We are always trying to come up with new ways to help you protect your video content from various ways of exploitation. Some of the most frequent among them are the attempts at accessing the content without having paid for it or trying to download the content. Signed URLs are an effective approach to securing your content and countering such actions.

That is why we are thrilled to announce the new Stream Loader feature! It gives the FV Player Pro users the option to protect their HLS streams with URL tokens. It works with any CDN supported by FV Player Pro (CloudFront, Bunny CDN, KeyCDN, Cloudflare, StackPath) and AWS S3 or DigitalOcean Spaces.

These tokens are digitally signed, ensuring that the attributes of the token will not be tampered with. The tokens are valid only for a certain time and they are tied to the user ID. Therefore, requests beyond the expiration time will return an HTTP error code. So will request with an altered or missing token.

The basic building block of HLS stream is the m3u8 file. However, these files are static, thus they cannot use video segment URLs with time-sensitive tokens. Stream Loader inserts proper URL tokens on the fly, which allows it to get past these limitations. 

This way, the video will be protected from people trying to obtain the URL to the HLS stream itself (for example, to send it to people not signed in as members) or trying to download it.

If you are also encrypting your videos, this is an additional layer of protection.

How to enable Stream Loader

First, you need to enable URL tokens on your CDN and configure it in the Hosting tab.  

If you are using our free Coconut add-on to encode and encrypt your videos, you can skip the CDN setups and just enable the feature in your FV Player Pro, as Coconut does this automatically.

Since many of our users distribute their videos via CloudFront, we have prepared the steps for this CDN: 

1. You will need to restrict viewer access. In order to be able to do that, you first need to obtain and insert your Private Key. On how to do that, please follow this guide.
2. Then, go to CloudFront Distributions page in your AWS console. 
3. Check the box of your distribution.
4. Go to the Behaviours tab, select the default behaviour, and click Edit.

5. Look for Restrict Viewer Access (Use Signed URLs or Signed Cookies) option and pick "Yes".  Enabling this opens up two new options. In Trusted Key Groups or Trusted Signer pick "Trusted Signer". In the next option, pick "Self" as the Trusted Signer. 

Editing distribution behavior

6. Save by clicking "Yes,Edit" in the bottom right corner of the page.

7. Go back to the General tab of your CloudFront distribution and copy the domain name. 

8. Now go to Settings -> FV Player Pro -> Hosting tab -> CloudFront (Pro) and enter the domain name of your distribution into the CloudFront domain field. 

Note: If you already have other domains in this field, just separate them with a comma. 

Then you need to enable the feature in the settings of FV Player Pro.

Go to Settings -> FV Player Pro -> Setup tab -> Stream Loader and click Enable.

If you have a large amount of viewers and the performance of your website could be negatively affected by this feature, you can also select the Speed-up option, which activates faster serving by bypassing WordPress. 

DEMO

[This post contains video, click to play]

Try it out yourself. Try obtaining the HLS URL from the source code of this page or try to download the video.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, don't hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

How to Protect your HLS Streams with URL Tokens

Post from: Foliovision

The unique functioning of the Interactive Video Transcript feature is one of the main sources of praise for FV Player. Yet, we are always trying to make even the best features better than before.

That is why we’re happy to announce that the Interactive Video Transcript feature is now supported in playlists too. We have also added a “Preserve original formatting” setting which prevents automated formatting of the transcript text.

To get these features, you have to use FV Player Pro 7.4.38.727. beta version, or higher.

Interactive Transcript in Playlist

You can try out how the Interactive Video Transcript feature works with playlists here:

[This post contains video, click to play]

Preserving Original Formatting

In order to prevent automated formatting of transcript text, go to the subtitles tab in the shortcode editor of individual videos in the playlist and tick the "Perserve original formatting" box under the Transcript field.

This setting comes in especially handy for videos with many dialogues. In the playlist below, there is the same video twice. The video is one of Vimeo staff picks and the subtitles are automatically parsed from Vimeo.

However, in the first video, the setting is not enabled, therefore, the transcript text shows up in large chunks. On the second one, the setting is enabled and the transcript distinguishes the dialogue clearly:

[This post contains video, click to play]

Stay tuned for more!

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better every single day by bringing more and more upgrades and updates into it. You can actually help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

So, if you have any tips or questions, don't hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Interactive Video Transcripts Now also Supported in Playlists

Post from: Foliovision

Until now, the DRM text feature in FV Player Pro worked solely as a flashing, randomly timed and barely visible text which constantly changed its position on the screen. This was a conscious choice on our part, as we believe in greater security of such method. However, many of you would prefer the ability to make the DRM text visible at all times.

DRM text on a video

We always listen to our customers, and that is why we would like to announce the new DRM text preset which lets you make the text visible at all times.

You can learn more about the DRM text feature in this guide. 

The Original Flash DRM Text Preset

Previously, the only way to display DRM Text in FV Player Pro was a randomly timed and quickly flashing box, which changed positions frequently. This made the text barely noticeable by naked eye. Apart from sparing the viewers the inconvenience of having a text permanently obscuring their view, the main idea behind this method is that this way, it is nearly impossible to get rid of the text. Only a really skilled pirate would be able to get rid of it, but might still be deterred by the amount of work it would require. However, the issue with this method is that it is focused mainly on catching the unattentive thief after the video has been stolen.

Example

[This post contains video, click to play]

The New Watermark DRM Text Preset

Many of our viewers wish to use the DRM text to deter the viewers from even thinking about stealing their content in the first place. For this purpose, it is better to have a clearly visible DRM text, serving as a permanent watermark. In the new preset, you have the possibility to make DRM text always show. However, this method will only deter normal users. Therefore, it is suitable mainly for people providing online lessons. However, any semi-skilled pirate would have no problem blurring the DRM text out, to enjoy and distribute an unprotected screen captured video.

