With Spotlightr, you have the freedom of hosting your videos wherever you want! With it does come a few drawbacks as well.
Hybrid hosting, or linking, means that you are using a link from a video hosted somewhere and adding that link to Spotlightr. We then play that video from it's source location and play it using our video player. We are not copying or moving the video file, we are playing it from it's source location.
For a list of supported sources please check this article. If your source is not listed here it might still work. If the video link/URL is publicly accessible, and basically plays when you load the link in a browser, then it will very likely work with Spotlightr.
Hybrid Hosting advantages:
Storage: You save Spotlightr storage space with linking. We are not copying or moving the video over from those external sources. We are playing the video from it's external source location and playing it using our video player. This is why most Spotlightr features still work.
Bandwidth: You save Spotlightr bandwidth costs as you would not be using the Spotlightr CDN.
Hybrid Hosting disadvantages:
Encryption: Linked videos cannot be encrypted. The encryption process happens when a file is uploaded to Spotlightr, so this process doesn't occur when linking. Other security features still work however, as you can secure them with the password protection feature and restrict them to play only on desired domains.
Performance: Performance might not be as good. Since we are using the video from it's source location, it's also using that systems bandwidth and storage. We have less control on the overall environment for playback, so issues can arise that may be out of our control.
Thumbnails: We cannot generate custom thumbnails from certain frames of the video. We are able to generate a default thumbnail, but not a custom. If a custom thumbnail is required then an image must be uploaded.
Multiple Resolutions: We cannot retrieve multiple resolutions and your viewers cannot change the resolution that is best for them based on their internet speed.
The exception here is Youtube. More than one resolution is now possible with Youtube links. We try to retrieve the highest resolution possible. If 720 is available we will be able to serve the 720 and 360 version. We cannot however retrieve the 1080 version video at this time.
New Youtube Videos: Youtube videos may not work with Spotlightr if they were very recently uploaded to Youtube. We've also noticed that videos with zero views or just a few views sometimes don't work either. So if you just uploaded a video to Youtube and you are trying to link it and it doesn't work, please allow some time to pass and try again. And also be sure to get at least 5 or 10 views on the video as well.
Downloading: As a Spotlightr user It is not possible to download your video back from Spotlightr as we are not moving or copying files when you link a video. As mentioned above, we are playing the video from it's source location.
Additionally, your viewers cannot download the video via a download button in the player settings.
Subtitles: We cannot generate sub-titles from linked videos.
Aspect ratio: We cannot auto-detect the aspect ratio of your video
Timeline Scanning: Thumbnail of video frames while scanning timeline not available