We are thrilled to announce the release of two highly requested features in Presto Player, the leading WordPress video plugin.

Show Time Elapsed – A New Preset Option

We’ve heard your feedback, and we are delighted to introduce the “Show Time Elapsed” preset option, available under the behavior settings in Presto Player.

When enabled, this feature displays either the time elapsed or the time remaining for the video directly on the player.

This highly requested feature empowers course creators to provide more context to their viewers, allowing them to easily track their progress and manage their time effectively.

Now, your audience can stay engaged and informed throughout the video playback experience.

Playlist Highlight Color Setting

We understand that each video in a playlist may have its own unique player style. To ensure a consistent and visually appealing playlist experience, we have introduced a new setting that allows you to pass a playlist highlight color to all players within the playlist.

By unifying the player style, this feature adds a professional touch to your playlists and creates a cohesive visual identity for your video content.

Now, your viewers can navigate through your playlist seamlessly, enjoying a visually harmonious experience from start to finish.

Upgrade to the latest version of Presto Player now and leverage these powerful features to enhance your video content and engage your audience like never before.

New:

• New: Time elapsed options in presets (pro required).
• New: Setting to pass playlist highlight color to players (pro required).

We are excited to announce a new feature in Presto Player – Automatic Video Schema!

With this latest update, we have integrated video schema functionality into Presto Player, providing significant Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits for your videos.

Video schema, also known as structured data or schema markup, is a standardized format that allows search engines to understand and interpret the content of your videos better. It provides search engines with specific details about your video, such as its title, description, duration, thumbnail, and other relevant information.

By adding automatic video SEO schema to Presto Player, you can enhance the visibility and discoverability of your videos in search engine results. Here are some of the SEO benefits you can expect:

1. Improved Click-Through Rates (CTR): Video schema enables search engines to display rich snippets in search results, including video thumbnails, titles, and descriptions. These eye-catching snippets can attract more clicks from users, increasing your CTR.
2. Enhanced Video Visibility: With video schema, search engines can understand the context and content of your videos more accurately. This helps them index and rank your videos appropriately, making them more visible to potential viewers.
3. Increased Organic Traffic: By optimizing your videos with schema markup, you can improve their chances of appearing in video carousels, featured snippets, and other prominent positions in search results. This can lead to an increase in organic traffic to your website.
4. Better User Experience: Video schema markup allows search engines to provide more relevant video recommendations to users. By leveraging this feature, you can deliver a better user experience and engage your audience effectively.

To take advantage of the automatic video SEO schema in Presto Player, make sure to provide a poster image for each video. This image will be used as the thumbnail in search engine results and helps to attract viewers’ attention.

Upgrade to the latest version of Presto Player now and unlock the power of automatic video SEO schema. Enjoy improved visibility, increased organic traffic, and a better overall SEO performance for your videos!

We hope you enjoy this new feature and look forward to bringing you more exciting updates.

New:

• New: Add automatic video SEO schema (poster image required).

This is a maintenance release.

Fix:

• Fix: Captions getting stuck off when muted preview captions are turned on and the video is played.
• Fix: LifterLMS video progression tracking not working in latest version of Lifter Advanced Videos.

This is a maintenance release.

Fix:

• Fix: Issue with Learndash video progression not working if media hub is added to lesson instead of a video.

This is a maintenance release.

Improvement:

• Improvement: Change default mobile behavior to play inline.

This is a maintenance release.

Fix:

• Fix: Add compatibility for Beaver Builder Responsive iFrame UI.

This is a maintenance release.

Fix:

• Fix: PHP deprecation notices with PHP 8.1+

This is a maintenance release.

Fix:

• Fix: Search bar styling issue in plugin sidebar.
• Fix: Various style tweaks and fixes in admin video options popups.

Two days ago a customer in our Facebook Group asked about what we have planned for a sister product, SureMembers.

I asked them to give me a day to formalize the plans, so I could share them.

Since our plans for Presto Player are closely aligned with SureMembers, I thought I would post both here.

Like anything, these are our plans, and sometimes things can happen to delay or change plans, but this is what we are going to be working on in 2024. If something is a few weeks or even a month behind, it’s just how it goes sometimes.

First, let me share our plans for Presto Player then SureMembers because these two products will become the perfect pair.

Presto Player 2024 Plans

Next year we will be rebranding Presto Player and bringing it into the Sure family of products. If you haven’t aready checked out SureCart, SureMembers, and SureTriggers, you are missing out on the most powerful tools in the WordPress ecosystem.

In 2024, we aim to have 4 major feature releases that will get us closer to our long term plans for Presto Player.

Release 1: Instant video/playlist pages

Currently, when you create a video in the media hub, you then place it on a page or post.

Following the huge success of Instant Checkout Pages in SureCart, we are bringing the same concept into Presto Player to make it quick and easy to build gorgeous video pages and playlist pages in an instant.

Instant video/playlist pages will lay the foundation for structured online courses and e-learning applications within the Sure family of products.

Release 2: SureMembers & SureCart integration, Pay Per View

We have long wanted to offer protected videos as part of a membership program, online course, or just pay per video.

We will be building a deep integration with SureCart and SureMembers that will unlock powerful ways to monetize your video content.

Protect and sell access to these instant video pages and instant playlist pages.

Release 3: Viewer/student profile pages

Presto Player already tracks your viewers. We just never built an interface to display what they are watching and for how long.

We will build it in a modular way that will integrate with SureMembers so that you can have comprehensive member profile pages.

Release 4: Overall improvements and polish

We will take this last release cycle to make overall improvements and address user requests.

SureMembers 2024 Plans

In 2024, we aim to have 4 major feature releases that will get us closer to our long term plans for SureMembers.

Release 1: Email notification system, user import, onboarding

Most of the development of these features is already done. Email notifications will lay the groundwork for the next release.

Release 2: Integration with Presto Player

We will enable SureMembers to protect instant video pages and instant playlist pages, as well as individual videos in a playlist.

This will enable you to create structured online courses.

Release 3: Roadmaps

Roadmaps is a new feature aimed at solving a problem with all membership plugins and websites.

It aims to answer the question in your members mind: What should I be doing on this membership website?

As the site owner, you will create Roadmaps for your members. A Roadmap is a series of steps your members should go through as part of your membership.

Steps can be:

• Visit page on your website
• Watch a video or a video playlist created by Presto Player
• Take a quiz created in SureForms
• Click on a link
• Book a meeting in LatePoint
• Download a file
• Take some action

With Roadmaps you will be able to create adaptive learning programs for your members.

It’s perfect for online training programs, coaching programs, really use case.

We think it’s the future of online learning for WordPress websites.

Release 4: Overall improvements and polish

We will take this last release cycle to make overall improvements and address user requests.

Wrap Up

So here you have it, our plans for 2024.

Hope you can appreciate the transparency and we hope you are excited for an amazing 2024.

Fix:

• Fix: Issue with Kadence CSS variables not applying to playlist styles.