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KVS 5.1.0 development


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One of the first features we added into KVS 5.1 is WebP image format support for video screenshots.

 

WebP is a modern image format promoted by Google and supported by major browsers (78.37% support coverage at this moment). The key feature of this format is HUGE - 30-50% - image size reduction in comparison with JPG while keeping visual quality almost the same. Since this format is not 100% supported, it can only be used as an addition to standard JPG format.

 

It is highly recommended to try using this format after updating to 5.1 due to many benefits it provides:

 

- Less traffic usage for your front end

- Less HDD load for your image server

- Better SEO rankings due to smaller page sizes and faster page loads

 

In KVS we added support for WebP in overview and timeline screenshots. In screenshot format settings it is now possible to choose new Image type field between JPG and WebP:

 

webp_image_type.thumb.png.35e63b252f2ebb434847dcef4d561c0b.png

 

If your ImageMagick build supports this format, you can also use a variety of IM options to control its quality as described in IM guidelines:

https://imagemagick.org/script/webp.php

 

Then it will be possible to configure WebP format as alternate format in theme settings (will require manual theme update after KVS update, but new versions will have this by default):

 

webp_theme_settings.thumb.png.a77a82e750e81617cd0184fe842d78ec.png

 

And also in player settings for timeline screenshots:

 

webp_player_timelines.thumb.png.eb39a53e35357d3d4b2cbe5eb8f6bfd2.png

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

We have just finalized new player version development and testing. There is a huge set of improvements and new features:

 

1) Fully supports VAST 3.0 spec (except industry icons, as we never had an example of any KVS customer using it). This specifically means that KVS player now supports wrappers and advanced VAST loading techniques.

 

2) Fully supports VPAID 2.0 spec.

 

3) We changed the way how player requests VAST XML file. Previously it loaded VAST during player initialization in order to avoid any further delays when starting player. This approach worked incorrectly together with 3rd-party popunders, because in most cases player page would be displayed twice for the same user and KVS player didn't have any chance to know this fact, so that it could avoid VAST loading. The new approach will work similarly to other players, e.g. will load VAST only when clicked. We believe this will improve VAST performance for most KVS customers.

 

4) Mobile devices will start pre-loading main video during pre-roll advertising display. This should result in less time waiting for video to start, because in most cases video file will be buffered when user is watching pre-roll.

 

5) We changed controlbar behavior on touch devices when displaying pre-roll / post-roll ads. Previously controlbar was auto-hiding and displaying back on first touch on advertising, which may have resulted in less clicks and smaller CTR. We fixed that to never hide controlbar during advertising display on touch devices.

 

IMPORTANT! All player skins are updated because if this. If you are using custom player skin you should also update it accordingly, because KVS will not auto-update your custom player skin. All changes in player skins are connected to these 2 styles (you should compare new player skin file with your modified and merge these changes):

 

.is-ad-playing.is-mouseout.kt-player
.is-ad-paused.is-mouseout.kt-player

 

6) We fixed volume button to allow reducing volume during advertising display (mostly desktops as mobiles may not support this). Previously it only supported mute / unmute options.

 

7) We added support for player stats in KVS and Google Analytics. In Settings -> Stats settings it will now be possible to enable stats for player events and choose where to collect them:

 

player_stats_options.png.36713eb2b804719bacccd75dda4c5b07.png

 

In Google Analytics these stats will be collected as events under Player category.

 

player_stats_google.thumb.png.e4ee791f51ca1bc8ca1f507705792ef0.png

 

In KVS these stats will available under Stats -> Player events:

 

player_stats_kvs.thumb.png.0d599e507d71c74e60fbac56357758a9.png

 

Player stats may provide vital information about advertising configuration in your player and may indicate if something is going wrong. Also you can see how good is your VAST provider supplying ads (failure of VAST provider to supply ads or its blocking by adblocker will result in pre-roll advertising error event).

 

Player events may also be used to compare traffic quality from different sources (by using KVS referrer settings). If you buy or trade traffic from multiple sources, you can change stats grouping so that each row in stats indicate traffic from separate referrer. By comparing discrepancy between AVG value and actual value (shown as +-% in brackets) you can easily detect cheaters and bad traffic, as it is very unlikely that they can emulate the same behavioral pattern for player events as real traffic shows.

 

Finally player stats may be used to analyze shaving % of your VAST provider.

 

9) In Settings -> Stats settings it will be possible to enable counting of playback events for every video. By default KVS counts only 'view' event, which is basically the fact of opening video player page. With this player update, it will also be possible to count a separate number of how many times a specific video was played by player:

 

video_stats_playback.png.7b35941a6253edcc4dc26c16c59e70dd.png

 

These numbers will be visible in admin panel in videos list and in Stats -> Video stats with per-day and per-video grouping.

