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Hi
I've finally got things working. The best $10 i've spent in a while. Thanks.
This is probably well down the list on priorities but I've got to ask.
Is it possible to merge the uploaded file with a trailer/advert that sits on the server to create a new branded file?
Now that would be cool.
Thanks
Gerb
Thanks for the suggestion, we will check if this can be done.
It can be done and pretty easily i think, same with .swf watermarks. Cool effect.
That would be very nice addon.
I was thinking how I can add some adverts to uploading file.
If the concept is sound then the improvement to build in from the start while developing the idea further would be to allow for say 5 or 10 adverts to be rotated and added to the uploaded videos.
The logical progression from this would be to allow for the ability to add those ads at either the beginning or end of the video.
This would allow us to sell advertising or self promote.
The idea of adding tracking as in phpmyads to measure the results would be great. If you can then add a 'Pay Per Minute' billing system at a later date that would be special.
Thanks
Gerb
Atm Post roll and preroll video adversts are being looked into, i can do it in real time its just a matter of getting it onto the server to work, admin and coders are looking into this and once its done i have a way to ad swf ads as well as the preroll and postroll advertisements. Main drawback atm is that you will need to convert the advertisement into flv form, either user side or using the server.
Hey :)
If the main drawback atm is only converting the advertisement into flv form, then it's not a real problem :)
Add the time it takes to the production costs. Yet another way of earning a few bob :)
Well done you!! Am really looking fwd to any info on this.
Thanks!!
Gerb
My idea of it to work was based on how you upload your logo images now. In admin you choose upload a advert, you choose if you want the advert before or after the video (or both) then it asks you to select 'Preroll Advert.flv' and then 'Postroll Advert.flv' you then click upload and the server converts it as if it is a video. Then in admin it has a spot like it already does for banners, allowing you to activate and deactivate it.
Would be nice, and as i said earlier i gave these ideas and my demo to the admin which he is looking into so it may be a release in the near future fingers crossed.
It sounds so simple when you read it like that :)
I'll keep my fingers crossed and do a bit of research myself ASAP. Many minds and all that.
Gerb
Its quite simple to do your self on your home computer if you want any help or question pm me your hotmail or yahoo address im happy to spread knowledge and try further my own.
What happened to this feature request? Is it still on the cards? Sounds like a breakthrough is imminent.... or not? :D :( Yes, No?
Admin...?
Zeffer...?
Anyone...?
C'mon Mat, surely you have a few ideas on this..... :)
The closest I've come to finding out how this can be applied is here
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/extras/ad ... ments.html
Now if someone smarter than me can implement the principal we've got it sussed as Jeroen has given us the ability to have pre and post roll + swf clickable overlays :)
Any takers?
That's really cool Gerb, I watched the demos at the link and it's clear this can be done. What I thought was good, was the fact that when you select the preroll ads, it shows the ad in before the video when you watch it the first time, but if you want to watch the video again, it plays without the ad - I think that's a great compromise for both advertiser and user. The advertiser gets his ad right there, front and center, but once the ad has played, the user gets to play the video again without getting annoyed.
Pleeeeaase admin, there has to be a way to get this integrated into the control panel so we can upload the ads we want displayed before each individual video and edit (change the ads for different clients/dates/times etc...) - This is how you monetize a vshare site!! :D
The compromise impressed me too.
On further investigation it looks like Jeroen has had his work used by lots of people as his player is used in quite a few CMS's and blogs as plugins. The other cool feature I found somewhere was the ability to add videos and the pre/post rolls into a DB and call them.
From what I can work out the trick is to use the XML file to call the pre/post roll. I think the only issues with admin integrating his work would be we would all need to get a commercial license (not a problem for me at 15 Euros) and admin would need to leave Jeroen's work unencoded.
All in all this looks like the best option I've found (and I have been looking damned hard) so please Please PLEASE Admin .... will you try to give us this much wanted feature? - even if to comply with licensing it has to be as a plugin?
