New Videocasts about 4.7

By Steven on 1 May 2006 at 23:48 UTC

With Drupal 4.7.0 spreading its wings, we want to do everything we can to promote it. And as you may have noticed in the spotlight item above, we have some videocasts for you!

The friendly folk at Lullabot have volunteered to create 3 sessions about our new release:

What's new in Drupal 4.7?
How to install Drupal 4.7?
How to upgrade to Drupal 4.7?

Jeff, Matt and Ted show you the ins and outs of our latest release.

The files can be found on the videocasts page in the Drupal handbook.

Feel free to link these casts wherever you want. The generous folk at the Open Source Lab as OSU have mirrors these files on their FTP server, meaning there should plenty of bandwidth to go around. However, if you do want to provide a mirror, send an e-mail to infrastructure@drupal.org with your proposal.

Comments

Google Video

DaveNotik commented 2 May 2006 at 00:20

Upload it to Google Video or YouTube and embed it right on the page. Come on. :)

--
http://dave.notik.com

Conscious Decision

jjeff commented 2 May 2006 at 00:28

It was a conscious decision to handle the video the way that we did. Because:

a) Google Video looks like junk. And both Google and YouTube are subject to scaling and overcompression that makes the video blurry.

-and-

b) In order to get a reasonable approximation of the screen, the videos are 640x480. With the current layout of drupal.org, something of this size would probably break the page on most browsers. Therefore we chose not to embed and instead link out.

Now quit complaining. :-)

--= Jeff Robbins | www.lullabot.com =--

And I heartily thank you for

venkat-rk commented 2 May 2006 at 06:13

And I heartily thank you for this decision, even with a 256k DSL line. Much better than crashing my browser and system because of the nth attempt of the embedded video rendering on the page.

not to mention: ownership

Bèr Kessels commented 3 May 2006 at 20:31

youtube and google both have odd perceptions of ownership. If you were able to mark it with the proper CC tags, it should be fine. But you are not.

Leaving copyrights and ownership in a shady area.

Google is doing great, as is youtube. But both really need to allow more licencing optionsbefore one can commit his work there and be sure its licence is not violated and the work remains copyrighted as the author intended!

So untill they solved that, i would say, please do not upload these things there. Unless you are the author of the casts and agree with the terms and copyright TOcs.

---
Professional | Personal | Sympal: Development and Hosting

Fair enough. I agree, to

DaveNotik commented 14 May 2006 at 21:50

Fair enough. I agree, to all the above.

The simplicity and accessibility (see other comments here) of an embedded player (Flash is nearly ubiquitous, just click play) should be highly regarded in and of itself. This often outweighs the negatives mentioned, but understandably not so for a technical community like this.

And no complaints whatsoever -- just comments. Great material, Jeff and the rest of the Lullabot team. :)

--
http://dave.notik.com

Do you "Digg" Lullabot Videocasts?

robertdouglass commented 2 May 2006 at 04:24

http://www.digg.com/software/Two_videocasts_about_the_new_Drupal

- Robert Douglass

-----
My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress

++++

rickvug commented 2 May 2006 at 08:35

This is one of the best ways to highlight the features of 4.7. It's at about 50 diggs now, digg away to push it over the edge!

Just wait until the twit.tv redesign goes live - then Drupal will get a lot more attention!

Rick

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Vugteveen |rickvug.com @rickvug on Twitter

Thanks for making the

gobblez commented 2 May 2006 at 06:07

Thanks for making the videos, very user friendly and well done, they got me excited :) Drupal has a great community!

quicktime7 troubles

axel commented 2 May 2006 at 08:05

Anyone know how to play this quicktime7 on linux? I tried mplayer and xine - both failed to play (mplayer plays sound only). May someone to convert this video to more multiplatform format, like OGG Theora or MPEG4 and place for download?

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JabberID: laika@jabber.org
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Works for me

hba commented 2 May 2006 at 08:24

It works for me, with mplayer (version 1:1.0-pre7cvs20060325-0.3). I get a lot of errors first, though:

FAAD: Failed to decode frame: Unexpected channel configuration change

VLC worked as well, but totem and gxine didn't. I agree, these should have been made with a more available codec.

Try VLC

PierreM-1 commented 2 May 2006 at 08:33

Actually, this is MPEG 4-part 10 (H.264/AVC) video with MPEG-4 audio (AAC).

You can use VLC which can play these formats, or try upgrading your player's codec library.

I know that gstreamer gst-ffmpeg 0.10.1 supports H.264, but I am not sure about libmplayer ou libxine.

On Linux you need to have the right codecs installed

andybold commented 2 May 2006 at 14:11

You need to have the right codecs installed. There is a section on the Ubuntu Wiki that should also apply to other Debian based distros. If you are on something else then you might be able to use 'alien' to get the .deb package that is detailed at that link formatted into something more palatable for your distro.

