Aaron Winborn

I've started work on the Media Transcriptions module today. This module will allow the attachment of Transcriptions (or Closed Captioning) to video and audio files. The initial version in CVS is from some work by Jonathan DeLaigle (grndlvl), who is a co-maintainer & developer of the module.

For full functionality, you'll need to wait for Drupal 7, because of the long-awaited hook_file and Fields in core issues.

However, there will be releases with limited functionality for Drupal 6, and even a teaser for Drupal 5, with a promise of smooth upgrading as things progress.

Read more to Find out What this Means for your Multimedia!

A YouTube clone? In Drupal? Of course!

I was asked by the organizers of the Do It With Drupal seminar if I would like the opportunity to create a YouTube clone in Drupal and talk about that process with the community. Of course!

Do It With Drupal will take place in New Orleans, from December 10-12, 2008. Besides my YouTube clone, other showcase fantasy sites will also be presented, including Flickr, Twitter, and FreshBooks.com clones. All built with Drupal! And that's just the first day. There are some really big name folks presenting at the seminar, like Earl Miles, Robert Douglass, Gábor Hojtsy, John Resig (who wrote jQuery), Matt Westgate, Moshe Weitzman, Angela Byron, James Walker, and more! Seriously, check out the speaker list if you haven't yet.

Now that I've agreed to that, it means up all this personal time I just freed up from finishing up Drupal Multimedia (which goes to the printers on Monday!) will now go to building this fun site...

Read more about How I Plan to Do YouTube With Drupal...

I sometimes hear a complaint that jQuery Media can't be used for both audio and video on the same site, because it makes the player too large.

This is not true at all. Although it does currently require some finagling.

I plan to reconfigure the module soon to make it easier to pull in the proper configurations for audio and video. Meanwhile, here's a quick hack.

1. Enable the FileField module and create types for your audio and video clips.

2. Enable the jQuery Media module, and configure it for your custom video node type. We won't turn it on for the custom audio type, because we'll be calling it manually, coming right up.

3. Make sure you have a media player installed in the file directory and configured properly at /admin/settings/jquery_media (or /admin/settings/jq if you're using the jQ module). I suggest JW FLV Media Player for now, as Drupal's Media Player doesn't yet support audio. Just stick it in the site's root directory to work automatically, or put it wherever you want and configure jQuery Media with the proper folder.

4. In your theme's template.php, create the following function, replacing 'custom_audio_type' with your site's custom audio content type.

(Note: we need to copy the $variables['file'] to a new variable because of a known bug in Drupal 6 at http://drupal.org/node/297952.)

5. Create a filefield_file.tpl.php file in your theme directory, with the following code:

That's it. It should work automatically after that. Note that this tutorial assumes you're using Drupal 6.4, CCK 6.x-2.0-rc6, FileField 6.x-3.0-alpha4, and jQuery Media 6.x-1.4-beta1.

Note that I write about this in more detail in Drupal Multimedia (pre-order now)!

Here's a two-step formula for simple inline video, assuming you have jQuery Media installed on your site, doing both of these configuration steps from Administration > Site configuration > jQuery Media (at /admin/settings/jquery_media):

1. Open the Node types field set and check the node type for which you wish inline video.
2. Open the Classes field set, and enter .node .content a in the Media class text field. (You can separate classes by comma if you want to keep existing class invocations.)

Then just add a link to a video inline to your content. Doesn't matter if it was uploaded with the node or through FTP. (The second step assumes you're using the Garland theme, or another theme that uses that CSS class designation. You might need to check the node in FireBug if you're not sure.)

Notes: This method is easy, though admittedly a bit heavy-handed. The down-side is it will be invoked regardless of whether the node actually contains a video link (fortunately it's a lightweight jQuery plugin). If you want more fine-tuned control, you can skip the first step, use a PHP filter, and just invoke it manually from in your node, using jq_add('jquery_media') (assuming you have the jQ module enabled; jquery_media_add(); otherwise). (I don't actually recommend that, because of all the security issues involved. Just stick with the first method.)

The cool thing is this will work with pretty much any media player, including the upcoming Media Player for Drupal!

Drupal Media Player. Splash screen.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

(Image credit reway2007)

Made some progress last night with the Drupal Media Player that I blogged about recently. Dynamic logos!

This was created with an hour of tweaking the OpenLaszlo XML, and then pasting the following into this node: print theme('media_player_player', 'http://spindowners.com/files.dm/videos/20051210-w50s.flv', array('logo' => '/sites/aaronwinborn.com/files/my-logo.png');

Couldn't be simpler! I see a dev release as soon as we have an icon for the play button!

Of course, playlists and the like will take more. We've talked about including several players, including a light-weight and one with all the bells & whistles, and have the module call the proper one according to passed parameters.

Here's a sneak peek of the new flash Drupal Media Player, developed by yours truly with OpenLaszlo!

Obviously, it's still rough on the edges, and all the options in the theme function aren't hooked up yet. Although it works already (after a fashion), don't use it yet unless you're willing to suffer the consequences.

When it's done, this module will come with its own player, fully GPL'd, and will support others out of the box as well, such as JW Flash Media Player and Wimpy. But who's going to want those anymore?

The module adds theme functions and a simple API that should be easily usable by other media modules, such as Embedded Media Player, jQuery Media and whoever else wants to jump on board. The other modules won't need to worry about where a particular player lives or how to invoke it; the theme functions provided will be robust enough to handle player colors, sizes, icons (including placement, layout, and other customization options), splash screens, playlists and more. Administrators will be able to override any of the defaults, including player of choice. Additionally, it'll be easy enough to invoke manually as well:

print theme('media_player_player', $filepath);

And best of all, since it's in OpenLaszlo and GPL, with the source included in the module, it's easy for developers to modify even the player, without even needing a Flash IDE. (The whole thing is created with an XML.)

Kudos to EclipseGc for nudges and encouragement to get this project going!

Next on the list: volume controls, playlists, override color/logo/splash options, settings pages, pull in the other players, youtube/blip.tv/other provider support, tie into other media modules

(Cross-posted at gdo.)