Understanding Folder Privacy Options
Screencast.com is different from other online media repositories in that content owners have an exceptional amount of control over who sees their content. There are four types of privacy settings: Public, Hidden, Password, and Authenticated.
In this post, we break down the four levels of Privacy settings and, more importantly, provide context for why and when to use them. Privacy settings are available to all Screencast.com users, whether you have a free or Pro account, including Jing users.
To learn how to apply the various privacy settings, please refer to this video and tutorial.
Public
What Does it Mean?
With a name like Public, you might think anyone could stumble across your content. It turns out that's not exactly the case. Screencast.com does not allow search engines to index content, nor do we provide any means for a viewer to search Screencast.com content.
Public means that when you share a folder's content with someone, they can access all other content in the same folder.
Important: Your Library is always considered Public. The Library is basically the root of your Screencast.com account. If people know your Screencast.com display name, they can add it to the Screencast.com URL and see all of your Public folders.
For example: http://www.screencast.com/users/mcurtis. The "mcurtis" part is my display name and you can see what I have in there. (Not very exciting.)
When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Public when you want to allow anyone (theoretically) to view your content.
For example:
- You want as many people as possible to be able to experience your video tutorials or music you've written and performed.
- You're going to use the content on a website or blog and you hope people will not just view the featured content but sift through the other content in the folder.
Hidden
What Does it Mean?
Viewers cannot browse content in a Hidden folder. The content owner can share a link to an individual piece of content with a viewer. The viewer clicks the link and can only see that specific piece of content; the viewer has no ability to access anything else in the folder.
A Hidden folder is very convenient because you can have personal, private content right next to stuff you don't care if the world saw and be confident no one will stumble onto it.
When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Hidden to easily share one piece of content with a viewer, but not allow them to access the rest of the folder contents.
For example:
- Random Jings (The Jing folder is set to Hidden by default).
- You want to share a piece of individual content, but you have no idea who might view it. Blog comments would be a good example.
- In your work with a client, you want to provide access to a single piece of content.
Fun fact: You may be familiar with URL shortening services like Bit.ly or Tiny URL. Screencast.com's URLs are longer than most--and for a reason. The odds of someone randomly entering the case-sensitive alpha numeric URL are about 1 in 10^28. That's 10 with 28 zeros after it! Here's a URL to a silly Captain Jing/Holiday Sweater photo from a little event at work. http://screencast.com/t/OTkwYzA3ZT There happens to be a lot of other content in that folder as well, but I'm confident you'll never see it.
Password-Protected
What Does it Mean?
This type of privacy control is very straight forward. If people know the password to the folder, they can see everything inside the folder.
Tip: To experience the folder as your viewers will, sign out of Screencast.com and access your folder and content as a viewer.
When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Password-Protected when you want to allow anyone with a password to view your content.
For example:
- Family photos and videos you share with relatives
- Internal company or department content
- Working with colleague to collaborate on some videos
Authenticated Folder
What Does it Mean?
This method of privacy is the most secure and provides the content creator with control over access on a per-individual basis.
There are two steps to obtain access to an Authenticated folder.
- The content creator invites the individuals they wish to have access to their content. The invitation is sent to the individual's email address via the Screencast.com website.
- The people that receive the email must sign into Screencast.com using an existing account or sign up for a free Screencast.com account.
The beauty and power of an Authenticated folder is that once you have people set up, you can restrict access on a per individual basis.
Here's an example scenario for using an Authenticated folder:
An instructor has an online class. Dozens of people are paying to take the class, and as the weeks progress more and more instructional content is added to the class' Authenticated folder. At some point in the term, perhaps some people drop the class or get a refund. The instructor can revoke their access on an individual basis. This allows the right people to still have uninterrupted access to the content.
When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Authenticated when you want to allow restrict access to only those you specifically invite, without the risk of viewers sharing passwords or links. You can also revoke access to a specific viewer at any time.
For example:
- Instructors & students
- Newsletter subscribers
- Any time you have a specific list of people and you want control on a per-individual basis
A very good article, but all it does is seem to re-explain what is easily seen in the help section.
I have a question about the limitations of the "hidden" folders -
According to the help files only an authenticated setting means that people have to be logged in, yes?
I'm testing some videos on a new site using the "Embed on your page" links - but the videos will not play if I'm not logged in. However, with the folder only marked as 'hidden' this shouldn't happen should it?
Mind you, it could just be my PC settings. Some feed back please?
Example Page:
http://www.maximumsuccessuniversity.com/blueprint/video/traffic/affiliate-traffic.html
Is it playing correctly for everyone else?
Hello Paul,
You're right. If the video is in a Hidden folder and you use the embed code like you did, everyone should be able to see the video.
Indeed, I can see it just fine: http://screencast.com/t/Njg0NThk
I can't think of why it would be a problem, but one thing I did notice is that there are no player controls and I wondered if that was by design. If you'd like we can either continue the conversation here or take it off line and investigate further. My email is m.curtis@techsmith.com.
Thanks for sharing!
