It’s easier than ever to turn views into insights, manage video uploads, organize content, track viewer engagement, and trigger actions in your CRM or marketing automation platform.

You can also expect to save hours of time by automating tasks such as notifying your team and updating dashboards, as well as automating lead nurturing and campaign personalization.

Video Automation to Scale and Optimize Workflows

Time spent producing, organizing, and analyzing video is time that could be spent on more impactful work.

Digital video workflow inefficiencies are addressed through the new integration of SproutVideo with Make, a powerful automation platform that connects SproutVideo with over 2,500 apps, including Google Sheets, HubSpot, Slack, and OpenAI.

With custom automations, you can streamline your video workflow, from upload to engagement tracking.

Example Video Automation Workflows with Make

Effortless Video Management

• Automate video uploads to SproutVideo from files or URLs.
• Organize video content with tags and folders as soon as it is added.

Deeper Audience Insights

• Track video plays at key milestones (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%).
• Trigger alerts when viewers hit specific points or click CTAs.

Efficient Team Collaboration

• Notify a Slack channel when new videos are uploaded.
• Sync video data into dashboards or project management tools.

Boost Marketing & Sales

• Connect video engagement data to your CRM or email platform.
• Automate lead nurturing and campaign personalization with viewer steps.

Unleash AI Power

• Combine SproutVideo data with cutting-edge AI tools for next-level video automation workflows.

Ready to see how the SproutVideo and Make integration can transform your video automation workflow? Visit our help article to learn how to quickly enable the Make and SproutVideo integration. Alternatively, visit our Make integration page on Make.com.

The post Streamline Video Automation for Digital Workflows with SproutVideo and Make appeared first on SproutVideo.

Gain up to 33% more live streaming minutes at no additional cost. 

For our most popular plans, this means thousands of bonus minutes included each month. Plus, we’ve reduced extra-minute rates by 10-20% so you can worry less when your livestream runs long.

The best part? No action is required. We’ve already applied the savings to your account. 

Stream More, Pay Less

Our updated live streaming plans deliver more value at a lower cost without sacrificing the enterprise-grade features your team depends on.

• Stream More: Host longer (stress-free) events without raising your budget.
• Support Scale: Accommodate more viewers or additional sessions.
• Experiment Freely: Gain time to test new formats and engagement strategies. 

You get more live streaming minutes (Sprout, Tree, and Forest plans) with lower extra-minute rates for both input (stream duration) and delivery (viewer time) at no extra cost. 

What’s New

See the difference across plans:

Your Plan, Upgraded—No Action Required

All active plans now include updated live streaming pricing.  For current customers, your next billing statement will reflect the updated pricing.

SproutVideo is committed to providing reliable, customer-first video hosting and live streaming. This update is one more way we’re investing in your success. Thank you for your business.

The post Product Update: Live Streaming, Now More Affordable Than Ever appeared first on SproutVideo.

Generate hassle-free subtitles, review, and publish—no manual transcription or third-party tools needed. You’ll seamlessly boost content comprehension and get more of your time back.

Why It Matters

• Improve Engagement and Comprehension: Increase the information viewers can absorb while keeping them engaged, even with the sound off.
• Expand Accessibility and Inclusivity: Allow non-native viewers and those with auditory challenges to watch your videos more easily.  
• Save Time & Use Fewer Tools: Skip adding subtitles manually or with third-party transcription software—you can easily add and edit auto-generated subtitles.

How To Add Automated Subtitles To Your Videos

Newly uploaded (and replaced) videos automatically generate a subtitle track. Simply review and publish the track so viewers can enable it. 

All SproutVideo users can also generate subtitle tracks individually for existing videos uploaded before April 16, 2025. However, transcription for full video libraries is available upon request; see the full instructions below. 

Account-Wide Subtitle Options

By default, every new video automatically gets subtitles and must be manually published to make it available to viewers. However, within account-wide settings, you can: 

• Automatically publish generated subtitles*, making them available to viewers without prior review and manual publishing. 
• Enable subtitles for viewers by default, which means the subtitle track displays without the viewer needing to toggle subtitles on. 
• Disable automated subtitles for your account altogether. SproutVideo will not generate subtitles tracks when the feature is toggled off.

*While our automated transcripts have a 95% accuracy rate (for English), we recommend reviewing generated subtitles before publishing.

