The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka How to use the streaming video plugin for Omeka developed at Indiana University Libraries with an NEH Office of Digital Humanities Startup Grant.
Table of Contents The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka... 1 How to use the streaming video plugin for Omeka developed at Indiana University Libraries with an NEH Office of Digital Humanities Startup Grant.... 1 Configuring the Streaming Video Plugin... 1 Additional Metadata... 2 Streaming Video Metadata... 3 Flash Video Streaming Fields... 3 HLS Streaming Video Fields... 4 HTTP Streaming Video Fields... 4 Metadata Fields that apply to all Media Formats... 5 Segment Tuning... 6 Video Plugin Options... 8 Viewer width and viewer height... 8 Use External Controls... 8 Display Current?... 8 Autostart Video?... 8 Flash Streaming? Use flash if possible... 8 HTTP Streaming?... 8 HLS (Apple) Streaming?... 8 Video Playback with the Internal Controls... 9 Video Playback with the External Controls... 10 Video Playback displaying Current Video Segment... 11 The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka ii
The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka How to use the streaming video plugin for Omeka developed at Indiana University Libraries with an NEH Office of Digital Humanities Startup Grant. Configuring the Streaming Video Plugin After downloading, unzipping, uploading to the plugins directory and installing the plugin, you now have the choice to configure different options for video playback on your Omeka site. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 1
Additional Metadata After you have installed the Streaming Video Plugin, when you edit an item you have some additional metadata fields called Streaming Video. This element set contains fields that are used by the plugin to determine the start and stop point of video segments and can be used to determine how to display those video segments. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 2
Streaming Video Metadata The video player uses the fields in the Streaming Video element set to determine playback. For instance there are three sets of fields for the location of the files to stream. Flash Video Streaming Fields Video Filename This field should contain the name of the video file on the Flash Media Server that is streaming the file. The default configuration is for using the Adobe Flash Media server. If you use another server, you may need to put different values in these three fields. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 3
Video Streaming URL This is the URL of the streaming server and will usually begin with rtmp:// and have the following format: rtmp://www.domain.edu/directory. Flash media server often uses a special directory that video files are placed in and that needs to be specified in this URL. Video Type This field is in constructing the complete URL for accessing the video file on the Adobe Flash Media Server. Adobe defaults to using flash video files (often ending in.flv) and expects you to identify the file as being an.mp4 before the filename. For instance, a valid URL for an mp4 file would be rtmp://flashserver.indiana.edu/ip/mp4:wgcowan/filename/ Consequently to construct the proper URL you would need to put mp4: in the Video Type field. If left blank then no value is added to the URL which means it defaults to playing a flash video. You may also have to experiment with adding additional directories in front of the filename. For instance at IU user accounts need to appear after the mp4: but before the filename so a valid value at IU for the filename would be username/filename substituting a valid username for the username and the correct filename. HLS Streaming Video Fields HLS Streaming Directory If you want to use Apple s HTTP Live Streaming, you would need to define a directory on your web server to contain the video files to be streamed and you would use the relative path to the directory in this field. HLS Video Filename This field would contain the actual name of the file in the HLS Streaming Directory. There are two ways that files can be used for HLS streaming. One method is to use ffmpeg or from Apple, the Media File Segmenter (mediafilesegmenter) tool to create a series of equal length files and a manifest file ending in.m3u8. This filename is the one that you would use in this field. In addition some video tools allow the creation of an.mov /.mp4 file that can be played back by HLS. If you use one of these tools, then you would use the name of the file generated in this field. Streaming segments, that is requesting a start point in a streaming video file, is not well supported in HLS streaming and due to the nature of ios is most often ignored on ipads, ipods and iphones. HTTP Streaming Video Fields HTTP Streaming Directory Some browsers, like Chrome, prefer to use HTTP streaming. To do this you need to create a video directory on your web server and load the video files into that directory. The relative directory path would be in this field. HTTP Video Filename This field contains the filename of the video. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 4
Metadata Fields that apply to all Media Formats Segment Start This field contains the start point in the streaming video. It should be in the format of hh:mm:ss to ensure that the video starts at the correct point. This field is also important because the plugin uses this field to determine if it is dealing with a streaming video or not. If this field is blank, the plugin assumes that this is a non-video item and loads the metadata without the video player. If it is non-blank, it loads the video player. Segment End The end point in the steaming video. With the Segment Start field, this field is used to determine the exact segment to play back. Segment Type This field is used by the plugin to determine whether to display the metadata about the current playing video segment. If this field has a value of Scene it displays the metadata. If not, it does not display the current playing video segment metadata below the player. Displaying the current playing segment is a special option of the video player plugin and does not effect the display of metadata related to the selected object on the web site. Show Item not currently used but could be used to determine how exactly to show metadata about a video segment. Video Source not currently used but could be used to show the main source of the video, perhaps Internet Archive, YouTube, etc. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 5
Segment Tuning After installation of the plugin, you will now have a Segment Tuning tab added to the edit item page. This tab allows you to change the Segment Start, Segment End and the Description fields for the video segment, in case you need to adjust the start and end points to correct an error or fine tune the segment. The >/= button allows you to toggle the start and stop of the video and the current position is displayed. If you hit either set button for Segment start or Segment End the start and stop points will be updated with the value of the current position. The Description can be edited as well. Using the update button will update the fields on the item s Dublin Core Description field and the Segment Start and End on the The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 6
Streaming Video metadata. If you are satisfied with the changes you have made and have updated the fields, you would need to Save the item to make the changes permanent. The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 7
Video Plugin Options Viewer width and viewer height is used to set the basic dimensions of the video player. Because the video player will automatically adjust with the width of the browser, the width field is not used. However the viewer height is used to for the intial setup of the player and adjusting this value can be effective is setting the display properly. Use External Controls determines whether the video player uses its own internal controls or uses a set of controls that are supported by the Javascript API of Jwplayer. By checking this option, you are limiting playback to the specific segment of the video represented by the Omeka item and the user can not go beyond those boundaries with the video player. If this option is not checked, then the internal controls are used and while the video will start playing at the selected Segment Start it will not stop at the Segment End and the user can scrub to points in the video earlier than the Segment Start point. Display Current? Whether the Jwplayer plugin should display information about the current video segment. Use this option with or without external controls to see information about the current video segment appear below the video player. This information may be different from the current item being displayed because it is based on where you are in the video file. Autostart Video? whether the Jwplayer plugin should automatically start playing the current video segment when the page loads. Flash Streaming? Use flash if possible HTTP Streaming? HLS (Apple) Streaming? Decide if you want one or more types of streaming available to your site. Each type of streaming is preferred by different browsers. For instance if available, Safari prefers Apple's HLS streaming, the only type of video playback that ipad uses. Also HLS files need to be prepared for streaming using ffmpeg or software from Apple and then The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 8
uploaded to the proper directories on your web server. In addition, which type you use will be determined by which streaming service you have available. To use Flash streaming, you need a flash video streaming server such as Adobe Media Server, Wowza or Red5. HTTP Streaming uses the file system on your web server. If you have a flash streaming server, you may want a browser, even Safari, to use flash if possible. Check the Use Flash if possible box to do this. Video Playback with the Internal Controls The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 9
Video Playback with the External Controls The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 10
Video Playback displaying Current Video Segment The Steaming Video Plugin for Omeka 11
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