Some Features Updates

A few updates to metavidWiki have been rolled out recently, thought I would take a quick opportunity to point them out.

Search

Search now has a more “google-like” display with text links to “Watch Clip” and “Improve Transcript“. This should make it clear that you can play search results inline and gives the inline search results a larger native video resolution play window.

Remote Embedding:

The remote embedding functionality has been enhanced to include inline transcript with auto scrolling and transcript layer selection. This feature can also be used to select between language tracks. (our site currently only has a single language track) The transcript format is in CMML. So you could use the mv_embed library with other CMS systems to embed video with transcript selection.

Near Future

Our summer of code student Stjepan Rajko is hard at work on adding in compatibility with flash flv video clips. This will enable “html5 like” syntax with ogg video and could use flash video as a backup. Sort of a supper version of Mike Chambers hack with all the added benefits of mv_embed library: inline transcripts/translations , references to download the clip, embed it, playlists etc

2 comments dale

Summer of Code 08

Google Summer of Code 08 will start accepting applications Monday, March 24, 2008. I have submitted a few metavid related project ideas under the xiph and wikipedia foundation organizations and offered to mentor them.

Google’s Summer of Code is a great program, as a student in summer of code 06 I worked on early video integration for mediaWiki. It was a positive experience and got me more involved with free/open source software. If your a student interested in open media I recommend you take a look at the many great project ideas for xiph foundation. There are lots of other great projects and organizations to work with as well.

1 comment dale

MetaVidWiki Open Beta

We are pleased to announce that MetaVidWiki  (link) is now in open beta. We look forward to you comments, suggestions, and bug reports on this new free platform for community audio video participation.

We have put together a new extended screen cast demoing MetaVidWiki features available here on metavid. (also available on google video, and xvid copy here (23 megs) ). Editing on MetaVidWiki site is now open to anyone that can pass a audio or visual captcha test…

So check out the demo video, try some searches, and then try improving the archive by syncing a transcript or improving some text content

Simultaneously we are releasing the software that powers metavid: MetaVidWiki extension (v.01). It has been packaged and released for other cool re-uses of the code base. The Mv_Embed package has been updated to version .7 and released as well.

Read on for Technical Feature overview:

MetaVidWiki extension (project page)

dependencies: MediaWiki, mod_annodex or oggz-chop, LAMP stack
recommend: the Semantic MediaWiki Extension.

• Adds namespaces for Streams, temporal stream metadata, and sequences.
• Adds interfaces for editing multiple sub-name-spaces of temporal metadata per Stream or layers. Enabling the separation of transcript languages, annotative layers or the defining of other layer types.
• Adds a media search engine based on page semantic properties and defined layer types.
• Extends Categories, Page Histories, and Semantic result sets with inline video playback.
• Adds an in-browser sequencer for editing and creating sequences from clip segments.
• Exports to video rss for categories & searches. Exports CMML for temporal metadata.

Specifically for the legislative archive:

• Auto-completes media searches with likely people, bills, issue groups or full text search.
• massive data scrape from open secrets, maplight, govtrack, and others to populate base data set.
• template based display of people, bills, & interest groups (separating data from display while remaining flexible with user contributed structured data)

Mv_Embed (full feature list)

• Is a stand alone javascript library used for video playback in MetaVidWiki
• Abstracts all ogg plugins to a near html5 spec, letting web developers target a single abstraction for multiple underlining plugin or native video support systems.
• Supports draft ROE (Rich Open multitrack media Encapsulation) spec for xml distribution of media.
• Supports playlists in xiph xspf , rss or inline format.

6 comments dale

hacking down under: mv_embed .6

As development continues for metavidWiki, I am continuing to release updates of the stand alone component mv_embed. Fresh from the Melbourne is the new release of mv_embed .6. You can check out some videos from the conferences I have been attending here: The FOMS free and open media proceedings and the multimedia talks at the linux Australia conference. (both published with the latest release of mv_embed)

Changes in .6 include:

• added plug-in selection tool
• added msg system for compatibility with translations
• added support for safari
• add support for relative file or path names for media files for cortado.
• improved playlists usage
• added “experimental” support for “sequences” and editing.

Add comment dale

mv_embed for MediaWiki

I hacked out a simple mediaWiki extension to use the mv_embed script. Its identical to the html based mv_embed except that description text is parsed as wiki text instead of html and it resolves file names for wiki video/image titles. This allows mediaWiki to easily include inline or external playlists. Having the playlist inline facilitates basic versioned sequence building. For now mod_annodex is need for segmentation, but I am working on a native php script that should allow easy integration of ogg segmentation wherever php is supported. Drag and drop sequences is also being working on in the metavid medaWiki extension but is still a few weeks away from public demoing. Watch for a screen capture post in the near future

Mv_embed is a key component of the metavid mediaWiki extension which I demoed at wikimania. This packaging allows other wiki sites to immediately make use of the mv_embed script to include sequences or individual metavid clips & arbitrary ogg theora encoded clips uploaded to their wikis. We are running it here on metavid.

