S3Media Pro, a professional solution for video and audio on Joomla!
Last Updated on Thursday, 05 August 2010 22:40
What can S3Media Pro™ Do for You?
S3Media Pro is extension for Joomla! to embed video and audio without writing a single piece of code. There are already a dozen plugins like that, but this extension has several unique angles.
What you can do with S3Media Pro In a nutshell:
1. Tap into 20 MILLION EXTRA potential customers in the US alone.
2. Make good money with your video and audio with the advanced branding options.
3. Protect your video and audio from leeching and unauthorized sharing
4. NEW: Embed and protect eLearning projects like Camtasia, Articulate and iSpring, Flash Animation/Games/Banners
5. NEW: Protect your PDFs, Powerpoints, Docs or ANY downloadable file with an expiring link into your articles
20 Million People Between the Age of 45 and 65 in the US Alone Suffer from a Form of Hearing Disability.
Those people are excluded from most video and audio material because they have difficulty hearing what is actually said. If you can tap into that source, you have a huge advantage over your competition. And the way to get there is very simple: Closed Captions! With S3Media Pro you can create and display Closed Captions on the fly.
What Are Closed Captions?
Closed Captions are subtitles that only show up when you click on a button. So, for viewers without hearing problems, the subtitles do not get into the way. Every viewer can decide to show them or not. As opposed to regular subtitles (also available in this extension), Closed Captions also describe background noises like closing doors, etc...
Using Closed Captions gives two MAJOR ADVANTAGES:
- You are positioning yourself as a person or company who cares about the hearing impaired.
- You get attention of a group of people that are hungry for rich media but cannot follow it. By providing them with subtitles, they do not only understand videos, but also audios! They will remember you more clearly then the competition who does not use this technique.
Think about it: you have two sites with equally good content on the same subject, but one of them is using Closed Captions. If you have a hearing disability, where will you go next time?
Is It Difficult to Create Closed Captions?
No, it is very easy to do, we provide a tutorial for it. We even provide a service for you if you are not interested doing this yourself. We don't even need a transcript, we do it literally on the fly. As a client of this extension, we can cut you a special deal you simply cannot refuse:
We take care of your Closed Captions or Subtitles, starting from $20 per video or audio.
Bulk pricing is possible. Buy the license Now
Make Good Money from Your Video or Audio with the Advanced Branding Options
Imagine, you have an interview with a novel writer, or you found a good one on YouTube. With S3Media Pro you can embed the video on your site and impose the cover of the book over that video, linking it to a sales page or affiliate page to Clickbank, Amazon, etc,...where visitors can buy the book that is discussed in the interview.
As this is directly related to the subject, you enhance the possibility of a sale incredibly because the person watching or listening is much more likely to buy the book when it can be done with the push of a button instantly. In this way, you can monetize your videos AND audios! No need to resort to Google ads or other advertising networks! This can be your own affiliate strategy.
How does an audio look?
Generally speaking? Plain and boring. This is an example of a normal audio:
Ahm, ... that's ...very interesting. Can you make this a bit more spicy? With this extension, absolutely!
In the example below, we catch two flies in one go: we add a poster image(explained further below), which can be any size AND we add Closed Captions to an audio:
And here, we went a step further and added a watermark in the form of a book cover that links to a sales page:
As you can see, with this extension, you can take audios to the next level!
Watermarks can be logos as well. In fact, watermarks are meant for logos but we gave you a couple of pointers to use it differently. So, your audio or video could be a company presentation. Placing a logo watermark with a link to the official website helps branding your business and the link to your site company site is very convenient for the visitors.
The Power of Poster Images
Poster images have a big impact. They are a decisive factor for the visitor to click or not. Let's have a look at the typical poster image from YouTube below:
This is an intelligent, good looking woman. But this poster image looks like the sort of snapshot Paparazzi love to take from celebrities, making them look awkward.
YouTube automatically creates this sort of poster images for you by indiscriminately taking 3 snapshots, using a mathematical formula. No wonder you get results like that!
Automation is fine up to a point, but if you are serious about your business, you better create your own poster images!
You can't change it on YouTube itself, but you surely can on your own site!
Below is the same video, with a poster image that was created by hand:
With your own poster image, you control exactly what the first impression will be and by adding text, you create anticipation about the content of the video.
It doesn't need to look perfect, the purpose is to make it look interesting and inviting. “Inviting” will be different for every audience, of course, and you know that better then anyone. We provide a tutorial how to create poster images. It's a lot easier then youu might think. However, do not take this lightly because one image says more then a thousand words.
