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 haytham

something is wrong with the player..It was working fine. I even added the water mark and it worked but now after adding new vdos I am getting (undefined) in the place of the clip name and pic.
Even the old clips stopped working now. When I click a clip the play button disapears.
Any clues?

How many clips do you have listed in your XML file? The trouble with XML population is it does have limits, I never tested this one beyond 10.

[haytham]

I have 20 vdos on my list.

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by haytham

I have 20 vdos on my list.

I'll re-check the player code, I thought I removed the 'limiting' code, on compiling this player. Should be higher, with no problems... XML population does have its limits, but not 20... that was some code I added when testing it.

[haytham]

you were right about the limit. I reduced them to 10 and it worked. Just hope you can increase the limit some time. Thanks

[MrPHD]

Installed and working 100% you can see a demo: http://dhp.servebbs.com/forum

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by haytham

you were right about the limit. I reduced them to 10 and it worked. Just hope you can increase the limit some time. Thanks

I will change this limit to an higher value. It was done on testing, for bandwidth consumption checking.

[Aeolian]

does this stream video or it downloads and plays from viewers system?

[syrus.xl]

Originally Posted by Aeolian

does this stream video or it downloads and plays from viewers system?

It buffers 5 seconds of video before streaming it through the player. It doesn't actually download as such, only streamed into the browsers cache.

[haytham]

got a problem>> now whenever I click the nav bar link for the player I am taken to the top of my forum home pagr and nothing happens..maybe due to a no. of things but I'll check it out later.

[FRANKTHETANK 2]

OK SYRUS.
i got this player up now. i love it it. but how would i place this in cmps box on home page? can it be done? thanks