KVS 1.5.0 - the brand new version (more than 45 new features!)

13 January, 2010

Briefly, the most important tweaks are:
- SMS and bank card payment processing support was added, with different user account types (VIP and premium), plus a feature to build packages of different duration and prices.
- New FLV player version with maximized advertising features (pre-roll and post-roll ads, ads shown when a video is paused or stopped, a custom logo with a URL). The administration panel now features player settings page with special attention given to the embed player and related ad settings.
- The script now supports videos with custom aspect ratios, preview pictures of the same size as the original video, two-pass video encoding, conversion load management, adding watermarks to videos and customizing their positions.
- Tralier creation features improved drastically, now featuring two-pass encoding and image watermarking.
- Server-side anti-hotlink protection added, working even with remote servers.
- Tons of administration panel interface tweaks and improvements.
- Default site design revamped, SE-friendly links are now supported where they were previously missing.
- Videos can now have models; videos can also be categorized by models, and model pages can be viewed.
- Reviews added for affiliate programs who supply the videos.
- And a galaxy of other great things!
Check below for more details.
I. Conversion of primary video file and trailer, system settings
1. Now, two-pass encoding added for ffmpeg, which results in better quality of encoded videos.
2. Watermark support added (PNG transparency also supported), with placement in a custom video corner, or in a random one.
3. Several priority coefficients added for priority management of encoding processes.
4. Customizable encoding error logging added (no logging, full logging, logging errors only).
5. Customizable encoding options, size and separate watermarks are now available for trailers.
6. The website now plays back the videos adjusting player height to the video proportions, taking into account the width specified.
II. Screenshot creation and manual screenshot cropping
7. 4 fields of ImageMagick options are replaced with a single command line with size tokens.
8. Cropping is now a separate feature with customizable crop values from 4 sides of the images, set in px or %.
9. Now you can customize the screenshot creation method for cases when video aspect ratio differs from the desired screenshot aspect ratio. You can select either saving valuable graphic information (black lines may show on the sides in this case), or cropping the picture to bring it to desired aspect ratio (no black lines in this case, unless the original video had them).
10. For manual screenshot creation, you can now select the creation library (ffmpeg / mplayer) and customize the crop value for this action (system crop settings will remain unchanged).
11. In addition to screenshots of custom sizes, images of original size are now always saved for later usage (e.g. for exporting them to third party sites). Also, preview image of the main screenshot is saved and used as a preview image in the player.
III. Protecting videos from hotlinking and unauthorized access
12. Server-side direct file access protection for Nginx was added (via X-Accel-Redirect). This can also be enabled when content is stored on remote servers.
13. Now, you can set up user account types which can see the full video. For instance, you can allow full videos only for premium and VIP members. In this case only users with such account types will see the full video while unregistered users and users with other account types will see trailers (if enabled), or 403 error.
IV. Premium membership, access levels, payment processing
14. In addition to premium accounts, we now added VIP users, so now you can set up features of your site available to different categories of users:
- Unregistered users (e.g. they can see only limited trailers, not more than 5 per day).
- Registered users (e.g. they can see as many trailers as they want).
- Premium users (e.g. they can see full standard videos).
- VIP members (e.g. they can see full videos including hi-quality VIP videos).
You can set up these limitations the way you want, using some or all of them.
15. VIP videos can now be created, in addition to premium videos.
16. Starting from the Advanced package, the script now supports SMS and bank card payment processing. Currently we integrated SegPay and SmsCoin scripts. We will add other processors of both types as our customers will submit requests, as we require a testing server to integrate a payment processing script. If you are interested in seeing more processors added, contact us. Ideally, when several other processors will be added, you will be able to set up backup processing (either SMS or bank card payments) which the site will switch to instantly as soon as primary processor goes down, or in other situations. Payment processing is still new to KVS, and we will certainly add lots of new features, using our customers' requests as guidelines.
17. For bank card and SMS payment processing, you can set up pricing packages. Each package includes a user account type (premium or VIP) to be assigned to the user after payment is complete. You can use different packages and different pricing for premium and VIP account types.
18. Website signup block now includes SMS and bank card payment support, and you can still leave free registration available at the same time. If you want, you can disable free registration in the block settings. In addition to fees paid during registration, if you have free access enabled, users can register for free first and then upgrade their account. Members who paid via SMS can extend their memberships in the same manner.
19. Overall transaction stats, user activity stats and user login stats were added.
V. Player and player settings in administration panel
20. The player was tweaked and improved in so many ways, visually as well as functionally:
- Stop button added.
- Outgoing URL for the logo can now be set up.
- Ads shown when the video is paused or stopped were added.
- Player controls panel now has customizable behavior (always show, always hide, show only during user activity).
- Embed code can now be shown in the player.
- Light-colored skin support added.
- Tons of minor tweaks for more stable operation.
21. Administration panel now has a section with settings for the on-site and embed players (in settings section). The options are basically the same in both cases. Apart from standard player display options, the settings allow you to set up ads shown in the player. The ads could be either global banners or banners bound to content source supplying the video. All this now offers fast and easy configuration options.
VI. Categorization and models
22. In addition to tags and categories, models are a new way to sort and structure the videos. Model pages have basic data fields, 2 screenshots of different sizes (customizable in system settings), and additional text and file fields for more customization.
23. Categorizing your videos via administration panel is now easier due to improved usability. This includes categories, tags and models.
24. Now you can categorize content sources (sponsors). The content sources list block (list_content_sources) now offers customizable display of content sources by categories.
25. New blocks to be used while building your site were added:
- list_categories_group (displays the list of categories filtered and sorted in a customizable way).
- list_models (displays the list of models filtered and sorted in a customizable way).
- model_view (displays model information).
26. The video list block (list_videos) now has a new feature of showing lists of videos sorted by models.
27. The video list block (list_videos) now can display categories, tags and models for every video in the list.
28. The category list block (list_categories) now can show categories split into groups.
29. You can now specify models while importing and exporting your videos.
VII. Website
30. Default website design now looks different.
31. All list blocks now have internal paging and SE-friendly links (previously paging was a separate block only). The paging block is still there for backward compatibility and for extra paging features.
32. Sitemap page is now added, generating the relevant XML structure automatically.
33. The website now can make a more extensive use of sponsors. Now you can use new blocks to display sponsors reviews. The following blocks were added:
- list_content_sources_groups (displays sponsor groups filtered and sorted in a customizable way).
- content_source_view (displays sponsor information).
- content_source_group_view (displays sponsor group information).
34. Sponsors outgoing links can now be accessed in a SE-friendly way through the content source directory field.
35. In those website blocks which support string search, search mode can now be selected (LIKE for the entire string, LIKE for all string elements, or FULLTEXT index usage).
36. Latest blog entries for all site users can now be displayed.
VIII. Other tweaks
37. "Webmaster" is the new user account type. Use it to allow video uploads from partners only. Webmasters is still a new feature for KVS, and we will be happy to get feedback from you concerning further development of this feature.
38. You can now manually delete tags from tag lists (previously, tags would be deleted only when unused).
39. Exporting embed code for your videos is now available.
40. 5 more custom fields added for content sources.
41. 3 more custom file fields added for referrers.
42. In administration panel, custom fields can now have names assigned to them.
43. Video post date time can now be manually specified (previously, only date part was editable, now you can also edit the time within the set date).
44. Ads can now be mass (de)activated.
45. Lots of tweaks concerning website management in administration panel.
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