Running a streaming service

If your plan includes it, Streaming turns your website into a film-and-series service at /watch: a billboard and rows to browse, a page for each title, seasons and episodes, and a full-window player. Everything plays from your media library, so Streaming needs video uploads on your plan, and minutes stored and watched go on your website's bill. Viewers watch with an account on your site.

Add a film or a series

1. 1Under Streaming → Titles, press New title and choose film or series.
2. 2Fill in the synopsis, year, Age rating, genres, and cast and crew.
3. 3Under Artwork, add a Poster (2:3) and a Backdrop (16:9) and, if you like, a Title logo.
4. 4For a film, choose its video. For a series, Add season, then Add from library: tick videos in the order they play, and each becomes the next episode.
5. 5Publish it, or set it to Coming soon to show it before it can be played.

Skip intro and the next episode

In an episode's Skip markers, enter where the intro starts and ends, where the recap ends and where the credits start, as 1:23 or 1:02:03. The player shows Skip intro and Skip recap at those moments, and a countdown to the next episode once the credits start.

The home page

Home page sets the rows of /watch from top to bottom: Continue watching, My list, Top 10 this week, Trending now, the newest titles, one genre, titles you pick, Coming soon, and Because you watched. Until you add rows, /watch shows the newest titles and a row per genre. Genres is your own list — Add twelve common genres to start. The Billboard across the top is chosen in Settings.

Profiles

Each viewer's account has profiles, up to the number their plan allows, each with its own Continue watching, My list, ratings and languages. A kids profile sees only titles rated 12 or under, and any profile can have a four-digit PIN. Choose the rating labels under Settings → Age ratings: simple, FSK or MPA.

Plans, rentals and purchases

Under Plans, press New plan, choose the shop products that put a buyer on it — usually subscriptions — and set its Screens at once, its Profiles, and whether it is With ads. Then, in each title's Who can watch, tick the plans it is Included in, make it Free for every signed-in viewer with your ads, or add Rent or buy offers for a film, a season or the whole series.

• A rental's days count from payment. Once it's started, the viewer has the hours set in Settings to finish it.
• A subscription product can start with a free trial: set Free trial (days) on the product. Each customer gets one trial per product.
• Your site's members can count as being on one of these plans; choose which in Settings.
• When an account is already watching on as many screens as its plan allows, the next screen is asked to stop one of the others. Viewers shows who is watching now and lets you end a screen, which stops within 15 minutes.

When and where a title plays

Availability sets the dates a title can be watched from and until, and the countries it plays in: everywhere, only some, or everywhere except some. Outside them, it can't be played. In its last 30 days, a title shows when it leaves.

Dubbing and subtitles

Open Languages on a film or an episode. Add audio track with a dub, a commentary or an audio description from your media library, and upload Subtitles as .vtt or .srt files — or Generate from the speech, in the languages Cloudflare Stream can transcribe. Viewers choose from the player's menu, and each profile remembers its choice.

Analytics

Analytics shows plays and viewers, how much of each title is finished, Where viewers stop in a series, subscribers gained and lost on each plan, what plans, rentals and purchases earned, and this month's minutes watched against your plan.