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https://github.com/eins78/wp-video-server


https://github.com/eins78/wp-video-server

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README 

        
=== WordPress Video Solution Framework ===



Contributors: Automattic, Inc.

Tags: WordPress video, video solution

Requires at least: 2.6

Tested up to: 2.8

Stable tag: trunk



Video solutions framework, including player, transcoder and administration interface utilities as WordPress MU plugin. 

It powers WordPress.com video solutions and supports multiple formats including HD. 

It is designed as a video solution for *large scale self-hosted WordPress MU systems*. 

However, it is easy to work on a single server system as well. 



== Description ==



This package contains the video solutions framework, including transcoder and administration interface utilities, written in PHP. 

The code was developed by Automattic, Inc., and powers WordPress.com video solutions.

It supports multiple formats, including HD, and also supports open video (theora/ogg). 

It is an open source project, which means you can reuse it, build upon it, and share it with the community.



**Warning**

*This plugin is different from other plugins because it can not be used "out-of-the-box".

It is intended for self-hosted large scale WordPress MU sites that want to develop their own customized video solutions. 

In addition to Web servers for WordPress MU , it requires at least one file server and one dedicated video transcoder. 

(although it will work on single server system as well). *



Contained is a whole package of video solution code. 

It can be used as the foundation for a full-fledged video system. 

Individual components such as the video player and transcoder are reusable as well.



The video architecture has three key steps: 



1. User uploads raw video to admin web server



2. Transcoder transcodes the video into h.264 mp4 (standard, DVD, and HD), and produces thumbnails



3. File server downloads the mp4 and thumbnail images, then replicates files



The screenshots section contains the video architecture diagram.



Send your feedback or questions to: hailin AT automattic.com



== Installation ==



Steps to modify and deploy the video solution:



1.

Make sure the following directories under your WordPress root directory already exist. 

Create them if necessary: wp-content/mu-plugins  and wp-content/plugins/video/



Copy files in server/mu-plugins/ to your_WP_root/wp-content/mu-plugins; 

and copy files in server/plugins/video/ to your_WP_root/wp-content/plugins/video/



Carefully study the source code, understand your system environment, and configure the domain names contained in video-config.php 



2.

Create a database and table named "videos," which is used to store individual video meta information.

The sql script file is server/setup/videos-table.txt.

Every video corresponds to one row in the table.



Note that version 1.0 has altered the videos table structure. 

If you are upgrading from version 0.9, please add the missing columns, 

then run server/utilities/video-backfill-files.php to backfill the new columns. Otherwise your existing videos won't play. 



3.

Set up a dedicated transcoder server with Linux/Unix operation system.

You'll need to first install the whole WPMU package and this plugin code because the transcoder uses general blog functions as well.

In addition, follow server/setup/transcoder-setup.txt to install the transcoding utilities.

Once the entire transcoding utilities are installed, go to server/setup directory and run the following command to verify the installation:



php video-verify-ffmpeg.php



The above command downloads a sample video, and tries to use the ffmpeg you just installed to transcode it.

If it can successfully transcode the video, it prints out the message "Congratulations! ffmpeg is installed correctly."



If you see an error message, make sure the transcoder is installed successfully.

The transcoder is the heart of any video system, and it must work correctly.



Version 1.0 and later supports theora/ogg, so you need ffmpeg1theora. 

Follow instructions on http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/install64.html 

to install ffmpeg2theora to /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg2theora



4.

Determine your file serving infrastructure and file serving URL schemes.

Set up your system environments. One URL serving sample is described in the extra note section.



Note in version 1.0 and beyond, you don't really need to worry about the URL structure. 

Once you configure parameters in video-config.php, everything will work correctly. 



5.

Testing and customization



The video player source code is also released. The player is written in actionscript 3 using Adobe Flash CS3. 

The source code is located at directory player/ and you don't need to deploy it to your servers. 

Refer to player/readme.txt for more details. 



The software contained in this package is under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html



== Frequently Asked Questions ==



= Why does this plugin seem so complex ? =



It is not a "regular" plugin. It's a complete video solutions framework,

which handles video upload, transcoding, serving and video player.

If you just use WordPress for your own personal blog, this is not for you.

It's designed for *large scale WordPress MU systems* which host at least thousands of blogs.



Meanwhile, it's easy to adapt this plugin to be used on single server installation,

combining Web server, admin Web server and transcoder into a single server. 

 

This plugin can also be used as the foundation for a video startup company.



== Screenshots ==



1. This screenshot description corresponds to video architecture screenshot-1.png



== URL Structure ==



Sample Video URL Structure 

Note that in version 1.0 and beyond, by default you don't need to modify any .htaccess. 

However, if you want to have shorter and more concise URL structure, you can follow the example below. 



Suppose a user uploads a video, which is transcoded and processed successfully by the video system

Internally, the video is assigned the guid: hFr8Nyar. The internal shortcode produced is [wpvideo hFr8Nyar].



Before the video is displayed on a WordPress blog, the parsing function in video.php converts the shortcode into the following embed code:



``



In the above example, 

`v.mydomain.com/hFr8Nyar`

is rewritten to 

`v.mydomain.com/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?guid=f6n7RD5B`

by the following rewrite rule defined in .htaccess:



`RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^v\.mydomain\.com`

`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/videofile/`

`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/wp-content/`

`RewriteRule ^([^/]+) /wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?guid=$1&video_info_path=http://v.mydomain.com/wp-content/plugins/video/video-xml.php [L,R=302]`



Once the player (flvplayer.swf) is loaded, it receives the video guid, and path to obtain video XML information. 

then the flash player queries video-xml.php to retrieve all the relevant information about a video, 

including different formats, thumbnail images, duration, and other meta information.



For example, for the above guid hFr8Nyar, the video player queries and obtains the following xml data.



Here's a link to [video xml information for guid hFr8Nyar](http://v.wordpress.com/wp-content/plugins/video/video-xml.php?guid=hFr8Nyar "video xml information")



The player then intelligently loads the most suitable video files and plays the video.

For example, if the player checks the embed width and height, and decides that it is best to fetch and play the smaller version, 

it will use the fmt_std section of the xml file and request the corresponding movie file and original thumbnail images.



As you can see in this example, the video files URL structure has the following format:

blog_domain.videos.mydomain/guid/format



The important thing is to use a consistent structure and you can serve the files accordingly.



On the system side, you need to make sure you can serve the video files according to the URL structure.



The following rules are configured in .htaccess for this purpose:



`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$`

`RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.+)\.videos\.mydomain\.com`

`RewriteRule (.*) http://%1.mydomain.com/ [R,L]`



`RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.+)\.videos\.mydomain\.com`

`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !blogs.php`

`RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f`

`RewriteRule ^([^/]+)/(.*)/(.*)$  /wp-content/blogs.php?video_guid=$1&type=$2&format=$3 [L]`



In the above, the video is served by /wp-content/blogs.php. This is a purely system-specific example. 

You will need to determine how you will serve your videos, either from your own local data server or using CDN.



== Change Log ==



version 1.0  (Sep 2009)



1. restructured videos table to accomdate theora/ogg and added new columns std_files, dvd_files, hd_files, etc to make file dependencies more explicit.

   If you have a working previous version, and have live videos to serve, you must run video-backfill-files.php to update your table. 

   

2. support media rss in feed



3. support many other features such as ratings, dynamic thumbnail capture feature in admin panel



4. support open video 



5. simplified the setup requirement dramatically



6. fixed a few bugs reported by community members



version 0.9 (July 2009)



1. first released version.