Freecaster Release Notes

Check out below the latest release notes for the Freecaster platform. Including new features, improvements and bug fixes.

v12.15.0 (2024-11-12)

Platform

Added

• Support for SRT subtitles

Fixed

• Delete the associated entry point when a live stream preset is deleted
• Modifying the offsets on a live stream preset was not working in certain conditions
• The video title was not properly set when uploading a file with multiple dots in the filename
• Issue when transcoding a video from an external URL containing special characters

Cockpit

Added

• User confirmation prompt when publishing a chapter

Improved

• Do not replace the active video by default when uploading a new video file
• Individual upload progress bar for each file when uploading multiple videos

Fixed

• Correct parent channel is now assigned when creating a live stream

v12.14.0 (2024-10-08)

Platform

Added

• Unpublishing a channel will now also unpublish its videos

Improved

• Better transcoding queue management

Cockpit

Added

• Ability to download subtitles

Improved

• Faster navigation

Video Player

Improved

• More explicit embed code parameter to enable statistics (stats=true instead of dnt=false)

Fixed

• MP3 player skin without posterframe

v12.13.1 (2024-09-17)

Platform

Added

• Ability to define live delivery quality filters
• Ability to define a startup quality

Improved

• Player embed performance
• VOD clipping performance

Video Player

Flowplayer v3.13.0

• Display of chapters on the timeline

v12.12.2 (2024-08-30)

API

Improved

• Improved stability

Player

Fixed

• Timeline thumbnails generation to avoid black thumbnails

Improved

• Resources loading performance
• More explicit error messsage in case of geo-blocking

Cockpit

Added

• Button to download a video

v12.12.1 (2024-07-31)

API

Updated

• It is now possible for a sub-tenant to use its parents tenant's player displays (countdowns and messages)

Cockpit

Added

• It is now possible to duplicate a selected player display and its fields when creating a new overload
• A confirm dialog is now added when you switch from player displays' overload while editing fields

Updated

• Improved pages loading time

Fixed

• Subtitles and transcripts language validation is now more permissive

Player

Updated

• Player display overloads now inherit attributes from their parent player display
• ISO 639-2T language codes are now used internally by default

v12.12.0 (2024-07-15)

API

Added

• Public endpoint to retrieve video information with CDN caching
  • You can build the URLs as follow: https://player.freecaster.com/videos/{{video_uuid}}/info.json
    • Where {{video_uuid}} is the UUID of the video

Improved

• Rate limiting per user (instead of per IP)

Cockpit

Fixed

• DVR and archive live size validation

Improved

• Left navigation tree performance optimisation
• Automatic language detection from subtitle and transcript file name suffix (i.e. for English subtitle: subtitle-en.vtt)
• Visual confirmation of subtitles and transcript deletion

Player

Improved

• Better accessibility of the volume bar and timeline components
  • Volume
    • Aria min and max values
    • Key bindings
      • PageUp: set to 100%
      • PageDown: set to 0%
      • Right arrow, Up arrow: +10%
      • Left arrow, Down arrow: -10%
  • Timeline
    • French and English translations
    • Key bindings
      • PageUp: seek +20s
      • PageDown: seek -20s
      • Right arrow, Up arrow: +5s
      • Left arrow, Down arrow: -5

v12.11.0 (2024-07-01)

Platform

Fixed

• Delivery filters should not be applied when clipping a live
• Player display was not saved when creating a live
• Prevent the deletion of a user's root channel
• Do not generate a slug when uploading a video by SFTP

API

Fixed

• The S3 upload request now accepts null attributes

Video Player

Flowplayer v3.10.1

Added

• Playback speed selector

Fixed

• Display bug of the language selector on the "Test & Deploy" page
• Provide a default translation when it is missing for the selected language

v12.10.0 (2024-06-10)

Platform

Improved

• You can now upload videos larger than 5 GB

v12.9.0 (2024-05-21)

Platform

Added

• Permalinks for videos streaming URLs (HLS, DASH and progressive MP4)
  • You can build the URLs as follow: https://player.freecaster.com/videos/{{video_uuid}}/{{stream}}
    • Where {{video_uuid}} is the UUID of the video and {{stream}} can be any of the following:
      • master.m3u8 for the HLS delivery URL
      • master-st.m3u8 for the HLS delivery URL with embedded subtitles (useful for native apps)
      • manifest.mpd for the DASH delivery URL
      • 720p.mp4 for the progressive MP4 delivery URL of the given quality (720p, 1008p, etc.)