Note: Automated Subtitles supports 98 languages, with 57 meeting industry-standard benchmarks for speech-to-text model accuracy. The model will return results for all supported languages, but the quality will be lower for some.

How To Generate Automated Tracks For Existing Videos

To generate an automated subtitle track for an existing video, 

• Navigate to Manage Subtitle (under Additional Video Settings).
• Select New Automated Track to begin the process.

You will receive a notification email when the subtitles are ready to be reviewed and published.

When requesting the subtitle track, you can choose to auto-publish the subtitles. You can also “force display” subtitles, which means subtitles are automatically enabled for all viewers. Viewers can still manually turn them off.

How To Request Automated Tracks For Your Full Video Library

Contact SproutVideo support to request “bulk” subtitles for all the existing content in your video library. You’ll talk to a real person who will immediately initiate the process. 

Depending on the size of your account, it may take some time. We will email you when it is complete. This service is included with Sprout plans and above, as well as most legacy plans. 

How To Add Automated Subtitles To Live Streams

Improve live stream accessibility with real-time automated subtitles. To turn on automated subtitles for your live stream: 

• Start a new Live Stream.
• Toggle on Automated Subtitles (under Advanced Settings).

Then, simply finish setting up your broadcast and go live. 

Currently, automated subtitles for live streams are only available in English and are less accurate (estimated range of 70-95%) than on-demand videos. However, we reprocess subtitles for saved live streams, which generally improves subtitle accuracy.

Strengthen video messaging impact and simplify your workflow—try automated subtitles today! Also, look out for feature improvements in the near future. Thank you for being a SproutVideo customer! We’re excited to share more in 2025. 

• Top 10 Things We Launched At SproutVideo In 2024
• Product Update: Boost Engagement With File Attachments for Media
• Product Update: Playlists on Video Websites & Tons of New Features

The post Product Update: Automated Subtitles For Effortless Accessibility and Knowledge Retention appeared first on SproutVideo.

From efficient workflows to highly customized video websites, we’re thrilled to share the significant updates shaping your 2025 video strategy.

1. Playlists on Video Websites

Adding playlists to SproutVideo-hosted Video Websites makes it even easier to share educational courses, key features or benefits, serialized content, and much more. Use playlists to create a “binge-able” experience that keeps your audience hooked. 

Playlists offer extensive customization, including colors and playback, engagement tools like auto-advance or looping, and new privacy measures like signed embed codes. 

Design a video experience that engages your audience while keeping content secure, organized, and easily accessible for those with access. 

Learn More: Overview of Playlists on the Video Website

2. Simplified Video SEO Workflow for Embedded Content

Automate video indexing for embedded content, allowing you to index a large number of videos easily. Coined Embedded Media Discovery on our platform, this method of indexing video content uses Google’s latest guidance for ranking videos in search. 

You can toggle this setting account-wide to easily index a large number of videos without manually adding the canonical URL to each one. Once the video is embedded, Google will crawl the page to determine whether to index the video and how to rank it appropriately. 

Note: Use a video sitemap and Embedded Media Discovery to ensure all search engines can find your video and for redundancy. The method used for this workflow may only be supported by Google at this time. We recommend this practice to cover all search engines.

Learn More: Optimizing Videos for SEO — The Complete Guide

3. File Attachments for Videos, Playlists, and Live Streams on Video Websites

File attachments allow you to create a more enriching and engaging experience. Use file attachments to easily provide viewers with downloadable resources directly from the media shared on your video website. Securely distribute workbooks, onboarding checklists, spec sheets, pricing proposals, and any other file alongside your videos. 

Each media file can attach three files up to 20 MB each, for a total of 60MB of downloadable content. You can also view download analytics for each attachment to track when and how often the material is accessed.

Learn How: Attach Files to Videos, Live Streams, and Playlists

4. Display Related Videos and Playlists on Landing Pages

Encourage viewers to explore and continue engaging with your videos by displaying related content on landing pages and video websites. 

You can assign video tags to signal what content to display. Videos and playlists with one or more tags in common will appear under your video. You can also customize the title (e.g., “More Like This”) to provide additional context or brand-specific cues about the related content. 