The watermark DRM text preset is always visible and changes its position based on the amount of seconds you chose in the interval setting. The DRM text is partially transparent and it is light gray color, however, it can still be a bit obstructive, as you can see in the example below.

Example 

DRM text on a video

How to Switch Presets

 In order to switch the DRM text preset, go to Settings -> FV Player Pro -> DRM Text -> Preset

DRM Text settings

The interval setting controls different things for the two presets. For the Flash preset, the interval controls how often the text flashes. For the Watermark preset, it controls how often the text changes its position. 

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, don't hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

DRM Text Can Now Be Set to Be Visible at All Times

Post from: Foliovision

The AB Loop feature is one of the key features of FV Player Pro, beloved mainly by users providing educational content. We are thrilled to be a part of making education easier, especially in these trying times which have pushed even the traditional education to look for refuge online.

That is why we would like to announce a couple of small fixes and additions to the AB Loop feature, aimed at making the process of education via our video player even smoother and more enjoyable than before.

We have also added some smaller fixes for the custom start/end time feature.

The AB Loop Improvements

New default loop length

Previously, when AB Loop had been turned on, the loop duration would, by default, span for the entire video duration. The new improvement makes it, so that the default loop is created only from the current position to +10%.

New shortcut

After you are done watching the segment, you can now turn the AB Loop off by simply pressing the x key, instead of having to click the button on the control bar.

Visual Improvements

The timeline of the feature looks sleeker now. We have removed the gray line which served as visual of the timeline to drag the Loop arrows on. Also, the small space between the two timelines has been removed. 

Old AB Loop timeline

New AB Loop timeline

You can try these improvements here:

[This post contains video, click to play]

Custom start/end time improvements

Left/right keyboard shortcut fix

We have fixed the issues with the functioning of left/right keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts allow you to forward or rewind the video a couple of seconds, and they work flawlessly now.

Timeline tooltip

The tooltip showing the time position on hover now works with the shortened timeline of Custom Start/End Time feature as well.

You can try these improvements here:

This video starts as 1:00 and ends at 1:30, making it 30 seconds long.

[This post contains video, click to play]

Note: To get these new features, you have to switch FV Player Pro to Beta and then update to the version 7.4.38.727.beta or higher. You can also grab a fresh ZIP from your licences page and switch to Beta afterwards.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, don't hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

New AB Loop and Custom Start/End Time Improvements

Post from: Foliovision

DRM Text works as an overlay box over the video, protecting your videos from screen-recording. There is a possibility to bypass it by playing the video as a picture in picture. We have fixed this in nearly all browsers, however, it cannot be simply disabled in Firefox, as this browser does not adhere to the W3C specifications.

We have now found a way to disable the picture in picture option for videos with DRM Text in Firefox browser as well. 

The Picture in Picture feature is a floating video box able to play on top of other windows, allowing you to interact with different windows while continuing to watch a video in the corner of your screen. This is a browser feature, not an FV Player one, and is different from the FV Player Sticky Video feature where the video only follows you while scrolling on the original page. 

You can trigger the Picture in Picture mode by this button: 

Firefox Picture in Picture button

However, once you would trigger it, the video that pops up would not have the DRM text on it, thus could be easily enlarged and screen captured:

Picture in Picture video with no DRM text

So it was easy to get rid of the DRM text using this technique, but fortunately we fixed that.

Note: Don't worry, disabled Picture in Picture mode only applies to videos with DRM text. You can still enjoy this feature in Firefox for all the other FV Player videos.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Disable Firefox Picture in Picture to Prevent Screen Capturing

Post from: Foliovision

Privacy-enhanced mode is a way to embed YouTube videos without collecting any cookies. Thanks to this, your viewing behavior on videos with privacy-enhanced mode enabled, will not be tracked. 

We have decided to make this mode the default for YouTube videos embedded in FV Player Pro.

This mode was created with GDPR regulations in mind. Therefore, we believe that this will be a very welcome change for our users from the European Union. 

What does this mode mean for the viewer? The video recommendations they get after finishing a video, will not be based on their previous browsing behavior, but only on videos similar to the one being watched. Also, the videos viewed in this mode will not have an influence on recommendations shown while browsing YouTube. 

Keep in mind that statements in this article are based on how the feature is described by official Google documentation which is a bit misleading on the no-tracking part:

The way it works is that the URL gets changed. 

The URL changes from: 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxxxxxxx

to

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xxxxxxxx

The URL does not need to be changed by the user. It changes automatically when you embed a basic YouTube video link with FV Player.

If you want to insert the YouTube link in the "nocookie" form anyway, you can do that too.

Try it out

[This post contains video, click to play]

If you open your browser console, you can see, that the source of this video is 

src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/QRS8MkLhQmM?autoplay=....

instead of the regular https://youtube.com link.

You can also check by going to Applications -> Cookies -> https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/

Checking for cookies in browser console

While there are some cookies collected by https://www.foliovision.com, the list is empty for youtube-nocookie.com. If you used Google services before, you will notice .google.com cookies in the list.

Lastly, when the video is paused, the recommended videos that pop-up should be related to this specific YouTube video and not to your regular viewing habits. 

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

YouTube privacy-enhanced mode is the new default for FV Player

Post from: Foliovision

If you plan on changing your hosting or CDN provider, migrating a large video library could prove to be a genuinely time-consuming process. Having to change hundreds of URLs manually does not sound fun and neither does having to get a 3rd party database tool. With FV Player Migration Wizard, it takes just a couple of clicks in FV Player settings.

