Add-On Releases - XEON Series - vbFLV Streaming Video Player

XEON series ? The vbFLV Video Player


[ Click Here to see the DEMO ]

If you use this modification please click INSTALL - it shows your appreciation and I can notify you of updates, when they become available!

Release Date: 2006-11-13
Revision: 1.1 (see change log in this post). If UPGRADING from Revision 1.0 DO NOT overwrite any files, apart from the main player.swf
vBulletin versions compatible: Works on ANY - uses no MySQL

Features:

• XML Based FLV Player
• Single playlist population
• Fade in/out over thumbnails
• Auto-detect Normal or Widescreen video formats
• Auto-detect Scroll-bar on if more than 5 videos in XML file
• Optimized for vBulletin using a single ?conditional?
• Optimized picture clarity/quality
• Slide Scroll bar to view other movies
• Uses javascript object embed for all known browser compatibility issues

Watermarked version details: *See second post below*

As many members requested, here at vbulletin.org, I designed this video player. It is XML driven, and the full vBulletin integrated version will be a commercial product, with many added features.
To compliment the XEON vbMp3 Player I brought you, the XEON series vbFLV Video Player, is another feature packed add-on. This is currently designed as a popup.

The vbFLV Video Player allows you to add unlimited video footage from various sources. There are no limits on FLV streaming, but you may wish to think about bandwidth consumption, if you intend to have very long movie clips. Note: most FLV clips are between 1-2Mb?s each, due to compression used. I would suggest you read these instructions carefully for no problems to occur, installation is fairly straight forward but setup will take longer.

Broadcast streaming video directly from your vBulletin forum.
You can encode your own movie files into the FLV format.
Use websites like www.keepvid.com to download any video from Google, YouTube, iFilm, and numerous other video websites. Visit www.keepvid.com for a full list.

Bandwith Consumption:
Due to design of this player and you will rarely find flv files around websites, the player is restricted to local flv files only. This was done by request, since most people that requested this modification wanted to play videos on their own websites, not on a global basis. If you have a large forum and huge video files, and only a small bandwidth limit I would not recommend you install this version.

Why FLV?
FLV is a widely used format for video/audio - and uses can be even interactive. No other video format comes close to these specifications - and the compression ratio will surpass anything around. In this tutorial you will be able to find the best compression ratio to use (the demo uses a 512k stream, which these days is quite adaquate for most users). Most video formats can be converted to the FLV format, I have listed a few places below where you can get free converters from.

What is FLV?
FLV is video format used by Flash, it is possible to take a 50Mb mpeg file and convert it to a 512k FLV stream, reducing the file size to around 10Mb. Giving you a high compression ratio of 5:1 in most cases. Is it more common on Google, YouTube, myspace, and many other video hosting websites.


Editing the XML file:
You can change all titles, descriptions, thumbnails and flv titles in the XML file. To edit it just right-click and select open with either Notepad, Wordpad or TextEdit (if you?re using a Apple).

Adding more videos:
Each video in the XML file is setup like this:

<item>
<date>13 November 2006</date>
<descr><b>Example 3</b></descr>
<video>example3.flv</video>
<image>example3.jpg</image>
</item>

So, we have Date, Description, video_name.flv and video_name.jpg ? each videos detail is enclosed between < item > tags.

Thumbnails & Descriptions

Thumbnails:
These small images must be created in any graphics program (The player will work without these thumbnails). If you do wish to create these images then they should be of a maximum size (width=70 and height=50), making them all the same size does look better, if they don't show up make sure you have named them the same as the details in the XML file. Note they must be non-progressive jpg images.

Creating the Thumbnail Images:
You can easily create the images by playing the video you want the image for, pause it at the point where you would like the screenshot. Now Hold down the ALT key and Press PRT SCR ? this will take a screenshot of just the player, open any image program and select Paste. Crop the image and resize until it is no larger than 70x50 pixels, save as a jpg.

Description:
You can add short titles and dates to your videos (as shown in the screenshot and demo, this data is entered in the XML file.


Transcoding your movies to FLV format
[high]Free FLV Encoders:[/high]
http://rivavx.com/index.php?encoder&L=3 - Riva FLV Encoder
Transcodes AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, WMV and more codecs.

[high]Commercial FLV Encoders:[/high]
http://www.yaodownload.com/video-des...dersconverter/

[high]More FLV Encoders can be found here:[/high]
http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/flv-encoder.html


Installation:
Upload the entire contents of the Upload folder into your forum ?root?. There are index.html files within the video and images folders, these are just directory protection files, so people cannot just browse your folders and download.

Note: If you have installed any previous releases by me, then you may receive an alert about overwriting the flashobject.js file ? this file hasn?t been changed at all, so you can skip or overwrite. DO NOT rename any files or folders; the player does have dedicated paths compiled which cannot be altered.

