Embedded Video Improvement

FFMPEG supports conversion to .flv (flash video) which is from what I read the same format as the video for google video. I am incredibly impressed with the speed and usability of the google video player, and would like to have uploaded videos to my gallery automatically converted to that format and embedded for playback using the google video player, or similar.

I have read that the google video player is hard coded to just video hosted on video.google.com http://www.nanocrew.net/?p=114

I also read that FFMPEG supports FLV http://soenkerohde.com/tutorials/ffmpeg/

Finally as an alternative to google video player I think any FLV player would be suitable http://www.martijndevisser.com/2005/10/flv_player_updated.html

I have about 2 years of PHP experience and experience with OOP (but not in PHP) I have a feeling that I would be able to develp this module if it is possible. Is anyone here experienced with FLV? I believe the site http://www.current.tv also uses FLV to stream their video

I really would like this functionality, as it is cross-platform browser independent (im using firefox in linux and it works flawlessly)

Where should I start?

I do indeed have a dedicated server

of the three steps I have an idea of how to do the third:
- in your render method , you'll output the right html such that the flash movie player is invoked.

but i am unclear as to how I should do steps one and two... It would also be nice to be able to upload files in flv already (for people on shared servers)

at the moment, i need to return to my homework... but i will look at the sizelimit and quota module tomorrow

ok im sitting down to start coding, and i opened up the SizeLimit module,

module.inc starts off with

class SizeLimitModule extends GalleryModule {

    function SizeLimitModule() {
        global $gallery;

        $this->setId('sizelimit');
        $this->setName($gallery->i18n('Size Limit'));
        $this->setDescription($gallery->i18n('Define picture size limit'));
        $this->setVersion('1.0.0');
        $this->setGroup('display', $gallery->i18n('Display'));
        $this->setCallbacks('registerEventListeners');
        $this->setRequiredCoreApi(array(6, 0));
        $this->setRequiredModuleApi(array(2, 0));
    }

what do the setGroup, setCallbacks, setRequiredCoreApi, setRequiredModuleApi functions do?
I figure the setCallbacks function tells gallery when to use the code provided by the module

also what does $gallery->i18n('Display') do?

I am thinking I should create

class FlvEmbedModule extends GalleryModule

In the sizelimit module the function RegisterEventListener is used to call a function whenever GalleryEntity::save is called (no?)
what event listeners should I use for the flvembed module?

I have a lot of questions, as this is my first gallery module. Thanks for the help
-John

thanks, ive got a CSII project due at midnight tonight (I hate finals week), ill be working on this module once i finish... back to work

I'm still planning on doing making this module, finals week just ended so hopefully I'll be able to work on this module over the winter break, from what I read gallery may be having an API change soon so I might wait until the new API is updated to make my module. Does this seem like a good idea to the gallery devs? or will it be easy to port to the new API?

you can also access BRANCH_API_DEV in CVS and develop against that.. there are likely a few more changes to come, but most of the planned changes are already available (and documented here).

What's the status of this project? Thanks.

I know how having school and a job can be! Good luck with both. Have you done any work/research that maybe I could look at (or continue)? If you have AIM you can IM me at Audiboy117.

all of these things are possible.. if anyone wants to work on it feel free to ask questions and we can provide guidance.

OK so here is what i say we should do for the first release of this:
allow the upload of a .flv, and render it with an embedded flash player.

To do this I will need to:
"create a new entity type, GalleryFlashMovieItem extends GalleryMovieItem"

And
"in the render method , output the right html such that the flash movie player is invoked."

