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!

Sadly, my plans for August don't include Drupalcon Szeged. Already too much travel this summer, and the dates conflict with a training my partner is doing, so that would be hard on our 4yo.

Back in June, I made a list of personal project plans, so I figure I'll revise that list for the rest of the summer.

First, the status report on the projects from June:

• I finished writing Drupal Multimedia! And we're about half way through the editing process. The book is scheduled to be published in September, and can be pre-ordered now.
• The Embedded Media Field port to Drupal 6 is still in process. It's ready for testing on new installations now, but I still need to write an upgrade path from Drupal 5.
• Morbus Iff and I have made strides with the engine for 5 Second Game. The module allows character creation and the combat engine is nearly ready for play.
• Except for some experimentation with audio metadata, I ended up not really working on GetID3. I'll probably end up waiting till the fall to work on this, unless I get new inspiration.
• I haven't written any tutorials yet, but hope to do that regularly once the book has been published and I have more free time available.

New projects of mine in progress and on the horizon:

• Media Player, which I've already blogged about a couple of times. This is an exciting project. Once it's mature, I plan to hook it into jQuery Media and Embedded Media Field for optional support as a start, and write patches for other media modules.
• I want to tie YouTube API into Embedded Media Field.
• More Drupal 6 upgrades, including Views Slideshow and a couple of other modules that need attention.
• Jump more into Drupal 7 development, especially for media handling, such as with the hook_file patch.
• Presenting at DrupalCamp NYC 5!

That's all for now.

As referred to in YouTube API for Drupal on the Way, beeradb has now opened the YouTube API module for development. He and I have been working to polish it up and make it ready for release.

You can take a look at the YouTube search on this site if you want to try it out! You can currently search YouTube for tags or users from the form, and see the results right here.

Obviously, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are some cool things planned for it in the near term, such as integration with Media Mover, Embedded Media Field, and yes, Rob, I haven't forgotten about Annotation Field...

And of course, the holy grail of single site integration of a YouTube video upload from your browser...

I blogged briefly recently about YouTube's new and improved API. Soon thereafter, there was a flurry of discussion about creating a Google Summer of Code project to integrate it with Drupal, including a proposal that wasn't accepted, but I believe nothing further happened from that point.

Until now.

Brad Bowman (beeradb) has stepped up to the plate and created a YouTube API wrapper. He hasn't released it yet, though he indicated that he plans to early next week. I have had the honor of an early review, and it is nice to work with.

I set it up on a test server, and was able to upload a video to its file directory and have it also uploaded to YouTube, showing up in my user account almost immediately. The API also let me view my YouTube video user feed, so I could verify the results without leaving my site.

Additionally, when retrieving videos, you have access to everything stored at YouTube with that video, including video duration (as shown in the screen shot), description, and user comments.

Read on, anxious reader...