iZAP video plugin

Hello guys,
I am new on elgg, before i used to use joomla for my comunity but i found elgg in a lucky day, the problem is that i can't found some plugin to add videos for my site without any complication like the ffmpeg that i don't have any idea of how use it. I thik i like iZap video plugin but I dont know how to use it. I want that some one help me to make work the izap video because i can upload the video but it dont shows, in the administration i can see that the video is in a queue process or some thing but it never do anything. If no body can help me with that, please, give me an advice to find a plugin that the users can upload a video and see then without complications.
Thank for read or answer and sorry for bad english!!

  • You can try https://github.com/hypeJunction/elgg_file_viewer, but it also uses ffmepg for video compression/conversion and thumbnail extraction.

  • Do you want your site members to be able to upload videos to your site or would it be enough if they can add videos that are originally hosted on other websites (e.g. youtube)?

    In the first case I don't think it will be possible without having ffmpeg installed on your server. ffmpeg is necessary to convert the uploaded video files into some target video format. The target format could be flv (Flash) as currently used by iZAP Videos. Or it could be for example mp4 (supported by html5 but unfortunately Elgg currently has no yet a plugin supporting html5 videos - it's on my todo list for iZAP Videos though). If the video files wouldn't be available in some specific formats, the site members wouldn't be able to watch the videos on the site directly (if that's not a requirement, you could simply upload any video file using the bundled files plugin and members could download the video files and watch them on their computer instead).

    If you are not interested in hosting the video files on your own server (keep in mind that this might easily require a lot of server disc space) but only want the site members to be able to add/embed videos for example for youtube or vimeo, you don't need ffmpeg. For this use case you can use iZAP Videos and just disable the on-server support in the plugin settings (my fork of iZAP Videos available at https://elgg.org/plugins/1913474 supports youtube, vimeo and dailymotion at the moment).

    If you want on-server videos you need to learn how to install ffmpeg. I can't give you specific advice here as it depends on your server to a large extend how to install it. You should get in contact with the support of your webhoster to ask them if it is maybe already installed or if they even allow it to be used (on shared servers they might not allow it explicitely and you are most likely not even able to install it on your own anyway). And the support of your webhoster might also help you to install ffmpeg or maybe even does it for your (depending on your hosting plan). If the support isn't willing to help (but you are allowed to install ffmpeg) I would suggest to google for instructions (specific for the OS used on your server and maybe other config details of the server, too, like availability of package managers etc).

  • Thank you guys i will chek on google, i want to install ffmpeg in windows server 2012, the server is one of my pc, so i dont have problems to admin it.

  • Hello again, the problem with ffmpeg seem be fixed, now, i got 2 problems more,
    1st In server analysis:
    I dont know what is the PHP interpreter and how i dont know i let the dafault value there but in when i see the server analysis in the Izap Video everything is green but PHP Interpreter test that fail because: "PHP interpreter not found"
    2nd When i check the queue status it always say NOT RUNNING. I upload a video and it got put in the queue but the conversion dont start, the thumbnail is generate automaticly but the video conversion doesn't work. I think that is not a problem of ffmpeg because the thumbnail works. Maybe both problems 1st and 2nd are the same.
    Thank you for reading and answer. Sorry bad english.

  • The path to the php interpreter is server specific. Therefore, I can't say for sure what you would have to enter here. I can only say that php must be installed somewhere on your server because Elgg does require it, too.

    The problem with the conversion not starting might be connected with the php executable not found. Additionally, you need to configure the cronjobs of Elgg on your server because the video conversion queue is triggered by a cronjob (by default the minute cronjob). More info about Elgg's cronjobs can be found at http://learn.elgg.org/en/2.0/admin/cron.html. Though it is again a server-specific issue how to set up the cronjobs, so I can't give you any advice here either (I have absolutely no experience with Windows servers anyway).