XML Setup:
Make sure you enter no paths, just the file names. The player has defaults set for images and video directories.

Template edit:
AdminCP -> Styles & Templates -> Navigation / Breadcrumb Templates -> navbar

Find:

<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="calendar.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[calendar]</a></td>

Add after:

<!-- vbFLV Player Start -->
<if condition="$show['member']">
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--

function Openvbflv(){
vbflv = window.open('vbflv.html','vbflv','directories=no,height=400,width=580,location=no,menubar=no,resizable=no,status=no,toolbar=no')

return false;
}

-->
</script>
<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="#" onclick="return Openvbflv()">FLV Player</a></td>
</if>
<!-- vbFLV Player End -->

KNOWN ISSUES: none

Change Log:
15/11/2006 - Player screen resize fixed
13/11/2006 - Initial Release

Future Improvements:
Limited, due to being a XML version. All major features will be incorporated in the commercial fully integrated vBulletin version, available soon, with plugins.


This modification is fully supported, and keep your eyes open for other flash-based modifications I release. More ?XEON series? based projects are planned, but probably will not be released until early next year!

Screenshots below show current version.

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by Warden-B-

Will this work with Version 3.6.8?

Yes, it will - I'll change the vb version number.

It doesn't use any vBulletin db queries, therefore its independent of any vb version.

I will be releasing a more featured version at a later date.

[kj_ugs]

I'd buy the pro version if it allowed streaming of videos from YouTube. That would be THE killer feature for this mod and something I've been desperately looking for, for a long time for my own community. Any hints or clues as to if that is in the pipeline?

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by kj_ugs

I'd buy the pro version if it allowed streaming of videos from YouTube. That would be THE killer feature for this mod and something I've been desperately looking for, for a long time for my own community. Any hints or clues as to if that is in the pipeline?

The Pro version will be using very new technology, which enables the player to import FLV videos from external sources such as YouTube, Google, etc. However, the coding required is very complex, and strips all watermarking from any FLV file, this has been done to make the FLV files more secure. Other features include, extension renaming (eliminating the .flv format) which can be anything the webmaster desires, except mp3 for obvious reasons.

It has been tested with blip.tv and it works fine in development, as of yet Google hasn't been tested, YouTube has been tested and working fine, even with our new GUI thats been designed.

More details can be found on our main website...

[yahoooh]

Originally Posted by syrus.xl

The Pro version will be using very new technology, which enables the player to import FLV videos from external sources such as YouTube, Google, etc. However, the coding required is very complex, and strips all watermarking from any FLV file, this has been done to make the FLV files more secure. Other features include, extension renaming (eliminating the .flv format) which can be anything the webmaster desires, except mp3 for obvious reasons.

It has been tested with blip.tv and it works fine in development, as of yet Google hasn't been tested, YouTube has been tested and working fine, even with our new GUI thats been designed.

More details can be found on our main website...

great work
i will buy it if there is option or module to use it in ldm hack @download and links managemant@

or if it has management to use it in categories in php and then the entries only be shown in vbflv player
with ability to get files from google youtube

[pompaunpo]

when commercial version of this modification go out ?

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by pompaunpo

when commercial version of this modification go out ?

This is currently being looked into, we have new programmers looking at this modification and server specifications that are required. By using Perl, we can easily upload upto 200Mb mpg's, avi's via http.

It maybe available soon, we are in discussions with a few potential buyers. Development prices are quite high, but these will be offset on the product sales.

[demon45]

The XML will not upload to my site, can someone help me please? i keep getting invalid file specified

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by demon45

The XML will not upload to my site, can someone help me please? i keep getting invalid file specified

Can you PM me your sites url? I'll check it for you.

[rapidphim]

Can you tell me is this the pro version? http://www.digitalport.co.uk/Top_40 Also, I have couple of questions:

1/ Can this one play video from streaming from other sources such as Daily Motion, YouTube...?
2/ How long of a video can it play?
3/ Can this one also play mp3 or has to be the mp3 stand alone itself?

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by rapidphim

Can you tell me is this the pro version? http://www.digitalport.co.uk/Top_40 Also, I have couple of questions:

1/ Can this one play video from streaming from other sources such as Daily Motion, YouTube...?
2/ How long of a video can it play?
3/ Can this one also play mp3 or has to be the mp3 stand alone itself?

The Pro version is currently in a development stage, and requires a special server setup to function.

1. No, this player does not support streaming from external servers, it was released mainly as a test FLV player for vBulletin.
2. Video's can be any length, but you need to consider bandwidth usage.
3. This player will only play FLV files, no other formats are supported at present.

Currently, we are developing a new technology to allow text, audio and video to stream - this will be a commercial product once released mainly because of all the features it will have available, our current time frame release for this new product is within the next 8 weeks. The product itself takes audio/video streaming to a whole new level. We may bring out a free version, but it will have limited functionality compared the commercial one.