Learn More: Settings for Displaying Related Videos

5. Clickable Timestamps in Video Descriptions on Video Websites

With clickable timestamps, it’s easy for viewers to tune into a specific part of your video. All you have to do is add the timestamps to your video description with relevant labels. When a video description is visible on landing pages or video websites, the timestamps are automatically highlighted and correspond to that specific time in your video. 

Learn More: How to Add Linked Timestamps in Content Descriptions

6. Viewer Progress Tracking on Video Websites

With viewer progress tracking, you can allow viewers to see their viewing progress at a glance and easily resume watching. This optional convenience feature enhances the user experience by providing a quick reference point and making it easy for viewers to continue watching.

Learn More: Settings for Content Listing Pages

7. Video Player Options on Video Websites

Custom player options allow you to control the playback experience. Ensure viewers watch the crispest resolution possible or prevent them from speeding up content by toggling off the settings button. Remove the option for viewers to skip ahead by hiding the seek bar.  

Player controls include the settings button, seek bar, volume, and fullscreen toggle. You can also show a large play button or the player controls for videos in a pre-play state.

Learn More: Players Options for Video Landing Pages

8. Control The Visibility of Login-Protected Video Listings

Allow logged-out users to see gated video content, even when they don’t have playable access. This feature allows you to hide or display videos for all website visitors. In other words, this feature permits logged-out users to preview content on your video website before logging in.  

For example, say you sell video courses and want to pique visitors’ interest in other courses you have available. You can allow logged-out users to see the other courses without letting them watch the content. Once logged in, they will see only the courses they can access. 

Learn More: How to Show Login Protected Videos to Logged Out Viewers

9. Upload Open Graph Image for Social Sharing

Determine the image displayed when sharing your video website on social media. Uploading an open graph image allows you to customize your website’s presentation when sharing the link on third-party applications with rich previews (Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, etc).

Learn More: Personalize Your Video Website

10. Choose When Poster Frames Animate

Share a seamless presentation, even when using a mix of still and animated poster frames. Choose when animated poster frames are active on your video website. With this customization setting, animated poster frames can play:

• Always: Animated poster frames loop (up to 8-seconds) continuously 
• On Hover: Animated poster frames only play when a mouse hovers over them
• Never: Animated poster frames never animate

Note that this feature applies to listed content (i.e., home page, search results, playlists) on video websites. Animated poster frames always animate on video landing pages.

Learn More: Settings for Content Listing Pages on Video Websites

The SproutVideo team is developing exciting new offerings for 2025. We can’t wait to add more expansive features to your video arsenal. Thank you for choosing SproutVideo.

Ready for more? Check out these related resources:

• Product Update: Boost Engagement With File Attachments for Media
• Help Guide: Overview of Playlists on the Video Website
• [Video] Product Update: Playlists on Video Websites & Tons of New Features

The post Top 10 Things We Launched At SproutVideo In 2024 appeared first on SproutVideo.

Now, viewers can download supplemental materials directly from your videos, live streams, and playlists on SproutVideo-hosted websites without navigating away, creating a more enriching and interactive experience. 

Equip media with instantly accessible resources, such as course syllabi, product manuals, worksheets, industry reports, sales contracts, and more.

Discover how to take advantage of file attachments below. 

6 Ways to Use File Attachments

File attachments make it easy for viewers to access additional materials directly from your SproutVideo-hosted video website, allowing you to create an engaging and efficient experience. 

Use file attachments to:

• Make Learning Immersive: Help viewers retain important information with impactful supplemental content like lesson slides, checklists, hands-on activities, or worksheets. 
• Enrich Product Perception: Attach brochures, spec sheets, or user manuals to provide all the details viewers need to evaluate and gain value from your products and services. 
• Increase Customer Satisfaction: Provide additional value with onboarding checklists and product walkthroughs to shorten time to value for customers.
• Reduce Support Inquiries: Empower viewers with troubleshooting guides, FAQs, and other support materials that help solve their problems at any time of day. 
• Share Critical Insights: Allow viewers to directly and securely access key documents and important information, such as a privacy policy, compliance forms, or financial data.
• Expedite Sales Cycles: Provide quick access for salespeople to share ebooks, guides, pricing proposals, and contracts alongside videos to increase sales cycle velocity. 

Note: Want to ensure file attachments are secure? Security measures restricting access to your live streams, videos, and playlists protect your file attachments. Consider employing login or password protection.

