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.

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.