[Elgg 1.8-1.12 & 2.X - 4.X: iZAP Videos - revised edition by iionly] v1.10.8

Release Notes

  • Adding a group video does really add the video to the group and not to the uploading user,
  • Don't show filter tabs on group videos page,
  • Added new video link added in Widget Manager video group widget,
  • No longer show entity menu in index page widget,
  • composer.json added.
  • This plugin works great! Been using Elgg on IIS for years and wasn't able to get the original iZap video working, but this one was no problem.  The only thing that I can complain about (and I've seen before) is the orientation of some videos (aka, video from cell phone) get placed "on their side", But that's not going to stop me from using this plugin.

  • @Eimist NIce to know it also works on IIS. I wasn't aware it does (I rather thought it wouldn't as I have no way of testing and therefore wrote "for Linux servers only" in the requirements for the on-server videos functionality in the README).

    As I've not used the video recording functionality on smartphones so far (maybe for testing only once or twice) I hadn't been aware of video orientation being a problem. My first reaction when reading your posting was to say "sorry... there's no exif-like system available for videos as it is for images to detect the orientation of videos and correct them - like I've implemented in Tidypics". But it seems I was wrong and there can be indeed some info about orientation being saved in videos that can be used to correct the orientation (e.g. with ffmpeg). I'll have to figure out how it works exactly first though before I can try to implement it in iZAP Videos. Another point in my (too long) ToDo list is also to switch from flv/flash video format for on-server video entries to html5 video support. I think when doing that I can also use the opportunity to implement some orientation correction. But I'm afraid I won't be able to work on that anytime soon (and I still think html5 video support is kind of a mystery as I only come across very outdated infos regarding what formats a video need to provided as minimum for the video to play on all kind of devices, OSes and browser - of course I would prefer if a single format would work for all... possibly with mp4 it's possible by now).

  • We are not sending videos directly from your computer, get the message "Video is queued up for conversion." you need for this option to work

  • @lorena Coversion of video is triggered by one of the Elgg cronjobs. By default the 1 minute cronjob is used but you can select another cronjob intervall in the iZAP videos plugin settings. But you need to have set up the corresponding Elgg cronjob (btw the 1 minute cronjob is also necessary for Elgg's notifications to be sent).

    For the uploaded videos to be converted successfully you also need to have ffmpeg set up on your server. You can check on the server info tab on the iZAP videos plugin settings page if there are any issues with your installation you need to fix.

  • I asked this question because it did not understand how to proceed to configure the server, he is to "1 minute" but still lack this configuration to precess power.

  • I have to do, it is necessary I talk to the company of my server?

  • @lorena The izap videos plugin settings page only allows to select the cron intervall to be used. Setting up the cronjobs is not specific to the izap videos plugin.

    You should read http://learn.elgg.org/en/2.0/admin/cron.html about the cronjobs used by Elgg. How to set them up can be different on every server. The cronjobs do nothing else but visiting some specific urls of your site at specific intervalls. This is done for example with the wget command or the lwp-request script - whatever is available on your server can be used.

    If your server has for example CPanel as administrative frontend, you can set up cronjobs there, i.e. setting up the commands to be executed at the different intervals. On other servers it might be different. On some servers it might work to add a crontab file in your home directory with the user specific cronjobs. If in doubt about how to set up the cronjobs, I would suggest to ask the support of the company your site is hosted on.

  • ok, I found this session on my server, I can determine the intervals at random? my question is: Is there anything else to do after that so that the video is finally processed?

  • ok, I found this session on my server, I can determine the intervals at random

    Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by that. If you have configured the cronjobs on your server, you can check in the admin section of your Elgg site on the page "Administer" - "Statistics" - "Croncheck" when the cronjobs have been executed for the last time. You should check on this page, if the cronjob for the intervall you selected on the izap videos plugin settings page is correctly executed (by default it's the 1 minute cronjob). You can also use my Croncheck plugin (https://elgg.org/plugins/1864611) to see on the same page what cron intervalls are in use by the plugins installed on your site. You should set up at least these cronjobs for all plugins (not only izap videos) to work without issues.

    If you don't have any errors showing up on the server info tab on the izap videos plugin settings page, the video conversion should work with the cronjob working.