API

Added

• Delivery filters to limit bandwidth usage. The following parameters are available:
• 'max_width': Maximum width of the video stream
• 'max_height': Maximum height of the video stream
• 'max_bitrate': Maximum bitrate of the video stream

v12.8.2 (2024-05-26)

API

Fixed

• Error when uploaded filename is too long

v12.8.1 (2024-05-18)

Cockpit

Added

• Ability to upload multiple videos at once
• Display stream presets creation and modification timestamps

Platform

Fixed

• Issue when processing two video assets at the same time for the same video

v12.8.0 (2024-04-09)

Cockpit

Improved

• Allow upload of multiple subtitle or transcript files at once

Fixed

• VOD creation form validation: disable the save button if a mandatory field is missing
• Live creation form bug: fixed error on save when a player display is selected
• Prevent clipping beyond the end of a video

API

Improvement

• Better traceability of webhooks

Added

• New webhooks to notify the start of a transcoding (transcoding.started) or clipping (clipping.started) process

v12.7.8 (2024-03-25)

Cockpit

Improved

• Multiples files can now be uploaded at once

Added

• Ability to preview a player display

API

Improved

• Search feature is now faster and accurate

Fixed

• Error when searching on too long legacy_id
• Manage error when clipping out of the archive window

Video Player

Flowplayer v3.10.1

Fixed

• Fixed an issue when the sound would not toggle properly when using key binds

Updated

• Updated various accessibility features (translations, keybindings)

v12.7.7 (2024-03-11)

Cockpit

Improved

• Improved player displays management
• Improved player display fields editor
• By default, the preview reads the active preset stream without going through the cache

Added

• Player skins can now be tried out in the preview tab
• The source video file name is now used as the video version name
• It is possible to unselect a language in the preview and have the default language

Fixed

• Offsets are now properly set when editing a chapter of an instant replay
• Clipping tools no longer use wrong timestamps when editing a chapter for both live and VODs
• Player displays's overload languages are now unique

Video Player

Flowplayer v3.10.1

Added

• Auto-pause and multi-play are now configurable through server's configuration

Fixed

• Errors when a player with an active display is resized
• Player stayed in a "live" state when switching to instant replay
• Potential visual glitches when the player automatically refreshes its configuration

Updated

• Various accessibility updates
• Player now uses flowplayer 3.10.1 This update fixes:
  • Autoplay issue on iOS devices when preload attribute is set to none
  • Crashes when a browser is in incognito mode with cookies entirely disabled
• Subtitles font size has been increased

v12.7.6 (2024-02-21)

Cockpit

Improvement

• The player display UI is now more intuitive and user friendly
• Ability to create and manage player displays
• Manage fields associated to player displays
• The clipping UI is now more intuitive and user friendly
• Ability to create a clip without creating a chapter
• Ability to create a clip in a new version of the current video instead of creating an entirely new video
• Time range selector for chapter creation
• Chapter preview optimisation
• The thumbnails are now correctly related to a stream preset in preview mode
• More details when a request issue occurs

Fixed

• Preview player now displays the current active stream preset
• Minor bug fix while previewing the displays overloads

API

Fixed

• Inconsistency in thumbnail generation and delivery
• Minor fixes

v12.7.4 (2024-02-14)

Cockpit

Fixed

• Duplicated entries in subtitles and transcript listings
• Poster extraction tool improvements

Added

• Language dropdown on the player to allow localised player display preview

API

Added

• Ability to clip as a new version of a video

Video Player

Flowplayer v3.8.0

Improvement

• Reduced player footprint

v12.6.6 (2024-01-22)

Cockpit

Improved

• Improved chapters listing
• Issue when selecting multiple roles for a user
• Issue with iframe embed code parameters in the "Test & Deploy" page
• Minor bugs

Added

• Display of the release note
• Ability to create a user in a sub-tenant
• Ability to preview a non-active stream preset

API

• Prevent the deletion of a channel with children
• Minor fixes

Transcoding

• Improvements and bug fixes

v12.6.2 (2023-11-28)

Cockpit

Improved

• Enhanced embed code configuration
• Ratio management with iframe embed code
• Bug fixes

Added

• Deletion of a poster
• Possibility to add a poster when creating a live
• Search by date
• Users search
• API clients search
• Audio file compatibility
• Audio player
• Update a clip with a new version
• Channel description field

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