How to Add File Attachments to Media

The type of file you can upload is not restricted, and each media item can have up to three attachments. However, each file must be 20 MB or less. 

That means each video, live stream, or playlist can have 60 MB total of supplemental content. For perspective, the average text-based PDF file is about 10 KB per page. 

To add a file attachment, 

• Navigate to the media item (video, live stream, or playlist) 
• Under Settings, scroll down and locate Attach Documents
• Select Choose File and click on the file you want to upload
• Click Save Changes (or Save Selection for Playlists) to upload the file.

When the page refreshes, your file and its size will be displayed. If the file you attempt to upload is too large, you will receive an error message instead. 

Learn More: How to Attach Files to Videos, Live Streams, and Playlists

How to View Analytics For File Attachments

You can view the number of times viewers have downloaded each file from your content. There are two ways to access this information:

• Settings: Under Attach Documents, you can view the number of downloads, which is located between the file size and trashcan. 
• Analytics: Navigate to the media’s Analytics and select File Attachments. Here, you’ll find a graph showing the downloads for each file expressed over time. 

If you already have a SproutVideo-hosted video website, you can immediately start using file attachments. This new feature is available on Sprout, Tree, and Forest plans. 

Check out related content and other recent product updates below. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

• Product Update: Playlists on Video Websites & Tons of New Features
• Product Update: Watermark Customizations, Direct Video Links, and Cloud Storage Importing
• Best Practices to Securely Share Corporate Video
• 6 Ways to Protect and Share Video Content with Confidence

The post Product Update: Boost Engagement With File Attachments for Media appeared first on SproutVideo.

We’re thrilled to share new features that elevate the video experience. Discover more ways to effortlessly increase viewer engagement and streamline your workflow. 

This update includes something for all users, whether you keep video content private or deliver your message to the world. Explore our favorite new features below. 

Share Playlists On Your SproutVideo Website

Build a polished video sequence that focuses viewer attention on your content. Introducing Playlists on SproutVideo-hosted Video Websites. 

Fine-tuned customizations allow you to choose how to display your playlists and determine who can access that content. 

• Create a structured learning path for customers, students, or employees. Make it easy to access content, revisit specific topics, and learn at their own pace.
• Showcase key features and benefits of your product to drive purchase decisions.
• Build a video-based knowledge center to help your customers use a product effectively. This practice reduces support requests and improves product satisfaction and retention. 
• Produce serialized video content to build a loyal audience and establish topic authority with search engines.
• Inform stakeholders through organized video updates to provide reliable internal communications that ensure alignment on key initiatives, financials, and policies. 

Explore limitless possibilities for organizing, securing, and sharing your video content.

Design the look and feel of your playlists to create a “binge-able” experience that keeps your audience hooked. Our favorite features include:

• Encourage playlist views with custom still or animated playlist poster frames 
• Provide an uninterrupted viewing experience with auto-advance and looping, now available for Playlists on Video Websites
• Protect embedded playlists with password protection and signed embed codes

Check out the full list of new playlist features in the release notes. 

Note: You can access all new playlist features and settings via the SproutVideo API.

Video Website Updates

Viewer Progress Tracking on Video Websites 

Enhance the viewing experience with a visual progress indicator at the bottom of video thumbnails. It acts as a point of reference for their progress and allows them to easily resume.

With this convenient feature, your audience can see how much of the video they’ve watched at a glance. Once clicked, the video resumes from where they left off. 

This is an optional setting within Site Editor. 

Auto-Pause When Viewer Switches Tabs 

Improve viewer engagement and information retention by automatically pausing videos if the viewer switches tabs. When the viewer switches back to the player, the video resumes. 

This is an optional setting within Site Editor.   

Clickable Timestamps in Video Descriptions

Clickable timestamps help viewers quickly find relevant parts of a video. Timestamps in your video description become clickable links to the corresponding point in your video on SproutVideo-hosted landing pages. 

This workflow feature improves the viewer experience and increases engagement, making it especially useful for educational and long-form content. 

Not a customer yet? Start using the platform for free; no credit card required.

