Password Protected Video Hosting – What You Need to Know in 2022

The internet has been a driving force behind the major shift in the way that we consume media. Online video streaming is growing more popular by the day. Hackers, pirates, and other people with poor intentions are taking advantage of opportunities to cash in on unsecured streaming setups. That is why it is so important to have password protected video hosting.

Using the appropriate security measures is essential if you want to keep your content out of the wrong hands. In situations where privacy is a concern, password-protected video hosting is a must. This can be achieved by using a private video hosting service. 

In this post, we are going to discuss the importance of secure streaming and how password-protected video sharing comes into play.

We will also cover when to use password-protected video hosting and alternative video security measures that can be used alongside password protection. You will have all the tools you need to keep your video content safe. 

To get started, let’s briefly run through what a video host is and how it ties into secure streaming, so you understand the whole picture of how password protected video hosting works.

Table of Contents

• What is a Video Host?
• The Importance of Secure Streaming
• What is Password Protected Video Hosting?
• When to Password-Protect Your Video Content
• 5 Alternative Video Security Measures
  • AES Encryption
  • Domain Restrictions
  • IP/Geographic Restrictions 
  • Dynamic Tokenized Security
  • RTMPS Streaming Protocol
• Best Platform for Password Protected Video Hosting
• How to Use Password Protected Video Streaming on Dacast
• Final Thoughts

What is a Video Host?

A video host is a platform that is used to store and manage online video content. There are two general types of video hosting platforms: free and professional.

YouTube is the most popular option for free video hosting, but it is not suitable for professional use. This platform comes with many disadvantages to professional broadcasters, including limitations on security, branding, and ownership. That’s why businesses, schools, and other organizations that use online video content tend to opt for a professional hosting solution.

The reason for pointing out the difference between these two types of platforms is that they each come with access to a different spread of security tools. Free self-hosting video platforms are generally very basic, whereas paid platforms typically use top-of-the-line streaming security.

YouTube, for example, does not offer password-protected video hosting, but professional options like Dacast do. You need to use a professional video hosting solution to access password protection. 

Another important thing to point out here is that some video hosting platforms only host live streams whereas others are capable of hosting on-demand video content. Many can host both.

You can password protect both VOD and livestream content. You must choose a video host that supports your intended style of streaming.

The Importance of Secure Streaming

As a professional broadcaster, you pour a lot of time and resources into creating high-quality content for your intended audience. It only makes sense to keep that content as secure as possible. Your chosen video host should be equipped with the tools to make this happen,

Protecting your content is important because people with malicious intentions can infiltrate your content in a variety of ways. One of the biggest issues is video piracy which is when other websites try to sell the content as their own. Piracy costs the online video industry nearly $30 billion a year.

If you are monetize your video content, and some else tries to sell that content as their own, that is money out of your pocket. That is why password protected videos are so important. 

Some more extreme instances of infiltration are when somebody hacks your stream and actually takes over with their own source. With someone else in control of your stream, your audience may be exposed to inappropriate or offensive content, which will look bad for you and your brand. Avoiding this requires secure hosting rather than just a protected HTML5 video player.

When it comes to limiting access to your content to a group of authorized viewers, password-protected video streaming is a good place to start.

What is Password Protected Video Hosting?

Password-protected video hosting is when you add a password to your online video player to restrict access from unauthorized viewers. Password-protected video streaming is more of a privacy tool than a security tool, but it still plays a part in keeping your content in front of the intended audience.

Password-protected video streaming is very straightforward: viewers are asked to provide a password in order to play a video. If they don’t have the proper credentials, they will be denied access.

Some video platforms use a login approach as opposed to basic password protection. This requires users to sign in with a unique username and password to access video content. This is common for schools and businesses with internal viewers.

When you use password-protected video hosting, it is a good idea to regularly scan the internet for any leaked passwords and to see if you have to update the credentials. To do this, a quick Google search of “password for [your video title + brand name]” should pull up any forums where it has been shared. This is a great way to ensure that your password protected video content is safe. 

When to Password-Protect Your Video Content

Streaming with the appropriate level of security is always important, but password-protected video hosting is useful in some very specific situations. Password-protected streaming is typically used in cases where privacy is a concern.

Video content that is designed for internal use or is only to be accessed by paying customers could use password protection.

Here are a few specific use cases for password-protected video hosting:

• Internal training videos
• Recordings of company meetings
• Invite-only or paid virtual events
• Live recordings of paid webinars, concerts, and other online events
• Sales pitches and presentations
• Lectures and e-learning courses
• Personal video content

For many of these use cases, broadcasters require viewers to sign up with their email addresses in order to have access to a video. That way, they can send out an email blast with viewing instructions and the password to grant access to qualified viewers.

When Not to Use Password Protected Video Sharing

Some situations where password protection is not necessary would be when the video content is used for marketing, lead generation, or any other purpose that is related to maximizing views. In fact, if your goal is to maximize viewership, password protection is probably not the way to go. Password protection doesn’t help when you want your videos to reach a wide audience.

