KVS 6.2.0

30 October, 2023

Please find full information about the update on KVS forum: KVS 6.2.0 update.

Whats new in KVS 6.2.0:

  1. We are pleased to announce that PHP 8.1 support is available for beta testing, as we managed to do that without Smarty update. We recommend using PHP 8.1 for new projects, but for now we don't recommend to update PHP on running projects without critical necessity, as there may still be issues with full compliance. Although PHP 8.2 is likely supported as well, we can't yet state that officially. When switching to PHP8 there might be critical issues with your site template customizations and any custom PHP code that you have. At the moment there is a single known issue with KVS default theme, but there might be more; so before doing PHP version switch please check our forum for latest details about PHP8 migration - we will keep updating with any new issues found.
  2. We have started preparing conversion engine for the upcoming HLS / adaptive streaming support. In this update we changed the concept of video format groups. Previously, KVS supported only 2 fixed groups of formats named as 'Standard' and 'Premium'. Standard formats were used for public and private videos, and Premium formats were used for premium videos. Such concept didn't allow switching a premium video to public / private type or vice versa. Now KVS will support any number of video format groups, and they will not be directly connected to video type as before (however for the sake of backward compatibility we had to keep the ability of one format group to be auto-selected for premium videos same as before). First of all, this will allow switching any video between public / private / premium type at any time. Secondly, it will be possible to migrate videos from one format group to another. This feature will be required in future when migrating existing projects to HLS video format, so that you won't need to think about how many videos you have and require your storage servers to have x2 disk space, as the migration process will delete old video files for each video as soon as it creates new video files.
  3. In conversion engine we optimized video screenshots copying between main and conversion servers, so that all screenshot files are merged together into a single tape archive and copied as a single file. This optimization may dramatically increase video processing speed for projects that use remote conversion servers with high FTP latency.
  4. In video screenshot settings you can now enable that vertical screenshots are merged into a single horizontal screenshot by 2, 3 or 4 images in a row.
  5. In conversion servers you can now indicate if a server should be fully loaded with tasks before starting using other servers. This option may be useful if you have a more powerful conversion server together with some less powerful. In such a scenario if you don't activate this option, your conversion tasks may be randomly distributed to all servers, resulting in some tasks copied to less powerful servers, while more powerful will remain not fully loaded. Using the new option will result in faster processing, except for cases when you have big task queue waiting for processing and all your conversion resources should be loaded to the full extent.
  6. Now possible to separate vertical VS horizontal videos in admin panel and site area, KVS has support for a new flag in video data.
  7. External search plugin was extended with support for albums and search queries, they can now be served via SphinxSearch for better search accuracy and performance. Also the plugin will now support error notification in case KVS detects that SphinxSearch is not working. To receive email notifications for this error type you will need to manually enable it in Personal settings. Please refer to our forum post for configuring SphinxSearch, it is linked from the plugin page in admin panel.
  8. Synonymizer plugin was enhanced with support for multi-word expressions, previously it only supported single words. Also will now be possible to delete specific words by replacing them with empty text. Please note that Synonymizer plugin is not designed for replacing banned words in the content posted by users, there is another feature for this task located in Website settings. But this plugin can be used to process content from grabbers / import, and also is capable of post-processing existing content at any time using mass edit functionality.
  9. KVS nextgen architecture finally comes to all categorization list_xxx and xxx_view blocks, including categories, models, tags and content sources. This brings new features to them: more filters, text search, related lists, and - what has been frequently asked - interconnected queries. Interconnected queries will allow displaying categorization that is used together with other categorization in videos, albums or posts. Example: for a model show all categories or tags that are used together with this model in videos. Or for category show all tags that are used together with this category in videos. These queries are pricey, so such blocks should be well-cached to reduce database load.