Choose When Poster Frames Animate

Create a seamless presentation on your video website using a mix of still and animated poster frames. Choose whether animated poster frames play:

• Always: Animated poster frames loop (up to 8-seconds) continuously 
• On Hover: Animated poster frames only play when a mouse hovers over them
• Never: Animated poster frames never animate

This feature applies to video website pages with listed content (i.e., home page, search results, playlists). Animated poster frames always animate on video landing pages. 

Video Player Options on Video Websites 

Customize the viewer’s playback experience by choosing what video player controls to hide or display. Users that share their content with SproutVideo-hosted Landing Pages can now:

• Show a large play button or player controls before a video is played
• Hide or show the fullscreen button, volume bar, seek bar, and settings button

Control The Visibility of Login-Protected Video Listings

Pique interest and engagement by showcasing gated video content for all website visitors, even when they are logged out.  

Videos secured with Viewer Login Protection are not playable until visitors successfully log in to your video website. However, now you can decide if your audience can see listings for all videos on your video website, whether or not they’re logged in. 

Display Related Videos and Playlists on Landing Pages

Display your related video content to encourage engagement with other videos and playlists on your site. This new feature allows you to display a list of your related content in the footer of any video landing page and playlist overview page.

Related video recommendations are determined by the video tags you assign to your content. The more tags videos or playlists have in common, the more likely they are to show up as related content.

Video SEO Updates

Add Meta Descriptions to Video Website Pages

Meta descriptions provide readers and search engines with additional information about your website, which is helpful for video SEO. You can now add a meta description to the pages of your SproutVideo-hosted Video Website. When sharing pages from your video website, this meta description is displayed along with the Open Graph image (discussed next). 

Upload Open Graph Image for Social Sharing

Enhance branding and customize your website’s presentation with Open Graph images for social sharing. When someone shares a link to your SproutVideo-hosted Video Website, this image will display in applications with rich previews (Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, etc).

Simplified Video SEO Workflow for Embedded Content

Enjoy a new and improved video SEO workflow with Embedded Media Discovery. You can now automate video indexing for embedded content, allowing you to easily index a large number of videos. This feature takes advantage of Google’s latest guidance for video players.

With this workflow, you can signal to Google that your videos should be indexed without creating a video sitemap and adding the canonical (embedded) URL manually to every video. 

When this setting is enabled, videos may be indexed by Google like any other website content: when search engines crawl the page. 

Note: Use a video sitemap and Embedded Media Discovery to ensure all search engines can find your video and for redundancy. The method used for this workflow may only be supported by Google at this time. We recommend this practice to cover all search engines.

Read More: The Full List of Product Updates Q3 2024

Explore all of the new possibilities this product update provides: read the full list of updates, tour the redesigned Playlists page and Site Editor, reference our new help guides (below), and please don’t hesitate to contact our human-powered Support team. 

• What is Video Metadata and How Do I Use It?
• Overview of Playlists on the Video Website
• How to Create a Video Website in 10 Easy Steps
• Product Update: Watermark Customizations, Direct Video Links, and Cloud Storage Importing

As always, we’re here to help and excited to hear your feedback. We appreciate you and your business. The full list of product updates can be found here. 

The post Product Update: Playlists on Video Websites & Tons of New Features appeared first on SproutVideo.

Check out four new features to help you manage your video assets, easily market video content, and customize the viewer experience. 

Customizable Dynamic Watermarks

Dynamic watermarks protect your content from theft, piracy, and unauthorized distribution by displaying the viewer’s information on-screen. This type of video watermark continuously moves on a timed interval, making it nearly impossible to crop out. You can set this watermark to appear on some or all of your videos. 

With our latest updates to dynamic watermarks, you have even more control of your video security. Adjust the background transparency, how frequently the watermark changes positions, restrict placement to avoid the video’s center, or even hide the watermark intermittently to limit any potential interference with your content.

Read More: 4 Ways to Customize Dynamic Watermarks

Improved Workflow for Downloading Video Assets

Introducing a redesigned download workflow to help manage your video assets. You can access the improved workflow from any uploaded video in your account.

Now, you can: 

• View and download all resolutions of an uploaded video 
• See the file size of downloadable assets before downloading them 
• Download video poster frames — both static and animated 

Flexible download options offer several benefits, including:

• Improve your archival workflow
• Share assets between team members for fast collaboration
• Download recorded live streams for editing, then replace the original file
• Reuse assets, such as animated poster frames, in marketing campaigns

Read More: How to Download Video Assets

Easy Access to Direct Video Links & m3u8 for HLS Streaming

Along with easier access to your downloadable video assets, this product update makes it easy to get direct access to video file URLs, like mp4 and m3u8 for HLS streaming.

