new version of the embedded movie mod

Update for 1.5.1: http://langleycom.com/gallery_download/1.5.1movie_mod.zip

New features in this mod will include:

Support for Real (.ra) files. Quick time (.mov) Flash (.swf). mpg & mpeg files as well as others.

Automatic resizing of the movie. PHP will atomically set the height and width of the file and propagate the fields in the <embed> and <object> tags. Your movies don't have to be the same size.

Movie is centered in both IE and FireFox. Unlike the current version where FireFox does not center the movie properly.

A link to the movie file is provided if the browser does not have the correct player/plugin.

The thumbs and embedded movies now support frames.

I will provide files for 1.5(soon to be released).

What features/improvements would you like to see in the embedded movie mod that are not conerd here?
Feel free to leave feedback on this forum or in the comments of my test site.

If you feel there is a movie format that I am missing or a size that you would like me to test send me the file and I will add it to the site and see if I can get it to work properly. I will try to address concerns you might have.

As usual, you can download the embedded movie mod

additional notes from development work:
If using real files; verify the the default size in /layout/embedded_movie.inc

   $video_width = 320; // default 
   $video_height = 250; // default

Now you can scale your movies if they are over a certain size. In /layout/embedded_movie.inc You will see

	// make movie smaller if bigger than 600 wide shrink the movie by 65%
	// set the 2 values below to your situation
		$video_width_resized = 600;
		$video_shrink = 0.65;
		if ($video_width > $video_width_resized) {
	        	$video_width = round($video_width * $video_shrink);
	        	$video_height = round($video_height * $video_shrink);
	        	$video_is_resized = true;
		}

If the movie is over 600px wide it will be scaled back 65%. These values can be adjusted to your site and design.
Example: If the original movie is 720 X 480 it will be embedded at 468 X 362 . . . 312movie height+50controller (dependent on mime type) = 362
If the movie is scaled then a note is added under the movie "This movie has been resized to fit screen" edit to your tastes.

Movie properties are in /layout/movie_properties.inc it can now be called from inline_moviethumb.frame.default but you must un-comment it to show under the thumbnail.

	// just remove the two slashes to have the movie propeties under the thumb
	// include (dirname(dirname(__FILE__)) . '/layout/movie_properties.inc');
	// format the table with the movie css class

Formatting of the table is done with a new css class .movie ,
Formatting of the movie parameters is done with a new css class movieP
Formatting of the movie data is done with a new css class movieD
So... you will have to add this to your css if you plan on using it on the thumbnail page. (remember the default for properties under the thumb is off) Example showing: properties under thumb.[/]

I have removed some of the posts that have either been fixed or not on topic. This thread was getting very long and most of it was a discussion on the early development of this mod.[/]

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Is it possible to change the thumb nail of the movie to be played? I have over 600 videos that I am currently linking to from the gallery. I would definitely like to use this, but I really need to be able to change that thumbnail. Since I haven't installed it yet, that is why I am asking.

Thanks :D :D

Dave,

Thanks a lot for this new mod supporting frames :D .

Reminder for those running a windows server. The path to the helperapps folder should not contain any space. In case it does, use the 8dot3 rule to specify the path inside the getid3.php file around line 114.

Cheers! Fabien

whoisfrost,
If you just upgraded why did you not upgrade to 1.4.4pl4 you have v1.4.4-pl2?
Before doing any mods verify the functionality of your upgrade, so that we are not chasing ghosts.
The files that I provided are for version 1.4.4pl4.

BTW for Embeded enviroments you must edit Gallery's index.php and add view_movie_properties.php to the $safe_to_include array.

I don't know if this is related or not but there is a bug report for this: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=264442
Can you point me to a site that playes them correctly?

As for the movie being a bit bigger. The documentation for Quicktime says to add 15px to the height of the movie for the controller to be displayed. Perhaps this is not required in some environments, or different version(s) of the player.

am I doing something wrong? Perhaps I don't need to add the 15px for FireFox? Perhaps the codebace in the <object> and <embed> tags need to be different for .mpg &.mpeg files.