Hi, I guess the video are

Robardi56 commented 2 May 2006 at 11:14

Hi,
I guess the video are great but there are several reason I will not download them:

- I HATE quicktime
- It crashes my computer
- It displays advertising about its commercial versions
- It forces me to upgrade to latest version which I don't want to

Why no windows media player version ? Much more spread and user friendly.

Brakkar

The Videos Have Ads?

Brian@brianpuccio.net commented 2 May 2006 at 12:20

I watched the videos and did not see any ads.

With respect to the format choosen, the guy is a Mac user, so quicktime seems to be a pretty sane format for him to pick. That being said, theora videos would be welcome.

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If someone helps you out, give back by playing patch bingo or bug bingo.

Apple QuickTime

gateone commented 2 May 2006 at 14:13

Hi,

I understand your concerns, and somehow I have heard these arguments before a lot of times. Now - first off, I am not afiliated with Lullabot or this particular video in any case.

I just want to answer to your question on the whys and why nots of using Apple QuicktTimes or Windows Media.

First of all: QuickTime is an open video format. So even if you do NOT have Apple QuickTime there are apps that will read the file (VLC is one of those). Microsoft's Windows Media Files are closed formats. That means: they can only be created on a Windows machine and can only play back in Windows Media Player. And that's it.

In fact: with a WMV file on anything else but a Windows machine you propably run into trouble. On newer Macs eg. but also on Linux, you won't be able to watch them or you need to set up a hell lot of stuff to make it work. With QuickTime it is much easier and hence you'll propably reach much more people this way.

Also, Windows Media is much "older" software and the Windows codecs are not so very up to speed with present day possibilities, Apple QuickTime is very future orientated. Most of the times, QuickTime files are standard compliant mp4 files. This is an up and comming standard. WMV-files in contrast tend to quickly get outdated. We've had a project that used wmv-files and then, without any prior notice, Microsoft changed stuff to its codec, and these files became entirely useless.

Now: you say you hate QuickTime. Propably because - as you also say: it crashes your computer. Well well well... I have heard THIS a lot. It turned out that the true problem was not so much QuickTime after all but either old hardware, or in most cases: a completely bloated Windows system. What does that mean? Well, Windows does not really behave a lot. After a while, it messes up the entire hard disc with garbage scattered all over the place (but neatly disguised from the normal user's eye). It is like if you enter a house that looks quite nice, but you take a seat on the living room's sofa and all sorts of pizza crusts and other stuff falls out of it from between the sofa cushions. You get the idea? Now, this is not the user's primary fault. It is the fault of lazy software architects that never clean up the mess they generate behind them. And this does not only apply to Microsoft.

In fact, if you have a machine with quite a lot of stuff installed but not used at all or just once or twice used and then uninstalled, traces of these applications still bloat a) the registry, b) the file system.

My advice would be to first clean out your registry. You might want to look for a really good registry cleaner application to do the job for you unless you are deep into MS application programming.

Next take a look on your hard disc - there are tools that can clean this one too: clearing out unused files, years old temp-files and all this stuff.

And THEN install QuickTime and you'll see it'll work like a charm.

You say: QT displays advertising about its commercial version. Oh come on... it does so ONCE informing you that next to the free version there is a paied for pro version that allows you to edit video content with it. Click OK to dismiss this dialog and there is no more nagging for anything like this at all any more.

Some people complain about QuickTime displaying this "Welcome to QuickTime" window if you launch the app - go to QuickTime preferences and just turn it off ;-)

Forced Upgrading: ahem... now I get the idea: you have propably got QuickTime 4 or something like that on your machine, propably pre-installed. Well. QuickTime 4 is really old. We are now with version 7. And: You cannot open current word documents with Word for Windows verison 3, can you? And why wouldn't you want your QuickTime to be automatically upgraded to the latest version: as far as Apple is concerned, this only ment good new things and bettering what used to not be sooo good before and it never crashes anything. And still, if you don't want QT to update, just set it up in the preferences! But then: do not complain that newer technology coded videos won't play. Windows Media Player will also not play content made for newer versions of its application...

And then: if you are not using QuickTime, you are propably not using iTunes either - well, you miss out a world ;-) Go explore: http://www.apple.com/quicktime

At last I want to say something about alternatives: RealMedia is a great codec, but: it is like Windows Media, a closed codec AND the software to generate RM is neatly hidden in the depth of Real's web sites as they want you as content provider to purchase their software although free tools are around. Same with Microsoft to some degrees, btw.

The only good alternative I can currently think of is Flash Video. It is a closed codec as well, but the quality is great and the playback is most painless as no player is required (apart from an installed Flash-Player) which most people have anyway.

