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avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:49 am
by Zoiddy
Hello,
i have got a problem: my .flvs are hotlinked and my bandwidth usage is at its limit. ATM, i use .htaccess to block the domains but i want to kill the problem at its root. I can not use .htaccess to do it because my flv player does not send the referrer. Know any free players with that feature ?
I googled and found two solutions (both commercial) and i'd like your opinion if they're worth the money (45$ the first, 199$ the second but comes also in a free script with message errors instead of a redirect) (or if you can tell me about any free script they are welcoome).
Cheers,
Zoiddy
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 4:39 am
by kaisellgren
And these two solutions are...?
Hotlink protection does not entirely eliminate your problem. Someone can place a video player on their site that sends the right referrer. Your best solutions are to have some kind of registration system to view videos, place hotlink protection and have some kind of client-size obfuscation, but there are no perfect way to stop bandwidth thieves.
I'm sure you have heard of Hulu.com? They have client-side encryption/obfuscation system that encrypts all AJAX calls. I'm not sure how many bits of bandwidth did they save, but streaming videos online means that people in general will be able to leech your bandwidth. The Internet was constructed in a such way so that we share stuff, not block.
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:57 am
by Zoiddy
those solutions should avoid that (the link expires after a while).
i'm new, can i post the link to commercial stuff? sorry for the dumb question

Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:01 am
by Eran
Why not post the videos on youtube / vimeo and embed it on your site? that way you'll never experience a bandwidth problem
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 9:43 am
by Zoiddy
it was like that at the beginning, but custom player gives more a professional look to the site, so we chose that direction
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:57 pm
by cpetercarter
The JW player can play YouTube videos, and looks very professional.
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:08 pm
by John Cartwright
Some kind of challenge system perhaps.
A simple way would be setting a session key on the page that will be displaying the video, then create a script that will actually serve the video and have it check for the presence of this session key.
I would also recommend using YouTube instead.. their servers are far superior and will result in faster load times and reliability.
Re: avoid FLV hotlinking
Posted: Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:41 pm
by Eran
Vimeo, by the way, allows custom players to be used with their PLUS package.