Direct video links are sometimes necessary for third-party platforms, application building, and website plugins. Specific examples include WordPress themes that require an m3u8 link and businesses that need a white-label player for selling subscription-based content through a private app. 

Read More: Get Direct Video File Access

Import Videos Directly from Third-Party Storage Accounts

The SproutVideo platform has always made it easy to quickly upload your video files. This update adds the ability to directly import videos to your account from third-party storage services: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and One Drive.

Import videos from third-party services directly from the Upload page within your SproutVideo account. We hope this ease-of-use feature will help make your workflow more seamless than ever before. 

Read More: How to Import Videos from Third-Party Storage Accounts

We love hearing your feedback! This product update includes lots more changes that were requested by you: added control over SEO and search engine indexing, easier account management, new player color customizations for video websites, and more.

Read More: 25 More New Additions from This Product Release

We are constantly improving and want to hear from you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Support with your own requests and feedback.

As always, we’re here to help! Get the most out of your SproutVideo experience with our knowledge base of help articles, how-to guides, and a human-powered support team. 

The post Product Update: Watermark Customizations, Direct Video Links, and Cloud Storage Importing appeared first on SproutVideo.

OAuth2.0 allows us to work with developers and companies to create applications that seamlessly integrate with your account for improved workflow, marketing, and sales functionality. 

OAuth2.0 completes a long-standing SproutVideo goal. We can now work with companies and developers to build app integrations for the platform. Unlike API keys, these integrations will be available for all customers and seamlessly integrate with your account.

We’re excited to introduce three app integrations already available in your SproutVideo account today. We’ll also discuss the many benefits of OAuth2.0 authentication support! 

3 Apps to Integrate with Your Account

The applications below are available now for easy integration with your SproutVideo account. We’re excited to add to this library of valuable integrations to help you get more done in less time. 

Sky Pilot

Sell access to your videos with Sky Pilot. This Shopify application makes selling digital downloads and products, like videos, easy. Directly within Sky Pilot’s settings, you can choose SproutVideo as your hosting platform to share the necessary information between accounts. 

Crowdin

Localize your content with cloud-based Crowdin. Using the SproutVideo integration, Crowdin will automatically produce translated subtitles for your videos, allowing the value of your business to be received by people worldwide. 

Zapier

Use our Zapier integration to connect your SproutVideo account with over 5,000 different applications. Zapier can automate repetitive tasks by creating “zaps,” which are automated workflows initiated by a specific event or action.

What Makes These Integrations Possible? 

Previously, the SproutVideo platform only supported API keys. These offered a way to authenticate our application and use our API with third-party software. However, API keys can access all of a user’s account information. If unauthorized parties access that information, it requires manual revocation.

OAuth2.0 allows SproutVideo users to easily integrate their accounts with third-party applications and securely exchange data.

OAuth2.0 authentication support (for SproutVideo users):

• Grants access to only the specific information authorized within the application.
• Uses token-based authorization, which is more secure than API keys.
• Allows you to easily revoke access to third-party applications at any time.

For more information on understanding OAuth2.0, read Aaron Parecki’s Simplified Guide. For a less technical overview, check out David Neal’s Illustrated Guide. 

OAuth2.0 Specifics for Developers

The additional support for OAuth2.0 opens the door for developers to create applications that interact with SproutVideo. 

Developers creating a SproutVideo integration are welcome to email us for questions and help at support@sproutvideo.com.

The post 3 App Integrations to Maximize Your SproutVideo Account appeared first on SproutVideo.

We’re serious about security at SproutVideo, which is why we are excited to announce a new way to protect your hosted videos with dynamic watermarking for videos. 

A dynamic watermark displays the viewer’s email address, IP address, and session ID over your video and continuously changes position. This makes it nearly impossible to crop out of a screen recording. You can also customize the opacity of the watermark, restrict its position, and more.

What is Dynamic Watermarking?

Watermarking, in general, is the process of overlaying an image or text over a piece of content to identify the content’s owner, authorized user, or validity. 

There are various methods for watermarking different kinds of content; we’ll focus on static and dynamic watermarking of videos today. We are SproutVideo, after all.