5 Alternative Video Security Measures

Password-protected video streaming is simply the first line of defense when it comes to secure streaming. Even a video player with a password can be pirated or infiltrated if it does not have other layers of protection.

Let’s take a look at a few other valuable video security measures that you can use to keep your online video content out of the wrong hands.

1. AES Encryption

Advanced Encryption Standard, which is more commonly known as AES encryption is a security protocol that is considered “government-grade.” It is used to encrypt different data that is used for broadcasting to make your player and video platform unhackable.

How AES encryption works is that it uses different digital keys to rearrange the code that was developed to protect your content. The code cannot be deciphered without being reinstated with the proper credentials.

AES-128 or HLS encryption is used by banks and government organizations to keep sensitive data safe. It is a good idea to find a hosting platform that offers this type of security. 

It helps ensure that a hacker can’t intercept the data as it is being transferred, which is particularly important for live streaming. 

2. Domain Restrictions

Domain restrictions, which are also commonly known as “referrer restrictions,” are an excellent resource for broadcasters who are trying to ward off video piracy on their paid content. 

How domain restrictions work is that they only allow video players to play if they are embedded on the page of a site with an authorized domain.

For example, if you only want your videos to play on pages from “yoursite.com,” you can indicate that in the security preferences. If a pirate tries to embed the player on a page with any other domain, the video player will not work.

Domain restrictions aren’t designed to restrict access to your content, but rather, they are designed to minimize revenue lost from cyber-attacks and piracy.

3. IP and Geographic Restrictions 

Geographic restrictions, which are also known as “IP restrictions,” limit your viewers to a designated region. You can create a list of countries that you allow viewers to tune in from.

For example, if you are hosting a live stream event for viewers from your company, you’ll want to restrict the regions to anywhere that you have offices and employees. If you have offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, add those locations to the list in your settings.

This practice is quite effective when paired with password-protected video streaming.

4. Dynamic Tokenized Security

Dynamic tokenized security is what makes each of the other security measures work. It qualifies viewers based on different credentials related to the specific security protocol. 

For example, if you’ve set geographic restrictions, the dynamic tokenized security system will make sure that every viewer’s IP address is from an approved region.

A dynamic tokenized security system combines password protected video hosting with other security measures to keep your content secure. 

5. RTMPS Streaming Protocol

RTMP plays an important part in live streaming, specifically when it comes to ingesting videos from the encoder to the OVP. There are multiple variations of RTMP, including RTMPS, which is the standard RTMP protocol with an added layer of security.

RTMPS is ideal for streaming setups that require the use of public internet networks that are unsecured.

Seek out an online video platform and related streaming technology that supports the RTMPS protocol.

Best Platform for Password Protected Video Hosting

As we mentioned, professional broadcasters need something more powerful than free platforms like YouTube, especially if they want to reap the benefits of password-protected video hosting and the other security features we’ve covered.

There are several great video hosting platforms that meet these criteria on the market, but it all comes down to choosing one that offers the features you need at a price point that works for you.

Dacast is one of the best options on the market for secure streaming because it offers a variety of options for sharing video privately and encrypted online security. Additionally, we offer a wide range of other powerful features that are built to give broadcasters like you an easy and efficient broadcasting experience, no matter your level of expertise.

In addition to Dacast, Kaltura and Livestream are among the top platforms for password-protected video hosting. For information on additional video hosting platforms, please check out our dedicated comparison post that takes a look at some of the top secure video hosting options on the market.

How to Use Password Protected Video Streaming on Dacast

Setting up password protection on Dacast is quite easy.

You can get started by navigating to your live video channel in Dacast, and clicking the “Edit” button (which appears as a pencil icon):

From there, navigate to the SECURITY tab as circled below:

Click on the padlock icon to edit the security settings and set your desired stream password:

The following window will appear. Click “Edit“:

Now, enter your private stream password in this field:

Please note that your password cannot exceed 10 characters.

Click “Save” at the bottom part. If your password is accepted, a popup will appear to confirm this:

Please note that this is the password that your viewers must enter to gain access to the stream. Make sure your viewers have this information as soon as you update your stream password settings.

You can return to this tab to change the password later if needed. For VODs, however, you have to add a password to each piece of video content to make it password-protected.

Final Thoughts

Password-protected video sharing is a great way to control who has access to your online videos. As a broadcaster, this tool is very valuable, especially when paired with other security methods. It is a good idea to take a holistic approach to keep your video content out of the wrong hands.

Your goal should be to keep things secure in both your video player and your hosting platform.

Looking for a video hosting platform that makes video security a priority? Dacast offers password-protected live video streaming and all of the other advanced security features that we mentioned above.

You can try all of our professional video hosting tools risk-free for 14 days. All you have to do to get started is to create a Dacast account. No credit card is required.

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