FV Player Migration Wizard helps you change the paths to your videos as a batch operation.   

To find the FV Player Migration Wizard, go to Settings -> FV Player -> Tools and click Migration Wizard. 

Migrating a part, or all of your video library on a live page is an invasive and stressful change. This Wizard is designed to keep an eye on you at all times and help ease down the stress.

You get to revise several times during the process and to top it all off, you need to confirm your selection once again. Should anything go wrong, you can always revert the changes by going through the process again. 

The Wizard is simple and operating it is highly intuitive. You get thoroughly informed on the process you are about to undergo before the start. In case of any confusion, you still have our guide to refer to. 

Please keep in mind, that this Wizard only changes the URLs in your FV Player Database, but does not move any actual files. 

The key to a successful migration is changing the URLs correctly. For this purpose, when uploading videos to the new CDN, it is necessary to maintain the naming scheme. 

So, if you were to migrate the video link from a bucket previously hosted on DigitalOcean Spaces with the URL:

https://your-space.your-region.digitaloceanspaces.com/2021/04/your-video.mp4

To BunnyCDN, the new bucket and its URL must be:

https://your-zone-name.b-cdn.net/2021/04/your-video.mp4

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Easier Way to Migrate Your FV Player Video Library

Post from: Foliovision

You might be looking to tweak the design of your FV Player to fit your site a bit better. We offer an extensive list of possible CSS tweaks to do that. However, until now you had to enter them into the general additional CSS field in WordPress, while also having to remember a handful of additional rules.

We have decided to make this process much simpler for you! All you have to do now, is to enter the additional CSS into the new field right in the FV Player settings. 

To access this field, go to Settings -> FV Player -> Skin. At the bottom of this page, you will find the custom CSS field:

A common problem was with forgetting to add the !important rule, to make the custom CSS prioritized. By entering your custom CSS into this new field, you no longer need to do that in most cases. Nonetheless, this rule might still be needed sometimes, but that can be avoided by using selector classes.

The new field is designed to help you customize your FV Player as easy as possible, while making sure the added CSS work as desired.

There are no limits to what you can customize with CSS, but you can start by taking a look at this list of CSS tips and fixes. Once the rule is in, don't forget to click Save All Changes.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Add Custom CSS to FV Player much easier

Post from: Foliovision

Due to core device restrictions, it was impossible to autoplay VAST ads on mobile phones. Thankfully, this is no longer the case with the newest mobile operating systems. We like to keep up to date and bring you improvements as soon as possible. 

We are happy to announce that from now on, FV Player VAST plugin supports VAST autoplay on mobile!

Thanks to this, your ads can now reach a wider audience. Nonetheless, due to the rules set by most browsers, these ads will autoplay muted.

To enable this, you do not need to do anything special. Just make sure, if you do have Settings -> FV Player VAST -> Mobile support enabled.

In order for ads to autoplay, you have to use FV Player VAST version 7.4.42.727 or higher.

 The autoplay work on devices with iOS 14 and in Chrome version 83 or higher. 

Try it out

  You can open this post on your phone, to see the ad start playing here: 

[This post contains video, click to play]

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

VAST Autoplay Now Available on Mobile

Post from: Foliovision

Matomo is a free open-source analytics tool. Thanks to its privacy policy and data protection, Matomo gained its popularity as a great alternative to Google Analytics. What sets Matomo apart, are their claims to give you full ownership of the data, making sure you are GDRP compliant.

With our GDRP and privacy conscious users in mind, we now support Matomo, the alternative to Google Analytics!

Analyzing, how your content is doing is the key part of making your website better. FV Player reliably tracks everything you will need to know about your videos.

Video start tells you what videos get played the most. Video complete tells you which videos do get watched till the end most. For everything in-between, there are the seconds played and quartile metrics, showing you how much of the video has been played. You also get to track video errors, which helps you search for faulty videos on your site and resolve the issues. 

Of course, Matomo itself includes many other analytics features to enhance and help you understand your video data better.

Note: To learn more about how FV Player works with Matomo, visit our guide.

With Matomo, you can find the FV Player metrics in Dashboard -> Behaviour -> Events. 

How to integrate your Matomo account to FV Player

1. You will need to obtain your Matomo URL and Site ID. 

If you already do have Matomo tracking, you can see the IDs of your sites by going to Settings -> Websites -> Manage in your Matomo dashboard.


Managing sites in Matomo

2. Go to your WordPress Admin panel and navigate to Settings -> FV Player -> Setup tab -> Sitewide Flowplayer Defaults. Paste the information into the Matomo/Piwik Tracking fields, then click Save All Changes.

Adding Matomo tracking to FV Player

That's it. From now on, assuming that you have the Matomo tracking code on your website, all of your FV Player videos will be tracked.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

FV Player Videos Can Now Be Tracked with Matomo Analytics

Post from: Foliovision

The DRM text is one of our key features and a reason why many of our users chose to become a part of Foliovision. We got various suggestions to make it even better and since we value the needs of our customers, we have decided to add new options to this feature.

From now on, you are in control of the displayed information and opacity of the DRM text! 

Setting the text opacity

Control how visible the text is with a slider. If your videos are darker, you might want to make the text barely visible. For brighter videos, higher opacity is better to ensure that the text is visible enough.

Note: The minimal opacity is 20% and the maximum is 100% 

Setting the text items

You can now choose what information will be shown in the DRM text. Maybe you'd like to know which one of your sites was the video stolen from by enabling the Show Site option, or you might want to disable it, if you don't need it. You can manage the following options:

Don't forget to click Save All Changes and you're all set. 

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

New DRM Text Options

Post from: Foliovision

A comparison list of features and integrations of FV Player vs. Presto Player.