Google Video and YouTube both use FLV files playing back in their own flash based player, a swf-file that resides on the server. The CVS version of the brilliant Video module plays FLV-files using the also very neat and nice FlowPlayer. The best quality FLV file can be made using Sorenson Squeeze, however, by now there are also great open source alternatives around and I guess the latest version of Macromedia Flash offers a Video compression tool that generates FLV files...

Hope all questions are answered, Steve

Hi, thanks for your

Robardi56 commented 2 May 2006 at 14:39

Hi, thanks for your amazingly long answer.
there is no way I will go as far as "clean" my registry just to get quicktime working. The fact is my computer is perfectly up to date and clean.... I extremely rarely run into any trouble at all. I just hate quicktime and systematically avoid using it.

Why not releasing two formats of the video ? One .wmv (used by the MAJORITY of people visiting this site) and the other quicktime ?

Didn't I read recently a thread here about marketing efforts needed ? hmmmm...

Cordially,
Brakkar

Two or more video formats

gateone commented 2 May 2006 at 14:56

Bonjour Brakkar,

:-) thanks - well, you see, producing WMV from a Mac is a REAL brainer. It does work, but only with software like Sorenson Squeez in combination with WMVStudio, a plug in for Sorenson to enable WMV exports - and these are costly applications. Also, Microsoft does not produce Windows Media Player for the Mac any longer. And also they never got it right in former versions anyway.

And even if the Quicktime File were to be converted to WMV, we'd end up with a mess like the guys over at Typo3 CMS. They have got ALL sorts of video formats, and the big pain with it is: NONE work on a Mac at all! Some work with Linux, some with Windows - well, and you always end up having downloaded the wrong version. So better just have one ;-)

Sure not everyone got a Mac. Most might have a Windows computer. But QuickTime works on everything, WMV just on one thing, and who knows where Microsoft is going to go tomorrow and if you will want to join them then still? Better be open then be owned by a company who is control-manic -- they snoop your computer entirely, if you ever wandered what the machine is doing when it it online and you do nothing... ;-) at least if you think it would be cleaning up anything in those moments, you are definitively not right :-)))

I guess the biggest but of all problems is hosting space still costs money and so does transfer. You might have allowances, but if you host videos, these allowances quickly come near some end.

Talk to you soon,

Steve

P.S.: Lullabot, if you happen to read this: if I can help converting your QuickTime files just let me know and drop me a line!

Well said Steve! Yes, we

m3avrck commented 2 May 2006 at 20:14

Well said Steve!

Yes, we debated about formats before releasing and we all agreed that the QT mov format would be the *best* bet, as Steve has pointed out.

Now, this is not to say that we are not open to using other formats, however, using a propietary format like WMV that only runs on Windows and is very closed, well, that's just not very Drupal, now is it? But, yes, WMV tends to work better on Windows...

Steve, I think Jeff is sending you an email right now about this, thanks!

ted

no wmv please

Pieter Janssens commented 3 May 2006 at 08:55

please do not use wmv. from my own experience, ogg theora plays perfectly fine on windows with videolan.org's vlc player, which will play about any format you throw at it (including wmv, h264 and quicktime). try to avoid closed formats, even as an alternative download.

Unfortunately QuickTime is proprietary

axel commented 2 May 2006 at 18:07

Unfortunately QuickTime is proprietary format, wit a lot of patents by Apple - more problems to realize support for it in opensource players. As I see some unix players just use windows dll's to play quicktime. There are not official support for QuickTime 7 for Linux, only for Windows and OS X. If Drupal is multiplatform, then support environment also pretend to be multiplatform. Look at OGG Theora opensource format, used in Wikipedia for example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Media_help_(Ogg)

Of course I will try VLC as adviced, this player declare 'experimental' support for H.264.

--
Axel,
JabberID: laika@jabber.org
Drupal in Russia | Darcs repo of my projects

Ogg Theora

Brian@brianpuccio.net commented 2 May 2006 at 23:50

As I mentioned above, I would love to see a Theora encoded version.

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If someone helps you out, give back by playing patch bingo or bug bingo.

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Bèr Kessels commented 3 May 2006 at 20:35

So please let me know, because I could spend some time (reading how to) convert the movs to ogg theora.

freedom of choice ++

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Yes, OGG Theora!

christian_z commented 11 July 2006 at 18:12

Quicktime is a proprietary format!!
Linux have a higer advanced market share as Mac!
OGG Theora Videos are free and open source and works on Linux!
Drupal is open source also! Quicktime not!

Requires Apple QuickTime 7.
(http://drupal.org/videocasts)

Apple QuickTime are not available for Linux!