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
How can a presentation on Screencast be prevented from being downloaded? I want it only to be viewed.
Please advise. Thanks.
Hello Duke,
I'm thinking you might have non-image or video content. For example, if one uploads and shares a PowerPoint presentation, PDF or so on, Screencast.com cannot embed the content and therefore offers only the download link.
Just in case, here's the article about the download link: http://www.screencast.com/help/tutorial.aspx?id=290
I have two ideas for an alternative assuming this is a PowerPoint presentation.
One idea would be to record your slides and narration using Jing, Camtasia or Camtasia Studio. Upload the video to Screencast.com and share the link. By default, downloading is not enabled.
If it's the slides you're interested in, perhaps convert them to images (File > Save As, choose image format). Then, upload the images to a folder on Screencast.com and convert the folder into a playlist. This way the viewers could flip through at their own pace.
Here's how to make a playlist: http://www.screencast.com/help/tutorial.aspx?id=301
Hope that helps! Let us know!
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
Is there any time table for the roleout of subfolders. It would be great to be able to allow people to have access (or restrict access) to multiple folder content under one main folder
I've posed the question of subfolders too many times to count to TechSmith support and have NEVER gotten a response other than they are not available. Anyone ever get an explanation or anything other than "sorry, we don't have 'em" responses?
@Billy and @Mark - I appreciate your comments regarding subfolders. I posted back in September that we were beginning to look at ways to implement this often requested feature, and it's lead us down some interesting paths. Often times the "feature" that's requested isn't the best "solution" to offer, and while subfolders may seem like an obvious paradigm to apply to a File/Folder organizational structure, I would argue that there are more ways than one to organize content.
Screencast.com's underlying architecture makes it a little more difficult to implement a subfoldering scheme than one might think at first. And because Screencast.com's way of sharing content is folder driven, inserting subfolders into the mix makes for a much more complicate set of privacy and security concerns that we cannot overlook. @Billy - have you investigated Playlists as a means of presenting your content to viewers as a separate object from the Folder in which the content is stored?
What we've discovered is that we need a different way of looking at how content is managed and shared, and as a result of our initial investigations into subfolders, we've taken on a much larger project that I hope will satisfy everyone's basic organizational and sharing needs, while being way more flexible and useful to content owners and viewers alike.
Sorry for the long-winded reply, and I don't have any firm dates to share yet, but I wanted to be sure I was complete in my response. As always, feel free to email me directly with your feedback and comments as well.
is there a way to password protect CERTAIN files within a folder without placing a password on the entire folder. (I only want certain files in a folder to be seen until I release them to my students at a later date.)
Hello Bill,
Sorry there is no per-item control like you're looking for.
What I would probably do is create two folders. Put all your content in the source folder (and make this one Hidden) then when you want people to have access to a particular piece, move it into what you might call the "Release" folder or something.
Here's how to Move content: http://www.screencast.com/help/tutorial.aspx?id=298
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
Dirk,
One of the reasons for a sub-folder structure seems to be caused partially by the speed of the system. For our purposes, we've had to create a system of five folders. One of the folders alone has over 50 video clips. Our customers have complained about the load times for the folder. If we were able to create a "Table of Contents"-like environment where it is only loading text-based content to link from that may improve the speed as well as ease of use for our customers.
Thanks, while I'm looking forward to sub-folders, speed and administration are my priorities.
Dennis
I am planning on setting up some authenticated folders. It is exactly what how I want to control access!
Is there any way I can tell WHO has watching my videos after the fact? I know I can tell how many views there has been, but I'd like to see who was watched it.
Please advise, thanks.
@ Dennis, good point. There's more to it than organization from the content creator's point of view.
@ Joanne, there is no way to do this sort of thing using a feature or tool within Screencast.com, but we appreciate the feedback and request.
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
I'm offering an online course. I want the students to have access to videos as I send them out (one a day), plus all prior videos they've seen. How would I set that up?
Example: Day 1 they get Video 1. Day 2 they get Video 2 but can also view Video 1 from the prior day. Day 3 they get Video 3 but have access to Video's 1 and 2.
I'm unsure how to do this, and so any help would be greatly appreciated!
~~Lisa
I'd like to see Domain Control.
Be able to control the domain(s) a video can be shown on.
Lots of other paid video services have this option.
Hi,
Sorry for this rather naive question, I'm new at Screencast.
I'd like to place folders inside another folder but cannot figure out how to do this. Please help.
--Lou
Hello Lou,
I'm afraid Screencast.com does not support subfolders. We do have something called Playlists that might address your needs. They are a way to group and present content from various locations into one or more places viewers can access.
Learn more here: http://www.screencast.com/help/tutorial.aspx?id=301
Let us know if this is helpful, Thanks!
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
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It's great to find a site like this for people like me. Keep the faith and thanks for your work and showing us these things. God bless!
I tried grabbing the feed for the RSS for this article but it is not displaying in Google Chrome. Does anyone have any ideas??
How can I protect my videos from beeing stolen (capture) with software such as RealPlayer SP plus while giving permission to my students to see them?