Features

Integrations

FV Player vs. Presto Player – Feature Comparison List

Post from: Foliovision

As we are working hard on improving the FV Player Gutenberg interface, we've set up some new test sites with the latest WordPress 5.7.2. Most of our VIP sites are on an older version of WordPress as the new features have been of very little value and Gutenberg is just a nuisance for serious publishers, as it interferes with fluid workflow. To keep track of which version of WordPress you have installed and which recommended updates are available, use our own BusinessPress.

I installed FV Player and was offered the opportunity to update my Vimeo codes. A fairly useless exercise as it's still the Vimeo player in an iFrame. Since there is an FV Player license on the main domain, I was able to immediately apply license to the subdomain. But after applying the license, I'm then given the option of adding the FV Player Pro extension. Clearly it would make more sense to install the FV Player Pro extension automatically after applying the license.

We'll fix that. It will eliminate an extra step for our users and some confusion.

Even after installing the Pro extension and saving post by hand, I still face the Vimeo player.

Aha, it turns out that when I go over to visit the Hosting tab of FV Player preferences that I must first check "Advanced Vimeo Embedding" and add a Vimeo API key (I knew that but our software wasn't warning me).

There should be an automatic review of videos within the site to offer upgrading them to FV Player, including a wizard to add both/either of Vimeo and YouTube API keys. We'll make that happens as well.

Even after adding the API key, I'm still facing the Vimeo default player in an iframe. Now I'm getting annoyed. It turns out that I have to click a checkbox and press convert. The convert button can be pressed without the checkbox checked which makes no sense (there's no conversion without API enabled so the button shouldn't be there).

On the upside, there are two ways to get the FV Player settings, from a submenu in the FV Player top level admin menu and from the Settings menu.

After finally adding the video properly, trying to view in higher resolution did not work, when replaying the video. If I start with higher resolution selected, I seem to get the higher resolution. The dynamic quality switcher, at least for Vimeo needs some work.

Now that my video is running with subtitles, I don't like the Arial white on black default. I'd like to see white Courier on translucent grey titles. Much more elegant and should be the default.

In the Skin tab of FV Player preferences there is a very useful Subtitle section which allows me to choose either Courier New, Helvetica or Tahoma/Geneva (depending on OS). I can also change the background colour of the subtitles. So far so good. There's even a preview, albeit just on plain black (we should add a default video image here).

I set up my subtitles with Courier New and the grey background I'd like and preview the titles.

Oh no, there is no transparent subtitle background possible at all. The default should be dark grey and partially transparent. We shouldn't need a separate transparency picker as the main picker allows colours which are by their nature transparent. I didn't notice the Transparency Slider, which is shown very clearly below.

As I had not noticed the transparency slider, I tried to add transparency via the Custom CSS Box above. It was not easy to determine out what selector to use. We should make a list of selectors and publish them. Searching DuckDuckGo for FV Player selectors, I see we have a page on CSS Tips and Fixes. Great!

Alas, the information in that page is inadequate as I ended up with this result:

The whole line now has the transparent background. That's using this code:

.flowplayer .fp-player .fp-captions {background-color: rgba(0,0,255,0.5);}

Browser Developer Tools, don't make it easy to investigate the CSS for FV Player, as the right click for "Inspect" does not work. Checking page source code, if there is not advanced caching with minification enabled one can open the original FV Player CSS file to investigate further: https://yourdomainn.com/wp-content/plugins/fv-wordpress-flowplayer/css/admin.css?ver=7.4.47.727

Except that in the CSS file "captions" doesn't appear once and "subtitle" only once for line-height. There doesn't seem to be a clear way to fix background transparency.

But a link to the main CSS file, without minification, should be on the documentation page as well. Let's fix that.

Happily I just noticed that the preview for subtitles in the Skin settings works live and it should be easier to figure out the classes here than in a full player instance.

Using Developer Tools Inspect, I figured out that the background is on the p tag. I tried this.

.fp-captions p {background-color: rgba(0,0,255,0.5)}

To my surprise it didn't work. It did, though, with the !important tag added.

.fp-captions p {background-color: rgba(0,0,255,0.5) !important;}

We have to find a way to make FV Player customisation work without !important

After doing a search on "subtitle transparency", there's no way to edit the search, except in the address bar. Which, happily, on Foliovision.com does work. [Searching our forums for "subtitle opacity" doesn't cough up much useful information. Worse, the "Post New Topic" wizard (excellent way to make sure users at least see existing documentation/discussion) for some reason shows up below the full menu of forums and subforums. The new post wizard should take over the full content of the page.

Suggested topics should open in their own tab, which they do, allowing the visitor to explore forum threads without losing their partially prepared ticket. Congratulations to us for getting this part right.

On the other hand, the checkbox "Notify me of follow-up replies via email" seems unnecessary. If someone posts on the forum, s/he wants follow up so there's no reason to ask that question. Or the checkbox should be checked by default.

Ideal Transparent Subtitle Background, Two Hours Later

The ideal partial transparent subtitle background is a little more transparent but with a darker base colour. Here's what I used in the end:

.fp-captions p {background-color: rgba(60,60,60,0.4) !important;}

Of course the built-in subtitle RGB editor does allow transparency. It would help if transparency was a bit more clearly marked here. It seems to me an RGB picker like this one would be more intuitive:

Alternative Colour Picker

Here's what the final video looks like:

FV Player Transparent Subtitles with Courier: Elegant yet Easily Readable

Full video with transparent subtitles:

[This post contains video, click to play]

There's a very important lesson to be learned here. Many good insights can come from installing your own software from scratch on a new website or new computer and setting it up from zero. Working from one's own public documentation, rather than internal documents or having a colleague show you is also an excellent way to understand and improve the process. Not just the actual information, but the process itself.