Now, please use OGG Theora, for the community (or at least a Realplayer format)!

http://www.xiph.org/
http://www.theora.org/ (OGG Theora for all plattforms)
http://www.real.com (Realplayer for Linux, Windows, Mac)

Amazing

dries commented 2 May 2006 at 15:02

The videocasts are simply amazing. Great work, Lullabot!

nice work, a few (minor) suggestions

dww

we/he/they

commented 3 May 2006 at 07:52

very cool -- nice work!

a few tiny (but hopefully useful) suggestions for improvement when/if another round of these videos are produced:

In the install video, i liked how you kept trying something that wouldn't work yet and showing what the errors look like. however, you missed an opportunity to highlight (using the cool everything-goes-grey-except-the-little-circle trick) the fact that the error page drupal was presenting was already telling you what's wrong and where to fix it (settings.php hadn't been told where the DB was).
i think all 3 videos ended with pointing the browser to drupal.org, but all 3 of you have node admin privs. ;) so the look of the site (including edit, revisions and track tabs on nodes) was different from what anyone in the target audience of these videos would see.
perhaps a 3 second "you'll want to use something other than this for your site" should have been included when explaining how to setup the password for your drupal DB. ;)
for consistency, all of the videos probably should have included "drupal.org" as the closing link (1 or 2 used "www.drupal.org").
don't we usually recommend *not* using uid #1 as your personal account on sites? the install video showed creating the first account by using a regular-looking login, not something obviously reserved for "admin". the upgrade video showed logging in as "admin", for example.
the voice-over track on the installation video was spoken quite fast in a few parts. i know you're trying (and succeeding!) in cramming a ton of useful info into a very short time frame, but i found i could only tell what you were saying in a few places because i already knew what you were saying. ;)

as i said, amazing job. i don't mean to detract at all from what you've done. just wanted to record a few suggestions for next time.

keep up the great work!

thanks,
-derek

___________________
3281d Consulting

I would add another

venkat-rk commented 3 May 2006 at 08:11

I would add another suggestion about using a normal (black?) cursor for all the videos. The yellow cursor in one of the videos was really hard to spot.

Yellow Cursor Woes

matt westgate commented 3 May 2006 at 14:35

We used Snapz Pro, on an intel mac, which is still a little buggy and the cause for the yellow cursor.

Great videos! Windows alternative to Snapz Pro?

Walt Esquivel commented 3 May 2006 at 16:21

First of all, I want to congratulate Lullabot for terrific videos! The Drupal community appreciates your contributions. I have very much enjoyed watching and learning from Lullabot's videos along with Zacker's (Zack Rosen) screencast on Organic Groups. I think videos are a great way to show how things should work.

Second, I use Windows XP (shhhh, don't tell anyone! ;) ). Is there an alternative for Windows to Snapz Pro?

Thank you and keep up the great work!

-----
Walt Esquivel, MBA, MA, Captain - U.S. Marine Corps (Veteran)
President, Wellness Corps, LLC
-----
Drupal Users and Developers by Geographical Location
http://drupal.org/node/46659

Interesting list here

Marc Bijl commented 8 May 2006 at 20:11

Take a look at this site:
- http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/screenrecorders

Some of them are free (haven't tried them though).

___________________
UPDATE

Some more here:
- http://all-streaming-media.com/record-video-stream/screen-capture-softwa...

Overall, get the feeling Camtasia and Captivate are pretty good (altough didn't have time yet to view all product pages).

___________________
ANOTHER UPDATE (:

Some more here:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screencast

___________________
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lose sight of the shore

Wink is great for creating demonstrations for your end users

spamjim commented 8 May 2006 at 21:11

Wink (free) for Windows from http://www.debugmode.com/ is great for screen demonstrations and may actually be better than SnapzPro since it does not handle video. Wink grabs screenshots and animates the cursor in a smaller SWF presentation. Wink allows you to add pause/play buttons and pop-up notes, something that my SnapzPro version cannot do.

I am asking for a "Mac alternative to Wink?"

Great!

iraszl commented 3 May 2006 at 08:19

Just one question regarding the update of the conributed modules. In the video you only run update.php once for the core modules. Do you not have to run the update after you install the 4.7 version of the contributed modules as well? It's better if not, but how does the 4.7 version of the contributed modules update the database? Do they not need updating? Thanks!
--
Creativine: Brands coming alive as Drupal themes

Transcripts?

heine commented 3 May 2006 at 14:52

Good work! As dww said, very good idea to 'forget' several steps, then solve them.

Are (tran)scripts of these videos available? They might assist willing translators (any?) doing voice-overs. Transcripts could also assist non-native-English-speaking users; it all goes very fast and it's not exactly BBC(*) English ;-)

(*) When I was learning English I used to have subtitles for the deaf switched on, so I could at least read the bits I had trouble with.

+1. It must be very useful

axel commented 4 May 2006 at 14:36

+1. Very useful to have transcripts with timing - it will very helpful for making subtitles on other languages.

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Transcripts

matt westgate commented 4 May 2006 at 17:35

I've started to check them into drupal-contrib

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New Videocasts about 4.7

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