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Player with the REST API

Drive the Videas playback flow from any language over plain HTTP — mint a token server-side, resolve signed URLs, and play them in the browser.

Updated 28 Aug 2026playerplaybackrestapipython

No SDK required: the playback flow is two plain HTTP calls. This guide uses curl and a Python server example, but the shape is the same in any language. Read How playback works first for the security model — the summary is step 1 needs your secret key (server only); step 2 uses the token and is browser-safe.

Step 1 — mint a player token (server, needs the API key)

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $VIDEAS_API_KEY" \
  https://api.videas.com/api/external/v1/videos/vid_123/player/

The response includes the player metadata and, crucially, a playback_token (valid 4h):

{
  "uid": "…",
  "playback_token": "eyJhbGciOi…",
  "player_config": { "auto_play": false, "theme": "dark" },
  "items": [{ "asset": { "uid": "vid_123", "thumbnail_url": "https://api.videas.com/assets/vid_123/thumbnail-ab12cd34.jpg" } }]
}

URL fields like thumbnail_url come back as absolute URLs — ready to use, no host to prefix.

Step 2 — resolve signed stream URLs (token only, no API key)

curl -X POST https://api.videas.com/api/external/v1/playback/info/ \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"asset_id":"vid_123","playback_token":"eyJhbGciOi…"}'
{
  "type": "video",
  "blocked": false,
  "hls_url": { "url": "https://…/stream.m3u8?token=…", "expires_at": "2026-07-15T12:00:00Z" },
  "source_url": { "url": "https://…/video.mp4?token=…", "expires_at": "…" },
  "preview_sprites_url": { "url": "https://…", "expires_at": "…" },
  "chapters": [{ "title": "Intro", "start_time": 0 }],
  "resume_position_seconds": null
}

Notice there’s no Authorization header on step 2 — it’s authenticated by the token, which is why you can safely run it from the browser.

Putting it together (Python server)

A common pattern: your backend mints the token, your page resolves + plays it. With the Python SDK the server side is one call:

import os
from videas_sdk import VideasClient

client = VideasClient(api_key=os.environ["VIDEAS_API_KEY"])

def player_context(uid: str) -> dict:
    player = client.videos.get_player(uid)
    # Pass ONLY browser-safe data to your template / JSON endpoint.
    return {
        "asset_id": uid,
        "playback_token": player["playback_token"],  # safe to expose; valid 4h
        "poster": player["items"][0]["asset"].get("thumbnail_url"),
    }

Prefer plain stdlib? The same two calls with urllib:

import json, urllib.request

def mint_token(uid, api_key):
    req = urllib.request.Request(
        f"https://api.videas.com/api/external/v1/videos/{uid}/player/",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"},
    )
    with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as r:
        return json.load(r)["playback_token"]

Then hand playback_token + asset_id to the browser and resolve there.

Playing it in the browser

Once the browser has asset_id and playback_token, the resolve-and-play code is identical to the SDK guide — the only difference is where the token came from. See Web player with the JavaScript SDK → Step 2 for the full hls.js + native-HLS snippet. In short:

const info = await (await fetch('https://api.videas.com/api/external/v1/playback/info/', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ asset_id, playback_token }),
})).json()
// if (!info.blocked) → feed info.hls_url.url into hls.js / a native <video>

Other asset types

playback/info/ is polymorphic — branch on type:

  • video → play hls_url (fallback source_url).
  • audio → play source; render subtitle_tracks and waveform_url.
  • image → pick a variants[] entry by size.
  • document → link/preview url and per-page thumbnails.
  • third_party → embed the provider iframe via embed_url (don’t use an HLS player).

Next steps