Deprecation Notice - Caching Image and Video Files That Are Hosted on a Third Party Server
We are excited to announce improvements to how files hosted on Rise Storage will be distributed to your Displays. Previously, Rise Player would periodically check for new file versions, this is commonly referred to as “polling for updates”. This method could result in delays from the time you update to when you see it on your Display.
In the coming weeks we are releasing an update that eliminates polling for updates and instead uses real time communication so that when you add, change, or remove a file from Rise Storage, any Displays showing it will notified in real-time and immediately download the file and show it on your Display.
These changes are only compatible with files hosted on Rise Storage. As such, files hosted on a 3rd party server will be discontinued from being saved locally on a media player by Rise Player on September 30th, 2018.
How will you be impacted?
If you use a 3rd party server you files will not be available if your Display starts offline and you will see an increase in network bandwidth, especially if you’re showing large videos.
If you use Rise Storage there is no impact.
How do I know if I am using images and videos hosted on a third party server?
If your Presentation has an Image or Video Widget and is using the Custom URL option.
What should I do?
If you’re using a 3rd party server to store your files we recommend you use Rise Storage but it’s not required, you can continue using your server.
If you use Rise Storage there is nothing you need to do.
What if I’m using Chrome OS?
If you’re using Chrome OS the legacy Chrome App Player will continue to work as it does today where all files regardless of where they are hosted are stored locally. Once the new Chrome App Player has been released it will use the same real time communication system described above.
Let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks
-
In addition! I am always using 'URL' method regardless of where images were saved. Reason - easier and faster this way: upload image to RV Storage > click LINK icon > copy the link > paste the link in the widget. No need to use the most cumbersome way of pulling images from Storage through the dedicated buttons.
Also! This did not really need to change as nothing was broken. One step forward and two back IMO. And I do not even want to think now about revising all the presentation and changing all the URL links. This is going to be some MAJOR task. Thanks for that guys!
-
Images that are displayed through the Web Page Widget are not cached for offline use in the licensed version or the free version of the player, if you're showing images I recommend using the Image Widget.
The changes don't affect the Web Page Widget, if you've setup your web page to use Service Workers and are using it on a licensed display it will continue to work offline.
Thanks
-
Regarding your second question, if your file is stored in Rise Storage and you're using the custom url option in the Image or Video Widget you don't need to update the Widget to use the single file or folder options. The file will still be saved locally for offline use, it only affects files that are hosted on a third party server, for example Amazon S3.
This change improves the reliability of the Image and Video Widgets and Rise Player, it also allows for real time updates, and helps us close issues that are affecting a number of users.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanks
-
No. This change does not "improve reliability of the Image and Video Widgets and Rise Player." Masses of RV users are not clamoring for instantly-updated images or videos instead of the current method of polling for updates. This change is just another attack in the multi-year assault on those of us who spin our own, reuse our own web assets, and otherwise wish to pay only for those services we actually need or want to pay for. We are not all high-charging, many-client for-profit corporations. Many RV users are schools and nonprofits. And many more of us use RV to present internal messages to small groups of employees.
Even if I were a large organization with a budget that allowed an RV plan, I would still not choose to store my assets in RV Storage. Why would I? I already manage my assets on my own web server and simply reuse them for internal employee messaging. I don't want to have to upload and manage the same assets in multiple places.
RV has demonstrated over and over again disdain for the users that have enabled the platform to become what it is. Over and over again, RV has encouraged users to adopt something, only later to deprecate it, replace it with something less than it, or start charging for it. Now they're combining those techniques into one:offer a tiny benefit for a sliver of users in rare circumstances while breaking existing Players in a way that they will no longer work without payment for an unnecessary service. Worse of all is that, as described, this change as implemented is not even able to be fixed by purchasing or paying for something. It actually requires users to USE something they may not want for very good reasons. So even if I pay for a Plan and/or Storage, my players break unless I store my assets in RV Storage.
-
David,
You can continue to host your own assets and manage them on your own web server. The change we are making does not break your players or remove your ability to do that. We are removing the caching of files that are hosted on a 3rd party server, we are not preventing you from using the Image and Video Widgets to show files that are hosted on a 3rd party server.
With regards to your other points, as always thanks for the feedback. We're focussed on building a more robust and stable platform, as part of that we've had to make decisions around deprecating products with low usage or products that were unstable, and we've had to make some products premium so that we could hire the developers, designers, and support staff needed to maintain them.
Thanks,
Shea
-
Let me come resurrect an old thread here to ask a question.
We have a customer wanting to add a (long-ish) video to their 15 displays. I'm having marketing make us a .webm to add and I was curious if it will cache or download fresh every time, as it may be a pretty large file and will play for about 1/5 of the total time. If I understand correctly from this post, the answer is that it will be cached ONLY if we pay for Rise Storage? Except that we might be okay with the Custom URL since we still use the older ChromeOS Player.. If I use that for their signs, it sounds like it WILL still cache.. I hope?
The setup is certainly not a step forward to us.. with over 150 displays in the field and all of them using multiple Image Widgets, sounds like it's just a possible bandwidth hassle if we add too much data :/
-
Hi Wendi,
You need to use Rise Storage if you want your files to cache, we are not caching files hosted on third party servers on our current supported players.
If you are still using the old ChromeOS Player, then yes your files should cache but we don't support or recommend that configuration.
Thanks
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
11 comments