Setting Background Opacity for partially transparent FV Player Subtitles | New User Experience

Post from: Foliovision

We are thrilled to bring you the new major release of FV Player. You can look forward to a brand new analytics feature, easier video posting, but also speeding up your website loading, and more.

Editor Autosave And PReview Improvements

From now on, you get to see changes you make in the shortcode editor in real-time. There is no longer the need to manually click "refresh preview" to see the changes, the preview refreshes automatically and a small pop-up informs you about the changes being saved. 

Editor autosave

If something were to disrupt the editing, you will no longer lose the progress. Any new player you start to edit now gets saved as a draft until you click save. You will be able to find these drafts in your FV Player database.

Draft of a video player

FV Player VIdeo Play Stats

You probably use some sort of Analytics service to analyze your website data. Besides integrating with Google and Matomo Analytics, you can now separate your video data from the rest and access detailed video statistics right in the FV Player plugin . We have included the very first version of this sought-after feature.

Being the first version, the feature is very simple as of right now, but we plan on adding various data and view options soon. You will see two graphs. The first shows the overall top 10 videos played past week, by the name of the player. The second one shows the top 10 videos by posts containing them.

For example, you might get 50 views on a video embedded in two posts, resulting in 50 views in the first graph. These 50 views will be divided between the two posts in the second graph. You can toggle individual items on and off by clicking on them. 

Javascript loading OPTIMIZATION

We would really hate for your website to slow down because of our player. That is why we have paid close attention to the way FV Player loads and made sure it does so in the most optimal way possible.

You can see what this does by analyzing your website with Google PageSpeed Insights. You will get a better overall score by several points. 

Before optimization

After optimization

Why the difference? The size of unused JavaScript loaded by FV Player is much smaller now. The scripts now also get loaded only after the visitor interacts with the website. 

In order to enable this, go to Settings -> FV Player -> Integrations/Compatibility and enable Optimize FV Flowplayer JS loading.

If you have only started using FV Player since version 7.5 or later, this will be enabled automatically.

Multiple Video Playback Improvements

Previously when you played the first and then the second video in a post, the first one would stop playback and reset. Now it gets paused with its position remembered instead.

You can also choose for multiple players to play at once by enabling Settings -> FV Player -> Sitewide FV Player Defaults -> Multiple video playback. This will allow them to play simultaneously while only the player you interacted with last will be audible.

 PLAYLIST PROGRESS MARKERS

When watching videos from a playlist, you now get to see visual markers that inform you about the progress you made in that video. This comes in handy when unsure where you left off watching video courses or series. This feature only works for the users that are logged in. 

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

New Features in FV Player 7.5

Post from: Foliovision

We would really hate for your website to slow down because of our player. That is why we have paid close attention to the way FV Player loads and made sure it does so in the most optimal way possible.

We have improved the JavaScript loading of FV Player.

How to enable optimized loading

Go to Settings -> FV Player -> Integrations/Compatibility and enable Optimize FV Flowplayer JS loading.

Note: If you started using FV Player since version 7.5 or higher, then this setting is enabled by default.

The Difference

You can see the difference in Google PageSpeed Insights. This improvement will make your score better by several points.

Before optimization of FV Player JS loading:

Before optimization

After optimization of FV Player JS loading:

After optimization

What Made The Difference

You can see the real difference in the Reduce unused JavaScript tab in the Opportunities section. Size of the scripts loaded by FV Player is much smaller now. The scripts also load only after the visitor interacts with the website.

Size of scripts before optimization:

Before optimization

Size of scripts after optimization:

After optimization

We still keep the base Flowplayer library in place to make it easy to use the Flowplayer API - all the JavaScript function calls to flowplayer() will keep working that way. We might revise that later. Next we would like to work on loading required parts of the CSS only.

You can learn more about FV Player JavaScript optimization in our guide.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

FV Player Loading Optimized to Make Your Website Faster

Post from: Foliovision

You probably use some sort of analytics service to analyze the data about your website visits. Until now, you could integrate FV Player video statistics with Google Universal Analytics, or more recently, with Matomo Analytics. Now you can separate the data and watch your video stats right in the FV Player plugin.

FV Player now allows you to see your video statistics right in the plugin!

This is only the very first version of this feature. More statistical tools and comprehensive data views are coming in the future.

HOW TO ENABLE STATISTICS

Go to Settings -> FV Player -> Sitewide FV Player Defaults -> Video Stats

Once enabled, go to FV Player -> Stats in your WordPress menu.

how to use FV Player Stats

This being the first version, the feature is very simple as of right now. You will see two graphs. The horizontal axis is the date and the vertical axis is the number of views. The first graph shows the overall top 10 videos played past week, by the name of the player. The second one shows the top 10 videos by posts containing them.

The default view of FV Player Stats

For example, you might get 50 views on a video embedded in two posts, resulting in 50 views in the first graph. These 50 views will then be divided between the two posts in the second graph.

Each item has an assigned color. You can gain better view by toggling the individual items on and off by clicking on them. To see the exact number of views in a given day, hover your mouse over the dot signifying that date. 

Stats with some items disabled

That's it for now. Simple, yet powerful. We wanted to give you the ability to see video stats in our plugin as soon as possible, but there are great improvements in store for this feature.

You can learn more about FV Player Stats in our guide.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

FV Player Now Offers Statistics Right In WordPress

Post from: Foliovision

We are always trying to make our products better no matter the size of improvements. Sometimes we bring great new features and changes, other times, it’s the tiny fixes that could still have an impact just as powerful. 

