Release Notes for Q3 2024, July - Sept

September 18, 2024

Playlists

• Improved: The playlist library page interface has been updated to improve user experience. We’ve added functionality like bulk select, additional sorting options, quick sharing, and more details about each playlist at a glance, such as video count, duration, and privacy.
• Improved: We’ve also redesigned the playlist details page (or ‘settings’ page) interface to more closely mimic the video editing workflow, as most users will be most familiar with this layout. With this redesign, you’ll be able to see the full video list more easily, as well as edit the order of your videos without having to leave the settings page. The playlist details page was also redesigned to accomodate new features and functionality we’ve added in this release, which are listed below.
• NEW: This is a major update ? Playlist landing pages have moved to your SproutVideo-hosted site! The new landing pages for sharing playlists will now use your *.vids.io domain (or your custom domain if you’ve set up your CNAME). This also means you can now customize your playlist landing pages from the Site Editor. Plus, many new features accompany this change, which will be listed below. Note: If you were previously using playlists and sharing the link that began with sproutvideo.com/playlists/..., those legacy pages will remain until January 15, 2025. Both the new and legacy playlist landing pages will exist concurrently until this date, after which all traffic will be redirected to the new pages.
• New: Playlists now allow for preferences related to Video Website Visibility and Search Engine Discovery (noindex). These settings were previously only available for videos, and they are now available for playlists with the addition of playlist landing pages on your SproutVideo-hosted site.
• New: Poster frames are now available for playlists. These are primarily used when sharing playlists via your SproutVideo-hosted website. You can choose to upload your own file (JPEG, PNG, GIF or MP4) or create an image using the Canva integration. If you have not added a custom poster frame, your playlist will default to use the poster frame of the first video in the playlist on your SproutVideo-hosted site.
• New: Password protection is now available for embedded playlists. This option has been available for videos for quite some time, and we’ve not added this functionality to playlist embeds. Previously, password protection for playlists was only available as a security feature when using SproutVideo-hosted landing pages.
• New: Signed embed codes are also now available for playlists. This was another security feature previously only available for videos. Signed embed codes are a great way to ensure your playlists are only reaching your intended audience, but implementing this advanced security feature does require some programming knowledge, and is only available on certain plans. You can choose to enable signed embed codes account-wide, or for individual playlists (and videos). You’ll find this new setting in the “Additional Playlist Settings” section of the playlist’s details (settings) page.
• New: If you’re embedding your playlist outside of the SproutVideo-platform and have in-player social sharing enabled for any video in your playlist, you can now set the Embedded Playlist URL (or canonical URL) for social sharing. This URL is used for the link when viewers share to social media from a video in your playlist. You’ll find this new setting in the “Additional Playlist Settings” section of the playlist’s details (settings) page.
• Improved: The new “Share Playlist” menu added to the redesigned playlist details page includes additional sharing options that were previously only available for videos and live streams, such as copying the link and posterframe for your playlist, emailing the playlist link, sharing directly to X (Twitter) or Facebook, and opening the link in a new window.
• Improved: The option to reset back to SproutVideo Default Playlist Settings has been added to the Playlist Settings Preset menu when customizing your playlist embed. This allows you to reset back to defaults if ever necessary. This option was previously only available for video player settings presets.