This is about as simple as this problem can be made, any additional features can be added to the base module later.
My question to the gallery devs is how do I go about creating a GalleryFlashMovieItem

I took the sizelimit module and just edited the module.inc file as follows

<?php
/*
 * $RCSfile: module.inc,v $
 *
 * Gallery - a web based photo album viewer and editor
 * Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Bharat Mediratta
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
 * your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
 * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
 * General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street - Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301, USA.
 */

/**
 * @version $Revision$ $Date$
 * @package FlashMovie
 * @author John Britton
 */

/**
 * This module embeds an flv in gallery pages
 *
 * @package FlashMovie
 */
class FlashMovieModule extends GalleryModule {

    function FlashMovieModule() {
        global $gallery;

        $this->setId('flashmovie');
        $this->setName($gallery->i18n('Flash Movie'));
        $this->setDescription($gallery->i18n('Embed a flv in gallery'));
        $this->setVersion('0.0.0');
        $this->setGroup('display', $gallery->i18n('Display'));
        $this->setCallbacks('registerEventListeners');
        $this->setRequiredCoreApi(array(6, 0));
        $this->setRequiredModuleApi(array(2, 0));
    }

    /**
     * @see GalleryModule::registerEventListeners()
     */
    function registerEventListeners() {
        GalleryCoreApi::registerEventListener('GalleryEntity::save',
            new SizelimitModule(), true);   /* true=disableForUnitTest */
    }

    /**
     * @see GalleryModule::isRecommendedDuringInstall
     */
    function isRecommendedDuringInstall() {
        return false;
    }

    /**
     * @see GalleryModule::autoConfigure
     */
    function autoConfigure() {
        /* We don't require any special configuration */
        return array(GalleryStatus::success(), true);
    }

    /**
     * Event handler for GalleryEntity::save event
     * Copy dimension / filesize limits when the album is created
     *
     * @param object GalleryEvent the event
     * @return object GalleryStatus a status code
     */
    function handleEvent($event) {
        if ($event->getEventName() == 'GalleryEntity::save') {
        }
        return array(GalleryStatus::success(), null);
    }
}
?>

Where should I create the new entity type?
Im assuming that i will have to create an eventhandler for the render event, so that I can invoke the flv player, where/how would i do that?
And lastly how do I tell gallery to allow uploads of .flv simply from the install of this module?

OK, got the CVS version installed, and i've been looking for the correct mime type.

i've come up with it being either video/x-flv or flv-application/octet-stream but im not sure which one to use.
I read somewhere that video/x-flv is not an official IANA mime type so I'm leaning toward adding both mime types unless anyone has a good argument against that.

I also agree that it is best to keep the Flash stuff together and will be writing the support into the GalleryAnimationItem. As far as I can see its just a symantics thing, where i put it shouldn't really make a functional difference, should it?

I just added the code to CoreModuleExtras.inc that you can see below:

        case '1.0.30':
            /* Support for Flash Video */
            list ($ret, $mimeType) = GalleryCoreApi::convertExtensionToMime('flv');
            if (!$ret && $mimeType == 'application/unknown') {
                $ret = GalleryCoreApi::addMimeType('flv', 'video/x-flv', false);
                if ($ret) {
                    return $ret->wrap(__FILE__, __LINE__);
                }
            }

I just copied and changed it for flv, from another mime type declaration earlier in the file. What exactly is this code doing?

so heres what ive got so far in the GalleryAnimationItem.class file for the display method case 'video/x-flv'

            case 'video/x-flv':
                return sprintf('<script type="text/javascript">
                    // <![CDATA[
                    if (window.ActiveXObject) {
                        document.write(\'<object id="FLVPlayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000">\');
                        document.write(\'        %s\');
			document.write(\'<param name="movie" value="FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf" />\');
			document.write(\'<param name="salign" value="lt" />\');
			document.write(\'<param name="quality" value="high" />\');
			document.write(\'<param name="scale" value="noscale" />\');
			document.write(\'<param name="FlashVars" value="&MM_ComponentVersion=1&skinName=skin&streamName=%s&autoPlay=false&autoRewind=true" />\');
			document.write(\'<embed src="FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf" flashvars="&MM_ComponentVersion=1&skinName=skin&streamName=%s&autoPlay=false&autoRewind=true" quality="high" scale="noscale" width="%s" height="%s" name="FLVPlayer" salign="LT" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />\');
			document.write(\'</object>\');
                    } else {
                        document.write(\'<object id="movie"\');
                        document.write(\'        %s\');
                        document.write(\'        type="%s"\');
                        document.write(\'        data="%s"\');
                        document.write(\'        width="%s"\');
                        document.write(\'        height="%s">\');
                        document.write(\'  %s\');
                        document.write(\'</object>\');
                    }
                    //]]>
                    </script>',