We have worked on a number of small bug fixes and improvements to make your experience with FV Player more pleasant, but most of all, more reliable!

fixes

Some users had issues with using the Video Screenshot feature in the shortcode editor. This was caused by Cross-origin requirements for MP4 and is now fixed.

We have fixed deprecated jQuery calls to stay up to date with the newest versions of WordPress. However, we remain committed to still supporting the 4.9. version of WordPress too.

Subtitles in sticky player had issues with responsive sizing. Now they’re sized just right.

We fixed an issue that would occur when a video failed to play in a playlist and subsequently the playlist would fail to auto-advance to the next video.

When YouTube no logo option was used alongside fixed controlbar, the controlbar would malfunction. This fix is available only in beta.

IMPROVEMENTS

Video ad skip button styling had minor visual shortcomings. We have made the styling much more resilient.

New, more resilient, skip ad button

If you added milliseconds to your Chapters VTT file in the name of accuracy, the chapter list would display the milliseconds too. That proved to be unnecessary and bothersome visual clutter. Chapters no longer show milliseconds.

We have upgraded HLS.js library to the latest version (1.0.4.). This fixes autoplay issues with some streams, and ensures reliable playback on desktop and Android.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback.

If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

New Fixes and Improvements

Post from: Foliovision

Facebook promised captions for their videos. Apparently at one point the Facebook video caption feature worked pretty well. Facebook even offers a bunch of documentation online about adding subtitles/captions to videos posted on their platform.

Unfortunately, for personal users in Europe, the Facebook video subtitle/caption feature is not available, despite still being referenced in the interface.

Since my son often performs in German and many of friends and my family are in Canada, this means Lucia and I would like to be able to put subtitles on our videos for them. The safest bet is to hardcode the subtitles directly in the video. We can use English as our lingua franca for subtitles, as friends in France, Austria, Slovakia, Russia and elsewhere around the world can all read enough English to decipher the video. Most of them will have no issue with English subtitles. There’s no need for alternative versions in most cases.

I want our hardcoded subtitles to look elegant though. That’s not so easy. Soft-coded subtitles in FV Player look great:

It’s very easy to set up a partially transparent background, Courier New in a modest font size (what I like about Courier New is that it’s very easy to read at small sizes; Courier also has a slightly retro feel, recalling typewriters). What’s special is that there’s enough padding on the background and slightly rounded corners, making the subtitles look modern and somewhat techy.

What are the options for hard encoding subtitles?

• Editor: FCPX, DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas via additional plugins (see below)
• Video transcoder: Handbrake, Sorenson Squeeze, Apple Compressor, ffWorks/iFFmpeg
• Shareware Subtitle editor: Subtitle Edit Pro, Aegissub, Amara, Subtitle Works, Jubler, titlebee
• Commercial subtitle hardcoding software: MacCaption from Telestream

Dedicated subtitle burn-in hardware would have been on this list ten years ago but is basically obsolete thanks to the computing power of both CPU and graphic cards these days when re-encoding video.

Editing subtitles in your video editor

To import .srt files into FCPX requires working XML documents which in turn custom importing and a lot of manual management. Some FCPX subtitle editing software costs $299 and up.

I’m not a fan of attempting to subtitle video within one’s main video editor.

There’s many advantages to keeping subtitles discreet from one’s main editing system. For instance, subtitles are often not a single language affair but involve many languages. Adding all of that muck to a video editing project is sMoreover, since I edit in both FCPX (quick and dirty) and DaVinci Resolve (more complex projects), creating subtitles in the editor is double trouble. I haven’t looked into editing subtitles in DaVinci Resolve (native support is probably better) but the same basic caveats apply.

It’s discouraging that many of the most promising FCPX solutions like SubSimple carry notices like:

SubSimple is no longer updated / supported. Please refer to user guide and forum for known bugs.

There is a promising bit of freeware from Digital Heaven called DH_SubtitleX (great demo/tutorial video) but DH_SubtitleX comes with the warning:

Effects and generators do NOT currently work on Apple Silicon however transitions DO work as they are Motion projects without any custom code. We are exploring future compatibility for effects and generators but a total rewrite would be required so unfortunately this is a low priority at this time.

Andreas Kiel’s X-Title seems promising as well, to import a whole .srt file in a single go but there’s a big warning across the top of his site as well:

With the 10.4.7 update FCP may fail to update parameter settings for some Motion Titles when exporting (sharing) movies. One notices the error only after the export of the movie is done. This is especially annoying since you might not notice anything of this while working in FCP, even if you render everything.

Here’s a peek at what Kiel’s X-Title interface looks like. Workmanlike but serviceable:

The final results from FCPX look good but imperfect with inadequate padding around the transparent background.

It is easy to edit the captions and move them around. There’s also support for multiple languages. X-Title is affordable donation-ware (€40 for an unlimited license, free to try with up to 50 captions per video). X-Title is a very good path to take if:

1. you mostly edit with FCPX
2. are not fussy about padding/rounded corners on partially translucent background
3. are willing to lock your titles into a specific version of FCPX.

That list of conditions is too long for me though.

Given all the compatibility issues, and the unreliability of Apple as a software manufacturer (will the application still be there next year? will the API’s continue to work?), I’d much prefer to keep creating, editing and burning subtitles as a separate project.

That said, there is one big advantage to editing subtitles in the video editor – the subtitles will stay in sync if you make changes to your edit. Also, if one of the people involved with the edit requires subtitles (probably a monolingual English producer, or could be a bilingual French producer working on a Hungarian or Czech production), including subtitles in the editor allows outputting rough cuts with subtitles.

Both of those cases are somewhat niche. In almost all cases it makes more sense to add subtitles to finished videos. In a bigger organisation, adding subtitles can be a separate project done with simpler software which doesn’t require a highly trained video editor.