Video Websites

• Improved: The Site Editor received some interface updates to improve user experience and accomodate tons of new features.
• Improved: All themes have had some improvements, primarily related to responsive styles, accessibility for theme colors, and some semantic HTML tags for SEO. Some themes may also have new theme colors available to customize.
• Improved: Animated poster frames on your video website have been updated to MP4 format to ensure crisp, high resolution animations on your site without negatively impacting page load times. Previously, animated poster frame images on your SproutVideo-hosted website were AVIF format.
• New: Timestamps added to any video description in MM:SS or HH:MM:SS format will now be automatically turned into links to the corresponding time in your video on SproutVideo-hosted landing pages.
• New: [Personalize tab] You’ll find new settings in this tab for the Copyright Name to use on your site, a Meta Description for non-content pages of your site (like the home page, any custom pages, login form page, etc.), and an Open Graph image upload (displayed on social networks and apps that utilize rich previews when a link to your website is shared). We have also moved the Video Site URL and Custom Domain (CNAME) settings to this tab (they were previously in Advanced settings).
• New: [Settings tab] All themes now support customizing what content is shown on your home page (Home Page Organization), showing related videos on landing pages, and managing video player controls (with the new option to pause playback if the viewer switches tabs). There are also new settings for Content Listing Pages, like adding a “Videos” link to your site navigation menu, and new poster frame animation options (animate on hover, always animate, etc.). Viewer progress tracking is another new feature for Content Listing Pages, which add a visual indicator of viewing progress to all video listing pages and allows your viewers to see their progress and resume watching from where they left off. Viewer progress tracking works best when combined with Viewer Login Protection, but it will also work for any visitors to your site that have cookies enabled.
• New: [Playlists tab] This is the biggest change! ? Playlists now live on your SproutVideo-hosted site so you have way more control over the presentation of your playlists. We’ve added various layout options for playlist listing pages, the playlist overview page, individual playlist video landing pages, and the option to list playlists on your home page instead of videos! You can also choose to show related playlists on your playlist overview and/or video landing pages. Plus, even more control over video privacy and security, especially if the videos in your playlists are Private or Login Protected. Note: This tab will only be visible to you if you have at least one playlist created in your account.
• Improved: [Categories tab] Management of video tags to create categories for videos on your site has been improved. The interface has been updated to allow for searching to filter tags, bulk selection, and sorting. Plus, all themes now support cover images and descriptions for video categories.
• New: [Advanced tab] Two new settings have been added to the Advanced settings tab–the option to disable site-wide search for your website, and the option to make Login Protected videos visible to logged out visitors to your site. Typically, videos protected with Viewer Login Protection will not be listed at all on your site unless the visitor is logged in and has been granted access to any particular video. If you choose to allow login protected videos to be listed for logged out visitors, all viewers must still log in to authenticate their access in order to watch your videos.

Video Management

• Improved: Your preference for Video Website Visibility can now be set in bulk for videos from your video library. This video privacy setting can be found in the “Edit Privacy” dropdown menu in your video library.
• Improved: The interface for individual live stream and video details pages (or settings pages) has been updated slightly to rearrange the settings in a more logical order, based on most frequently modified settings.
• New: Allow search engine discovery of your embedded video player to simplify your search engine optimization workflow. This new feature utilizes the indexifembedded robots tag recognized by Google crawlers, and helps to ensure Google will only index your video when it is embedded outside of the SproutVideo platform. This new setting can be enabled for individual videos on the video’s details (settings) page, as well as account-wide in the Account Settings > Media Settings page (Embedded Media Discovery). Note that this new feature is intended to supplement the existing video sitemaps for SEO, however, it can be enabled independently if you prefer to streamline your workflow and skip the video sitemap. Note: Your video landing pages (and website) hosted by SproutVideo could still be indexed by Google depending on your video privacy settings and/or search indexing preferences.

September 13, 2024

Video Analytics and Engagement

• Improved: Extensive backend performance enhancements have been made to improve the processing of video analytics and engagement data. This change was made in preparation for larger upcoming changes to analytics and engagement reports, as such, most accounts will not notice any changes. However, some accounts may see improvements in load time when viewing account-wide and video analytics or engagement reports, particularly for those with high engagement since April 2024.

July 8, 2024

Video Engagement

• New: We’ve added a new option for “All Versions” on the Video Engagement report page in the “Select a Version” dropdown. This is only applicable if you have replaced any video hosted with SproutVideo. This change was made in preparation for larger upcoming changes to our video analytics and engagement data backend.

July 3, 2024

Social Sharing

• Improved: Updated the Open Graph image generated for social sharing to remove the “play” button to comply with Meta’s spam policy.