TIA
Kev
Yup, it looks like the XML is the kicker. Read somewhere on the forum (I think Galnet was working on an XML playlist) but from the sound of things, it's a bugger to get working properly. If this code of Jeroen's will help I'm sure the guys here will figure something out. Although if as you say they will have to leave the code unencrypted, there might be a bit of a snag. Unless I'm wrong, this thing is going to need to be integrated into the vshare admin panel (which we will hopefully be able to configure on an ads per video basis - not just the same one ad running before every video), which means that admin won't simply be able to drop this puppy in and have it running without some merging and tinkering in the code.
The 15 Euros is a drop in the ocean considering the potential revenue this added feature will be able to generate (I'd make my money back in an hour :lol: ). Some things are worth their weight in gold, this feature is one of them. Whether they they end up using Joroen's code, or figuring out another solution, doesn't matter - this is where the rubber meets the road.
The ability to run pre or post roll on a per video basis would be the pure genius :) and I'm sure the guys are more than capable of making it happen. Let's face it they are smart cookies. They built this.
Having to keep the code un-encrypted was what made me think the solution may be a plugin. I'm sure they'll work it out. A few hook here and a hook there along with some instructions would do it for me.
Like you said about the revenue option :) - I just added up the total cost :) $10 + E15 + debranding - Kerching !!!!
Unless I'm well off on my sums that'd mean having to wait at least .... oooh at least 48 hours before running into that horrible thing called profit.
On the XML playlist thing. It is a bitch but doable. Personally, if admin gives us a thumbs up that it will happen I'm happy to use my basic skills to hack something into the community pot??
GOsh, I need this soooo bad!
G
You might be thinking of the following thread that I had going:Quote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1458&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
You will see Zeffer comment that admin told him that it is basically impossible to do. That's certainly true with the old player used by vShare, but it only takes 30 seconds of time to upgrade to a newer version that will support playlists.
As you can see from the front page of my site, using xml playlists when all of the files are hard coded works great. The trouble comes in when you try to use coding to automatically use the proper video. I had people who even worked on the design of the player trying to help, and it just didn't work. If you go through the thread listed above, you'll see that we tried most anything that we could based on the information available in the template files.
It is impossible to do more right now since all the files are coded. I sent admin a question about it, but never received any kind of answer. I know he's busy. I guess this just isn't a priority with them. That's really a shame too, because it's something that could really put their player over the top.
I'll eventually hire someone to combine the vshare code with uncoded files I have from similar clones and see if we can figure out why this isn't working. I just figured there was no point in posting further since I was basically just talking to myself in that thread.
It would certainly be nice, but I would not hold my breath. If you look back at messages over the last few months, you'll see it go from being something the admin will look into, to something the admin says cant be done, to something the admin wont issue a reply about it. It is certainly doable, but I don't think they know how to approach it. I'll keep cracking at it myself, but I think it's impossible to get it done when everything is encrypted.Quote:
Originally Posted by gerbil
So now we are 5.
Maybe now we know it can be done if we pool our thoughts / results together in this thread we can get somewhere. If the admins are stuck or busy moving the core code forward it can only help us (and them)?Quote:
Originally Posted by SportsGamingTV.com
The biggest hurdle I foresee is that every time we have an update we may have to rework things. Provided we don't go out to far it might not be such a problem.
I've also gotta say I'm really impressed with the sportgaming site. That looks nice. Great work.
Hey SportsGamingTV, my bad... I knew it was one of you "Big Guys" who was working on this :oops: I think that the more attention we focus on this feature and keep updating this thread, the sooner admin will need to acknowledge that it is one of the higher priority upgrades required. Heck, if they're stuck, all they need to do is contact one of you guys who has some working parts of the code and pick your brains for details on overcoming any hurdle they might be facing. From the sound of things, if the script were not encrypted, you would most likely already have figured this thing out, so it shouldn't be difficult for admin and his team to do the same :)
Let's hope he gives it some serious consideration. Anyone else interested in this feature, please just post a reply saying "Me too, please" and in so doing, admin can see how many of us are interested in getting this added. If only a handful of us show interest, it's easy for this thread to simply fade away and the feature forgotten about. Let's keep the momentum going here :wink:
OK here's a very dirty nasty working hack that will give you pre or post roll. Be warned it is not for the faint hearted!!
It also has a nasty side effect - more on that later - but the point is it can be done!
You'll need to manually create your play list.
