Category Archives: tips

A series of articles on general tips and illustrations about video.

Import Videos From Vimeo Pro, Google Drive and Dropbox

Leave a reply

VdoCipher’s secure video hosting platform enables educators, publishers and marketers to host their video content online for business use. Our award-winning DRM creates multiple layers of security. These include secure video storage, encrypted video streaming, backend authentication and dynamic watermark, ensuring that your videos are completely secure from illegal downloading.

A large number of our customers have shifted from other video hosting sites. This is mostly because the feature-set of many other online video platforms does not completely satisfy customers’ requirements. We are committed to ensuring that your transition from another OVP to VdoCipher is smooth and seamless. For this we have set up direct import from online video platforms Wistia and Vimeo Pro. You can also import videos from cloud hosting solutions including Google Drive and Dropbox.

Also here we guide you how to easily import videos from your S3 bucket to your VdoCipher account.

Import Video from Vimeo Pro

  1. Go to the VdoCipher dashboard
  2. Click on the “Import from …” button. In the drop-down menu click on “Import from Vimeo”
  3. Click on the “Connect Vimeo” button in the new page
  4. In the next page you can give your VdoCipher account permission to import video from Vimeo
  5. The dashboard will then give you the link to import the videos that you have hosted on Vimeo
Import Video directly from Vimeo Pro for completely secure video hosting

Import Videos directly from Vimeo Pro for completely secure video hosting

Import Video from Wistia

  1. Go to the Import from Wistia page in VdoCipher dashboard
  2. Login to Wistia and go to Account Settings
  3. Click on API access in the right panel
  4. Click the “New token link”
  5. Mark the checkbox “Read all project and video data”
  6. Copy the newly generated token
  7. Enter the Wistia API token at the top right of the page to import video from Wistia
Import video directly from Wistia for secure video hosting

Import videos directly from Wistia for secure video hosting

Import Video from Google Drive

  1. Go to the VdoCipher dashboard
  2. Click on the “Import” button. In the drop-down menu click on “Add from Google Drive”
  3. Give your VdoCipher account access to the contents of your Google Drive
  4. Select the video for import.
  5. You’re done!
Import video directly from Google Drive for secure video hosting

Import videos directly from Google Drive for secure video hosting

Import Video from Dropbox

  1. Go to the VdoCipher dashboard
  2. Click on the “Import from …” button. In the drop-down menu click on “Import from Dropbox”
  3. Sign in to Dropbox from the Pop-up window
  4. Select the videos to be imported to VdoCipher
  5. You’re done!
Import video directly from Dropbox for Secure video hosting

VdoCipher interface to import videos directly from Dropbox for secure video streaming

Import Video from Box.Com

We’ve added support for importing videos from Box.com. Check out our step-by-step guide to importing videos from this service.

Please feel free to communicate video hosting requirements to our customer support team.

 

WordPress course plugin to make course website – Sensei tutorial

Leave a reply

Building a course website in WordPress is a great way to monetize your education content. It is being done quite effectively by individuals and companies across the globe. In this blog post we shall walk you through the steps necessary to install the very useful Sensei wordpress course plugin. Using Sensei, you can set up WordPress to sell online courses. By using the plugins features and integrating them with secure Vdocipher player for videos, you can sell online courses to your target audience more effectively.

The quality and security of videos is the USP for most companies that wish to sell online courses. VdoCipher provides the required necessary offerings so that you may not lose customers to piracy and your students have a great experience.

Installing Sensei as a wordpress course plugin

It is assumed that you have WordPress already installed on your system. Sensei is a paid plugin. To buy the course plugin you would have to buy the course directly from their parent site WooCommerce here. Prices as of October 2016 for the Sensei plugin are $129 for the single site version.

makes Sensei to sell online courses, along with VdoCipher for secure video hosting

Use Sensei to sell online courses

On buying the Sensei WordPress course plugin you could download the plugin file in zip format. To activate the plugin you would need to copy the license key that you will find in your Woothemes account to the wordpress interface for activation. After activation you will get this:

wordpress course plugin for secure video hosting

List of wordpress plugins

Using Sensei – Courses, Modules and Lessons

Sensei allows for a layered structuring for courses – each course can be divided into multiple modules, which can contain the relevant lessons. A module can itself be divided into sub-modules, and therefore this LMS allows for considerable flexibility in how you might wish to structure and present your course.