So far its running on at least one other wiki that I help setup, Migrawatch.org. (more about migrawatch). Migrawatch is using the script to critically document political rhetoric around the immigration debate in congress.

While the script is being used on a few sites already and considerable effort has been put in for IE compatibility the playlist functions are relativly new so your millage may vary…check the known issues, and report stuff on the talk page for mv_embed.

Add comment dale

Mv_Embed and Playlists Preview

The latest version of mv_embed has just been updated for preview before it goes live later next week

If your not familiar with mv_embed you can read the html5 the future is now post I made a while back. This playlist functionality will be the basis for viewing collaborative sequences created in Metavid-mediaWiki. In the mean time it will be another view for search results. Once a few IE bugs are fixed it will go live on the metavid site. If you have firefox you can check out the demo page now New features of this mv_embed release include:

Playlists: mv_embed now supports playlists. Supports xiph, m3u & ipod video rss (so far). It takes these types and gives a little interface for playback. It uses the plugins native playlist support or has the user manually advance the track if using a reduced feature set playback method.

Smaller Base Library: The code base has been re-factored to dynamically load required libraries and reduce the overall size of a given usage of mv_embed. Client plugin objects are now separate files loading only the code needed for a given client playback method. Ofcourse further optimization can be made with one of the javascript compression packages out there and I still have to do general code refactoring to fully take advantage of the jQuery library.

Oggplay: Great work is getting done on oggplay plugin. The latest mv_embed supports this client side playback method with playhead and all. This is will eventually be the preferred playback method.

VLC: The vlc plugin has received a few updates as well.

and lots of little changes see the mv_embed page for details

2 comments dale

HTML5 Video: The Future is Now!

Given the many parallel projects to bring ogg theora into the many browser platforms it can easily get confusing. In this post I will give an update on the embed video projects that I have been following in the development of the latest mv_embed script. This script is a rewrite of the mv embed script with the intentions of bridging support for video tag from the html5 spec to non html5 browsers. Once the mv_embed script is included it goes through the page and rewrites all the html5 video tags with whatever playback method the client supports, letting web developers use the future html5 video tag today! See the sample page.

The script works by creating a html element / javascript object that mapps html 5 video tag javascript calls to the appropriate methods on clients supported playback system. Obviously not all of the html5 features will be supported for every playback method, but the idea is to build robust support for basic video embeding while letting web users immediately take advantage of simplicity of usage for embeding theora video.

Native (html5) browser support for ogg media is developing nicely…Chris Double is working on ogg video support for firefox3, experimental builds of Opera have been shown to support it, and the oggplay plugin is under very active development as a firefox plugin for the win, linux and osx platforms. Even an ActiveX version for IE is planned. The mv_embed script should detect any of these “native” support mechanism and do nothing. As these playback systems should more or less conform to the html5 spec.

But for all the existing browsers: the mv_embed script looks for existing methods to decode ogg video. Initially I am only targeting the vlc plugin for *near* html5 support. Basic video playback with the html5 tag will be supported via the java cortado applet & any plugin that registers the mime type: application/ogg such as mplayer, totem, or xine.

Future versions can extend the base javascript embed video object to implement more complete support of the html5 spec with plugins. Also we will improve the cortado applet so that it exposes the necessary javascript hooks for more complete html5 support. And we will also want to get the cortado applet signed and hosted somewhere so that ogg embedding is further simplified and the mv_embed javascript can be referenced on a different domain than the ogg media.

adoption update:
Just a quick note on the adoption front, wikimedia commons now supports inline playback of ogg audio/video media via a iframe very cool! great work maikmerten and gmaxwell

61 comments dale

Ogg Theora in your Webpage

Update mv_embed.02 has been released its a bit more user friendly and has the latest cortado player.

In response to a request the mv_embed code has been packaged as a stand alone component. This should enable its usage on other sites that want to embed ogg theora clips without those annoying plug-in install requests from the browser that point to non-existing auto install systems.

Mv embed has been tested in windows on (IE 6 (activeX vlc) IE 6(java), Firefox 2(vlc plugin), Firefox 2(java), Opera(java) … on linux: Konqueror (java), firefox(java) … If people find other platforms or combinations that do not work let me know about & if it’s the script’s fault I will see what I can do Often we are limited by the java applet framework which has a few issues… As established in the FOMS meeting: we really need native ogg theora support in firefox & an IE compatible theora plugin.

Future features for mv_embed could include detection of the mplayer plugin (which I would recommend over the vlc browser plugin for linux users), generally enhance it to be more css style friendly, playhead control for vlc plugin (as demoed in tests here & on the vlc site) & maybe integrate the code as a plugin for various CMS and blogging software.

Also check out iTheora (French) project which performs a similar function to the mv_embed script.

2 comments dale