                    /* IE Object */
                    !empty($params['class']) ? 'class="' . $params['class'] . '"' : '',
                    $width,
                    $height,
                    $src,
                    $fallback,

                    /* Mozilla Object */
                    !empty($params['class']) ? 'class="' . $params['class'] . '"' : '',
                    $this->getMimeType(),
                    $src,
                    $width,
                    $height,
                    $fallback);

I'm not really sure where to go from here. I could use some explanation on the ActiveXObject and what is "// <![CDATA["? why are we using document.write? And finally where should I put the FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf file? it is basically a flash object that takes an flv and plays it. Changing this file would allow you to modify how the controls look etc.

Off to class till 10PM est, I feel like im actually making some progress now!

Any movement on this. I am very interested in progressive streamed flv support within gallery2

Maybe this will help. This is a bot I use in a Joomla CMS site that takes 2 parameters filename and filetype (flv) and embeds the flv in the content using a opensource flv player "flvplayer.swf."

here it is working on the site http://www.jasonupton.net/com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=237&Itemid=365

<?php
/**
* @version $Id: mosflash.php,v 0.0.1 2005/01/06 01:13:30 mmsidon Exp $
* @package Mambo
* @copyright (C) 2000 - 2005 Miro International Pty Ltd
* @license http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU/GPL
* Mambo is Free Software
*/

/** ensure this file is being included by a parent file */
defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) or die( 'Direct Access to this location is not allowed.' );

$_MAMBOTS->registerFunction( 'onPrepareContent', 'botxsstreamstudiobot' );
$siteurl ="$mosConfig_live_site/mambots/content";
$movies ="../../shows";
/**
* Display a flash within your content
*
* @param string relative path to your flashfile
* @param int width
* @param int height
*/

function botxsstreamstudiobot( $published, &$row, &$params, $page=0 ) {
	global $mosConfig_absolute_path;

	// define the regular expression for the bot
	$regex = "#{xsstreamstudiobot}(.*?){/xsstreamstudiobot}#s";

  if (!$published) {
		$row->text = preg_replace( $regex, '', $row->text );
		return;
	}


	// perform the replacement
	$row->text = preg_replace_callback( $regex, 'botxsstreamstudiobot_replacer', $row->text );

	return true;
}

function botxsstreamstudiobot_replacer ( &$matches ) {
	global $mosConfig_absolute_path, $mosConfig_live_site;
	$thisParams = explode("|",$matches[1]);

	if (sizeof($thisParams) != 2) return "Not enough parameters! You must have 3 parameters separated by \"|\" : e.g. {xsstreamstudiobot}myfile.flv|flv|12{/xsstreamstudiobot}";

	$filename = $thisParams[0];
	$filetype = $thisParams[1];

    //==============================================================

   if ($filetype==flv) {
 $text ='<div align="center" style="width:100% ">
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="320" height="267">
  <param name="movie" value="'.$mosConfig_live_site.'/mambots/content/flvplayer.swf?file='.$mosConfig_live_site.'/shows/'.$filename.'&autoStart=false">
  <param name="quality" value="high">
  <embed src="'.$mosConfig_live_site.'/mambots/content/flvplayer.swf?file='.$mosConfig_live_site.'/shows/'.$filename.'&autoStart=false" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="267"></embed>
</object>
</div>
';
 }
    //================================================================
	return $text;
}


?>

Does this apply to any extension/mime type? For example could I use this method to add "video/mp4" or "video/avi". If so what changes would I need to make to make this happen? This information could be very useful in the WiKi i've been looking for it forever.

I'm nto entirely sure how this work after reading the instruction. Have anyone else tried this?

Good work, I'm dying to see this work, im really glad you've done as much work as you have to get this far. I'll take a better look at the code and see if I can help you out when I get home from class.

once you guys work out the details, post a patch and a link to a sample file i can try, and i'll review this work.. thanks!

$urlGenerator->generateUrl(array('href' => .....), array('forceFullUrl' => true));

OK,
I FINALLY got this working and it seems to be peachy.

