Hiding the URL of the Video

I don't want people to download the video and I want to hide the url

[bulungu]

Is there any way I can hide or encrypt the URL of a video file to prevent people from downloading it? I want them to play it online but I don't them to open the video in a new browser or know the actual URL.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[cmatcme]

Hi bulungu

A harder way to protect, but my far the most effective would be to create a list of 10 or 15 playlists. For example:

song896.m3u :

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,protect/jerry2.m3u
protect/jerry2.m3u

protect/jerry2.m3u :

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,/protect/jimbob.m3u
/protect/jimbob.m3u

... 8 playlists later ...

giveupthief/realsong.m3u :

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:0,realsong/example.mp3
realsong/example.mp3

-----------------------------

In your webpage simply place:

 <embed src="song896.m3u" </embed> 

for ie and

 <bgsound src="song896.m3u"> 

for netscape (please check up) [google.com]

-----------------------------

This is a slow but effective way to do it. The average playlist size is only about 200 bytes so it's not that big.

I'd do that and if there's another way I'd like to here!

cmatcme

[4string]

You could use Flash. Call the video file from Flash. They won't be able to see the url. With a little Actionscript code you can make your Flash file only run off your server. If they were determined, they could crack your flash file and finally get the url though.

[microcars]

why don't you stream it?

then you view it but you can't "download" it and save it.

now that I have suggested that, I know nothing about streaming protocol....

[ac112]

There's often ways to make it more challenging to get at, but if someone is determined they'll usually find a way. The 'View Page Info' feature in Firefox has made things like this much easier for users and even more difficult for webmasters trying to prevent direct access to media files.

[bulungu]

Thanks everyone for your advice. It seems that two options seem the best to me at this time: (1)Flash and (2)Playlist. I could try Action Script because I have a book.

cmatcme, I would love to create a playlist. I know how to embed videos in webpages, but could not understand where to start with the playlist. Do you mean that I have to have another page that contains JavaScript or something that will call the actual files?

Thanks in advance.

[cmatcme]

Playlists are pieces of information which link to other music files and playlists. There is no javascript enabled but it is client side. The only thing he/she has to have is a media player (which comes free with most Windows OS). When the user right clicks on a media file embeded in a webpage he'll find the playlist file and if attempts of open it will find a link to another playlist and when opens that will find a playlist linked to another playlist etc. Sometime or other the thief will give up :) so it's really protective. Playlists commonly have the extension ( .m3u; .wpl ).

To create the playlist simply open a simply text editor such as notepad.exe:

1. Copy the code in my previous post (but use your own url)
2. File --> Save
3. Create a name for your playlist and stick .m3u on the end
4. Loop for all that it is appropiate.

Now:

1. Upload playlists into the appropiate directory
2. Put the following code which should link to the first playlist created:

 <embed src="examplefirst.m3u" autostart="true" loop="false"> 

3. Test your page and it should work

cmatcme

[kaled]

Depending on what viewer is used, I think you can sometimes save the file from the viewer. Streaming is the way to go - I've not made any serious attempts to save a streamed video, but it has defeated me thus far.

Kaled.

[geekay]

I don't use audio/video myself, but it would be interesting to know why a playlist could be useful on an ordinary site with no need to hide audio/video files.

I find a lot of information on how to create a list, but not why it is created. Is it just to make it possible for visitors to automatically play a sequence of several files? Otherwise the webmaster could link directly to each file. Or does a playlist make it possible to listen/view without first downloading the entire file?

Not exactly on topic, but maybe someone would care to give a short answer.

[cmatcme]

Playlists can be used for protecting music (as shown here) and playing multiple music files when a user enters a page. Most users will get bored if they have to listen to the same music lots of times. Create a playlist of 10 midis or whatever and the user can happily right click on the media player that's embedded in the webpage and choose which one they like out of all of them. If your users are previewing music then you can use playlists for the protections but most companies have a 30s clip from the piece.

cmatcme

[twist]

What I do is convert the video into flash. Meaning there is no seperate video file just the flash file with video. There are a few ways to accomplish this, built in flash video encoder or you can even break the entire video into single frames using something like VirtualDub and then adding them back into flash. This method can be a lot of work but allows you to choose which frames to use more or less compression on and also allows you to create chapters or pretty much whatever you want to do.

I only concern myself with people hotlinking the file and have methods to help control that but as for people downloading flash, it gives me a unique ability that the other video formats don't. I can put an active link back to my website in the flash file. So if someone takes it and puts it on their website, they have now added a link back to my website.

Link says this, "Get more videos at example.com"

They host your video and you get free advertising ;)

[HughMungus]

There's a good thread about how to do this using mod_rewrite somewhere on here. Search.

[bulungu]

Thanks cmatcme:

Playlist seems to be the answer to my question for now. I've created one and it is working fine for streaming audio and video. People have the video file with all the controls but can't tell the URL. The thief must be extremely good to find the actual url of the media file.