With this extension, you do not only buy a tool, you get a load of FREE professional advice on top of it.
We help you to make the most out of this tool. We developed this extension originally for the Province of Antwerp. In the meantime we added new functionality for our own use as multimedia professionals and we are happy to share tips and tricks with you. We are in the process of adding them to the Support Area.
Protect your video and audio from leeching and unauthorized sharing
This is actually the new star element of this extension! If you have an S3 amazon account, you can play videos and audio without the fear that someone grabs the URL to your video and present it on another site while you get no credit for it and on top of that, you pay for the bandwidth. This technique called leeching. It is very easy to do and widely practiced by unscrupulous people. Unauthorized sharing happens a lot as well.
For instance: A paying member to your subscription program grabs the url and sends it to friends or partners. Although less harmful, you ideally want people to watch videos on your own site.
To prevent this, we can make use of the expiring URL feature that is typical for S3 Amazon accounts, but let us first explain what an S3 Amazon account is:
What is an S3 Amazon account and why would you obtain one?
An S3 account is basically a storage space to upload and download digital files. This can be ANY type of file. But in the context of this extension, we concentrate on video and audio.
This storage space is not to be confused with a regular web server, because on its own, it does not contain the software to run a website. However, it does contain a couple of unique features, and one of them is expiring URLs. The setup of the account is free, there are no setup costs and you just pay as you go, depending on the amount of bandwidth you use.
The pricing is very, and we mean VERY cheap. There is no other service out there that has such high performance at such low pricing. It is really amazing. More and more companies work with an S3 account now and it is very easy to setup and use. I was up and running in 10 minutes and no coding experience is required. There are loads of tools to help you upload files. We provide you with the resources to get you going in no time.
Expiring URLs to protect your files
An Expiring URL is a link to your video or audio (or any file) that becomes invalid after a set time. The example below is set to 1 minute. Probably, you are going to get an Access denied error when you try to play it, because more then a minute has passed before you arrived here.
If that is the case, reload this page and a new expiring URL is created. Then, try to copy the url of this video in the source code, open a new window tab and paste it into the address bar en hit ENTER. If you are really quick, you will be able to download it, but refresh a minute later and that URL is obsolete forever! Even if you click on this video a minute later, it won't play anymore.
Bottom line of this feature: Protect any of your media this way and leeching or unauthorized use is no longer an option. This includes eLearning projects. Very useful for paid media in your membership area or just for media you want to show on your site but nowhere else.
Word of caution: Expiring URLs are, contrary to what many competitors will tell you, not a bullet proof way to prevent someone from stealing your audio or video, burn a CD and sell or give it along to others. There is cheap software that can download even streaming videos and convert it into any movie type. So, the word "protection" is relative. You can prevent regular users from sharing your media, or link to it on their own site. But you cannot prevent a hardcore hacker stealing the media itself. Such is the nature of the Internet. Let no one try to convince you that they have a bullet proof solution!
However, Private streaming with S3Media Stream™ adds an additional layer of protection against theft.
4. NEW: Embed and protect eLearning projects like Camtasia, Articulate and iSpring, Flash Animation/Games/Banners
On special request, we added support for eLearning projects which have their own controls. Camtasia, for instance, exists of several files, including a control bar to navigate in the video tutorials. The JW player is not equiped to handle this sort of projects, so we let the extension itself regulate this. These projects can play from your S3 account too, so you can protect them in the same way as the video and audios. You can also add Flash animated banners by selecting the eLearning option. In fact, you can play any SWF project, including games based on Flash! Below you find a Camtasia tutorial demos:
5. NEW: Protect your PDFs, Powerpoints, Docs or ANY downloadable file with an expiring link into your articles
Now you can place expring URLs to ANY downloadable files into your articles so that they are protected from unauthorized sharing or leeching. In this way, you can place download links for PDFs, DOC, XLS, you name it, into a public or password protected article. You can even have links like that in the middle of your text and lkie the videos and eLearning projects, you can set the expire time as long or short as you like. Below you find a Camtasia video tutorial with an expiring time of 10 minutes:
S3Media Pro™ - Overview of ALL Features
(detailed explanation further below)
- Protect your media with S3 Amazon on the fly
- Play and protect elearning projects and Flash animations
- Create protected links to ANY file and add then into your articles
- Create subtitles on the fly for foreign languages
- Create Closed Captions on the fly for the hearing disabled
- Set a custom poster image for video or audio
- Brand your media by placing a logo on top of it
- Create a playlist of related videos with thumbnails
- Select the right skin that fits your site AND create your own
- Use local and external rich media
- Control the behavior of the player
- Add as many players on the same page as you like
Here we discuss the additional features from point 8 onwards:
8. Create a playlist of related videos with thumbnails
YouTube play lists are a great feature but they play all videos in the list one after the other, while the S3Media Pro™ gives you and your viewer more control. It lets you decide in which order the videos are placed AND you can gather them from different sources, be it local, YouTube, S3 AWS, Metacafe, etc, ...
