Billing
Can I pay with cheque/bank transfer/Paypal
Monthly Standard and Professional plans can only be paid with a credit card. For annual and Enterprise plans we can also arrange bank transfer payments or Paypal prepayments. We do not accept cheques.
Which cards are accepted?
We accept payments from VISA, MasterCard, VISA Debit, and American Express.
When am I charged?
We charge your plan at the start of each billing period. If your component usage (streaming, encoding, plays) exceeds the limit included in the current plan during a period, we will charge accumulated overage once it reaches $50.
What constitutes a play for billing purposes
The event when a rendered player starts playing a clip or ad preroll. If the player is set to autoplay or first frame this happens on page load, otherwise it will happen when the viewer clicks/taps the play button. Non-autoplaying players with a poster start indisplaystate, which is not charged. If a video is configured with theloopattribute, only the first playback is counted for the charge.
Why do I need Enterprise to show my live streams
We need to distinguish here between the Flowplayer live stream offerings and your own live streaming. If you have your own HLS/DASH live feed you can use the player from any subscription type with the async cloud or standalone Javascript player by configuring the stream source and thelive: trueproperty. You only need an Enterprise plan if you intend to use our transcoding and CDN infrastructure and want to benefit from our realtime and historical analytics.
What if I exceed the limits?
Flowplayer aims at giving you and your users the best video experience when you exceed the play- or bandwidth limits. First, the default limits are pretty high, so most of our customers never have to think about boundaries. If you end up needing more, we send you a friendly email reminder. But the service keeps running no matter what happens. Usage exceeding the limits will be charged between renewals. You can always check on the bandwidth usage and pricing from your [account]https://app.flowplayer.com/organization/billing).
How much bandwidth do I need?
Measuring video bandwidth is not trivial. It’s hard to know in advance how much you need it, and how much it can cost. This is why we've put together a bandwidth calculator, which should give you a reasonable estimate of your streaming needs. If your needs are significant, please contact us, and we will be happy to put set up a custom plan that works for you.
Where can I download the free player?
Flowplayer no longer offers the free, logo-branded player. If you are looking for a standalone player, please contact sales.
Can I get a one-time license?
We do not offer one-time licenses, only usage-based subscriptions.
Where can I get a Flowplayer 7 license?
Flowplayer 7 is deprecated and no longer offered.
How can I remove the Flowplayer 7 watermark/logo?
We no longer offer commercial licenses for Flowplayer 3/5/6/7. Please subscribe to a Flowplayer plan to get access to the logo-free Flowplayer Native.
I clicked the Flowplayer logo on a nonworking video on site xy and am asked to sign up with Flowplayer, will doing so unlock the video?
No. The logo usually means a site you visited is using an old and unlicensed version of the player. If a video does not work, the site owner needs to subscribe to the player or platform. Subscriptions are only for publishers, not for viewers. If you're asked to pay for content as a viewer, such requests never come from us.
Can I switch plans?
Yes, at any time and from/to any plan. For an Enterprise plan change, pleasecontact sales.
Terms Of Service
Can I upload adult content?
No. Attempting so might get your account deactivated.
Embedding and content delivery
Can I self-host the player?
Yes, you can choose between a [hosted cloud configured player](/player/embedding#using-cloud-hosted-js-embed, a [hosted Javascript player](/player/embedding#use-java-script-based and a [self-hosted Javascript player](/player/embedding#host-player-assets-on-your-own.
Can I store my content somewhere else and still profit from analytics and cloud configuration?
Yes. Remote assets are supported on our OVP platform.
Can I use my own CDN?
Yes, contact sales for an Enterprise plan.
Platform
I cannot access the Advertising or Livestreaming sections
You need a Professional or Enterprise subscription for Ads, and Enterprise for Livestreaming.
My uploads are stuck/do not continue
Make sure your PC/device clock is set correctly. The platform uses timed destination urls for uploading which might expire if your clock is off.
My dynamic playlists do not update
Make sure you don't have "hide from endscreens and dynamic playlists" ticked in the video metadata of those items you wish to include. Note this could be preset in the Workspace settings already.