A static watermark is a watermark that is the same for all viewers. Dynamic watermarks change based on various factors, such as where the video is played or who is watching it.

Static Watermarking

Static watermarking adds a visible mark on a video. It’s a great way to brand content and deter theft. When used for branding purposes, these watermarks can commonly be seen on videos or photographs as a logo, name, or phrase that typically appears along the edges, so they aren’t too distracting. 

The creators of a television show, for example, may watermark a video clip or GIF on social media to grow brand awareness. When attempting to deter theft, a content creator might have the static watermark cover the entire photograph or video. 

Even if someone were to download or screenshot the content, the watermark would still be present; therefore, everyone would know who created the content. Static watermarks are easy to incorporate since they only have to be added once and can be done before uploading to a video hosting platform.

Dynamic Watermarking

Dynamic watermarks, on the other hand, change from viewer to viewer based on different factors. For instance, a video could have a different watermark based on what site it’s been embedded in, or each video viewer might get a unique watermark that identifies them. 

While dynamic watermarks don’t prevent screen recording, they can be excellent at discouraging viewers from recording and redistributing content because their personal information is burned in and can easily be traced back to them.

You’ll generally want to use dynamic watermarking on content intended for a narrow audience, such as quarterly reports, employee training videos, or content containing intellectual property or trade secrets.

4 Ways to Customize Dynamic Watermarking on a Video

Dynamic watermarks offer superior security to static watermarks. While static watermarks can easily be cropped out, dynamic watermarks are difficult to hide and reveal the thief’s personal information.

However, to minimize its prominence while providing security, the SproutVideo platform allows you to customize the dynamic watermark on your videos. 

Background Transparency

Set the watermark’s background to be more or less transparent. We recommend a “semi-transparent” watermark for a balance of readability and strong security. The more opaque the watermark background, the more prominently it is featured. 

Position Change Time

By default, the dynamic watermark changes positions on a timed interval to prevent thieves from being able to crop out one section of the image in order to avoid being identified. 

We recommend a 20-second interval. This provides strict anti-theft protection without being distracting to the viewer. Available options include 10-second and 30-second intervals as well. 

Intermittent Visibility

This feature allows you to display the watermark intermittently. The watermark will display every other interval, meaning the watermark is hidden for roughly half the video. 

The frequency of interval change corresponds to the position change time you’ve selected for watermarks. Keep in mind that enabling this setting makes it easier to grab screen captures. 

Restricted Positioning

The placement of the dynamic watermark is random by default. Restricted Positioning prevents the watermark from displaying at the center of the video, which is generally the main focus of the video content.

When this setting is enabled, the watermark will stick to the edges of the video as much as possible. Once again, remember that this creates less variability in the watermark placement, making it easier to crop the watermark out.

Dynamic Watermarking for Videos with SproutVideo

Our dynamic watermarking feature provides a strong theft deterrent by sharing personal details like the viewer’s email address, IP address, and session ID. If a viewer chooses to pirate your content and share it without your consent, their personal information will also be shared. 

Changing the placement of the dynamic watermark throughout the video adds another layer of protection, making it extremely cumbersome for any screen recorder to crop out or conceal without needing to display the watermark over the entire surface area of the content.

Our platform also gives you the flexibility to enable dynamic watermarks for all of your videos account-wide, on a per-video basis, or per viewer login access grant — making it an excellent option that can adapt to your needs. 

Dynamic watermarking is an essential tool for preventing video content from being stolen and redistributed. It is ideal for protecting intellectual property and keeping trade secrets, well, secret.

Ready to get started? 

• Try it out completely free with a 30-day trial to the platform.
• Learn how to set up dynamic watermarking on SproutVideo. 
• Discover the best practices for sharing private videos.

The post Product Update: Dynamic Watermarks for Videos appeared first on SproutVideo.

We’ve divided this release into two categories: Player Customization and Video Management. Player features govern how your content looks and how your viewers can interact with it. Video management features are used to organize and manage your content on our platform. Check out the video below for a walkthrough of our newest features:

Player Customization Features

ANIMATED POSTER FRAMES

As a SproutVideo customer, you already have the flexibility to customize your poster frame, or video thumbnail, by selecting an auto-generated still from your video, uploading an image, or designing your own using our Canva integration. Now you also have the option to use our new animated poster frames feature for both live streams and on-demand videos. You can create your own animation from your video, or upload a custom GIF up to 10 MB. 

