Is Your Training Content Being Stolen?

Let’s face it. Creating good training content in any format is time-consuming work. 

When Ben and I developed our first video training course a couple of years ago, we spent well over a hundred hours brainstorming, recording, and editing our content.

With so much time and energy invested in producing a course, we knew that the first thing we needed to do was protect access to our media and restrict viewing to registered users.

But how?

We host all of our media on Amazon S3 and at the time, we found a small handful of plugins on the market that prevented “hotlinking”, or the sharing of S3 links from one user to the next.

However, we faced many challenges (and spent hours hacking code) in getting these link encryption plugins to work well with various media players.

Over time, we decided to create our own solution and S3 Media Maestro was born. It’s the perfect companion to WP Courseware as it allows for the placement of video and audio media within course units, while at the same time protecting your media files stored in Amazon S3.

It’s a media player and Amazon S3 link encryption generator in one plugin.

In today’s post, we wanted to give you a brief overview of how simple it is to add protected video or audio to your WP Courseware training units using S3 Media Maestro.

(Please note: This tutorial assumes that you have both the WP Courseware and S3 Media Maestro plugins installed, activated, and configured. It also assumes you have an Amazon S3 account.)

1. Upload your media file to Amazon S3

Log in to your Amazon S3 account, choose the correct bucket, and upload your media file. Please follow Amazon’s recommended bucket and file naming guidelines.

2. Open the appropriate WP Courseware course unit

In the WP Courseware sidebar panel in your WordPress admin area, click “Course Units”. Then find the course unit to which you would like to add your protected media file.

3. Insert your media file

Once inside the course unit, click on the “Add Audio/Video Player” button. You’ll be presented with a dialog box that lets you configure several settings.

 

*Video or audio player?

*S3 File URL: Add the file name of the audio or video which you uploaded to Amazon S3.

*S3 Bucket: Use either the default bucket indicated in your “Settings”, or add an alternate file bucket here.

*S3 Expiry: This is an important setting! This setting indicates the amount of time access to your file link will be valid to prevent sharing. Either set a custom time or use the default value from your “Settings” panel. Be sure to allow enough time for your course participant to complete the video or audio.

*S3 Access Key: This should be configured in your “Settings” screen, but an alternate access key can be used.

*S3 Secret Key: This should be configured in your “Settings” screen, but an alternate access key can be used.

Then just click “Insert Player!”

4. Publish or update your course unit

5. Drag and drop your course unit into the appropriate module

Click on the “Training Courses” tab in the WP Courseware admin area. Find the training course to which you would like to add the new unit and click “Module, Units, and Quiz Ordering”. Drag and drop the new unit into the desired module.

 

And that’s it! 

Your audio or video will now be available from within your training course unit for the amount of time you specified. After the expiry limit, the unique download URL which was generated by S3 Media Maestro will expire and prevent sharing between users.

If you have not yet purchased either WP Courseware or S3 Media Maestro for your WordPress training course creation needs, we want to extend a special discount offer to you. Simply enter “FLY10OFF” at checkout to receive 10% off your purchase of WP Courseware, S3 Media Maestro, or both!