Cannot disable preview on my first lecture

[HansPlcGuy]

Hi,

I´m about to publish my course here and I´ve noticed that the preview button on my very first lecture cannot be disabled.  I have a promotional video as well and this first lecture contains alot of the same information from my promotional video.  So to me, it doesn´t make sense that students should be able to preview the first lecture.  Is there anyway to disable the preview of the first lecture?

Many thanks in advance.

[VipinJoshi]

that is auto feature.

[HansPlcGuy]

Thank you for your quick response.

Do you mean by auto feature  that it is not possible to deactivate this preview?

BR,

Hans

[JoshuaBrind355]

Correct.

I encoutered the same problem too. So in the end I reworked the 'first video' knowing that the students get the privew it - so the conent is more appropiate.

[A2BNexus]

Enable Free Preview for one or two more lectures then go back and disable the Free Preview for the ones you don't want to be in Free Preview mode. 

It looks like at some point Udemy enables Free preview by default (for me it happened after the 35th lecture), the last two lectures (34 and 35) we're in Free Preview and could not disable it until I made two other available for Free Preview.

[Mahomed939]

it would also appear that the Free Preview must be at least 10 minutes. In our case Lecture 1 was less than 10 minutes so Lecture 2, (12 minutes) was automatically offered as free preview. I could be wrong - please double check with Support. Cheers,

[HansPlcGuy]

Thanks for the input!

Your strategy will work for all lectures except the very first one 🙂 The first one cannot be disabled and is automatically force to "enabled".

[Abbie]

Hi everyone, as some of you have mentioned, your first video lecture will automatically be available for the free preview to ensure there is always content available for students to view.

Select the additional lectures that you’d like to include in the free preview. You need to select enough lectures totaling 10 minutes of video content, including the first video lecture. On the curriculum page, you can turn on Free Preview for any video lecture.

[HansPlcGuy]

Hi Abbie,

I understand.  It would still be great if the first lecture could be disabled once other lectures have been selected for free preview. Since you need minimum 10 minutes anyway, most courses will have to have more lectures than just the first one.

In my case, my first lecture is basically an introduction and has lots of similarities with my promotional video.  A student who has seen my promotional video does not got much more out of watching the first lecture and might even be turned off by seeing another type of introduction to the course again.  My personal preference would be to select 10 minutes of other lectures without the first lecture enabled for free preview.

Best regards,

Hans

[A2BNexus]

I agree with @HansPlcGuy 

(tagging @Abbie)

[Abbie]

I hear you, @HansPlcGuy @A2BNexus, thanks for sharing your feedback. I've passed it along to the appropriate team for consideration.

[A2BNexus]

Thanks @Abbie!

Quick question, what is the best way to submit other suggestions/ideas to the Udemy team?

[Abbie]

@A2BNexus, you can either share them here and I'll be happy to pass them along, or you can also send them over to instructorsupport@udemy.com.  

[Piyush]

This is right. Even after enabling lectures more than 10 min in total as free preview , preview option for the the first video still cannot be changed and stays as enabled. 

I too face similar problem like you do. Lots of similarities into the promotional video and course introduction video. And I don’t want my students to see both in the preview. I hope Udemy gets a solution to this. 

[ChrisG]

Hi Abbie, What is worse is that already 2 guys told me that they can see my 3 hours course in preview. More over I cannot turn off the preview button. So everyone can watch my course for free. What should I do?

Thanks,

Christian

[ChrisG]

I think there are some bugs in this matter. Two guys report they can access my preview in full from A-to Z for my 3 hours course. It's totally free already.

Thanks,

Christian

[Komy]

@ChrisG , am sure you've found a solution by now, but you can use a video slitter and split your content then re-upload 🙂