You'll need to manually alter your database.
You'll need to alter /includes/player.inc
If you're not already having kittens and the lure of filthy ad revenue has filled your eyes ... I'll begin.
Let's do the easy stuff first;
1. BACK EVERYTHING UP!!!! - you've been warned - I was glad I did!
2. Open /include/player.inc and add
just afterCode:so.addVariable("repeat", "list");
3. upload your pre or post roll advert in flv format into your /flvideo folder and make a note of what it's called.Code:so.addVariable("autostart", "false");
4. Open your database in phpmyadmin or whatever
5. Look for the video you want to add your pre or post roll add to and note down the 'vid' and the 'flvdoname'
6. Open up notepad and copy this code into it
You'll obviously need to change the bits in between [ & ] and there can be no gap on the first line :)Code:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/">
<trackList>
<track>
<title>[Pre Roll Title]</title>
<creator>Details</creator>
<location>http://[FULL-URL-TO]/flvideo/[ADVERT-TITLE].flv</location>
<image>http://[FULL-URL-TO-MAIN-VIDEO-IMAGE].jpg</image>
</track>
<track>
<title>[Main Video Title]</title>
<creator>[Details]</creator>
<location>http://http://[FULL-URL-TO]/flvideo/[flvdoname].flv</location>
<image>http://[FULL-URL-TO-MAIN-VIDEO-IMAGE].jpg</image>
</track>
</trackList>
</playlist>
7. Save this file as 'vid'.xml (where vid is the id of your main video which you are adding your pre or post roll to).
8. Upload 'vid'.xml into your /flvideo folder
9. Back to you database and change/edit your video flvdoname to 'vid'.xml
10 Go to your site and play your video :)
NOTES:
Security - you can call your 'vid'.xml file anything you want - I've just outlined it this way for simplicity.
Proof of concept at(I make no appologies for the dodgy preroll - I was in a hurry)Code:http://1.ef7.co.uk/view/18/carly-cunningham-promo-sample/
The nasty side effect: If you stop the video during the pre-roll then the next person gets a post roll.
So there we have it. It can be done. Now if we can get it built in so we can upload post and pre roll ads from the db ....
What do you think?
Kev
I'm not following you on that portion.Quote:
To me, it looks like you are saying to manually type the full path to the flv file in the playlist. While this would work, it would be a static approach that would have to be repeated for each video, which could get to be very time consuming. I'm not seeing how it would dynamically call any particular video a person may try to view on the site.
Am I overlooking something?
Thanks. I've still got a lot to do though. At this point I am just trying to move away from the standard look and feel of the basic install. I have to go slow with this though, because I'm not exactly a pro with photoshop, plus some of the tutorials I follow to work for me since I'm using old version 7, so I have to experiment a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by gerbil
haha. I hope to be a big guy some day. For now, I just tack a couple of extra zeros onto my site stats so that I can feel big. ;) lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
Wow Kev!! You dirty, nasty hacker you! :lol: That looks great.
I'm sure that anyone getting into this thread probably has enough experience to get their hands a little dirty, digging in the database etc. I'm going to give this a try.
By the way, I noticed that the glitch you referred to with the pre-roll & post roll getting swapped, doesn't seem to have anything to do with starting/stopping the video during pre-roll. It looks like it is automatically rotating the ad to pre-roll and post roll each time you play it. When I got to the page initially, the ad was in post roll position, when I refreshed the page, it was still in post roll. When I played the clip again, it switched to pre-roll and every time I restarted the clip, it switched. But it seems to default to post roll on initial play.
This is really great Kev, thanks a bunch! :D
Now I'm sure that admin should be able to add a section to the "Edit Video" page in the admin panel where we can: [*]upload the flv ads into the flvideo folder (or alternatively select a clip that has already been uploaded and converted to flv - I think this would probably be a more sensible/practical option, since the video will already have received a title and description on upload)[*]Assign the flv ad/commercial to the video clip either as pre/post roll - Hit Submit and Presto! The script should then add the relevant info to the database and generate an updated XML playlist on completion.