The first step is to therefore create a course. After creating your course, you can create a module, and select the relevant course in which the module is to be integrated. Lessons can then be created within the modules, and you can easily integrate videos within lessons using the steps given below.

Lessons are easily designed to help sell online courses

Setting up a lesson

As shown above, the interface to create a lesson is quite straightforward in Sensei. The ease with which a multi-layered course can be built using Sensei is why we recommend that you use this LMS to sell online courses.

For managing learners, Sensei has tabs for Analysis, Grading and Learner Management. Using Sensei you can track the updates to the course through the Data Updates tab. The simplicity of these options mean that teachers and site administrators can easily manage learners taking their courses. Because of this as a site administrator you can improve your site more effectively using learner feedback.

Quiz implementation in Sensei

Quizzes for grading learners can be added onto the end of the respective lessons. Using Sensei’s interface you can make multiple questions, decide whether passing the quiz is necessary to complete the course and the passing criteria. You may add questions directly to the lesson or add questions from a question bank. Questions may also be presented in a random manner.

Customization offered by Sensei to sell online courses

Sensei offers an additional WordPress course plugin – the Sensei Course Progress plugin – free of cost for monitoring course progress by lessons within a course (or within a module)

Sensei offers you control over who to allow to access the course. Access can be limited to registered users through their wordpress accounts, otherwise if you are using another plugin such as eMember or eShop to control access the feature to restrict access directly on Sensei may be left unused. We recommend using eMember to control membership access because of it allows you to create multiple membership levels depending on level of access.

Further customization allows for private messages between learners and teachers – enabling this functionality may depend upon the targeted size of learners and the ability of teachers to participate.

Sensei offers Javascript functionality in terms of a dynamic bar providing information about percentage of course completed, while My Courses tab also uses Javascript. These functionalities may also be disabled.

Have a look at the following screenshots to learn about additional customization offered by Sensei.

sensei wordpress course plugin

Sensei Shortcodes

Sensei offers a number of shortcodes by which you can remind learners of all available courses, accessible by categories such as teachers. You may also add shortcodes for courses being taken by the learner, additional courses that the learner may take, and user messages.

All available courses [sensei_courses]

Courses per user [sensei_user_courses] (the previous shortcode [usercourses] is no longer supported)

Course page [sensei_course_page id = “123”]

Unpurchased courses [sensei_unpurchased_courses]

Secure Video Streaming in Sensei

To prevent illegal video download , sharing and provide best streaming experience to your viewers, we at VdoCipher provide ready to use video wordpress course plugin. The plugin runs at backend and allows encrypted streaming + viewer watermark player embed on your site. It is compatible with any other plugins you use in your wordpress. VdoCipher has education customers all across 6 continents using us. To install VdoCipher plugin on your wordpress account, you first need to create an account at VdoCipher.com. A trial account at VdoCipher can be made for free. You can upload & stream upto 5GB worth of content for secure video streaming. With each video that you would have uploaded you would have a corresponding video id.

The video can then be embedded onto the lesson by applying the following code: [vdo id="id_of_video"] For example: [vdo id="123abc4d56e7fg89shi12"]

User Registration, Analytics, Themes, Grading with Sensei

Sensei is a complete e-learning suite and involves easy to use management features to do the above implementation.

A note on Woocommerce

WooCommerce is an ecommerce wordpress plugin and necessarily works at backend of Sensei. So, first installation of Woocommerce is needed and then sensei. It is free and is compatible with all major plugins including ours.

Important Elearning blogs from VdoCipher

Why not to self host videos for your course web site?

How to make money from education videos: Some models & key considerations ?

Encrypted Video Streaming: How VdoCipher is far ahead of Others in Security ?

Watermark user/time specific dynamic variables on WordPress videos

For a free full version 5 GB  free trial at VdoCipher , Register.