  • well, my hosting company Hostgator, and looking at the CPANEL has observed that "trabalhoCron" but do not know what time intervals I set

  • administration / statistics this way.

    Statistics: Programmed activities (Cron)

    Latest work scheduled

    activity period programadasUltimos completosData and time

    Every minute never
    A every 5 minutos Never
    Every 15 minutos Nerver
    Each half hora Never
    Acadahora Never
    Diariamente Never
    Semanalmente never
    Mensalmente Never
    Anualmente Never
    no reboot Never

  • The instructions at http://learn.elgg.org/en/2.0/admin/cron.html will give you the information necessary what command needs to be set up in a corresponding cron interval. It's kind of self-explanatory, i.e.

    /usr/bin/lwp-request http://your.site.url/cron/minute/

    would be the command to use in a cronjob running every minute

    /usr/bin/lwp-request http://your.site.url/cron/hourly/

    for every hour and the same for the other intervals as shown in the example.

    You would need to ask your hosting company, if the lwp-request script is available on your server and at what path (you might need to adjust that in the command). Also, you would need to enter the site url of your Elgg site in the commands correspondingly (with https if used).

    If lwp-request is not available, the command wget is an alternative that is most likely available. In this case the command would be slightly different. For example for the 1 minute interval

    /usr/bin/wget --spider --output-document=/dev/null http://your.site.url/cron/minute/ >/dev/null 2>&1

    and correspondingly for the other intervals.

  • is there a way to not convert to flv but mp4 ?

    flv quality is just awful no matter what ffmpeg codecs i use 

    sorry for my bad english (i'm from lv)

    p.s. suggestion for future, change video player to any other because this one is just a nightmare

  • @ezisLV Converting into mp4 is surely possible. But that's not the only change necessary then for the videos to play. You would also need to change the player used or handle the playback with a html5 video tag instead. Existing uploaded videos would also have to be converted to mp4 or you would have to offer both mp4 and flv support.

    It's on my ToDo list to switch from Flash to html5 video but I currently just don't have the time to work on it. I can't say when I will have the time to do it either.

    If you are not happy about the video quality it might not due to the codec used but also due to the conversion parameters - specifically target video size. You might want to give it a try to increase the resolution set for the video conversion to get a better video quality (of course the files will be larger then, too).

  • @iionly thanks for response

    i did a lot of work on comands used for converting to mp4 still working some bugs out 

    btw can you help with one small thing how to change preview image resolution (in activity and otherplaces) to it's native 120 at 90

    here's a command line for ffmpeg i use for converting if anyone want's (might be helpfull)

    --c:v libx265 -preset ultrafast -crf 28 -c:a aac -strict -2 -b:a 128k

  • In the plugin settings is an option to set the thumnail size to be used in the river entries (using Elgg's default thumbnail sizes as option). For the activity page at least you could use the large thumbnail size that is roughly the native size of the izap_videos video thumbnails (though they will get scaled to match the "large" thumbnail size).

    If you want to output exactly the native image size, you would have to modify the river views of izap_videos (and other views for other places depending where you want the native size used). When using elgg_view_entity_icon() to display the video thumbnail it might work to just provide the width and height to be used as additional parameters (I say "might work" as I haven't tested it):

    $attachments = elgg_view_entity_icon($object, $size, array(
        'href' => 'ajax/view/izap_videos/playpopup?guid=' . $object->getGUID(),
        'title' => $object->title,
        'img_class' => 'screenshot',
        'link_class' => 'elgg-lightbox',
        'data-colorboxOpts' => "{maxWidth:'95%', maxHeight:'95%'}",
        'width' => 120,
        'height' => 90,
    ));

    Or you could use the output/url view instead:

    $attachments = elgg_view('output/url', array(
        'href' => 'ajax/view/izap_videos/playpopup?guid=' . $object->getGUID(),
        'text' => $object->getThumb(true),
        'title' => $object->title,
        'img_class' => 'screenshot',
        'class' => 'elgg-lightbox',
        'data-colorboxOpts' => "{maxWidth:'95%', maxHeight:'95%'}",
    ));

    Again: not tested. With output/url the video thumbnail should show up unscaled (whatever size it has).

Stats

  • Category: Media
  • License: GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2
  • Updated: 2024-3-12
  • Downloads: 10762
  • Recommendations: 19

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