We are making progress! I never did test with different Frames so I guess I will have some work to do.

I did sme changes to the layout/embedded_movie.inc and got FF to play the .avi files correctly and then reverted the changes and it seems to work for me as well. I don't understand why it still works now that I reverted the changes back to the original. Must be a Firefox/Windows thing. .avi is a microsoft format so I think they might be at their tricks again? :wink:

Dave

Fix: Force a <br> after the movie if the frame type is "none". >>>inline_movie.frame.default
Fix: "In order for the controller to appear properly, add 16 pixels to the height of a movie." from Apple documentation. Change to 16 from 15 for QuickTime and Mpeg movies.
Fix: formatting of quotes and spaces for the <object> and <embed> tags
Fix: proper width of controller for "real" files.
Temp fix: Divide by zero error in /classes/getID3/module.audio-video.quicktime.php

I would like to "start over" so to speak. I have been looking at code and heights and widths for some time and can't seem to find a issue with the files/OS/Browsers that I have. I have created a sub album with the assorted movies and this album has a "solid" frame. It is still a table around the movie but a slightly different layout. It still should work as it is just tables with background images.

If you have a issue then send me a link to the issue or PM me a link and describe the issue. It is hard to fix what I cant see.

I have updated the download to reflect the changes and fixes above.

Dave

Done!

That took some doing and I have only tested it in IE and FireFox. I tried a Java Script solution but it did not work in FireFox so google found a php soultion.
New file download.php and a updated /html_wrap/inline_moviethumb.frame.default

I will work on this, but the thumbnail page will get VERY cluttered, that is why I did the popup movie properties so that it ties in with the photo properties link.
Other opinions? I will most likely make it a all or nothing type of thing with a switch at the beginning to turn it off.

I don't understand what you are after here. Perhaps more pix are in order.
As for the custom thumbnail. That is another thread. ffmpeg, mplayer or custom thumbs
or play with G2 it does this now.

updated files

Dave

Changing the movie size AFTER determining the size of the users screen is a pain. You have to set a cookie with Java script and then reload the page and read the cookie with php.
What if the user has cookies turned off?
What is the user has Java script turned off?
What if the gallery in embedded in a cms and only has 200 pixels used up for a left or right navigation...That only leaves less than 600 (if designing for 800 width). :cry:

I tested this cookie method and got it to work but finally decided on a user configurable method.

So now you can scale your movies if they are over a certain size. In /layout/embedded_movie.inc You will see

	// make movie smaller if bigger than 600 wide shrink the movie by 65%
	// set the 2 values below to your situation
		$video_width_resized = 600;
		$video_shrink = 0.65;
		if ($video_width > $video_width_resized) {
	        	$video_width = round($video_width * $video_shrink);
	        	$video_height = round($video_height * $video_shrink);
	        	$video_is_resized = true;
		}

If the movie is over 600px wide it will be scaled back 65%. These values can be adjusted to your site and design.
Example: If the original movie is 720 X 480 it will be embedded at 468 X 362 . . . 312movie height+50controller (dependent on mime type) = 362
Live example: http://langleycom.com/g1/movie/Widescreen1

If the movie is scaled then a note is added under the movie "This movie has been resized to fit screen" edit to your tastes.

As usual, you can download the embedded movie mod

Just a stab in the dark before I go to bed..... Turn off the fit to window for that album and see if that helps.

Dave

Your movies and the rest of gallery look fine to me in IE6 on win2k. It also looks ok on IE6 on win98.
It still could be related to this mod.....look at the source and you will see

<td align="center"><a >
<!-- begin embedded WindowsMedia file... -->

bla-bla-bla

</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
<!-- ...end embedded WindowsMedia file -->
</a></td>

note the opening <a> and closing </a>. This is not right and I will have to work on this. You might be able to test this by saving the source remove the <a> tags I mentioned and see if it still crashes your wifes computer.