This feature can be useful for sales teams, realtors, or even internal communications. A video thumbnail in motion is more dynamic than a still image, and probably better at grabbing a viewer’s attention on a page or in an email. So give animated poster frames a try to see how they impact your viewer engagement. 

AUDIO CONTROL OPTIMIZATION

The SproutVideo platform can now detect whether or not your video has an audio track and remove all volume controls accordingly. This creates a cleaner player that allows your videos to seamlessly integrate with the design of your site. If you have a retail site, for example, this feature will allow you to regularly feature autoplay videos without player controls on your product pages.

LIGHT BOX & EMAIL EMBED POSTER FRAME ENHANCEMENTS

This feature allows you to remove the play button from your poster frame in either the light box or email embeds. This is a really handy improvement, especially if you’re using our new animated poster frame feature! If you’re designing a custom poster frame, you can integrate a play button into that design to create a thumbnail that matches better with your own style and branding.

LEAD CAPTURE PROMPT CUSTOMIZATION

In addition to the ability to customize the lead capture prompt message, you can now customize the background and text color of your lead capture forms. This lets you tailor your lead capture forms to match the look and feel of your branding and player. You can also now edit the lead capture message on our hosted video sites, in addition to inline embed and lightbox embed so your message for lead capture can stay consistent no matter where it’s embedded. 

AIRPLAY SUPPORT

Airplay was always available for live streams on our platform, but now you have the option to allow airplay for your on-demand videos as well. You can allow this account-wide, or on a per-video basis. Keep in mind, if you allow airplay, you do open yourself up to the slight risk that someone could potentially download or watch your videos without your permission, so make sure you consider the risks.

Video Management Updates

CLONE VIDEOS, LIVE STREAMS, AND PLAYLISTS

This update can make your workflow more efficient and give you more options when it comes to sharing your content. With a few convenient clicks, you can clone a copy of any video in your account along with that video’s settings. For example, you could A/B test different poster frames, or separate the analytics for two different placements of the same video. For live streamers, cloning also makes setting up a live stream series easier because you can quickly copy all your settings for future episodes. You also have the option to duplicate playlists in order to create more sharing options. If you use a playlist to frequently share your work, you may find yourself constantly modifying it based on who you’re sharing it with. Now you can simply duplicate the playlist, make minor tweaks, or remove or add videos to focus a playlist for a specific client.

VIDEO TITLE CLEANUP

Prior to this release, video titles were generated from the entire file name, including .mov, .mp4, or whatever extension your video had. Now, those file extensions are automatically deleted when you upload. In addition to the file extension, the platform will also remove underscores, split camel case, and capitalize for title case, so a project filename results in a video with a title that’s much more presentable. For example, If your file name is “WeLoveVideoHosting_2022.mov” the new file name in your video library would read “We Love Video Hosting 2022” once you upload. If for any reason you want to retain your video file’s original title, you have the option to disable this feature in your account settings. 

FLEXIBLE EMAIL EMBED OPTIONS 

We’ve always made it simple to customize your email embeds for marketing platforms such as Mailchimp and Constant Contact, but now if you want to send an email straight from Outlook, Gmail, or any other email client that allows for rich HTML emails, you can select that option, and paste your linked poster frame directly into your email. 

LIVE STREAM TAGS

Your live streams will be even more organized on the SproutVideo platform with our tags update, which gives you the ability to tag and filter your upcoming streams. Previously, you could group your live streams into categories on the video website, but now you can tag and organize your videos accordingly in the index view as well.

HTTPS SUPPORT FOR VIDEO WEBSITES USING CNAMES

With this new update, your videos will stay secure even on your custom domains. If you’re using a custom domain name on your video website hosted on SproutVideo, the platform now automatically provides SSL certificates. An SSL certificate is a digital certificate that authenticates your website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection, allowing for more security between the web server and a web browser. 

All of these features were implemented in response to suggestions from our customers. We appreciate the feedback and look forward to continuing to improve and grow with you. If you’d like to test these out for yourself, start a free trial today! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact our support team.

The post Summer 2022 Product Updates appeared first on SproutVideo.