Flash Video in Drupal 5: A complete multimedia tutorial.

Introduction:

When I first started getting very familiar with Drupal about 5 months ago, I realized that, while it was an incredible CMS, it still lacked the video capabilites of todays leading Web 2.0 websites. Although I was very impressed with the versatility of the current Video module, I was not impressed with how incredibly non-user friendly the module was... well, from a non-developer point of view. You see, my goal was to create a user-generated video website. You know what I am talking about. You see them everywhere! YouTube, Google video, AOL video, and I could just go on and on.

The problem with the current Video module is that is was not designed for a User-generated video website. It was only created to allow a web developer the ability to easily upload a video, and display that video. This web develpoer is able to do this by creating a Video node and provide what seems like a thousand different parameters to embed that video in his site. This is where I see the problem... First of all, I don't beleive that a video should be considered a "node". A video is simply a file, and should be treated as such. And Drupal already has a fantastic module that allows a user to easily upload files to any node in the system, the Upload module. What is even more cool about this module is that the user is given the ability to upload as many files to their node as they wish. This got me thinking... This should also apply to video; Why shouldn't I be able to upload as many videos to my node as I wish? If a video is not considered a node, but rather a file, then this would be possible using the Upload module. In fact, it would be stupid easy for anybody creating content. So stupid easy, that in fact, anybody (not just a web developer) can do it. You see where I am going here, don't you. By using this video content philosophy... You would, in fact, have a brand new video module built for the user-generated websites, and as far as I am concerned, the websites that WILL be and ARE the future of the web. I would like to introduce to you, the brand new FlashVideo module which I wrote to do just this... Take a look for yourself! (oh, and I'm not an animal hater... I just thought these videos were heeeelarious!)

[video: index=0: width=320: height=240: autostart=false]

[video: index=1: width=320: height=240: autostart=false]

In this tutorial, I will walk you through step by step on how to create your very own Web 2.0 website with integrated Flash Video. I will teach you how to use this new module that I have written, FlashVideo, and personally show you how easy it SHOULD BE to add Flash video to your Drupal 5 website. So sit back, pop them fingers, and get ready for Web 2.0.

Attachment	Size
Cat-Fan.wmv	789.2 KB
Bear.wmv	1.86 MB