Another thing is the version of media player might have something to do with this as well. I can't reproduce this so it is hard to tell.

Dave

Great mod! Thanks for putting it together and sharing it.
I downloaded it and will be testing it this week.

Can the plugin also support .flv video files (flash video files)?

It would be great if it worked without having to save them in flash swf file. The new flash video flv format can be standalone, and can also have custom skins on top of the video (for controls.) The marcomedia site has an overview here

the nice part is that anyone with the flash plugin can view them (pretty much everyone) and I don't need to have flash to create the video files. FFMPEG can create flv files, so this would be a great way to completely automate the process and ensure that all viewers can see the video.

The best way to do this is to get a fresh version of the file(s) and use http://winmerge.org/ or if you have a Mac there is a similar program but I don't know its name. I am not going to provide a step by step method as I find this very hard to support and people ALWAYS screw it up. If people have moded the core files then they are more than competent to look for the changes with winmerge or diff or something similar. It is just a pain for me to look through my modded version as well.

I will have to read up on this. Can you provide a link that has this type of file embedded in a simple webpage. The link you provided assumes the user has dreamweaver. I will read more and try to digest it all. I will change this mod if I can find a way to do this and/or if getID3 supports the file format.

Can you send me a file or provide a link to a file that you would like supported. If you do then this will happen faster.

Dave

Ok, I understand. I will use your suggested method, in any case I do track all the changes I have made so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Ah yes, I am not sure if it can be done without having the marcomedia video kit (which is a plugin for flash or dreamweaver). I do have a test file I will pm it to you so you can take a look, it was created in dreamweaver though, so maybe it can't be embedded into gallery?

Thanks for looking into it. I'll also try to find out more and share anything I find...

mosco,
I took the movie that you sent me via PM (mpg format) and did not have any issues with it at all.

The only thing I can think of is if you install the full version getid3 and then browse to the /classes/getid3/demo/index.php and see if getid3 can tell you the info about the file. I suspect that you might need some "helper" files for windows. Or you have a space in the path to getid3 or its helper files see http://www.getid3.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=277&highlight= or http://www.getid3.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=179&highlight=

Remember to remove the demo folder/directory when you are done as there is no security and you can delete files on the file system with the demo.

I don't have a windows server so I hope somebody will chime in here and lend a hand.

Dave

mosco, maggard, and the rest that are interested in Flash FLV movie files.....
After a quick look through the docs it seems that three files are needed for this to work properly.....
The movie itself movie.flv the skin Skin_name.swfand the file that controls the movie/skin/etc: FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf.

Correct me if I am wrong here. So for each movie it needs three files to work correctly. You would need to be uploaded these 3 files to the server.
I think this could be done....with a few drawbacks.
1.) First the user would have to add the FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf to gallery as it would be different for each movie.
2.) the movies could be stored in a directory outside or inside gallery as the FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf will point to it.
3.)The Skin_anme.swf could be anyplace as well and if you are happy with the same controls for the movies then only one would be needed and could be hard coded in the <object>&<embed> tags. But what if you want to have a different "skin" for your movie or your movies are of different sizes?

Now to test to see if getID3 will get the correct size for the movie/swf file.

Comments?

getid3 does not recognize the flash movie .fla format. Therefore, in order to get this to play properly in gallery we need the height and width of the .swf file. getID3 does extract this correctly (as far as I can tell with the limited testing/resources)

I am only making assumptions here as I have not tried making my own movie.
When making a movie you tell the software (flashMx/dreamweaver etc) makes these three files and creates the correct directory structure.

The issue that I am running into is gallery will only upload one file (that is OK as we can put the movies and a skin some place else). So that file has to be the FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf. GetID3 extracts the correct file size and mime type for this file. The issue is that the code for displaying the file embedded, is different than a regular flash .swf file. In the Flashmovie file there is extra parameters that are not needed with standard flash files. Here is just two:

<param name="salign" value="lt" />
<param name="scale" value="noscale" />

We need a method of having gallery or getID3 tell the difference between the to .swf files;
---regular swf display the correct <object>&<embed> tags for that type
---progressive.swf display the correct <object>&<embed> tags for that type

A couple ways to go about this;
1.)Use the name of the file FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf as a check.

