John's Brain Dump

All the technical gyrations I go through to build software, so I don't forget them and others can benefit from them.

Community Server Video Preview Module

I just posted our Community Server Video Preview Module to the downloads area of Hydrus Software.  The module automatically generates thumbnail preview images for videos uploaded to media galleries and as attachments to other posts.  The module executes FFmpeg (not included) to read the video file and extract an image, which it stores in Centralized File Storage alongside the video attachment.  The preview generation module can create previews for all of the video file formats that are supported by Community Server, including AVI, MOV, SWF, MPEG, WMV, FLV and others.  The module is also configurable, allowing site administrators and individual users to specify how long into a video to take preview images.

I know that a lot of people have wanted this feature in Community Server, so I'm happy that I finally had the time to create it and make it available.  You can direct questions about the module (or problems you're experiencing) here, and I will be glad to try to help you.

In order to use the module, you must have FFmpeg on your web server.  You can download a binary executable of FFmpeg here.

I'm hoping to be able to release some more modules in the future, so check back here for new content.

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Posted: Nov 06 2008, 10:29 AM by John | with 6 comment(s)
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Comments

John said:

Here's one thing I forgot, that came out of a conversation I just had.  In order to start seeing video preview images, you need to edit and save the posts in order to generate the previews.

If you add the module and don't see any preview images, edit one of your media gallery video posts, save it, and then look again.  

If you still don't see images, look in your Community Server error logs in the Control Panel to see if any errors with the module were reported.

Hope that helps!

John

# November 6, 2008 1:32 PM

fractalnavel said:

cool, very nice. except, um - when i use the PostVideoPreviewImageViewer control, i lose the "click to play" functionality. that appears to be intended behavior. or am i missing something ?
# November 10, 2008 4:17 PM

John said:

Right, I looked at the source and realized that the PostVideoPreviewImageViewer doesn't properly respect the ViewType attribute.  I initially intended this control to only be used to show preview images, never actual content.

I will work on publishing an update later this week.

In the meantime, if your videos are stored in a media gallery, then you can use the custom MediaGalleryPostViewer control supplied with the module and you should get the behavior you expect: video preview images when viewing a preview and "click to play" when viewing an actual video.

# November 10, 2008 4:35 PM

fractalnavel said:

ok, i see that. but what i was looking for was for the preview to be in the background of the "click to play" view, which normally uses . superimposing that image over the preview and using the result... it appears that this would need some sort of adaptation of what FileViewers.Render(..) does. hmmm - if _you_ don't get to it, _i_ will ;-)
# November 10, 2008 5:04 PM

John said:

Right, you would definitely need to create updated file viewers for that.  You may be able to use the generated video preview image from this module in the updated viewers.

If you do try to implement this, then let me know how it goes!  I may try my hand at it as well.

# November 10, 2008 5:12 PM

José Manuel said:

I hope you luck to do this module. It will be a must!
# November 10, 2008 6:26 PM
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