I do a lot of online demo's but want to make sure I'm in control of who can access the demo to make sure it's not being copied elsewhere. Is there anyway I can do this?
Ian and Luc,
This is a tricky thing. At the end of the day, when anyone puts a video on the web, it's virtually impossible to keep someone with enough desire to copy/steal it.
For example, there are numerous tools that are created specifically to pull down YouTube videos. People with enough technical know-how can often view the source code of your webpage and get the video that way. People could also use a screen recording tool like Camtasia Studio, FRAPS, and others to record the screen and grab the audio. A really old-school way of doing it would be to take a tripod and good HD camera and set it up to literally record the screen.
So, I'm afraid I don't have a great answer for you, but maybe the community has some tips for decreasing the likelihood of people taking them?
I'm new and am testing your service. I placed video in a hidden folder then got the code to send in an email. Emailed to myself at another address and viewed the video. BIG PROBLEM: At the bottom of the video is the option to share the video with the world. No point in placing in a hidden folder if the recipient can share it freely. Yes, I know they can forward the email they sent, but by having the option blatantly at the bottom of the video page it is encouraging them to do so.
I don't want anything to show up under the video: no details, share or email. Is this an option?
Hi Diana,
Yeah, that can be confusing. Why that shows up because you are the content creator and you're signed into Screencast.com. If you look in the upper right and sign out--then view the link, I think you'll see it as the word does and there won't be that share tab.
Give it a shot and see if that works out for you. Thanks!
Mike Curtis, TechSmith
Thank you for the tutorial. Screencast is really amazing, I'm very happy with it.
A very nice tutorial indeed. I have learned loads from it and gonna implement it in real time soon. Thanks!
__________________________
David From Washington DC Lawyers
Hi, I have been creating many tutorial videos for my math classes and so far have been sharing them (in hidden folders)
Everything is great, I love Screencast and it works for me.
But now I have a question. I'm at the point where I want to create an online math class with MANY videos, and I'd like to limit access, using an authenticated folder. It makes sense, but now I don't know how to send students to specific videos.
In my other lessons, I supply a link directly from the lesson document to a video, great. Can't I do the same thing with an authenticated folder? I am maybe missing something but it seemed I can get into the folder and see all the video, but that's not helpful. Then the students need to go to the correct video and by the end of the course there might be hundreds...
any suggestions, comments? I appreciated the "online class scenario" on another help page, but how does that really work in reality if I want to send students to specific videos as part of a lesson?
Sincerely,
TOM
Hi Tom,
Try this workaround: http://screencast.com/t/NzM0MzA1Nz
Thanks for your feedback too. You make a good point and the workaround is not ideal.
Let us know if that doesn't work for you.
Sincerely,
Mike Curtis
Information Development, TechSmith
Hi,
I have been using the 'hidden folder' feature and posting the URLs to my videos on Blackboard (educational software).
When students click on the link via Blackboard they can watch my videos and thankfully do not have the option to download under the 'details' tab. However, they do have options to 'share' and 'email' the content. How do I disable these tabs, without choosing the 'authenticated' folder option?
Even if I did choose the 'authenticated' folder option, would that eliminate these tabs from appearing?
Or does Techsmith have a better idea on how to protect my content w/out having the students jump through several hoops to get it?
Thanks!
Hello Pedro,
An Authenticated folder would prevent students from being able to share the videos. As I think you allude to though, it would add another hoop or two.
If you had a Screencast.com Pro account, you can make customized view pages. One aspect of this is the ability to diable those tabs under the video as shown here: http://screencast.com/t/pNApDV42Q
Still, even in this case, there is nothing that could stop a student from copying the URL and putting it in Facebook or an email, etc. Authenticated would be the most most secure option if this is a top priority.
HI, I appreciate the advice of using the "long" URL from an authenticated folder... it's been a while and I am back at my project of getting things posted for an online class.
I have another question but I probably already know the answer. My wife and I were experimenting with the authenticated folder, I guess it's possible for a user to share their log in info with someone else, and then both would have access.
I don't suppose there is any way to prevent that happening... but it's too bad. I figured the authenticated folder would prevent that, but I see that isn't the case...
Tom
Hello Tom,
You're right--if they shared their username (email) and password combination, others could get access to the authenticated folder.
Good luck with your project. I'll monitor this post as well as I'm now over on http://feedback.techsmith.com as well which is a great place to ask questions and send us feedback.
Mike Curtis
Hi again, thanks for the feedback.
I guess it's not possible for Screencast to restrict access to ONE user with a given account?
That seems a way to at least address this issue.
If only one person can be logged in at a time for a given user account, that would help.
It's not a deal killer for me... I teach for an online school and just hope to expand my student base. I'm hoping to give away course materials for free, but charge a small fee to access the "teaching" materials that would be in the form of video posted to an authenticated folder.
Tom
Hello
I'm thinking of charging people to watch a video tutorial and don't want them sending the link to others. Is there a way of assigning my website url or my website IP address to a video so it can only play from that website so the link cannot be stolen from the code and sent off to others to view.
Vic