VdoCipher package Workflow and demo – Secure video streaming

Leave a reply

Here is a brief video detailing the features that we offer at VdoCipher, supplemented by screen demos.

 

Here is our statistical research on the prevalence of piracy – we studied usage of piracy tools worldwide in terms of number of unique downloads from video hosting sites. Every 4th computer seems to be using video download tool to pirate content from video streaming sites.

Register for a free full version secure video streaming trial at VdoCipher.

3 Offline Encoder For Video Conversion: MAC & Windows

Leave a reply

There are a lot of instances where the raw video file after camera recording is quite large in size. If it is not on a server or url, it becomes quite difficult to upload it to online sites like VdoCipher.  To solve this problem there are offline encoder or converters or transcoders which convert the huge video files into decent size without any visible lose in quality. Some of these tools can also be used to convert files into different formats for video and audio. Here are the details of top 3 offline encoder

Offline Encoder & Converters For Reducing Video Size & Formats

  1.  WinFF for Windows

    Please visit this link to donwload the software
    http://winff.org/html_new/

    1-  Add the videos using the tool button.
    2- Choose MPEG-4 in the Convert-to.
    3- Select MPEG-4 1080p as the preset.
    4- Click on options to show more tabs.
    5- Go to video tab.
    6- Enter 2500 as the video bitrate (units is 2500kbps).  This is the bitrate we have experienced high enough to be HD, Users can also try with 1500 or 2000 kbps. It shall also work fine for most of the cases , specially if the movement in the video is quite less.
    7- Tick the checkbox 2 pass below it.
    8- Click on convert tool button.
    9- Wait for the video to complete.
    10- This process might consume high CPU.

  2. VLC Media Player for MAC & Windows

    It is quite unknown fact that even VLC media player can be used as an offline encoder to convert and change videos. Here are the steps –

    • Go to Media > Convert/Save >  In file tab add your raw video or audio file.
    • Click on the  “down arrow” mark on the Convert/Save button and Select “Convert”.
    • Now, provide the format in the “Profile” drop down, also provide the destination source.
    • Click on “Start”,  the conversion will start and after the completion, the converted file will be available in the destination source.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

3. Prism Video Converter for Windows & Mac

http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/

It is quite easy to use software to convert and resize videos. There is both a free and commercial version available. The UI is quite clean and it is almost drag and drop.

For online encoding , VdoCipher has also a customized detailed UI + API trans-coding setup for enterprises. All popular video formats (more then 15 ) are supported , video size, bitrates , type of encoding all can be specified. By default VdoCipher converts videos to its own proprietary encrypted format but for large enterprise cases it does custom transcoding as well.

 

Video Streaming Hosting VdoCipher

All these things, VdoCipher handles for you. Launch Today.

Offline Encoder Online Transcoder

VdoCipher Transcoding

Register for a full version 5 GB Free trial at www.vdocipher.com

Setting desired bitrate for video playback for multiple devices

Leave a reply

Different devices and internet speeds require different bitrate to be served. Based on device type and your viewer connection, some of you may opt to provide particular bitrates forcefully.  Often you like to provide playback at the certain quality or constrain the network data. Bitrate, Dimensions ,Quality thus can be configured. Below are the steps.

First, Send in an extra parameter while setting up the otp. Append a post parameter called “forcedBitrate”. This need to be an integer. During load time, the player obtains the list of available resolutions from the server. If the forcedBitrate is set, it starts playing the bitrate which is closest to that one.

Example

If you have a video with bitrates created at [300, 900, 1500, 2100].  By default, the player will try to guess the correct bitrate based on a number of factors. If you believe that the default rate should be 900, set the value of forcedBitrate to 900. If the forcedBitrate is set to 1100, then player will calculate the bitrate closest to it and play it. This will ensure that the player will continue playing inspire of any error.

Here is a sample curl command for the otp call with forcedBitrate included:

curl 'http://api.vdocipher.com/v2/otp?video=xxxxxxxxxxxxxx' -H 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' --data 'clientSecretKey=CLIENT_SECRET_KEY&forcedBitrate=1100'

Check the Api page under /otp for more info and other APIs.

