Producing Participatory Media
Class 3 - July 6

Topics:

  • Video Aggregation Sites
  • Video Aggregation Desktop Software
  • Pushing online video further
    •

    Video Aggregation Sites

    This list is on the wiki: Wiki::OnlineVideo Aggregators for all to edit, update and reference.



    Video Aggregation Software

    This list is on the wiki: Wiki::DesktopVideo Aggregators



    Pushing it further

    Using existing web based technologies in combination with audio and video on the internet we can push the medium further. From allowing tagging to occur within video to simply offering a better experience we might be able to offer some of the things that video blogging and podcasting are missing.

    JavaScript and QuickTime (on the web)

    Since QuickTime can be used as a browser plugin, it can be scripted.

    The first step is to embed the video: 

      <OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"HEIGHT="257" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" ID="myMovie">
    <PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="http://itp.nyu.edu/~sve204/ppm/embedded.mp4">
    <PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="false">
    <PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="true">
  <EMBED SRC="http://itp.nyu.edu/~sve204/ppm/embedded.mp4" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="257" AUTOPLAY="false" CONTROLLER="true" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" NAME="myMovie">
  </EMBED>
  </OBJECT>
    Careful when using this code. Make sure that stray line breaks don't mess things up.
    There is more about embedding QuickTime in the handout from last class.
    Apple also has more online at: Embedding QuickTime.



    You reference the movie from JavaScript using the ID attribute (for Internet Explorer) or the NAME attribute (for Netscape compatible browsers).

    document.myMovie.Play()
    document.myMovie.Stop()
    document.myMovie.GetTime()
    document.myMovie.SetTime(500) - 500 is the frame not the timecode

    For More Commands, See: JavaScript Scripting Guide for QuickTime

    What can we do with this?
    How about 2 videos at once or how about creating a system where you can associate comments or tags at a specific spot in the video?

    My Example (Don't forget to view source)

    Flash Video Player

    Flash has recently emerged as a nice video player for web based video content. It has a couple of advantages over things like Windows Media and QuickTime such as it's fast load time and it's large installed base. It is also easily extended by those who work with Flash. Unfortunately, it has very limited support for different codecs and doesn't have a corresponding desktop playback application nor does it have support on devices like iPods, PSPs, Set-Top-Boxes or mobile phones (though this may change).

    Here is our example video as rendered in a very simple Flash video player:

    Here is the embedding code:
        <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0" width="550" height="400" id="player_lite" align="middle">
        <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
        <param name="movie" value="player_lite.swf" />
        <param name="quality" value="high" />
        <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />
        <param name="flashvars" value="url=embedded.flv" />
    <embed src="player_lite.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="550" height="400" name="player_lite" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="url=embedded.flv" />
    </object>
    Basic Flash Video Player Source File
    Checkout the tutorials on gotoAndLearn.com: Video Basics Part 1 through 8
    A Dynamic Example (Using PHP) | Source Code

    You *should* be able to convert video to Flash on the lab machines that have Flash installed through QuickTime Pro. There are other ways of course.

    What's Next?