New Plugin Module: FlashVideo Streaming

This sounds like an interesting project, please do keep us updated on it, thanks.

Hi,

I'm trying to host on S3 and play mixed media files using JW...can't get the jw or flashvideo drupal modules working correctly, but anyway... using the jw wizard, I can get different files working using the jw player hosted in S3....but haven't found one player to do all video and all audio....

BTW - what is the External Communication field in that wizard?

thanks in advance
Michael Beechey
www.musementors.com

I'm interested in the mentioned soulution, and will check it out!

I'm not sure if the patch to the original flashvideo module is applied; I can't tell any difference before and after, and this is what I get (using patch in terminal.app...new to patching, btw):

pesh$ patch < streaming.patch
patching file flashvideo.admin.inc
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Assume -R? [n] n
Apply anyway? [n] y
Hunk #1 succeeded at 295 with fuzz 2 (offset -10 lines).
patching file flashvideo.module
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Assume -R? [n] n
Apply anyway? [n] y
Hunk #1 FAILED at 1.
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file flashvideo.module.rej

Edit: Patch works; I now see the "Streaming URL: *"-field. Now testing...

I have an external RTMP-server with lots of flv-files, and all I want to do, is really to have a CCK-field where I can link to the proper file (rtmp://example.com/file1.flv) and use jw player to display the video on a drupal site. Is there a way to do this without having to go trough the upload+conversion process?

I have applied the patch in (#5) and installed the plugin (#8).

Thanks for your reply!

Emfield would be a nice shortcut, but it doesn't work with RTMP. Secondly, I need the added functionality of the flashvideo module for new videos later on, just not for the videos that are already on the streaming server.

So, flashvideo + streaming plugin can do this, but only if I go through the upload/conversion-process? If there's a way to bypass this, I would be very interested to know.

Great work!

Interesting. I was just looking to develop something similar to this myself, although perhaps a slightly simpler implementation. I simply want to use the xmoov-php script (http://xmoov.com/xmoov-php/) in order to do some HTTP pseudo-streaming from the same server that Drupal is running on. I'm not anticipating high volumes of streaming, but I do want to provide stream-like features (such as randam access and scrubbing).

I was thinking of trying to incorporate this functionality into this module, but it may just over complicate things for my purposes so I'll probably just write a new one to add local xmoov-php support into flashvideo instead.

For your reference, I got my xmoov-php streaming plugin working. It would be nice if your streaming plugin and this one I wrote could play nicely together - Users may want to use different streaming servers for different content types?...

Any, take a look at this quick version I made.

This one required much less of a change to the original flashvideo module by using form_alter and a custom form submit handler. I only needed the flashvideo.module part of your patch - I think yours could probably work in the same way.

Great thoughts, guys. This will be a great improvement in using Drupal with pro video solutions.

@attheshow: I simply meant about using form_alter a little more rather than altering the core flashvideo.module. But, yes, I totally understand what you are saying. However, In my case, I do not have the resources to dedicate a separate server to streaming, yet I do want to offer stream-like capabilities - xmoov-php can do just that. And so in my case, the streaming module only needs to be turned on, and told the path to the xmoov-php.php script, which lives on the same server as Drupal, and the video files do not need to be moved/copied anywhere.

attheshow,

I can see that you wanted the streamer url textfield inserted into the Player settings fieldset, which does kind of make sense, although to be honest I found that rather confusing since the streaming options were all together at the bottom the problem of the page in their own fieldset, except that one. Also, that setting does not appear in the main Player fieldset until you have turned it on - ie. I go to the bottom and turn on streaming, but it is not until I submit the form and go and look in the Player settings fieldset again that I find this new option!

Anyway, regardless of the form element placement, if these two modules are to play nicely together, there needs to be some kind of way of ensuring that only one streaming plugin can be enabled per content type. As I see it, either this would need to be built into the main flashvideo module itself, or flashvideo_streaming itself should be more of a meta module providing plugin functionality for various streaming backend provider modules

Thoughts?

