Hands-down, the best way to deliver and secure your private video content

High-end technology available now from Amazon Web Services for pennies, which used to cost $$$ and take a Comp.Sc. Ph.D. to configure, but no more!

New version 2.07 just released with support for mobile devices (iPad, Iphone and Android) via transparent HTML5 fallback from either public or private Amazon buckets (JWPlayer only)! 

Private (expiring) download links for pdf’s and other content are also supported!

Watch the video or read the sales letter, your choice.

Video table of contents

• Introduction [0:00]
• Full-screen the video [0:28]
• What is RTMP [0:36]
• Benefits to the end-user [1:20]
• Benefits to the content creator [1:47]
• Setup Amazon Web Services [2:50]
• Install the plugin [4:25]
• Post a non-secure video via shortcode [5:15]
• Post a secure video [7:24]

What is RTMP streaming video?

Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a true streaming video technology, with innumerable benefits for both the end-user and content creator:

• Streams in real-time — video starts immediately, and only downloads the portion of the video that is being watched (compare to Youtube or other services that download the full video every time). Provides a better user experience and less network usage and costs
• User can instantly reposition the video to any point in the time-bar — this is a must-have for longer videos (more than 5 minutes)
• Create a Video Table of Contents – user can instantly fast-forward (or review) the topic of interest (see example above), this has the potential to greatly increase the value of your content
• Now with Amazon / CloudFront private distribution, the most secure video distribution technology available outside of the military – generates expiring streaming url’s, encrypted and signed with your private key
• Get maximum protection of your videos without sacrificing usability or access to your videos from mobile devices (users are now demanding access from their Ipads for content they have paid for, and rightly so)

New, revolutionary WordPress plugin facilitates the entire process – implement on your site in 30 minutes, no need to pay for any other software or license (except for AWS services)

RTMP streaming video used to require either a dedicated server or an expensive service, but it is now available from Amazon Web Service (AWS) for $0.15 per GB and no monthly minimum.

RTMP streaming has been available from AWS for some time, but even the regular (public / non-secure) RTMP streaming video service used to be difficult to configure for the usual video players, and documentation was scarce. And this was even before you attempted secure (private, signed-url’s) streaming… up until now that task has been simply impossible.

But those days are over! Easy step-by-step videos will show you how to do all this in 45 minutes, OR WE WILL INSTALL IT FOR YOU!

Why is this technology more secure than other plugins and video protection schemes?

Other video protection technologies are designed to protect your video from hot-linking (posting on other sites) or link-sharing (one user sending a link to your video to another user). They are also designed to protect the user discovering the video source (the name of your Amazon S3 bucket and file name) that would allow instant download of the content.

However, as a content provider, your greatest danger is not hot-linking or link-sharing (if your video is served from a membership site, you are actually already protected for link-sharing). The greatest danger (and loss of income) is that people will download all your videos using easily available free tools (DownloadHelper) and then unsubscribe from your service.

RTMP streaming video (and especially, secure RTMP streaming video) makes it much more difficult to download the full video. Only a few, very sophisticated video download tools will work with an RTMP stream.  (Got DownloadHelper installed?  Are you able to download the video above?  Try it).  To note also that at least one of these sophisticated download tools are very invasive (because they have to capture the data at the packet level), I used to recommend them until they took one of my client’s computers down.

Secure RTMP Streaming Video Plugin for WordPress is the first low-cost, easily-configured plugin to support both Public (non-secure) and Private (secure / signed-url) RTMP streaming from WordPress , and to use the latest capabilities of Amazon CloudFront service.

The right balance between usability (access to your videos from legitimate users) and protection

The right balance between usability and protection is a thin line. Your first line of attack should be to use RTMP streaming, which makes it much more difficult to capture the video stream, and provides benefits to the user as well (faster access etc.).  The problem is that users now demand access from their iPads and iPhones, which requires an HTML5 fallback or download link, and which exposes your video to download to anyone viewing the page source.  Here is what you would normally have to do:

• Use software to detect user-agent and only publish the HTML5 fallback and download links to mobile devices (will require PHP code on all your video links, or patching your video player plugin)…
• This gives you protection from casual visitors, but it is easy to configure a browser to mimic a mobile device, and then your video download link is visible in the page html…
• Or you could use our player with the private streaming / private download server setting to publish an expiring download url — even if users inspect the page source, its of no use provided you set a short enough HTML5 fallback expiry.  Also they cannot share the download link (well, they can, but its of no use), and knowing the name of your bucket is of no use either if you use private streaming / private download buckets.

Note: you are always better off focusing on improving your user-experience above content protection.  Secure RTMP Streaming Video Plugin provides an optimal balance between the two.

Frequently Asked Questions

What video players do you support?

We provide a choice between open-source players Flowplayer and JWPlayer.  Flowplayer can be used on any site at no cost, while JWPlayer requires a license for commercial sites, but provides some additional features.  You have complete control over players parameters (colors, skins, splash image, controls etc) via “additional Flashvars” parameters.

The recommended video player for RTMP plugin is JWPlayer , as it is a more robust player.  Also, only JWPlayer supports the HTML5 fallback feature.

How is this technology superior to other video players on the market that are designed to protect content?

1. Only a few “video protection” players support full RTMP streaming. If your site has longer videos, that should disqualify them right there
2. Other video players provide link-cloaking or expiring url’s that prevent the user from discovering the video source or sharing the link. They do not prevent the user from downloading the full video to their hard-drive. This is much more difficult to do with our player.   (Note: no video protection technology is entirely safe – if they can watch the video, they can download it. It’s just a question of how much trouble they are willing to go to)
3. Since the expiring url’s are generated with your own private key, and expire within a length of time specified by you, you are guaranteed that nobody can save or share these links (the best they can do for video sharing is download the videos and post to some other site, which is difficult and time-consuming)

Here is what is included in your purchase of “Secure RTMP Video Player Plugin for WordPress”

• The WordPress plugin zipfile – install on your site in 2 minutes
• Flowplayer is bundled in, and instructions are provided to install JWPlayer in 2 minutes — no need to buy any other software
• Three detailed step-by-step training videos (available from the plugin dashboard, see below).
• GUARANTEE: If you can’t get CloudFront serving your videos inside 45 minutes, we will do it for you. Send us an email and we’ll take it from there.

Training and configuration videos are available from inside the plugin dashboard of your site

Full-length training videos on configuring CloudFront are available from right inside your dashboard — these videos alone are worth the price of the software, since  this information is hard to come by (and sometimes incorrect).  The software includes over 25 minutes of detailed instructional videos for using all features of the software and the most important features of CloudFront.

WE GUARANTEE YOU CAN CONFIGURE CLOUDFRONT AND USE THIS PLUGIN INSIDE 45 MINUTES OR WE WILL PERSONALLY EITHER INSTALL EVERYTHING FOR YOU OR REFUND YOUR PURCHASE (YOUR CHOICE).

Important: Configuring CloudFront private streaming currently requires use of the Cloudberry tool, which requires a Windows computer (or a Mac equipped with Parallels or equivalent Windows run-time).  Do not buy this plugin if you intend to use private streaming and you do not have access to a Windows computer.  You might be able to use BucketExplorer as shown in this video, however this is more complicated than CloudBerry and we are not able to support this procedure. To note that public streaming can be configured through the AWS Management Console no problem, and for private streaming setup you only need to use Cloudberry once.

Video and download test area

Sample private video – 10 second expiring

Instructions: Refresh the page and play the video immediately. Refresh the page again, wait 10 seconds, video won’t play