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By django6 on
I'm looking for a recommendation for a method or module that will allow users to upload multiple videos and place those videos in a single node.
1.I tried the video module, but it was quite complex, poorly documented, and I just couldn't get it to work.
2. I tried the flashvideo module, and it allows multiple video uploads, but I can find no way to reference specific videos with their [video] tag. I've posted an issue on the flashvideo page, but it appears that many people have the same issue and it remains unresolved.
3. I'm considering trying blue droplet video.
Before I try yet another video upload module, I'd really like to hear if anyone has a method for uploading multiple videos from the browser and they're able to reference those specific videos. I really need something that works, so if you've done this yourself and been able to get it working correctly, please let me know how you did it.
Perhaps it's possible to just do what I need with cck/views and I can bypass using a specific module??
Comments
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I do it with the swftools module using a filefield and it works great but that assumes the video is already in flv format. I have used flashvideo successfully in the past though-- does the help text for how to reference multiple videos no longer work?
help text
I'm still a bit new to Drupal, is the help text only available with the advanced help module? I haven't installed that yet, but was meaning to. I haven't seen anything on the webpage for flashvideo about multiple videos, and I've watched and read all the tutorials.
I'm trying to avoid doing the transcoding manually, and I want users to be able to upload in any common format. So I think I'll need something that integrates with FFMPEG to make that work...unless there's some other method that I'm not aware of.
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No-- definitely sounds like you want flashvideo. The complete syntax for the filter is in the help text-- you don't need advanced help, just enable the core help module and visit admin/help/flashvideo. The critical thing with this module is to verify you have ffmpeg working properly via the command line before even thinking about installing the module.
I don't know if I have ffmpeg
I don't know if I have ffmpeg working properly, but it is working sometimes. I installed/compiled it via the command line, but don't understand all the details of the config, I just followed an install tutorial. I can upload .mov, .mpeg, etc., and sometimes it transcodes files properly to .flv and takes a snap shot .jpg and sometimes it doesn't. In some instances if it fails on the first transcode and if I log in as a different user and try to upload a new video, it tries to transcode the previously failed file and then puts them all in the new (wrong) users file. (of course I posted an issue at the flashvideo web page, but no one replied to my issue). I have it set with tokens to put uploads into a separate file for separate users videos/[user-name]. So I'm not convinced this module is bug free, but I will check the help files, I should have done that first. It did seem like exactly the module I needed, but if it has too many bugs then I'll need something else.
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Sounds like it's ffmpeg that's the problem-- there's really not much that can go wrong with the module and if it was a module problem it wouldn't likely be intermittent. I had many failures with ffmpeg transcoding, with or without the module (though every time the module failed, it also failed when I did it manually from the command line). But I don't know nearly enough about the technical aspects of it to know why. It probably has something to do with the codecs and options. Transcoding video is by no means a trivial thing to do. It's one of the reasons I moved on to either hosting in a service like blip or manually transcoding with a different tool.
What different tool are you
What different tool are you using?
Do you know of a service that will keep my videos private? I can't just post them on youtube since this is a subscription site.
I think there are issues with ffmpeg failing, but I think the way that flashvideo handles those transcode failures is also part of the problem. Like if it's going to retry previous failed transcodes, then it should have a way to remember where the original request to save the file was -- otherwise files get placed in unexpected directories when a different person logs on and tries to upload a new video. It's doing some weird things with file placement.
That tip to look in the help files was very useful, thanks, I see that you can use [video: index=1] to reference the 2nd video that's uploaded to the same node. Unfortunately I still haven't been able to get it to work, it just references the first video. But I may be able to work with it by just referencing the filename instead, it just won't be an automated setup.
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I manually transcode using the free version of Riva FLV encoder. I believe it's just a gui on top of ffmpeg, but the options are much easier to find and set and I most things convert on the first try. And maybe its compiled more completely than the precompiled ffmpeg distros running around. It may just be subjective, but I find it much easier with much fewer failures.
As for private files--- i think blip has a paid for version that allows private files and I recently saw something about vimeo and/or fliqz having a private option as well.
Another option is to not convert the video and use the video module to display it in the original file format.
I didn't know the video
I didn't know the video module would play any format. I'm going to give that module another try because flashvideo isn't working so well for me. I tried to index the two videos with: [video: index=0] [video: index=1] and it still just shows the first video twice.