Video Management details on VdoCipher dashboard

Leave a reply

VdoCipher is dedicated to providing secure, smooth and affordable video hosting, streaming and management solutions for business enterprises and individual customers. For our customers ease-of-use and minimizing time between video upload and video release are highly critical. Appreciating their needs and requirements we have developed several features:

  • Easy to use dashboard GUI features
  • Ready to use WordPress plugins
  • Well-documented APIs

In this blog post, I am listing out the details of Video management, encoding, customization through Dashboard.

1. Upload
2. Encode
3. Testing for Secure Streaming
4. Integration with Site or App
5. Usage details
6. Searching and tagging
7. Video detail management

Upload
Upload

The green upload button can be used to directly upload videos from your device. There are further options to import videos from your server , FTP, direct video URL (link to direct video file like such as .com/mp4 , .com/flv but not YouTube video link), your already existing account on Wistia or Vimeo Pro. The direct upload of videos from third party location saves your device’s bandwidth usage and allows video file transfers to happen at the backend. There is a progress bar which shows the relative completeness of upload process. Once the video is uploaded, it shows in dashboard with a particular symbol which has the following meaning.

Video Status Meaning
Queued Video uploaded successfull, soon to start encoding
Processing Video being converted to encrypted formats for dekstop & mobile
Ready Video is ready to be embedded onto site
? If uploading from device video uploaded but not started processing. If importing from 3rd party , video might have not been fully imported but you can leave the page as the upload has been initiated at the backend

If the video you uploaded is in ‘?’ or ‘Queued’ status for long, drop us a message at site chat or info@vdocipher.com, Generally a 15 min video should be encoded in 20 minutes time and be ready for release. However if you have uploaded multiple videos at once – say 50 or more then video upload may take more time.

For upload through APIs , visit
https://www.vdocipher.com/page/api.curl
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2016/02/video-upload-using-api/

Many of our enterprise customers have their customers or partners actually providing videos to them. In such cases, it becomes quite useful if the video transferred by them to your website or app directly reaches your account on Vdocipher. VdoCipher enables this functionality through upload APIs.

Note- Video upload is a slow process as the upload speed in most of internet connections is quite less as compared to the download speed. We now use AWS acceleration & IBM Aspera to quicken and reduce errors in uploads.

 

Encode 

For new accounts, by default the videos are converted to the same quality as the quality for desktop secure video streaming. This is not the case when the uploaded video is very high in size, such as the case of videos directly recorded by HD cameras. HD Videos can be encoded to much lower size with minimal loss, keeping the same quality and ensuring smooth video streaming. We have also configured the bitrates for iOS and Android devices by default, keeping the file size generally lesser than size of desktop formats.

Settings for converting into multiple bitrates
By default for new accounts, the videos uploaded into VdoCipher are converted into one desktop, one iOS and one Android format for secure playback. Secure video hosting through desktop and iOS browser happens through a simple embedded player.  However secure encrypted video streaming on Android devices requires a one time app to be installed.
For most of our customers , the conversion default settings are sufficient for releasing videos. But If you wish to configure multiple bitrates or low bitrate settings for all the videos in your account, then you can drop us a mail at info@vdocipher.com. Our support team is also available on the site chat service. You may also configure the bitrates manually.
Click on the config section.
In config, there is one encoding section. Visit that to see the settings. It will have various formats. The video streaming use case of the formats is given

Format Meaning & Use
VdoCipher Desktop Playback Desktop Encrypted video streaming
VdoCipher Adaptive Desktop Not launched yet, Please dont use
VdoCipher Mobile Playback Android encrypted video playback
HTML5 Video Non secure, simple playback for IOS & android
IOS native video Secure IOS playback
Distributable video Enabled only for Special accounts paying for general video encoding services

The formats in yellow are the default encoded formats. If you are changing the config section yourself, then you can override the default settings. Most common customization would be to edit the VdoCipher Desktop Playback format:

1. VdoCipher Desktop Playback
Encode2
To keep default height keep the value equal to -1. The aspect ratio is kept constant, and therefore through this the video width is also kept at the default value. It is recommended that you keep the height default for most cases, however if you wish to customize further you may change the number here. For more on optimizing height/width feel free to connect at info@vdocipher.com

Bitrate should be set to the desired number. 300kbps to 1500kbps is the conventional bitrate range that we offer. 300kbps is slightly on the lower side (good enough for screen cast videos), whereas 1500kbps is high quality. After setting the height and bitrate click on ‘Add Job’. Using this you can set more than one bitrates for the desktop format.

2. VdoCipher Mobile formats – It is recommended to set the height -1 & bitrate anywhere from 300-600 for mobile formats. It is better to ask the support team on site chat or info@vdocipher.com for any queries regarding setting custom height and bitrates outside the recommended range.

These config settings when changed will not apply to videos that have already been uploaded, but will be effective for any new videos uploaded since then.

If you want to change the settings of only one particular video, then this can be done by clicking on the circular toggle button at the right top corner of the video.

Encode3

 

Testing for Secure Streaming

Once the video is shown ready in dashboard or checked through API (https://www.vdocipher.com/page/api.curl), then to check secure video streaming, just click on the video in whatever device you want to check its playback. If you find that the streaming is poor with lot of buffering, it can be because of two primary reasons.
– The video bitrate is high as compared to the internet connection speed of your device.  A lower bitrate might work better for your area.
– For the first time of playback, the video is not cached in nearest CDN servers, and the streaming is therefore a little slow. Once video is cached to the server, after second playback video quality and streaming improves quite a lot. But, if you still see poor streaming after multiple playbacks, please drop us the detailed complaint with video id at info@vdocipher.com. VdoCipher has done a lot of optimization to ensure smooth video hosting & streaming, because of which we have been able to serve our customers from many parts of India and Africa satisfactorily.

 

Integration into site or app

For API based integrations (embed , watermark, upload) see the following links.
https://www.vdocipher.com/page/api.curl
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2014/12/php-implementation-vdocipher-api/
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2015/01/asp-net-implementation-vdocipher-api/
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2014/12/add-text-to-videos-with-watermark/

For plugins on wordpress, joomla, visit
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2014/12/protect-videos-on-wordpress/
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2015/02/variables-on-wordpress-videos/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/vdocipher/
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2015/02/joomla-plugin-secure-videos-vdocipher/
http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/vdocipher-protect-video

For public embed code, click on the circular toggle at the top right of video. In basic sections, there is a ‘Generate Public Embed code’ option. Click on it and then click on ‘Save’. If you want the video to be restricted to a particular site or site page, enter the URL in the whitelist option & click ‘Save’.

Note that public embed code & URL whitelisting are less secure than APIs or plugins at backend, and also watermarking is not possible then. However even then the stream is fully encrypted and therefore piracy is still prevented from downloaders. Overall our security offerings are much more complete than our competition.

Please make sure that you only embed videos after you have edited all the required settings. Here is a related screen shot. We highly recommend that you opt for security through plugin or API, but if not possible we have simplified the process of Public embed code and URL whitelisting option.

Video Hosting

 

Analytics

Usage details

The bandwidth and storage on daily basis can be seen in the accounts section.
https://www.vdocipher.com/account/usage

The data is updated daily. For exporting bandwidth data of each video on daily basis as a .csv file, please select the date range in the above link and download the file.

 

Searching & Tagging

Specific videos can be searched using ID or Title using the search option available in the dashboard. The complete details (id, title, status) of all videos can be downloaded at one go by clicking on the csv option in dashboard. In basic section of each video, after clicking on the circular toggle at right top, there is an option to add tags. Currently tagging of each video is possible. We will soon offer search based on these tags, to better classify videos.

