Description |
Crop | Maintains the aspect ratio and crops the material to display only the central area. |
Scale | Maintains the aspect ratio and scales the image to fit completely, adding color bars to the top and bottom or left and right. |
Encoding methods
Short Video SDK supports two encoding methods:
Method | Description |
Software encoding | Uses the CPU for encoding. It offers more configurable parameters and produces clearer videos at the same bitrate, but it is slower, consumes more CPU resources, and can cause the device to heat up. |
Hardware encoding | Uses dedicated hardware (non-CPU) for encoding. It is faster and has lower CPU load, but the video quality is slightly lower than software encoding. It may have compatibility issues on some Android devices. |
References
You can familiarize yourself with the terms of ApsaraVideo VOD.
To learn how to integrate Short Video SDK into your project, see the following topics: