[Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

Mon Feb 25 12:46:48 GMT 2013

Ill take a look at it when i get a chance Ron. There may be some js jiggery pokery that will make it work.

Regards

John Smith
Learning Technologist
School of Health and Life Sciences

Sent from Samsung Galaxy SII

Ron Mitchell <ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk> wrote:

Hi Thomas
uploading other formats doesn't require ftp - when people are learning they
upload all sorts of formats until they find that they don't work. But those
files do appear in media and quota where you can grab the link and link as
you suggest or even embed with a bit of html.

For me the issue isn't really about simple playback - those clips should
really be uploaded to a streaming service anyway. But the synched video page
obviously adds some value and interaction so I think a solution for that
would be useful.

Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Thomas
Rochford
Sent: 25 February 2013 11:58
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

Hi, we do need something to bridge the gap. The problem arises if you try to
produce a page that will run on a range of platforms. My simplistic (?)
suggestion is to enables authors to embed an mp4 file either instead-of, or
inplace-of, the .flv one which is the only one currently allowed. I'm
currently working on a demo project for a teachers' conference we're running
in mid-march and my work-around is to put a link to a .wmv or .mp4 file in
the text accompanying the flash video. This works fine on windows Phone 7. I
think there were some issues to do with the codec and .mp4 earlier, but if
people are viewing it on their own devices this wouldn't matter. At the
moment, of course, the .mp4/.wmv file has to be separately uploaded and
placed in the right directory. This involves the use of ftp and is far from
ideal. My idea would be to allow users to upload both versions and for the
flash template to 'pick' the .flv version at runtime, if it doesn't support
.mp4 already. The web version will probably always be able to do .mp4.

Kindest Regards,
Thomas
==========================================================
Thomas Rochford  |  e-Learning Advisor  |  Jisc RSC Eastern
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Email: thomas.rochford at jiscadvance.ac.uk  |  Web:
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-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Smith, John
Sent: 25 February 2013 10:56
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

maybe it's a stoopit idea though thinking about it... if they need to use
Flash because of a lack of HTML5 support then is there anything useful that
you would be able to do in a <div> over the flash ??

Regards,

John Smith | Learning Technologist
Room A251, Govan Mbeki Building | School of Health & Life Sciences | Glasgow
Caledonian University Cowcaddens Road | Glasgow | G4 0BA
________________________________________
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Smith, John
[J.J.Smith at gcu.ac.uk]
Sent: 25 February 2013 09:48
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video  and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

Just meant for people who want to stick to the flash player for now... also,
for IE 6/7/8 that don't do HTML5, although we may be able to shoehorn in
some js libraries for those browsers to "fix" what is missing in support for
HTML5... people delivering content to IE6/7 in NHS might not be able to use
the html5 ones for a while!!

Regards,

John Smith | Learning Technologist
Room A251, Govan Mbeki Building | School of Health & Life Sciences | Glasgow
Caledonian University Cowcaddens Road | Glasgow | G4 0BA
________________________________________
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
[Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 25 February 2013 09:33
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video  and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

You could just use the HTML5 output?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Smith, John
Sent: 22 February 2013 16:17
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

That is very good Julian. I think we should have a wizard like that for the
other template type, even if we can’t use it in flash…

A thought might be though that with the flash player, couldn’t we just
overlay a div and have the html5 only code run in that??

Regards,

John Smith
Learning Technologist
School of Health & Life Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Julian Tenney
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 3:51 PM
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

I’m quite excited about javascript at the moment, because with the new
‘site’ template you can write HTML directly into the text elements, to
create stuff, in this case a button, but it could be a <canvas> and then
write javascript to do stuff with it (see screenshots)

So that makes it a very simple template for non-techs to use to build sites
out of text / images / video / sounds; but also very powerful for
programmers to do the stuff they want to do. I’m just working on doing
scripts via src= so you can include cdn libraries, there’s probably tons of
other ideas around this as well, but I’m quite excited by what it brings.

[cid:image001.png at 01CE133B.254AA450]

[cid:image002.png at 01CE133B.254AA450]

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Julian Tenney
Sent: 21 February 2013 15:33
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

I can see it taking on some of the stuff we’d have previously done in flash:
so, for example, interactive graphs of functions, where you can change the
parameters using sliders to see the impact on the graph, or other
interactive elements. We have  quite a few things like that,

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Smith, John
Sent: 21 February 2013 15:07
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

createJS is coming along nicely – would love to know what to do with it
though…

I suppose we could create a wizard that allowed you to upload a media object
(picture/audio/video/other), give it a name and then attach a script which
is sent to the player and processed… that would be neat…

Regards,

John Smith
Learning Technologist
School of Health & Life Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Julian Tenney
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:45 PM
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

I’ve been thinking about doing some stuff with popcorn as well, the other
libraries of interest are the createJS set which look quite cool,

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Smith, John
Sent: 21 February 2013 14:44
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: what's the plan re video for pages like synched
video and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

Hi Ron,

Wasn’t aware of Popcorn before – looks good, will have to give it a try.

As for the videos, it should be possible to add a check for different video
types but I’ll wait to catch up with Fay when she returns. Fay shared a page
with me a while ago that had multiple audio and video formats and there were
considerable problems getting them to play in all the browsers so maybe that
has to be explored and we might need to have more than just mp4 and flv
types, based on the supported browsers list… same goes for audio – we could
actually build this into the xenith code and detect the browser and try the
recommended video extensions. There’s no file_exists() command in js though
so to test for existence would require an ajax request which could delay the
video appearing…

Regards,

John Smith
Learning Technologist
School of Health & Life Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University

From:
xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nott
ingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
Ron Mitchell
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 1:41 PM
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] what's the plan re video for pages like synched video
and the plain video page? Also Popcorn example...

Hi all
a quick question about this... I always advise people to use streaming
services for video wherever possible and with the HTML 5 playback it's
obviously much more flexible now regarding what can be used and in which
page type which is great. However there are some occasions where it's
justified to upload a small video direct to an LO especially to use the
synched video page functionality but even just the plain video page too. For
Flash playback obviously it's still an flv that needs to be uploaded but
what's the current plan for HTML 5? I know there's been all sorts of
previous discussion about player licensing and codecs etc but has anything
been decided?

Is there perhaps a solution to check for an mp4 in the HTML 5 model with the
same name as the .flv and if it exists use that instead of the .flv via html
5?

I know Fay isn't around until next week now but posting this now while I
have time.

Also perhaps relevant I'm not sure if you've seen or used Popcorn Maker
https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ but that provides a quick way of adding all
sorts of synched events to video's and works well via the embed content page
e.g. http://mitchellmedia.co.uk/xot/play_html5_53

Cheers
Ron

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