API based tagging –
https://www.vdocipher.com/blog/2015/01/video-upload-api-with-tags/

 

Video detail management

Here I am listing some more important basic features for video management through dashboard.
– Basic settings of each video – Title modification, video deletion, description and tag addition can be done through this. To reach here click on the circular toggle at the right top corner of each video.
– Thumbnail – In basic settings, there is an option to set poster image. By default, the first frame is set as thumbnail. To set any other image, upload the image in this section.
– Blogs & Site chat – There is lot of documentation on how to use, and what are the benefits and standards for various technologies at our blog. (vdocipher.com/blog), Search the blog for your required keyword to see related articles.
We ensure availability of our support team at the live site chat (bottom right of the vdocipher site). Please feel free to ping us to have a detailed conversation. Our support team would help you through most of your queries and problems.

For a full version 5 GB free trial of vdocipher secure video hosting & streaming , register at www.vdocipher.com

 

Load video files from public ftp server

Leave a reply

Videos upload from local computer can be a tedious job unless you have a very good upload speed. Often our customers have to upload TBs of content from their public servers. Here we list two methods of load videos directly from your servers to your VdoCipher account.

Option 1: FTP upload

This option requires your server to expose ftp access from public servers.

  • Go to your dashboard and choose import from FTP. Enter the server ip, username and password to login to your server.
  • You shall see a list of files on your home account of ftp server. Navigate to the folders using breadcrumbs.
  • When there will be a video file, you can see an import button. Click on the import button to import the video.

After import, these videos will now be reflected on your dashboard. It shall take some time for the video to get ready. You can also poll the API to know the processing state.

Option 2: HTTP URL

If your server is capable of generating http URL to the video files, you can use the url import feature to add videos to your VdoCipher account.

  • Generate publicly accessible http(s) URLs to the videos. Make sure these videos are accessible for at least next 48 hours.
  • Login to your VdoCipher account and choose import from url.
  • Enter the list of urls with line break as delimiter.
  • Click import button and wait for message box to display the status. These videos shall be added to your account and will take time to process.

If the above methods does not work for your case, let us know in the comments below.

Adding videos from URL

Leave a reply

You can easily add videos saved in your server to your vdocipher account. All you need is a publicly accessible link to the media file. This videos will be ready to use in your vdocipher dashboard.

Import URL API call:

POST  https://api.vdocipher.com/v2/importURL?url=<url_encoded_link>

PostData: clientSecretKey=CLIENT_SECRET_KEY

Replace the CLIENT_SECRET_KEY with the API key provided on sign-up.

Returns:

{
    id: "---------------",
    status: "Queued"
}

The returned data can be either XML or JSON. This will tell you the id of the newly created video. Note that after adding, it can take up to five to fifteen minutes for the video to be ready. You need to query the status of added videos using this id and the /videos API end-point described in API docs . The status of the video changes from “Queued” to “Processing” to “ready”.

This API call can be used to dynamically upload videos from your server. If you are using Amazon S3, you can use the getObjectURL() method to get a temporary URL to a private object.

Note 1: Keep the URL active for at least 5 hours since the adding because we might need it to do some post-processing optimization and retries in case of any errors.

Note 2: Make sure that the URL query string is properly encoded, use functions like urlencode() in PHP or ERB::Util.url_encode() in Ruby or urllib.urlencode() in python to properly encode the URL before passing it to the query string.

Note 3: Make sure to add the protocol for the URL which should be either http:// or https:// . Upon properly encoding, this shall look something like https%3A%2F%2F

Writing this blog prompted me to search that URI vs URL. Which should be the right/better term to use in this post? I read through https://danielmiessler.com/study/url_vs_uri/ and found that since in this API call, it is imperative to specify the protocol. Hence, it shall be better to call it URL.

WordPress video plugin : Embed secure videos on site

Leave a reply

WordPress is the fastest means to a working website and is used by developers across the world to create awesome websites with minimal effort. Integrating a secure video streaming service in WordPress to host video membership sites is becoming increasingly popular. Here we explain how best to best integrate the VdoCipher video player. Using the VdoCipher WordPress video plugin will help you securely stream videos on your site, helping you in increasing revenues.

VdoCipher is the most secure video streaming and hosting solution for WordPress videos. Encryption, dynamic watermarking with viewer detail and authentication provides highest protection from video piracy. VdoCipher provides a nice smooth player to have your viewers best video streaming experience.