I receive a "Skipping embed on head" error using the embed code
You cannot use the async platform codes in dynamically injected embeds (like some popup code generators do, or plugins that preload page code and then replace content dynamically). If you receive such an error message, the JS code is running in the wrong context and therefore fails. If you encounter this, you need to use a [standalone JS embed](/player/embedding#usejavascript instead.
Livestreaming
I don't want to show the live countdown
You can hide it with css in Javascript embeds:
<style>.fp-livecountdown{display: none;}
</style>
Player
Are tokens required
Yes, tokens are required when using the pure [Javascript API setup](/player/embedding#use-java-script-based to protect your usage and analytics numbers. In Iframe or async platform embeds, the tokens are already integrated.
How can I add my own translation to the player?
Create a pull request in the Github translations repo using the English translation set as template and commit your translation, naming the file with the two-letter ISO code of the target language.
How can I reconnect/restart an interrupted HLS or DASH live steam
Please check this reconnect demo.
How can I move the buttons from the top to the controlbar
Please check this modifier demo script and css.
I cannot see the Chromecast icon
Make sure there is a Cast receiver device in range in the same local network as your sender device. Also, the site from which you want to cast must be SSL-protected. You cannot cast from HTTP sites.
Can I have multiple players on a webpage?
Multiple players can exist on the same page, each player instance is isolated from one another. Check out the video gallery demo as an example of this in action. For standalone JS embeds, you should use unique<div>IDs for each player. Play behavior can be controlled with the multiplayconfiguration property.
My async platform embed does not use the configuration I created
Verify you're using the correct player configuration id that you created in the Player section.
My livestream does not play
Check whether the stream URL ends in.m3u8. If you have query parameters, non-standard extensions, or other custom stream names (like from MS Azure), you must configure the srctype. Also, make sure your stream is HTTPS if you're embedding on an SSL-protected site, you cannot play HTTP streams if the site is HTTPS.
I don't see video analytics
Video analytics can only be provided for videos hosted in our platform and remote video assets if they're embedded with their platformsrc id. Assets not registered in the platform or embedded with their URLs cannot be tracked individually (plays will still be counted towards your billing plan). Please note that players embedded with the standalone Javascript player, using the platform integration plugin and the Flowplayersrc idis mandatory.
How can I enable Flash support?
Flash is deprecated and no longer supported by Adobe or Flowplayer.
SDKs
CocoaPods does not update the framework
Sometimes you need to runpod repo update' and then 'pod install(orpod install -- repo-update) or evenpod deintegrateto update the project.
Security
How can I protect my content?
There are various degrees and options of protection, from domain-locked player embeds to geolocation restrictions and tokenized streams (Enterprise only) to full-fledged DRM (Enterprise only). Please contact sales if you're interested in an offer. See this blog post for additional information.
Player host restriction
If you want to protect your cloud-configured player from being embedded on other sites, you can control the allowed systems with hostname restrictions. If you want to allow all subdomains/hosts of a domain, you can use a wildcard. Note: if you want to send out direct viewing links with the share option from the embed dialog, you need to addlwjsp.lwcdn.comto the allowed hosts if you have other host restrictions configured.
Token domain restriction
For standalone Javascript embeds with token, you can restrict the token to only work on a given domain (including subdomains). You can configure up to [two domains per token](/player/embedding#configure-the-player-with-your.
Privacy / data usage
Does Flowplayer Native set any cookies or collect personal data?
Flowplayer Native does not set any cookies and also does not track any personalized data (when using platform embeds we and our CDN provider Cloudfront do log the requesting IP address for geoblock validation and determining the country of origin as well as DOS and abuse protection, but that is lawful behavior and required for technical functionality, hence allowed under section 6 of the GDPR and does not require separate info or consent).
The ad plugin uses the Google IMA3 HTML5 SDK library, which does set both a technical session cookie (which is covered by a general cookie consent given for your site as it does not track personalized data) as well as - if using DFP as the ad network and no npa parameter is sent - a personalization cookie. Setting a parameter depending on the requirements of the ad network can be done with macros, please see the ad macro documentation.
For a discussion about ad cookies, please see this Google thread.