Creating and Editing Subtitles

If one is not editing subtitles within the video editor, then one requires other software to create and manage video subtitles.

Generally the format one creates is .srt. Many services accept .srt files. Often subtitles are called captions, not subtitles. Vimeo does accept captions as does YouTube. YouTube has removed their excellent crowd-sourced subtitling feature as it was abused by external marketers (Tragedy of the Commons). Rather than banning the bad users, YouTube just removed the feature which is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.³

As mentioned in the intro, Facebook did have a captions feature but it’s disappeared. The only major service caption feature that I would count on to stay where it is and keep working would be on Vimeo. But even Vimeo removed its own subtitling and captioning service. Playback should keep working.

Whack-a-mole with subtitle support on both the online platforms and end devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, various players) makes hardcoding ever more attractive for simple short projects.

Tools to actually create .srt files should be the subject of a separate article. The one which offers best value is Subtitle Edit Pro, available on the Mac App Store only unfortunately. Documentation is available on all of Bin Liu’s apps at FinalSub.com.

Subtitle Edit Pro Interface

There are free choices like Aegisub which are very powerful but the interface is overwhelming. And Aegisub won’t be getting any better as it’s last release was in 2014.

Aegissub Interface: dated and unattractive

Windows users have Subtitle Works and Gaupol, while Linux users have access to Subtitle Editor and Gaupol. Windows, OS X and Linux users can use Jubler but the interface is uninspiring and Jubler was not easy to use when I tried it a few years ago.

Jubler interface – very Linux multimedia

There are some very expensive “commercial solutions” like MacCaption from Telestream. Price is $6,958 for the Pro Edition. Enterprise Edition at $15,525 adds batch conversion.

The closest software to the $30 Subtitle Edit Pro is UK-based titlebee which sells for €299 to €599. The audio timeline goes vertical, while it’s possible to add multiple subtitle tracks at the same time (English, French, German, Russian for instance). The ability to edit multiple subtitle tracks at the same time is not normally all that useful as it would be separate translators working on all three. For instance, I can do any of those to English but would prefer not to translate subtitles in any other languages than English and French.

Titlebee Subtitling Interface

There is an advantage here for many subtitle translators. The translator could load up the native transcription and perhaps the English subtitle track while creating the subtitles for a third language.

Amara.org which flirts with open source language and is not offers similar features to titlebee but for at least $24/month. I’m not keen on moving work which is better done on the desktop (subtitling) into an annual subscription. Creators probably don’t want to use Amara free as it means that video and those titles cannot every disappear or be modified:

Subtitles are always visible, editable and downloadable. Upgrade to Amara Plus to create subtitle files in a private workspace

Watch out for expensive proprietary solutions to just disappear, as Subtitles for theatre did. Or typito which is subscription only at $29/$149/month. Or Veed which locks SRT downloads behind a $30/month subscription, crippling the lower tiers with low export quality, no SRT export and short durations. Of the subscription/online tools, at least Veed looks easy to use.

One of the other good ways to create subtitles is in the creator tools of YouTube which we’ve covered in a separate articles. That means uploading a version of the video (doesn’t have to be a master) to YouTube though which may not suit you. There’s no need to make the video public though (again see our article for details).

In this very crowded market for subtitle creation, there’s still lots of room for a clean, well-designed cross-platform solution which runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, whether open-source or affordably priced. This short overview will hopefully have persuaded you have the value in Subtitle Edit Pro which makes it easy to create perfectly timed subtitles and export those subtitles to a .srt file for a single fee of $30. Of the free solutions, Gaudon looks the most usable and it would be worth spinning up a Ubuntu VM to use it in order to avoid most of the other open source options.

Hardcode Subtitles via Encoders

Now that we have the video (FCPX, DaVinci Resolve) in hand and the SRT file (Subtitle Edit Pro, Gaudon), it’s time to burn those subtitles in to the video.

Outputting the final video with hardcoded subtitles from your subtitle editor often entails severe limitations. Hardcoded subtitles from the excellent Subtitle Edit Pro look liks this unfortunately, with tiny type and yellow background at the bottom of the image.

Subtitle Edit Pro hardcoded output with tiny type on a yellow background

Normal video encoding tools do offer the opportunity to add an .srt file and offer reasonable options. Here’s my preferred settings:

My ffWorks hard subtitle preferred settings

ffWorks subtitles encoding works fine but does not allow the user to turn off outline and has no padding on transparent background. If you want to use ffWorks to add hardcoded subtitles to your videos, the best solution here is to make the typeface small and continue to use outline. The results are not bad at all but not as good as a transparent background, the outline style is old school.

Sample ffWorks subtitle output based on settings above

Handbrake 1.3.3 just wouldn’t embed hard subtitles for me on OS X 10.14.6. I couldn’t get Handbrake to add both video and the .srt file at the same time. The .srt file worked with every other encoder so it was probably not an .srt encoding issue.

Subler is a dedicated subtitle hardcoding tool which looked promising. Sadly Subler gave me trouble outputting a file at all. It might be an OS X 10.14.6 compatibility issue. After more than half an hour getting failed exports, while closely following the documentation, I’d had enough.

The situation was getting desperate, as I just couldn’t output the hardcoded subtitles I wanted with any of my normal tools, Facebook won’t allow adding separate captions. Heck it’s Thursday and I wanted to publish this time-sensitive video Tuesday morning. I was even considering trying to import my .srt file into FCPX (I’ve done this now later as part of the creating screenshots for this article, X-Title import went much more smoothly than I expected).