This way each and every video can be assigned a separate ad/commercial. I guess some folks might want to be able to assign a single ad to all videos which would require another setting option, and others might want to "bulk assign" an ad/commercial to a bunch of other videos by checkbox (probably a bit more intensive to code, but would take things to a whole new level).
What do you say admin? Surely this can't be that hard to integrate into the next upgrade.
Very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
My thoughts on it have been to have an enable disable option for preroll under Misc settings, and then somewhere (maybe a new 'video ads section) have a place to upload the preroll, similar to how we upload logos and watermarks now - or at least type the path/name of an flv that is already on the server.
I am also thinking of enable/disable option for post roll ads. But what I would think would be really neat here is if we could upload/point to 3 different ads, and have the system cycle through them. So if you watch a video, you get Ad-1 at the end, the next video gets Ad-2 at the end, etc. Of course, I'd be happy to even just have a single ad on all sites.
Your not overlooking anything :( At the moment it is a manual process for every video you want to add pre or post to.Quote:
<location>http://http://[FULL-URL-TO]/flvideo/[flvdoname].flv</location>
I'm not following you on that portion.
To me, it looks like you are saying to manually type the full path to the flv file in the playlist. While this would work, it would be a static approach that would have to be repeated for each video, which could get to be very time consuming. I'm not seeing how it would dynamically call any particular video a person may try to view on the site.
Am I overlooking something?
The only thing I noticed was the double http:// - At the moment we need to manually type every thing in.
With this selecting your main video would be smart but I think having a separate upload and convert function for the ads would be better as we don't want ads displayed in their own right as SportsGaming suggests.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
The fact that I needed to rename the video to to .xml should make it easier. If every upload created it's own xml file on the fly as part of the convert process, Admin could then give us an 'edit xml' option which may be easier to implement. Again with access in Misc settings.
All we need to start with is a basic function which we can improve in later releases. I say this because some advertisers will want pre roll and some post. And while I understand that some people will go for the one ad suits all philosophy I think we need to have all options available on a per video basis. Let's face it from a marketing point of view it would be easier to sell insurance space over an accident video than a porn vid - Advertisers can be funny people when it comes to image and branding if you get what I mean.
We're on the road now and in manual first gear. The main point is we're heading in the right direction.
What do you think Admin?
kev
SportsGamingTV.com, sounds like you're talking about a setup where all videos at your site get either the same ad (if you only have one to show) playing pre/post roll (as the case may be). Alternatively you want to have the system cycle through ads you've uploaded at random on all videos?
The reason I would want to have it set up so that each video can be edited (or bulk editing with checkboxes for multiple videos) is because some advertisers may have a problem with their ads appearing pre/post certain videos (I'm sure the adult sites probably won't have this problem, but a lot of niche sites might). There may be an issue of poor taste, unrelated market etc... and if people start watching a video about eg. "The Pope's Annual Address" preceded (Sponsored by) Trojan Condoms.... :lol: - You get the picture... People start writing letters, lawsuits get filed and "bye-bye baby", the end of a good thing.
Allowing for control over which ads are assigned to which videos is definitely the way to go. Having a bulk edit option would probably be the easiest way to satisfy everyone - that way you could go into the "Edit Video" page, select an ad/commercial (either from a drop-down menu, or by typing in the path to..) and then assign it to the video being edited (or alternatively to all videos in a certain Channel if there is a separate menu page for ad settings where you can select the ad and then check off the relevant videos you want it assigned to; or simply hit the "Select All" checkbox to assign it to all videos). Taking it a step further would of course be the option of having different playlists as you mentioned (instead of just a single ad) and being able to assign a playlist to a bunch of videos/Channels in the same way - then the ads can show on the selected videos/channels in rotation.
I can definitely see the benefit of having a playlist/rotation of ads available for assignment to videos, but having it set up by default to show the same ad on all videos is probably not the best way to go, besides it would effectively devalue the inventory. The way I see it, as a site starts getting serious traffic and people start rating videos, some videos will naturally get more eye-balls than others - that's where your money is :) You charge more to advertise alongside the busy videos and less for the not-so-busy ones. You'll be surprised at how much people will be willing to pay to be in front of a busy channel as apposed to having "site-wide" coverage on untargeted videos. Nowadays it's all about targeted traffic and tracking click-throughs/or views in this case.
