CivicActions

( reposted from my personal blog: Media Mover + XSPF Playlist )

The Media Mover suite of modules has just gotten better with some improvements that I just released to the XSPF Playlist module. Media Mover now offers an end to end process for accepting media to getting it live on a Drupal site and integrating it with a flash video player.

XSPF Playlist is a XML playlist format which a few flash players support- Jeroen Wijering's flash player being one of the most common ones- gives people deploying video on their site some interesting options.

For one, it means that that not only can you deliver diverse content through a single player, but you can allow users to embed this content in a page, and then control the content that gets delivered to the embeded players.

Because Drupal is driving the play list, you can start manipulating the the contents of the playlist based on on various parameters. For example, I have a node that has video content on it that is categorized as "France". When building the playlist for this node, we can append additional items on this list that match the category "France". Likewise, you could set up something like a channel where you dynamically serve content based on a set of parameters- categories, when it was posted, the user that posted it, etc.

xspf_playlist already supports views and with the new hook_xspf_playlist_add, you can have modules easily add bumper content to to the playlist. It seems to me that both advertisers as well as people wanting to provide targeted content could find this extremely interesting.

On top of this, you can already have users post their video via cell phone, have it converted, saved as a node, and the file uploaded to Amazon's S3 service to save on bandwidth costs. All with out any user interaction.

Media Mover is really a system of modules- it won't solve all your video issues, but it provides a framework to build a solution on. The idea is that to get video on the web, most people have to convert it at some point. You also have to put it some where. Media Mover is basically four actions that you stitch together- harvesting, processing, storing, and completing. With other modules like XSPF Playlist, a flash player, an email account, and FFmpeg (which is the foundation that this foundation relies on) you get a pretty fantastic video tool right on your Drupal website.

The new Media Mover 0-3-1 release goes a long way toward making video a reality for more people. It's not a polished product yet, but it is moving rapidly in that direction. If you've got FFmpeg installed on your server, you're a download away from having video on your site.