Videos hotlink protection

[bplex]

Before giving a status update, I would like to point out some technical facts here:

The site that you have listed is using RTMP streaming with player/server file "shifting." To explain this more:

- you can't download their videos.

This is not correct. You can download their videos. However, you can't download them conventionally (as in typing in a URL and downloading it to your computer). Rather, you have to use a RTMP recorder. There are several free ones out there. A note of fact, if it can be played (or displayed) in a browser window, it can be downloaded. There is no way to prevent this. You can deter it, but not prevent it.

- you can't see where they have hosted their videos.

Actually, you can. It's right in front of you. The video in your post is located at rtmp://content.freeviewmovies.com/freeviewmovies_vod/. The file is located in the A23113 directory. However, due to "shifting," your browser only reports the file as A23113. This is incorrect. The real file has a .flv extension. The "shifting" is to prevent other people from directly linking to the stream.

- change video hosting without embed problem

The shifting that they are using is controlled via the server and the player itself. Thus, you can put the player on any site and it would play any video on their system. The files will not play outside of their player.

- flv video player is free

No, their player isn't free. They are running on a custom FLV player. It may be the JW player that has been compiled specifically for their use.

- use RTMP video streaming

Yes, they are using RTMP streaming.

Ok, here is where I am at so far:

1. I have created a working proof of concept for RTMP streaming using vShare. It works with the JW Player (4.1 and above) as well as Agriya.
2. You have the ability to do true streaming of the video. This will tremendously cut down bandwidth usage (more so than using lighttpd).
3. Because streaming is done through a different protocol and server software, you can completely disallow web access to the flvideo directory. Thus, people could not directly link to the FLV files at al.
4. Method works with both forms of embedding (object and iframe).

What still needs to be done:

1. Stream Security - I'm still working on a way to protect the actual stream. As it stands right now, someone could put up a different player on another site and use your stream to play videos outside of your player. I'm working to prevent this.
2. Multi-server Support - Because the files have to be stored on the streaming server, multi-server setups would require streaming server software setup on your secondary servers (which isn't a problem to do). To do this, the streaming URL needs to be dynamic. This is very simple to do. I just have to do it.