I could see that to a degree. Looking at my own site as an example, it would be nice to only have poker commercials in the poker section, football commercials in football, etc, as well as maybe having general-play commercials. So in a sense, I could see flagging them by channel. I think that managing them by individual video would be too much micromanaging though, especially if your site grows to be very large.
My general thoughts are that I prefer a long-tail approach. I'd much rather have generalized commercials that are based on 'per view' price basis and have them carried across site wide. In this sense, those more popular videos would still generate more money due to having more views. In television you see a combination of the two approaches. Niche programming like home renovations will have more ads taylored to a specific audience, but most commercials take a long tail approach. They do not care about individual viewer interests, but just the number of views their ad receives.
Of course, right now, I'd be happy to have anything at all.
--
On the topic of implementation, has anyone looked at alstrasoft's flash ads as an example of how this can be done? Theirs is a separate plug in that has to be purchased. I know that their clone script has the same origins as vshare, but vshare has been extensively modified and improved (alstrasoft's is junk) to the point where it's basically a different product. But if they could get flashads to work on the more primitive version, then surely something similar can be done with vshare. I thought about buying it just to see if flashads would bolt onto vshare as well, but they charge $150 and everything I've ever gotten from them has been full of bugs, so I decided against it.
But maybe that is ultimately the best approach. A separate script that interacts with vshare. I'd pay for it as long as it works, which would give admin further financial incentive to get it going.
Is there any mileage in clubbing together to get some bolt on code / module written?
I was hoping that Admin would have made a comment or two by now so I can only assume they are busy in a different area.
Having played around some more, I've got some ideas on how to go about things but my php/mysql coding skills are no where near quick enough to justify the time input to automate the process.
Basically all we need initially is a new editing page and a new db table. The page calls the existing db tables, collects some info and rename one of the parameters.
Using the data collected as a location references it then needs to create an xml file using data from the new table. As long as we can write and edit the xml file for each video we are laughing (he says hoping).
I've got it in my head ..... but being a code hacker don't help here :) We need a writer.
I think we need to get Galnet on board here, he's already very familiar with working on the player. This is essentially an extension to it's functionality, plus he seems to be an experienced PHP programmer. I'll PM him and see if we can get him to chime in on this thread.
By the way Gerbil, having played with your hack, I noticed that with the current player, the embedded video (when playing at a different site) has a problem playing the pre-roll and the video in one flowing motion. It plays the pre-roll, then stops (so anyone watching it might wonder what's going on, as it is not the video they are expecting). In order to get the actual video to play after the pre-roll, you have to hit the "next" button, which appears next to the "play" button (to the right) when the pre-roll has finished playing.
Maybe I did something wrong, I don't know. I embedded the video in iframe mode and not "object" mode, maybe that has something to do with it, I just got tied up and didn't have time to test with embedding in "object" mode. Have you noticed the same?
We need to get this thing done one way or another, but obviously there doesn't seem to be enough momentum behind it yet.
The only thing there is that he is using a different player, so there may be some differences. I've never used Agriya, so I'm not sure. I've got another player that Wiigle was kind enough to bump my way, so I've been thinking of playing with that to see if I can get something going.
I've still been considering buying a copy of flashads to see if it will hook into vshare, but I hate to throw out $150 on it without knowing whether or not it will work. Now if someone could decompile it and get it to work with vshare and then sell copies for 35 each, that might be worthwhile.
That is what is amazing to me. Judging from pageviews on the different threads it is discussed, it is surely one of the topics that generates more interest. I'm not sure why more people dont come to say 'yes admin, we would love it if you could find a way to do this'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
I hear you SportsGamingTV.com, that's why I haven't made a move one way or another towards a different player yet. I'm looking to make sure that the player I finally go with will have staying power and flexibility to work with the kind of advertising I'm hoping to provide through my site. That's why I think the features discussed in this thread are so important. If we can get this to work on vshare, I feel confident that we will have a great platform to generate real revenues from our sites and not simply be "another you-tube clone".
If Galnet can get this thing working with the Agriya player, that'll be the player I go with - it's already feature-rich as it is, but if we can pull off this little bit extra, I can hear the Katchingos rolling in!
