Creating downloads from off site host with s2Member

#1

I am wondering if I can somehow make s2Member Pro do this.

I offer pdf, jpg, mp4 as downloadable content. I want the pdf & jpg’s to use my amazon s3 bucket. I want the mp4’s to grab them from Vimeo as a direct link but mask it so they can’t see it where it is coming from.

Currently, I have my video download pages locked down with ccaps to prevent anyone from accessing the page. I then use an iframe to tell the system to download the file and make it look like its coming from my domain. My issue here is if you know what you are doing you can look at the page code by inspecting it and get the video URL. Is there a way that anyone knows of on masking it so users can’t see the file link. This has puzzled me the last days and thought I’d ask here.

Amazon is affordable but there have been a few months that my monthly bill has been extremely high. The bulk of my transfers are from the video and I can host the video files from Vimeo with no data charge.

With WooCommerce it masks the download URL from another site of mine but I don’t have Woo installed on my members’ area.

I have ezPHP installed but I’ve not been able to figure it out using PHP yet.

Thanks for any advice,
Ross

#2

The best you can do is a one-play link to the video from a one-IP-address destination who is logged in when the video is played and the video is streamed.

There aren’t a lot of one-play video link software plugins I am aware of.

That’s why I use s2member streaming video and protected file downloads via cloudfront. You get a unique link good for 24 hours.

If you know of another solution I would be interested. S2Member streaming video is RTMP-based which AWS is shutting down end of 2020.

@clavaque - any plans for a s2member streaming update before 2020 year-end (WebRTC or HLS)?

On a sidenote I assume you are compressing your videos pre-upload using something like Handbrake (you can get 10-to-1 size reduction with no quality loss)?

#3

Hi Tim,

I compress the videos but still the sheer size of them when they are downloaded and sometimes a few times before the user sees it has actually downloaded gets old on my end.

I currently use FV-Player and with the use of Vimeo for a yearly charge. Vimeo allows me to use a .m3u8 (an Apple Standard) to play it, great for users that have no download rights. WIth that combo even if they can get around it the video is typically corrupted and jumps frames a lot. Screen recording is the only real threat I see, well at this point in the game.

The only issue with the paid version of FV-Player is I haven’t found a way to change the setting based on a per video usage on if the download button is used or not. It seems global to enable that feature otherwise I would just use that feature.

I started using it with AWS but the charges added up fast as a lot of our videos are an hour plus and 60p HD. I also find that Vimeo’s quality on the stream is way better although the bandwidth from the consumer requires better internet if they want the best quality.

I have not heard of the one-play video link. I will look into that, I would like to start renting videos based on a 3 day rental as well offering them as a download option but haven’t found a viable way yet for that.

I’ll post here again if I discover anything in my search on the topic.

#4

Cheers Ross :slight_smile:

A technique you might consider is AWS signed cookies. You can use AWS Cloudfront to proxy the traffic. and act as the application level firewall. I use this technique for one of my clients where the protected content is an entire static website. See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonCloudFront/latest/DeveloperGuide/private-content-signed-cookies.html

#5

Thanks Tim!

I will look into this.

Ross