2.)One of the returned values from getID3 form FLVPlayer_Progressive.swf is:

So I could check this value and then display the correct <object>&<embed> tags. I don't know if this is the right way to go or not as I have only checked a few files for that header string.

3.)Check the name of the album and then only display progressive movies if the album name starts with progressive for example. I don't like this method as it relies on the user to know what he is doing. and this is not the case some of the time.

Comments? ideas?...

Dave

i am looking to upload about 25 meg mpg clips and play them on the gallery, i can't upload for some reason anything bigger then 2 megs on g2 it keeps giving me an error... any help wud be appreciated thank you.

Can you reapply the files? I never tested it with 1.4.4pl3 or lower. I never tested it in embedded environment.
I would upgrade to 1.4.4pl6 and reapply the files. This is the first time that I have seen this so I can't offer much more. Give that a try and see if it works stand alone first and see if that helps.

Dave

hey dave sorry i didnt respond sooner, i reloaded my entire site as well as gallery to try and determine the problem im having with uploading movies. its seems that the small clip i uploaded is only about a meg or so thats why it goes up to the server but 3 meg clip will not. now i have read all of the faq on this and cannot get it working. im not sure where my php.ini file is ither but it tried tricking gallery like you said here

problem is that i am unable to overwrite file it will not let you. im using cpanel that my host provides i upload to a different folder fine then i select move and it tells me its not alowed. i tried changing permissions but that dosnt help either, is there anything else you can think of? im really not likeing the idea of adding a link to the movie i like the embedded feature. thanks

dave i can upload large files with no problem i can even overwrite and all, its only anything under the albums folder that i cannot manipulate. i looked at my php.ini file and its set to 50m im pretty sure my host is not limiting me its gotta be somwhere in the config. i asked my host though where to edit my php.ini file and they said i cant they said put .htaccess folder in gallery directory and set the upload there, tried but that doesnot work.

dave url way works thanks for the help, i was under the impression that it was gonna link me to another window with the url at the bottom.

khsjr1970,
Thanks for reading the thread. Yes I would like to have that if you can send it via PM or email that will be fine.
There has been very little talk on audio and I think this is a great tool for the .mp3 format.

I don't know much about .mp3 s so it might take some time to do this. Have you see this done on anther site? Seeing how somebody else does stuff is a great learning tool.
What did you envision?

Hey dave i have a question for ya: while viewing a movie clip with firefox i am unable to adjust my volume, skip forward or backward in the clip without losing the picture, the only way to get it back is to refresh. any ideas? here is an example here

thanks for checking it out dave! im also using ffv1 but i have mediap v10 and xp. but i guess if 90% of visitors can see ok then im happy. thanks again!

Upgraded files for 1.5. http://langleycom.com/g1/movie/embeded_movie_mod

If I could get some help making a readme or some documentation I would really appreciate it.

A few notes:
albums.php does not need to be changed if you don't want the thumbs to have stuff above and below.

I have started to do some docs http://langleycom.com/ipw-web/gallery/MovieMod_Docs but gave up.
I need help with this (the docs) if you can.

Dave

Hi Dave, great Mod! I just have a few questions though (sorry if this isn't the right place);

- When viewing an album, is it possible NOT to show the "view in browser" things- just the title of the file. This includes not showing the date and information above the thumbnail. An example is this: http://www.kunation.com/gallery/album01
I want the movie thumbnails to just show what an image would without the mod.
When viewing the movie I don't mind these options showing up.

- I'm using the Bblue skin and the "view in browser" and other things appear on a black background with dark text. It's very hard to read, how would I get around this?

- Ever sine I installed this mod there has been a space under all the titles of the titles in an album; http://www.kunation.com/gallery/album01
Is there a way to remove that space under the titles?