From what I saw on the agriya forum, their YT clone doesnt offer it yet either. Same thing for CS clone, which is similar to ours. Alstrasoft is the only one I see claiming to have a solution, but I've found them to be totally unreliable. I've never seen anything of quality come from them.
The one good thing I can say about agriya (even though they are vastly overpriced) is that I did see galnet able to get logos to display before and after his videos. Of course, he may be doing those manually as well, I dont know, but if it is automated and instantly applied to anything that gets uploaded, then that's only a short step away from having video played before and after the file.
It's because they're too busy watching their own pornos :D All that poonani has gone and made them blind to the posibilities of real profit. Or maybe they're too busy fending off those who are leaching their bandwidth and struggling with more technical issues?Quote:
Originally Posted by SportsGamingTV.com
OR maybe they're already rolling in the $$$ and don't need to throw in any extra advertising :lol:
The XML is no problem at all now. I've figured this part out on installing Agyria Player onto my own site. The problem I have is fully understanding what is required of the script.
1 of 2 options:
1. A preroll advert runs - then main video - then preroll
or
2. An advert runs once and then the main video.
I dare say that if giving the time to study everything I will be able to come up with an add-on which would allow this to work.
I personally think that #1 is the best way to go. I think that if people have to watch an advert before each video, they wont be watching too many videos. The problem with putting it at the end is that they'll likely click on when the advert starts to play, but I would rather have that happen than to have them stop watching.
Doing it this way, the ad can be displayed at the end where it is unobtrusive to the user. I would personally just use the pre-roll for a short 3-4 second station id, mostly because it's better branding than a watermark when it comes to embedded videos.
A better method of advertising may also be the overlay image, seen in an example at the url below. It looks to me like it's basically a fancy watermark. Would be nice to have something like this come in after about 15 seconds of play and stay up for 5-10 seconds.
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/extras/ad ... ments.html
Just my thoughts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Whistler
Note the bit : <album>postroll</album> this will make it run almost continuously I hope - let me have your feedbackCode:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/">
<trackList>
<track>
<title>[A Title]</title>
<creator>[content]</creator>
<location>[full path to pre/post roll video]</location>
<image>[full path to image to display prior to video play]</image>
<album>postroll</album>
</track>
<track>
<title>[video title]</title>
<creator>[content]</creator>
<location>[full path to main video]v</location>
<info>[URL to direct to when clicked]</info>
<image>[full path to image to display prior to video play]</image>
<album>overlay</album>
</track>
</trackList>
</playlist>
If you go back to my proof of concept link you now get taken to another page when you click on the watermark.
On the subject of watermarks ... the fact that vshare has one by default is what stops image overlay from working.
Hi galnet, when you say no problem now do you mean that you've automated the process of generating the xml file or you've got to grips with how it works?Quote:
Originally Posted by galnet
I've got to grips on how it works. I'm working away on this and will have it all available hopefully soon.
Cheers,
Mat.
There are cheap ones as well. Several run from $28 to $60. It seems that a lot of them started with the same basic script as vshare. The difference is that vshare is actually working to expand and improve their product, whereas most are just selling scripts full of bugs.
Now if only we could get these videos ads implemented. :D
Aha :) Admin has visited us - if only to prune a post - cest la vie.
Hey Admin - I wasn't knocking you guys! I just really would like to see this feature implemented and so do quite a few others.
Although it looks like the same few people bang on about it in your forums there is a real bubble outside. The fact I've 'hacked' (more like cobbled) a work around together, it is still a labour intensive process ergo not nice to do at the moment.
Surely it would be easy for you guys to add a code hook maybe after the flv conversion process that does what's needed?
How bout your thoughts on pre/post roll ads?
Editable overlays using the same xml file?
Can you give us an idea of when you might add this function?
Thinking about it ...
... I'll bet your playing with us :)
... I'll bet you've already added something into the next release that will shut us up for an hour or two :)
Hey Galnet :) - How you getting on?
Got any alpha we can tweak? :lol:
What happen with this thread. Interested in the script, nothing fancy only that could place adds (prferably pre roll) from a list and place it on the video (any posted video).
* Must know if something can be done before purchasing.