How to integrate WordPress video plugin ?

Here is a guide to install WP plugin for video, embed a player on WordPress posts and pages and protect your content from unauthorized downloads. Our plugin makes it easier to protect videos on WordPress from getting downloaded.

Use VdoCipher WordPress Video Plugin for Secure video hosting

WordPress plugin page for VdoCipher

Below is a sample video with dynamic watermark features enabled. We have received multiple requests for providing a simpler solution for our API. To cater to users using WordPress for their site, we are launching the first version of our plugin. This plugin should simplify the process of using VdoCipher. The 1.0 version is capable for basic functionality and takes out the effort from API implementation.

Here are the steps one needs to follow.

1. Create account on VdoCipher. Upon sign up, you will receive a “client secret key” on your email. This key is very much like your password, so its essential that you keep it safe. You shall need to use this key while making any API calls or while using our plugins.

2. On your WordPress dashboard, search for “VdoCipher” on Add plugins page.

VdoCipher wordpress video plugin

3. Click “Install now” . This will install our WordPress video plugin.

4. Click on the link “Activate this plugin”. On the top, you shall see a message. “Click here to configure VdoCipher”.

5. In the next page, enter the client secret key you received in Step 1.

That’s it, if everything went well, you should be shown a status: ready message. Now, you can add videos to your VdoCipher dashboard and get the video id. Then, create posts and pages with your videos embedded on them. Just use the below shortcode for it, replacing aaaaaaaa with the real video id.

[vdo id="aaaaaaaa"]

Watermark your video with text and image

You can use our watermark feature inside the plugin to add text and images on your videos.  Adding moving text with viewer information is an extra deterrent to people sharing recorded videos and tracking such point of leakages.  You can configure the plugin to add annotation over your videos.

You need to set up “annotation code” in the Settings > VdoCipher page.  Go to plugins > VdoCipher> settings > annotation statement, and put the watermark code there. This code tells us how and what to embed over your videos. You can make the annotation code automatically by inputting text/image, size and color directly here in the dashboard -> Config -> Watermark Tool section. A sample watermark code for dynamic text watermark is given here below.

[
{‘type’:’rtext’, ‘text’:’ {ip}’, ‘alpha’:’0.20′, ‘color’:’0x000000′,’size’:’12’,’interval’:’2000′},
{‘type’:’text’, ‘text’:’ {date.h:i:s A}’, ‘alpha’:’0.30′ , ‘x’:’60’, ‘y’:’200′, ‘color’:’0x000000′, ‘size’:’11’,’interval’:’3000′},
{‘type’:’rtext’, ‘text’:’ {email}’, ‘alpha’:’0.20′, ‘color’:’0x000000′,’size’:’12’,’interval’:’2000′},
{‘type’:’rtext’, ‘text’:’ {username}’, ‘alpha’:’0.20′, ‘color’:’0x000000′,’size’:’12’,’interval’:’2000′},
]
For further details on creating your annotation code, read on here: Add watermark over videos

Once set, the annotation code is applied over all VdoCipher videos in your WordPress. If you want a particular video not to show the annotation, you need to pass another attribute to the short-code.

[vdo id="aaaaaaa" no_annotate='true']

Sell videos online

For selling videos online, VdoCipher is an extremely good option to protect your content from being freely distributed. You can set up an e-commerce video platform with WordPress itself.

One option would be to set up a membership site with multiple subscription options. This way your customers can pay a subscription fees and get access to content according to the level of subscription they buy. Such a system can be set up using membership plugin.

Use WooCommerce Pay Per View With WordPress video plugin for secure video hosting

WooCommerce Pay Per View With VdoCipher plugin for secure video hosting

Similarly, you can have a pay-per-view option for your platform where your visitors have to pay a one-time charge for watching a video. You can restrict the number of times and for how much duration you want to give access to the content. Such a system can be set up with WooCommerce plugin. You might have to use another plugin Woocommerce pay per post to achieve this. You can further customize the plugin for the restrictions and user flow that you might like to achieve.