I couldn't get the Url Rewrite Mod to work under IIS, not sure why so I went ahead and
installed an Apache server.

The long and short of it is that the Url Rewrite module must be enabled in order for this to work.
I'll post detailed instructions if anyone is interested.

For now, all you have to do is upload the FLV and click on the link, and it plays. That was all I was hoping for.

Thanks for all the guidence. I would still like to know what...

$urlGenerator->generateUrl(array('href' => .....), array('forceFullUrl' => true));

is suppose to do and where it is suppose to be placed. It would be nice to get this working without having to have the URL ReWrite mod enabled, or at least find a way to make it work on IIS

__________
Banta

what's the problem? the player is too picky about the url? what is the requirement?

suprsidr,

Did you try to put in an absolute url in the flashvars parameters for testing, as below?

<param name="FlashVars" value="&skinName=%s&streamName=http://localhost/gallery2/modules/core/data/MyMovie.flv&autoPlay=true&autoRewind=false"/>

Try this and report if that is working. It should. Just place both of the player .swf files and the test.flv file into the folder modules/core/data/ for now and then load any .flv from an album. Whatever test.flv file you have should then play.

I do know from my experiments that the player does not like the .swf extention on the skin. So,it is possible that it will also not like the .flv. However, I think the .flv will be rendered properly at the end of the string. Meaning, it will work with or without the .flv at the end of the streamName variable.

The "&" ampersands are not an issue with the flashplayer interpretation. In fact, if you load up Dreamweaver (8) and insert an .flv, by going to insert>media>flash video, the code that is placed into the html for the flashvars parameters looks something like....

<param name="FlashVars" value="&skinName=modules/core/data/skin&streamName=modules/core/data/Bonus3&autoPlay=true&autoRewind=true"/>

So, the ampersands are expected but, it is interesting to note that the .flv extention is left off of the streamName variable. I think "?,= and ;" are more likely to be breaking the call into the player.swf

I agree that it would be nice if we can figure out how to render the proper string without the reWrite Mod, with or without the .flv extention. Even if it had to be done with a "Custom Field". Now, I am shooting in the dark, but, why could we not code it like this.

1). For each Flash movie that we load into the gallery, we define a custom field like..
customfield=http:/localhost/the/proper/path/ourmovie.flv

2). Then in the call for our streamName, we could call in something like..

<param name="FlashVars" value="&skinName=%s&streamName=CUSTOMFIELD&autoPlay=true&autoRewind=false"/>

Now that is totally bassackwards and a shot in the dark, but may or may not be a sollution for IIS or, anyone having issues getting UrlRewrite mod functioning. It would take a little extra work defining the path, but, would be a worthwile work around.

Thoughts?

__________
Banta

Ok, I know what to do, I just don't know how to go about it.

We need to replace the "&amp;" in the url for the movie to "%26" see this page for flash special chars: http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14143

I tried it here http://209.254.158.237/flvtest1.html where streamName=http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem%26g2_itemId=501%26g2_serialNumber=2 and it works.

When this streamName=http://209.254.158.237/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&amp;g2_itemId=501&amp;g2_serialNumber=2 does not.

Just gave it a try with high hopes. Replacing &amp; with %26 in the streamName did not work for me. Also, I had a look at the link you provided above and it does not play. I am not sure how you had it working but, it is pretty interesting and got me thinking about other ways to make this work.

Hang in there, we'll get it nailed.

Am I wrong, or does the UrlRewrite mod simply NOT work in IIS under any settings? I sure thought I read that the ISAPI version would work under IIS, but, I can't even get it to take.

Back to the drawing board. The simplest of things are driving me nuts. If we could just get a definitve answer on how, if possible, to pass the correct absolute url in GalleryAnimationItem.class, we could put this to rest.

Try it in my gallery http://209.254.158.237/G2Bridge/index.php?&g2_itemId=20 I uploaded another movie.(both are over 500Mb)

Also about ISAPI rewrite. I tried it a long time ago, and got it to work after days of trial and error config. Not worth the time or headache.

Remember to switch off rewrite to try my code.