  10. Another nextgen feature was added primarily to models, but we didn't manage to fully finish it for now. It is the ability to customize lists of pre-defined selector values for such fields as gender, eye color and hair color (and in future coming for user profiles as well). There is no way to customize this via admin panel yet, but possible via database, and if you desperately need this please check with our support for details. This change has resulted however into incompatibility with themes regarding model gender values. KVS default theme had a gender filter in model list that will stop working correctly after the update. And any theme customization connected to model gender will stop displaying values correctly. Unfortunately there is no way to automatically fix it, and if this specific filtering is important for your site, please refer to forum guide about what needs to be changed in theme and in what way.
  11. Transliteration logic for directories (the text part of URLs for videos, categories and etc.) was slightly changed. Previously if transliteration was not enabled (rare cases, since transliteration is enabled by default and likely not switched off after) KVS would keep latin characters and numbers in URL, and remove anything else. If the title didn't have any latin characters, which is a common case for Chinese / Arabic / Russian languages, the URL would be generated as a random 32-character string. This behavior changed now: if transliteration is not enabled, KVS will use title as URL, only replacing spaces and special characters with dashes. In order to have this behavior before, one was required to upload specially crafted PHP extension file kvs_translit.php, but this won't be needed anymore. If you want to have URLs in your native language, you can just switch off transliteration in Content settings -> Generated directories settings.
  12. Embed player behavior was enhanced in cases when your embed publishers are trying to hide their referrer (the original domain where they put your embed codes). KVS player will not play videos in this case, but instead will open your video page URL when clicked. Embed player usage stats will continue to count usage for such cases, but now these usages won't be able to watch your videos. Such publishers will either have to remove your embed codes from their sites, or stop hiding information about their domains to have embed codes fully working. There is also another issue with sandboxing your embed codes and unfortunately it doesn't have any technical solution. Sandbox mode allows your embed publishers to prevent opening links from inside your embed player, including advertising clicks and links to your site video pages. The advertising itself will be displayed normally, but can't be clicked. This would reduce your advertising stats ratio, and may result in lower rates paid by advertisers. The only solution here would be to monitor domains that are using your embed codes (you can find these stats in Stats -> Embed usage), and check if a site adds sandbox attribute to the < iframe > tag linking your domain. If so, you may want to block this site using Domains black list in Embed player settings, then your embed codes will stop working there.
  13. Advertising profiles are now capable of restricting specific advertisers to specific browsers.
  14. In mass edit GUI you can now re-create timeline screenshots for a specific set of videos, and force CDN invalidation for the selected set of content.
  15. Grabbers plugin can now support subdomains for some specific grabbers. This is required for importing localized content from tubes that have their localization done via subdomains. If you see this is not working for specific grabbers, please let us know and we update grabbers for that.
  16. In 6.1.0 we disabled ability for users to access their accounts from multiple devices simultaneously, now we added an option in Website settings to enable this ability back if needed.
  17. In Memberzone settings it is now possible to specify different default token price for public and private videos. Previously this price could only be set for both of these video types.
  18. Exporting feeds will now allow feed users to query only videos that were modified within certain period of days.
  19. In admin panel selector control you can now switch off displaying synonyms, or search in synonyms.
  20. In Personal settings you can now switch off automatic new tab behavior for internal admin URLs if you want them to be strictly opened in the same tab, unless you manually use Ctrl key to force new tab.
  21. Player GUI in admin panel will now allow changing playback speed.
  22. In Neuroscore plugin a new option was added to change video directories together with titles in title rewrite tasks.
  23. In album_edit block it is now possible to limit the minimum and maximum allowed filesize of the uploaded images.
  24. In 6.1.0 we switched off support for JPG timeline screenshots as a fallback for WebP format. After feedback from our clients we decided to return it back - now if in player settings you have WebP format chosen for timeline screenshots and in addition to that your project defines another JPG format for them - KVS player will automatically fallback to JPG for devices that do not support WebP.

Bugs that have been fixed:

  1. [SEVERE] Video file protection would not work if you had some IPs whitelisted in protection settings (since 6.1.0).
  2. [MEDIUM] Some feedback (typically spam) could not be sent, they resulted into errors displayed to users. This was good from one side, but could result in missing something important (since 6.1.0).
  3. [LOW] FTP content uploader plugin would stop working if video filename contained multiple dots (since 6.1.0).
  4. [LOW] Grabber auto-pilot was not working correctly if set to time-based schedule.
  5. [LOW] User login logs will now keep the full version of IPv6 addresses, previously they only kept the last part of them.
Pavisam jaunais KVS 6.2.1 ir klāt Pasūtiet tūlīt