Learn how to use watermarks to protect your content against piracy and unsolicited distribution
Visual Watermarking is only available customers on our Enterprise and Education Plus plans.
What is the scope of watermarking?
Watermarking can be applied to media uploaded into any Project. The settings used for that watermarking can be controlled at two levels: the Project, and the entire Workspace.
- Watermarking can be enabled for the entire Workspace, meaning that media uploaded into any Project will have watermarking applied.
- Watermarking can be customized at the Project level for project-specific watermark settings.
- Watermark settings can be enforced at the Workspace level, overriding any project-level customizations.
Static vs. Dynamic
There are two types of watermarking that can be enabled with this setting, static and dynamic.
- Static watermarking "bakes in" a visible mark during the transcoding phase when you upload media.
- Dynamic watermarking overlays user-specific information over the video frame in the Player view, as a further deterrent to IP leaks via screen captures. Unlike static watermarking, it will apply even to media that was uploaded before watermarking was enabled.
Enabling Watermarking
Watermarking can be turned on in the Workspace Settings dialog's Settings tab, under Watermark sub-tab:
When Visual Watermarking is enabled, static watermarks will be applied to media upon upload. It will not add watermarking to media that was previously uploaded.
Changing Watermark Settings
Once enabled, we've provided a number of options to help you customize your watermark to fit your needs.
Text: Choose what you'd like your watermark to say
Origin: Adjust the position of the text within the frame
Color: Change the color of the text
Shadow: Add a drop shadow to help separate the text from the image behind
Opacity: Control the level of transparency of the text
Size: Modify the size of the text
Rotation: Adjust the angle of the text
User Info: Enable Dynamic Watermarking (see below)
We've included several test images to preview your watermark and see how it works over different types of images.
Once you click Save Watermark, subsequent media uploads will have the watermark with the new settings baked into the video.
Also, the watermarks are not applied to the original media, so if originals can be downloaded in the Downloads menu, they will not be protected by watermarking of any kind. You can control which users have access to downloading originals; please see Custom Download Options for further info.
Enforcing Your Watermark
An additional setting allows the Workspace administrator to ensure that media uploaded into all Projects has the same settings, overriding any Project-level customizations.
When this is setting is not enabled, the Workspace watermark settings will serve as the default settings for each Project.
Project-level customizations
Enabling watermarking at the Project level allows you to customize the Workspace setting defaults for that specific project. Watermark customization may not be permitted in your Project if the Enforce option has been enabled by the Workspace administrator. (See Enforcing Your Watermark above.)
Enabling Project-level customizations
Enable Visual Watermarking from the Project Settings:
The Info pane will indicate the status of the watermark.
When enabling the watermarking feature in a project for the first time, the Project will automatically use the default Workspace watermark settings.
If an additional watermark setting is changed at the Project level, the info pane will indicate that the Project's settings are overriding the workspace watermark.
The Reset to Workspace Default button will remove any customizations and restore it to the previously-shown state.
If Watermarking settings are enforced at the Workspace level (See Enforcing Your Watermark above), the Info pane will appear as follows:
Dynamic Watermarking
Dynamic watermarking faintly but clearly overlays user-specific information in the Review Player, The setting to enable it is labeled User Info and can be enabled once Visual Watermarking is enabled as described above.
This adds an additional overlay at the bottom which displays each user's name, date and IP address. This is unique to each reviewer and is not baked into the video during upload. The dynamic watermark will appear in any screen captures a reviewer may make.
A static watermark is not necessary; if you only want dynamic watermarking, leave the Text field blank.