For some useful tips and suggested practices while setting up a video based e-commerce platform, read Make money from e-learning videos .

If you are looking to create video e-commerce platform online or just want to  protect your online videos on WordPress, go ahead and use our wordpress video plugin. In case you have any feedback, suggestions or bugs, we would be happy to hear from you at info@vdocipher.com

So, try out our WordPress video plugin. Try the free full version 5 GB trial at www.vdocipher.com for protecting WordPress videos from download. Secure, Smooth and Affordable video streaming solution.

Add images and text to video with dynamic watermarking

20 Replies

Below is a sample video with dynamic watermark features.

The stream is encrypted for highest security. For playing it on mobile, ask for an app or app sdk. This video is displayed using our WordPress plugin annotation features. It can be customized for movement , color, size , transparency. For a watermark on your own video, get a free full version trial at www.vdocipher.com

All you need to give is a JSON string describing how and what you need to overlay on your protected videos. Videos streamed on VdoCipher are protected from unauthorized downloads. Watermarking user information further cuts down on the chances of sharing a recorded video.

How to get started?

I am assuming you have uploaded your video to your VdoCipher account and are ready to embed the video either using WordPress plugin or implementing the API yourself. In both the cases, you need to pass an “annotation code” or a “json string” to tell us what and how to annotate.  Let’s see how to create this annotation json and add text to video. (A json string is a form of representing structured data in a way machine can understand.)

Here is a sample:

[
{'type':'image', 'url':'https://example.com/url/to/image.jpg','alpha':'0.8', 'x':'100','y':'200'}, 
{'type':'rtext', 'text':'moving text', 'alpha':'0.8', 'color':'0xFF0000','size':'12','interval':'5000'},
{'type':'text', 'text':'static text', 'alpha':'0.5' , 'x':'10', 'y':'100', 'color':'0xFF0000', 'size':'12'}
]

The above code adds a moving text, static text and a static image for your video.

Technically, this is a JSON array of objects, where each object describe a single annotation item. Each of these items will be described by its parameters.
Every item requires a type parameter which defines the type of watermark. The type of watermark can be either a static text, a moving text or a static image. The rest of the parameters depends on the type. Following a short description of how each of these parameters affect the display of text and image. The text after “//” denotes a comment about the parameter value.

Static text
‘type’ : ‘text’,   //do not change, this defines the type of annotation item
‘text’ : ‘the text you like to be displayed’,
‘x’ : ’10’,  //the distance from the left border of video.
‘y’: ’50’,  //the distance from the top border of video.
‘alpha’: ‘0.8’,    //the opacity of the rendered text, 0 is invisible, 1 is full opaque
‘color’:’0xFF0000′,    //the color of the text specified as hexadecimal or uint
‘size’:’12’,      //Height of the text, in pixels.

Moving text
‘type’: ‘rtext’,
‘text” : ‘Enter whatever text you like to be displayed’,
‘alpha’:’0.8′,
‘color’:’0xFF0000′,
‘size’:’12’,
‘interval’:’5000′    // the interval in milliseconds when the text changes position

Image
‘type’ : ‘image’,
‘url’ : ‘http://example.com/path/to/image.png’,     // the direct link of image
‘x’ : ’10’,
‘y’ : ‘100’

 

  • Note that both the name and the value of these parameters should be in quotes. This rule applies to both text as well as numbers.
  • Each parameter is to be separated by comma. There should not be a comma after the last parameter for the dynamic watermark video settings.

Final Step

Now you need to integrate the above watermark info in your actual video. Pass this json string as a post parameter when making the OTP call with key value annotate. Note that, our current v2 API requires post data to be sent as Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded  . So, there will be two different post keys: 1) clientSecretKey 2) annotate

Only if you are writing the http requests from scratch you will need to url encode the json string when appending it to the post data. Most web frameworks have inbuilt method of generatig post data. In such cases, you should ensure that data is not doubly encoded i.e. just set the json string when calling your web framework’s addPostParam() method.

Still having problems with the dynamic watermark on video code? Send us the code you are using and the output you wish to be shown to info@vdocipher.com