First class hardcoded output at least: Submerge 3 from Bitfield.se

Fortunately there is an affordable and powerful tool for creating hardcoded subtitles in OS X. Submerge 3 couldn’t work better if I’d designed it myself for myself.

Submerge 3’s simple and clear subtitle style editor

There are all possible options for setting the subtitle color and translucent background. I was looking for how to set the position and size of the subtitles themselves. Developer Jörgen Isaksson thought of everything. There’s separate per video settings for title safe. Those settings are better per video as different outputs could require different sizes and tighter title zone restrictions.

Submerge 3 Title Safety Zone Indicators

I like submerge enough that we’ll be looking closely at how Isaksson solved interface issues and will try to bring some of this brevity and logic to the FV Player interface. Submerge 3 is just €18 direct from Bitfield.se⁴

There are some interface bugs at least with ProRes masters, where the video flickers on playback within Submerge. Final output is absolutely fine though and that’s what’s important. I’ll test Submerge 3 for general video conversion (even without adding subtitles) as it’s quick and easy to use. Submerge 3 uses the same ffmpeg engine which my normal video converter, the incredibly powerful ffWorks use so output should generally be the same if the presets are good.

Here’s the final hardcoded video, with perfect hardcoded subtitles, ready for any platform:

[This post contains video, click to play]

Conclusion: Subtitle Workflow for video posted on social media

1. Edit your video in your video editor of choice (FCPX, Davinci resolve recommended). Create a ProRes export master.
2. Create subtitles with Subtitle Edit Pro (or Goudou or YouTube).
3. Bring it all together in Submerge 3, where you can output different versions for different platforms, with and without hard-coded subtitles.
4. Post anywhere, confident that your subtitles look good, don’t interfere with the picture and are available everywhere.

Of course if you are posting on your own website, you can skip step three and four and enjoy great looking soft-coded subtitles with the very powerful FV Player searchable transcript feature.

How to create great-looking hardcoded subtitles

Post from: Foliovision

After 8 years of the Universal Analytics model, Google released a new model called Google Analytics 4 late last year. We too had to rework our custom data gathering in order to bring our users a reliable and great way to view FV Player statistics in the new Google Analytics model.

FV Player now tracks video data in Google Analytics 4!

If you are looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, you can check out our guide on using FV Player with Matomo Analyitcs, or even the built-in FV Player statistics feature might be just what you need.

How to set up FV Player tracking in Google Analytics 4

In your Google Analytics account, go to Admin -> Data Streams and click on your data stream. There you will see the Measurement ID.

In your WordPress menu, go to Settings -> FV Player -> Sitewide FV Player Defaults -> Google Analytics ID. Insert the Measurement ID and click save.

That’s all you will need to do in order to make FV Player tracking work. You probably already have the Global Site Tag gtag.js on your site. If you don’t, then there’s no need to worry as FV Player tracking does not need it to function.

Accessing the data

FV Player tracks video playback via custom events. These can be found in Life Cycle -> Engagement -> Events. You can also access it via engagement overview.

The tracked data does not differ much from the tracking for Universal Analytics.

The biggest difference is that playback progress is now counted in 25,50,75 and 100 percentage markers, instead of quartiles. As of now, you do not get to track the video errors either.

If you’d like to know more about the tracked parameters and best practices, visit our guide.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback. If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Track Video Data With Google Analytics 4

Post from: Foliovision

Universal CDN, calling itself the most cost-effective CDN in the world is a great choice for smaller publishers looking for a bargain price, but don’t want to bargain on features or reliability too.

FV Player now supports Universal CDN!

Universal CDN is only supported in FV Player Pro Beta for now. Here’s how to switch to beta.

Universal CDN is a good choice if you fit into a certain category, but is not quite as universal as the name states. UCDN is for users who:

• are looking for low-cost options
• are looking for something easy to set up and use
• are preferably located in and plan on creating content for Europe and/or North America
• preferably are smaller publishers

With its 26 locations, it is well equipped for Europe or North America, but seems to come in short in other regions. UCDN claims that this is of no concern, as delivery is accelerated by Anycast routing and 100% SSD servers. The POPs are said to be “strategically placed in areas of high demand”, but the pricing is only defined for Europe and North America. For information on other regions, you will have to contact UCDN.

The account is charged from a pre-paid credit. Apart from the woefully low prices, you will get $10 free credit as a trial. With the prices for Europe and North America, it translates to about 1.25TB of free usage.

Features

UCDN is fast to implement innovations from the field, some of which you wouldn’t except in a service priced this low.

It proves to be very well suited for video hosting with possibility to speed up HLS streaming thanks to the Anycast routing. Your videos will also be protected against hotlinking by URL tokens. Further, access can be blocked by countries or IP addresses. With the incredibly low prices, you also get advanced analytics features that will help you analyze your content and CDN usage.

A free Let’s encrypt SSL is something that’s always nice to see in a CDN. The support for HTTP/2 is also beneficial for security and speed.

On top of it all, with it’s usage of regular language and friendly tips, it is very easy to use. For example, it does not ask you for your origin, but simply where your files are located. That being said, UCDN still does not have quite as many options and tweaks as it’s bigger competitors.

Hosting

With UCDN, you get three choices of hosting:

• Your own servers
• Amazon S3 or S3 compatible hosting (such as DigitalOcean Spaces or Linode Object Storage)
• UCDN’s own hosting service

While the storage prices are not the best ones out there, it is still a very decent price coming in at $1 per 20GB/Month.

Stay tuned for more

We are trying to make our FV Player plugin better ever single day, by bringing more and more upgrades and updates. You can help us a lot, by giving us feedback. If you have any tips or questions, do not hesitate and contact us via our Forum!

Another Good CDN Choice For Small Publishers Supported

Post from: Foliovision