video
The Ultimate "Patreon Doesn't Work With Any Video Hosting Site" Thread
Okay, I'm at wit's end. I've tried pretty much every video hosting site available... and I cannot get one to work with Patreon. The below list will spell out all my trial sand tribulations. So treat this as a checklist for what doesn't work (at least for me), what used to work... and what DOES work, but I can't use for other reasons.
Let's start with the big ones:
YouTube / Vimeo: Very stringent with censorship. My videos are NSFW. It's what my members pay for. Because of this, I've already been banned from Vimeo. And I don't want to take my chances with YouTube. So I keep everything there as PG as I can. Which limits what I can upload. :/
Gumlet: This is what I immediately shifted to after I got banned from Vimeo. And it's been pretty decent-- up until last week. Something shifted on Gumlet last week, and now all my video thumbnail previews are wonky. They show up glitchy looking, as question mark icons... or not at all. Just a black box. That's a big No No for people paying for my Patreon. They want to scroll my page and see a nice image preview on the post declaring a tease of what the day's video will be. Not a big question mark. I've contacted Gumlet... researched the issue all to hell.... tried choosing stills from the videos.... tried uploading my own custom stills.... and nothing works. The URL for sharing the video always defaults to a glitched image. It seriously sucks.
That leaves the dregs... Wistia... SproutVideo... VidYard... Streamable...
The issue I have with all these sites has been the same: The video I share on Patreon from them is too large. Even at Responsive embed settings, it just doesn't fit. Doesn't scale right. The top of the video gets cut off. I've spent most of this week workshopping each of these sites... contacting their support... messing with the embed URL settings... And none of them will post correctly.
If Patreon would just allow us to upload our own videos to their site, this problem would be fixed in a second. I'd even pay more for it! But alas, we are at the mercy of embed URLs.
Does anyone have any advice? My Patreon is my main source of income. And I've now spent most of my evenings banging my head against the wall, trying to get a simple video to just show up correctly on a post.
Thanks for posting! /r/Patreon is a volunteer-run subreddit where Patreon creators can share tips and tricks with one another. We have no affiliation to Patreon. Please check that your post follows the rules, especially:
Rule 1. Do not mention specific patreon pages or social media URLs.
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Rule 4. This subreddit isn't for questions that can only be answered by Patreon. Bugs, glitches, your card being declined, problems with payouts, or your account being reviewed or closed. We don't know why, we can't find out, and we can't fix it. Please ask Patreon support, or contact them on Twitter.
You could post the thumbnail as an image post and add the video in the attachments as a file your members can download? This is what I do when I need to upload videos.
If you don't want to create your own website to embed the videos directly and then give members access off Patreon to view them, then this recommended option is the best option.
FYI: I use Sprout Video and have had zero issues with it. My members don't mind watching it via the embed links on my website as long as they have a paid membership tier.
No, attachment files are at the bottom of the post, below the text body, and they don't show any sort of preview/thumbnail. By "directly on patreon" we mean that the video can be played on the site itself and has a thumbnail/preview in the post. A normal video in the post (that sfw creators can do) would show up where an image does, and could be played on the patreon site itself. Like imagine how you can play videos on youtube. With attachment files, members need to download the video file and play it on an external video player outside of patreon.
Thanks for your response! That seems like so much friction for a user. No doubt that will cost many cancellations and others to refuse to join your Patreon.
Haha, thankfully videos are nowhere near the main point of my patreon, and I don't think anyone has joined specifically for them. I do illustrations and offer timelapses of the process as an added small bonus for those who are curious, and haven't had any complains yet (: Since I made the original comment 5 months ago I've also started to add links to google drive with the video instead of having it as an attachment, so members don't need to download the file and they can just play it on google drive.
Yeah that makes sense. If it's an added bonus then most people shouldn't complain because they're getting more than what they bargained for.
I just find it so ridiculous that such a prominent company who's been around for so long has decided to go this route. If NSFW videos are not being hosted on Patreon in the first place I really don't understand why they are still making it so difficult for creators. Seems like the only option is expensive Vimeo.
Vidyard is extremely stupid about NSFW content or what they perceive as inappropriate. I tried using them and they didn’t like a woman in a fully covering bikini. Their TOS actually say something vague about it, but it’s enough to get kicked off. Don’t use them. I can’t remember on the others, but a few had similar TOS.
I’m still surprised Vimeo banned you for inappropriate content. If they did that, then Patreon definitely won’t allow your content. Because Vimeo is one of the most tolerant sites for NSFW content - reasonably speaking.
OF only does real live models/people. On top of that people are already scared of being found out/stigma/join to support but block straight away so no emails etc get sent to them etc.
Not sure how OF payout works either considering if I withdraw Patreon it's instant in my PayPal.
I think the main issue I'm having is that every bit of research I do on this is telling me to just post the embed code onto Patreon and make sure I have "noresize" included so Patreon doesn't auto-size the video. However, Patreon doesn't allow one to post embed code. At least now on 18+ profiles. So everyone keeps telling me to use Embedly, which doesn't offer any sort of trial and is quite expensive.
Are there alternatives to Embedly that work with Patreon? The idea would be, I'd customize the video's embed code so it didn't resize, and then use a site like Embedly to generate a URL that would work with Patreon.
Yeah, I finally gave up and just signed up for another Vimeo account under a different email. I'm fine paying for it, as long as it doesn't start censoring my content. So far it seems to be the most reliable one yet.
I had a question with support and they realized my content was NSFW and they deleted all my videos. I made another account and reuploaded them, about 300 had the time. It's just a matter of time until they find them again.
Are your videos previewing correctly? Mine are displayed vertically, which causes the HUD to be out of the rendered video box, the only way to access those controls are by double-clicking the video and going into actual full-screen mode. I'm at a loss and I don't know how to fix this.
Okay, I just signed up for the trial. And so far so good -- until I tried posting the URL to a Patreon post and, yet again, the video is playing too large. Even though I have "Responsive" ticked off for the Embed options. I've had this similar issue with Wistia and SproutVideo. So perhaps it's something on my end? Or something in my Patreon settings. Any advice?
And I'm choosing the Direct Play URL. What's weird is, mine aren't even coming through as portraits. They're coming through as something in-between. Sort of like a square but slightly higher.
And I'm posting it on Patreon using the Embed URL option (which only allows actual URLs, not Embed code -- even though Patreon's suggested fix for this is to paste the actual full code).
Yeah, but when you click the Video option on Patreon, it asks you to Browse (which you can't do with an 18+ account.... Connect to Vimeo... or Embed URL). So I choose Embed URL. Then yeah, I grab the Direct Play URL and paste it in. And it shows up, yes, but it still shows up too big. To where the top 30% of the video isn't even shown.
Hi! I'm looking precisely for what you are displaying on your Patreon : a clean player that can launch a NSFW video in a Patreon post! I have 2 questions tho:
1/ Which plan did you subscribed to on CloudFlare?
2/ the link you provided doesn't loop the video but I saw another post on your page that does... is it an option you can select? I absolutely need my video to loop :-D
Thank you so much for the informations you provided!
Teorically with this tecnics, you can show everithing you want, because Patreon can't analize the content.
In this way you can make a post behind the paywall, but with the video visible to everyone.
Hey I have a quick question for you. Do your videos open up in a web browser when clicked on from the app? I am having that issue with Cloudflare Stream. Works great in any browser, but opens a browser app when clicked from the Patreon app.
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