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The player VAST changes described above may result in more revenue for you. If you want to try them now without waiting for 5.1 version, you can update player separately if you have KVS 4.0.3+.

 

Please download and update the following files under your project:

 

https://kvs-demo.com/player/kt_player.js
https://kvs-demo.com/player/skin/dark.css
https://kvs-demo.com/player/skin/white.css
https://kvs-demo.com/player/skin/youtube.css

 

Please make sure you do a backup of KVS system files in Plugins -> Project backup before applying any changes.

 

You can see the new player in action on KVS demo website:

https://kvs-demo.com

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There was a small enhancement added to personal settings that will make possible to customize maximum size for thumbs displayed in various lists in admin panel:

 

personal_settings_max_thumb_size.png.1c83a7bf4f286950b48461f016388686.png

 

In 5.0 we made all list thumbs fixed to max 150px in width / height, and we got several complaints from clients that this customization was not allowed anymore. Now it is back!

 

Another enhancement will allow you configure that all new tags, created by users or by import, or by grabbers are created in inactive status, so that you can manage them manually and approve only tags you want. This option is located in Settings -> Content settings next to other categorization options:

 

new_tags_deactivate.png.275d1ee58fe40a16c457971312248c9f.png

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KVS will now support animated GIFs as video formats. It will be possible to define GIF format similarly to other video formats and require KVS to create GIF image from any uploaded video based on duration and trailer settings. For example it will be possible to create 5-seconds GIF trailers from every video.

 

Here are basic video format settings that can be used for GIF formats:

 

video_format_gif.png.6cb5c69172b30ff937f8247b935ca6b1.png

 

Here is sample 5 seconds GIF composed from 5 equal fragments of the original video:

https://www.kernel-video-sharing.com/forum/images/video_format_gif_sample.gif

 

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In traffic stats we added more columns that will allow better analytics (different ratios against unique visitors) and also added comparison of each value with average.

 

In addition to that we also added filtering option to choose from some predefined date intervals, such as:

- Last 7 days

- Last 30 days

- Current month (from 1st to today)

- Previous month (from 1st to 30/31st)

- Custom period (you will have to adjust start / end dates)

 

new_stats.thumb.png.ea06304948b1b6337d9af09a5cc44f0a.png

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CTR rotator functionality was enhanced in several ways.

 

First of all, we updated its old calculation method that resulted in slowing down CTR calculation. New rotator logic brings immediate CTR values that reflect the most clickable videos as they are at the given moment. Website caching will not affect CTR calculation anymore.

 

Another important enhancement is ability to configure random video inclusions when rendering videos by CTR. For example if you have already a set of videos sorted by CTR, you can allow some random videos to be displayed at several positions, so that new videos have bigger chance to get some clicks and make their way to the top. This should be configured per-list in list_videos block parameters:

 

rotator_random_positions.png.2d7a75bdfefade1bb9fe76f1407222b7.png

 

Finally we did some performance improvements in the area and came to enhancements that will reduce database load during CTR recalculation. We also added Schedule option in Rotator settings that allows increasing intervals between CTR recalculations, and also provides ability to configure "quiet" period so that rotator is not generating any additional load when your server is under heavy traffic:

 

rotator_schedule.png.aa61a23917c025658d4da46c2df15c4c.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

In signup and member_profile_edit blocks KVS will now fully verify the specified birth date to comply with minimum allowed age configured in setup.php (set to 18 years by default). Previously this option was used to limit the choice of available years in date selectors, but KVS never verified that the specified birth date was in the range of allowed full years.

 

If you are using birth date during signup process, you may need to add validation errors so that they are displayed nicely. Otherwise error codes will be displayed.

In order to add validation errors, please go to Website UI -> Texts -> Add Text and add the following 2 texts:

 

validation.signup.birth_date_min_age = You must be at least %1% years old
validation.member_profile_edit.birth_date_min_age = You must be at least %1% years old

 

If you want to adjust minimum age limit, please edit configuration in /admin/include/setup.php:

 

$config['min_user_age']="-18";

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  • 4 weeks later...
Hi guys! Could you give information about the planned next enhancements and the timing of their appearance (in particular, will be there a new update before the New Year)? Thank you!

 

Hello, unfortunately we can't tell this. We will not post our plans anymore, because in most cases plans are changed in the fly and our users are confused. We will only post the features that we already added, e.g. like in this topic, so that there is 100% guarantee that these features will be available in the next update.

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