The FlashVideo Module
Ok, so now you've got a server with FFMPEG, you just installed the latest revision of Drupal 5, and now you can barely keep in the excitment! Well, just be patient young grasshopper, we are almost there. To get Flash Video into your website, you will now need to get the conveniently named FlashVideo Module from the Drupal website. Once you have this module, and have installed it in the Drupal core, you are ready to begin.
In order to be truely efficient with this module, it is important to learn how to use it. Well, simply put the FlashVideo module is an easy to use module that expands the Upload module by allowing users to upload videos and attach those videos to any content. Even more exciting, is that FlashVideo automatically performs the very common Flash format conversion as well as create an image thumbnail of any newly uploaded video for every cron cycle (I'll get to this later). Once the video is in Flash format, the video can then be embedded in that node using the very simple ![video] tag.
To enable this module for a certain node type, you must first go to the FlashVideo Settings in the Administrator panel, and select the FlashVideo settings for any available node type in the Drupal system. Once the FlashVideo module has been enabled for that node type, you will then notice the modified Upload form when you add new content for that node type.
Once a video has been uploaded, it will then have to wait for the next Cron cycle for the conversion to Flash format to begin. You can manually run the cron operation by going to Administer->Logs->Status Report and then click on the link that says run cron manually. After the video has been converted, it will then be available to any node referencing that video. That node can then reference the video by using the ![video] tag, and also reference the video thumbnail by providing the [thumbnail] tag.
Parameters for these tags are provided by using a ":" to indicate a new parameter is being provided. The following format should be used for both the ![video] and [thumbnail] tags. ![video: param=value ] where param is the name of the parameter being passed, and value is the value of the parameter.
The following parameters can be used...
- index (For both video and thumbnail tags) - This is used to reference a video when muliple videos have been provided for each node. If no node parameter is specified, then this will reference the node in which the tag resides. Example: ![video: index=0] would reference the first video uploaded to that node, while ![video: index=1] would reference the second video uploaded to that node.
- node (For both video and thumbnail tags) - This is used to reference a video in another node. Example: ![video: node=10: index=0] would reference the first video uploaded to node 10.
- fids (For both video and thumbnail tags) - File ID's: This parameter can specify a single File ID, or many File ID's separated by a "-". If many File ID's are specified then those videos will play in that order. Example: ![video: fids=6] would play the video for file ID 6, while ![video: fids:5-3-34] would play files 5 followed by 3 followed by 34.
- id (For video tags only) - The id tags are used to play YouTube, Google, and Brightcove videos. For YouTube video's simply just place the ID after the tag. For Google and Brightcove Videos, you will need to place google- and brightcove- respectively at the beginning of the tag. Example: ![video:id=google-3754293779500828561] will play video 3754293779500828561 from video.google.com, and ![video:id=SmVAWKfJ4Go] will play a video from YouTube with the ID SmVAWKfJ4Go.
- width (For video tags only) - This parameter will override the default width of the video with the value given from this parameter.
- height (For video tags only) - This parameter will overide the default height of the video with the value given from this paramter.
- autostart (Values are true or false, and only used for video tags) - This parameter indicates if the video should start automatically.
The following are examples of using the ![video] and [thumbnail] tag system...
- ![video] - The first video uploaded to this node, with all parameters using their defaults.
- ![video: index=2 : width=320 : height=240] - The third video uploaded to this node with dimensions of 320x240
- [thumbnail: index=1] - The thumbnail for the 2nd video uploaded to this node.
- ![video: autostart=false] - The first video uploaded to this node will not start automatically.
Ok, now that you have learned about this module, let's move on in this tutorial.
- Step 1: Get FFMPEG
- Step 2: Set up your php.ini file for FlashVideo
- Step 3: Get the FlashVideo Module <-- You are here!
- Step 4: Download a Media Player
- Step 5: Set up a Cron Task
- Step 6: Create a Content Template.
- Step 7: Create your Page!
- Troubleshooting the FlashVideo Module