The play list with thumbnails shows up when the viewer plays a video until the end, or presses on Pause in between. Then the viewer can select which video to play next. We call this a play list, but it is actually a Related list. JW Media Player from Longtail also has Play list feature but we decided that the Related list is a better option. You can play YouTube playlists with this module, by the way.
9. Select the right skin that fits your site AND create your own
You can select the look of the player that fits your site. S3Media Pro™ has 10 skins on board and if none of them satisfy you, create your own skin! A tutorial is provided in the support section.
10. Use local and external rich media
You can add videos from all over the place, your own site, S3 Amazon, YouTube, MySpace, Vimeo, AudioAcrobat, etc, ... as long as they have a URL that links to a video or audio. No need to use embedding code, or any code whatsoever. Just keep in mind that some video networks do not allow embedding without their own native player. Vimeo is one of them.
11. Control the behavior of the player
- Allow or disallow full screen mode.
- Set width and height, the video scales automatically
- Allow or disallow autostart.
- Display functional icons in the dock(the Video area) or in the control bar.
- Show subtitles automatically or display a button to activate it (Closed Captions).
- Show a semi-transparent bar behind the subtitles or not.
- Provide an alternative link for non javascript browsers to download a media file to the desktop
12. Add as many players on the same page as you like
It doesn't matter if you show more videos in the same area or on the same page as long as you use a unique ID for every module. Apart from the bandwidth, there is no limit.
Accepted formats for this player
- Video in FLV and MP4 and audio in AAC (provider=video).
- Sounds in MP3 (provider=sound).
- Images in JPG, GIF and PNG (provider=image).
It can play .SWF as well but timing cannot be displayed, nor any of the additional features like subtitling, closed captions etc, ... will work.
Video service support
The player supports YouTube, S3 Amazon and any other video service which allows downloading videos without a native player.
IMPORTANT: Quite a few video services use expiring URLs themselves, like Vimeo, MySpace and others. Vimeo even works with expiring urls from S3 Amazon itself. You cannot play those videos because they expire too quickly. Therefore, to play videos in that situation, you need to use their embedding code. Here is an article that shows you how to embed Vimeo videos.
Update history
Rudolf Boogerman actually created the Joomla Module (J21c Media Player) for the Province of Antwerp since we needed Closed Captions support for the hearing impaired and no extension was available. From that extension, we built further to add more and more functionality to the module. Laurent Peter created the component to add S3 AWS support and from then on, we called the module/component S3Media Pro.
Version 5.3.1 - 26 April 2010
Developers from Longtail video reported an error on their Flash debugger when a watermark was not filled in. Although it didn't cause a real problem, we want to make sure that the code is used efficienly so we removed all parameters from the output code when they are not used. This gives shorter embedding code as a nice side effect ;-)
Version 5.3 - 12 April 2010
Added support for eLearning tools like Camtasia, Articulate, iSpring and any Flash projects with their own controls.
Added protected download links for other types of documents, like pdf, xls, docs, zip, any downloadable file can be offered with an expiring URL.
Version 5.2 - 14 March 2010
Added watermark support and linking option.
Version 5.1 - 1 March 2010
Added an urlencode option for S3 Amazon URLs in case they do not work. (Some links work with encode, others don't, so they can be set per URL if needed).
Added routine to disable Provider type if media is no S3 file. Variable Provider gave especially problems with YouTube videos, resulting in "Access denied" or "Not Found" - error.
- Problems solved with relative paths when displaying modules in categories.
- Added S3 support for normal and expiring URLs.
- Corrected syntax mistakes which prevented successful xhtml validation, although functionality worked properly.
Version 4.9 - 20 December 2009
First test of the module with Joomla 1.5.14. This module probably works with Joomla 1.0 as well because everything is included in the folder of the module, so it works independently and doesn't need anything from the Joomla core. However, adding the module into an article is another procedure.
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