Freecaster Release Notes
Check out below the latest releases notes for the Freecaster platform. Including new features, improvements and bug fixes.
v12.5.24 (2023-03-15)
Cockpit
- New chaptering / clipping tool for live and VOD
- Creation of video chapter and TC-in / TC-out validation feature
- Creation of video clip from chapter
- Creation of video clip from multiple chapters
- Possibility to change chapters order from clip creation
- Clips and chapters management
- Possibility to import chapters data from another video
- Improved search (search by creation date, title or ID)
- Users management with roles
- API clients management
- SSO support
- Various fixes
- Recurrent disconnection issues
- UI inconsistencies and bug fixes
- User Guide V1
VOD
- Video process progress bar
- Performance improvements
- Increase file size limit
- Increase upload performance and reliability
Video Player
- Accessibility improvement
v12.5.17 (2023-01-01)
Core features
- Complete RESTful API
- Hierarchical organisation of video content
- Videos can be grouped into channels (folders)
- Channels can have sub-channels
- Drag & drop: Channels and videos can be (re)organised by drag & drop
- Customisable platform settings per channel: The settings of a parent channel are inherited by its sub-channels yet a sub-channel and therefore its content can have its own settings
- Workflows
- Transcoding presets
- Player embed settings
- ...
- Clipping and chaptering
- Creation of new video clip from a LIVE: The clipping tool allows the operator to set in/out marks to create one or more proxy clips using the LIVE as a reference file. These proxy clips can be extracted to generate a VOD file per clip. or series of clips
- Creation of new video clip from a VOD: The clipping tool allows the operator to set in/out marks to create one or more clips from a reference VOD clip
- Visual editor
- Stitching: allows the operator to stitch various VOD clips to generate a new combined VOD clip
- Multi-audio support up to 32 languages
- ...
- Statistics tools
- PDF export
- Average play time
- Total number of plays
- Plays timeline
- Total number of unique views
- Unique views by country
- Unique views by device
- Unique views by domain
- Unique views by browser
- Bandwidth usage
- Storage usage
- HLS and DASH delivery in multi-bitrate and multi-audio
- China delivery acceleration: dedicated storage, origins and CDN in mainland China
- Custom transcoding workflows
- Multiple renditions and formats
- Multi-audio support up to 32 languages
- ...
- Customisable webhooks
- Triggered by each workflow event
- Transcoding completed
- Transcoding failed
- File uploaded
- ....
VOD
- Ingest
- HTTP upload via web interface
- S3 bucket
- Import from existing video media library
- Transcoding profiles
- Configurable by channel and sub-channel
- Handles any format or codec (16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 1:1, H.264, H.265, 25fps, 60fps, etc.)
- Outputs formats optimised for desktop computers, tablets, mobiles and smart TVs
- Automatic generation of a posterframe as well as timeline thumbnails
- Transcoding jobs status and progression visible in the Freecaster Cockpit
LIVE
- Create a livestream in one click
- Customisable countdown (pre-live display in the player): the Freecaster countdown displays information in the look and feel determined by the client. The countdown is composed of a visual and information. The visual can be either a fixed picture, a succession of pictures (e.g. .gif) or a looping video clip. The information is the name of the live, time, date and countdown to live. The information can be customised in font, colour, position and most importantly it can be translated in any language and displayed in the according font.
- Customisable archiving
- Customisable DVR window: the client can determine whether the player allows DVR i.e. scrolling back in the LIVE stream and the time to live that scroll back is possible. It can be a any time value e.g. 5' or the start of the live
- Ingest
- RTMP
- HTTP Smooth Streaming
- SRT
- Instant replay: during a LIVE stream, the operator can set in/out points that will generate an instant replay of the LIVE stream under the same player URL. That instant replay can then be replaced by a VOD file still under the same URL allowing a seemless experience from a LIVE stream to a VOD clip of the LIVE stream.
Video Player
- Player documentation
- Responsive player: The Freecaster HTML5 player is fully responsive
- Accessibility: keyboard navigation and support for transcripts
- Posterframe: The posterframe is the picture displayed as cover for a video in the video player. That posterframe can be a frame of the video itself capture via the Freecaster Cockpit (CMS) or it can be a picture uploaded (drag&drop) in the Freecaster Cockpit (CMS)
- Timeline thumbnails: Timeline thumbnails are pictures set every seconds. They appear when scrolling the player navigation bar to indentify a scene in a VOD clip.
- Automatic refresh of the player configuration
- Customisable skins and displays
- Messages
- Displays (Coffe break, Coming soon, Technical issue, ...)
- Dynamic countdown with CSS and JS
- Translatable fields
- Custom CSS
- Custom JS
- Customisable behaviours and functions
- Autoplay on/off
- Controls on/off
- Loop on/off
- Muted on/off
- Hover thumbnail preview
- Do-not-track (GDPR compliance)
- Subtitles: no limitation in number of subtitles and languages. Freecaster only supports WebVTT files that are uploaded in the Freecaster Cockpit (no online editor available currently). The is no limitation in number of languages. Languages are displayed in their related fonts.
- Related videos on end screen (from external RSS feed)
- Stretching options for optimised web integration
- Thumbnails on timeline
- Transcript
- VAST Support (pre-roll, ...)
- Volume
- Fullscreen
- JavaScript and iframe embed codes
- Supports different resolutions and ratios: The player supports up to 4K resolution and picture ratios such as 4:3, 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 but there is no knwon technical restriction to the ratio
Authentication
- Support for single sign-on (SSO) (SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0)
- LDAP and Active Directory connection
- Users management with predefined roles
- Configurable password policies