Review – Elegant TubePress

If you need to create a site with your own videos, you need to purchase a web hosting account with FFMPEG encoder. However, web hosting providers will not provide support for this media encoder which is essential for running video scripts such as ClipBucket. There are only a few providers who offer permission to host video blogs. Many providers compel you to purchase a VPS so that you can run your site without affecting others.

If you need to upload videos without worrying about server resources, you need to use YouTube. However, the management of videos is a big challenge especially if you have several videos. Your users will find it difficult to locate a particular video based on topic or category. Hence, you need to find a way to integrate your videos with WordPress.

WordPress provides three default themes but you cannot display the videos in a particular order. Hence, you need to make use of video themes developed by reputed developers and companies.

You will find plenty of WordPress themes for showcasing your videos but the majority of them are complicated. You need a theme which is easy to use, monetize and work on a daily basis.

Elegant TubePress helps you to create and build your own video sites by fetching videos from YouTube. We recently purchased this theme for hosting our newly launched video site.

We found that Elegant TubePress has been developed using a great degree of care and perfection. You will be able to install the theme and add videos quickly. However, you need to follow the instructions posted on the documentation.

Installation

The installation process involved with Elegant TubePress is just like other WordPress themes. You need to upload the contents of the theme folder after unzipping it. Make sure to upload the whole theme folder and not the files inside it.

Activation

In order to work with Elegant TubePress, you need to activate it by providing the serial key. You will be able to view your code by logging into the portal link provided which you will receive after the purchase.

Usage

Before beginning to work with Elegant TubePress, you need to create YouTube API key. This is essential to generate the video from within the post editor page. The developer has provided detailed instructions regarding the steps required to generate the key along with a video tutorial.

Adding New Videos

In order to add new videos, you need to compose a new blog post by selecting Posts | Add New option. You can add the title, description, and categories as usual.

If you scroll down the page, you will view Post Options section, where you can provide required excerpt for the post in addition to the YouTube URL of the video. You need to select Generate video button and the theme automatically display the video along with the total duration of the video.

The video along with the provided excerpt will be visible on the home page upon selecting Publish button. The Posts page displays the number of views followed by the total number of users who have liked and disliked the video.

Options

You can modify the appearance of your video site by changing the various values from the theme options page.

As you can see, the first 7 options are important for the functioning of your site. The General option enables you to provide YouTube API, favicon, logo and the required copyright text in addition to header and footer scripts.

Managing Layouts

The Styling options page enables you to modify the layout of your main site, header and footer styles in addition to the type of style required for the featured section. For instance, you can either display the featured videos in the form of tiles, carousel or slideshow. It is also possible to set the total number of featured posts. We liked the way in which featured videos are displayed on the site.

The Elegant Tubepress theme also enables you to modify the appearance of your homepage by providing three different styles such as Regular, Grid. Moreover, the Pinterest layout provides an ability for you to arrange videos as it looks like a typical Pinterest site.

As you can see from the above figure, the theme provides a wide range of color schemes. You can use one color each month to provide a unique navigation experience for your users.

Managing Content

The Content options page enables you to modify settings which directly affect your content. For instance, you can enable Auto Play to let the theme automatically play videos.

You can earn revenue from your video hosting site with the help of the Ads Settings option inside the Elegant Tubepress theme. You just need to provide relevant ad codes inside the relevant location boxes.

Managing Advanced Settings

The Social section helps you to provide the various handles associated with social media since it enables your users to connect with you.

You can grab user feedback with the help of comments. The Comment Settings page enables you to enable or disable comments. You can activate Disqus comments into your theme by enabling it and providing your short name.

It is also possible to activate Lightbox and other advanced settings by following the instructions provided with the remaining options.

In addition to Elegant Tubepress theme, you will also get free bonus content in the form of PDF and videos, which can be downloaded from your account dashboard. You will be able to learn the tips and tricks associated with WordPress by making use of the bonus files.

The main advantage of Elegant Tubepress theme is its responsive design. You only need to perform all work using the computer and the site will work properly mobile devices like smartphones.

Future Improvements

I would prefer to see the ability to monetize the video blog using Infolinks. It would be helpful if there is another variant of this theme, which doesn’t require integration of YouTube API key. This will help users who would like to transfer their existing WordPress based video sites to Elegant Tubepress theme easily. We hope the developer will take this point into consideration.

We verified our site using various devices like Smartphones and tablets. We are unable to find any problems associated with loading. In fact, our site loaded faster than the theme we used previously.

We highly recommend Elegant Tubepress theme if you would like to establish a WordPress based video site, which you can showcase to the outside world.