I like the screenshot.

In my case for instance, we have many small audio clips which have a low play count and we have no desire to move them to a separate streaming server. At the same time, we sometimes host some very popular video clips and are considering having these hosted for us on an external rtmp streaming server to take the load off our own servers. The ability for us to choose the streaming server per content type would give us the flexibility that we need to be able to keep our costs as low as possible.

I look forward to testing out your new code :) If there is anything I can do to help please let me know.

ps. I just reworked my validation handler a little to ensure that the path to xmoov-php was valid - perhaps you could incorporate if you haven't already.

function flashvideo_xmoov_admin_validate($form, &$form_state) {
  $node_type = $form['#parameters'][2];
  
  // Set the path to the streamer based on if they want to use the drupal root or not...
  $useroot = $form_state['values']['flashvideo_'. $node_type .'_xmoov_userootpath'];
  $user_path = $form_state['values']['flashvideo_'. $node_type .'_xmoov_streamer'];
  
  $xmoov_path = $useroot ? base_path() . $user_path : file_directory_path() .'/'. $user_path;

  // Check the xmoov path to make sure it exists..
  if(!file_exists(getcwd().$xmoov_path)) {
    form_set_error('flashvideo_'. $node_type .'_xmoov_streamer', "Can not find xmoov-php at ". $xmoov_path);
  }
  $form_state['values']['flashvideo_'. $node_type .'_streamer'] = $xmoov_path;
  $form_state['values']['flashvideo_'. $node_type .'_xmoov_streamer'] = $user_path;
}

I'm excited!

Great, I'll give this a test tomorrow.

Regarding the example of the path to xmoov-php. I don't really know the best place to put it, but on my setup I had it as follows it is as follows:

If relevant to the drupal root, I put it in the global files directory: files/xmoov-php.php
otherwise I had it in the sites files directory, in which case the path was simply: xmoov-php.php

of course, for this to work, xmoov-php.php also needs to be configured correctly and this was the one limitation I had with my version of the module. xmove-php needs to be configured with the two paths hardcoded into the script:

XMOOV_PATH_ROOT = /path/to/drupal/root/
XMOOV_PATH_FILES = path/toflv/output/directory

It would be nice if we could actually distribute this with our own version of xmoov-php where we could set these values dynamically, based on the known location of the flv files, but I expect that the licencing of xmoov-php would somehow forbid this - I haven't looked into this at all since it was not to much bother to enter these values manually.

Thanks for all your work on this, I look forward to giving it a try tomorrow.

Wow. subscribing.

Just did a very quick test - none of my streaming settings are being saved.

Try with this patch. Seems to do the trick for me, although I haven't tested extensively.

Well, saving settings works now. But trying to view a node with an embeded video results in the following error several times:

warning: Missing argument 2 for flashvideo_streaming_flashvideo_get_file() in /home/tom/public_html/concern-6.x/sites/all/modules/flashvideo_streaming/flashvideo_streaming.module on line 176.

It seems in flashvideo_streaming to you are expecting hook_flashvideo_get_file() to be called with a second parameter - the node type, yet this isn't passed to it anywhere in flashvideo.module. Looks like the same thing with hook_flashvideo_save_file() too. I'm using the latest dev version of flashvideo. Perhaps you forgot to commit something?

I confirm that streaming settings are not being saved (using the files from #25 and #26).
-And I confirm that the streaming URL-field is now under RTMP Server Configuration :)

perandre: can you try applying my patch and see if the vars save properly?

@ mrfelton: The patch (#30) did not solve it, it seems. The behavior changed; instead of leaving the RTMP URL-field with a "0" (default), it showed up with "sites/default/files/0" after saving. I entered a URL in the format "rtmp://ipforthestreamingserver/subfolder".

Edit: It did however save the path to xmoov-php.php.

Great! Keep us posted about further development; I'm happy to test!