About

  This product's goal is to make adding videos to Plone very simple. There are
  other solutions that are offering the same functionality. But non of them
  is as simple and intuitive to use.
  
  It works in standard Plone way. Flash videos can be added as any other content,
  can have workflow, security settings ect.

Flowplayer

  Flowplayer is a Flash application used to display Flash videos (.flv).
  More about it on "flowplayer.org":http://flowplayer.org. This product uses
  Flowplayer version 2.2.4.

Installation

  Good practice:

  * Stop instance

  * Backup Data.fs

  FileSystemStorage [optional]

  * Copy "FileSystemStorage 2.6.2":http://plone.org/products/filesystemstorage/releases/2.6.2/filesystemstorage-2-6-2.tgz
    to Products folder. This is optional. When installed large movie files
    will be stored in filesystem (/var/fss_storage).

  * Warning: If you start using it don't remove it later!

  * Create 2 folders for external files: 'INSTANCE/var/fss_storage' and
    'INSTANCE/var/fss_backup'. For more details see FileSystemStorage
    documentation.

  Manual installation:

  * Extract archive

  * Copy 'FlashVideo' folder to <instance>/Products folder

  Buildout:

  * Just add 'Products.FlashVideo' to you 'buildout.conf'.

 Install FlashVideo in Plone. It can be done using 'portal_quickinstaller' or
 'portal_setup'. If FileSystemStorage product is detected it will be
 installed automatically too.

Features

  * Easy to use. Creating content in standard Plone way.

  * Supports batch upload, integrated with "PloneFlashUpload":http://plone.org/products/ploneflashupload

  * Optimized. Doesn't overloads ZODB, stores FLV files in file system.

  * Multiplatform. Supports Plone 2.1, 2.5, 3.0, 3.1, works on Windows and *nix.

  * Multilingual. Can be translated to many languages.

  * Reliable and tested. All methods covered by unit and functional tests.

Content Types

  * **Flash Video**. Main content type. Just upload your FLV file
  and screenshot image that should appear in player if the movie is not playing.
  Unfortunately this product cannot "extract" the first frame and do it itself.
  But it can calculate the resolution. [Thanks to FLVHeader class. I've implemented
  parser myself instead of using existing libraries to save space and number of
  files]. In "view" mode movie will be displayed in nice Flash player (FlowPlayer)

  * **Flash Video Playlist** This element can display many Flash Videos in consequtive
  order. This is not a folder, the videos can be selected using widget similar to
  "Related items". In "view" mode we can see all thumbnails of selected videos, to
  play them use "play" link or tab. Playlist itself does not have image but for display
  purposes it uses image from first movie on its list.

  * **Flash Video Folder**. Folder that can contain only Flash Videos and Playlists.
  Has special view that displays thumbnails of movies or playslists.

Batch upload

  FTP/WebDAV

    If you are running FlashVideo-0.8.2 or older download recent version
    and reinstall product. This will ensure that Flash Video is registered in
    content types and MIME types registry. From now on you can use FTP or
    WebDAV to upload multiple files and all with 'video/x-flv' mime type
    will be saved as Flash Video objects.

  PloneFlashUpload

    We can use PFU to upload multiple vidoes. Just remember to update 
    PloneFlashUpload settings in *SiteSetup->Flash upload*.
    Add 'Flash Video' to 'Valid Portal Types' so when '.flv' file is uploded
    can be converted to right content type instead of general File.

 Caveats
 
   When uploading video id of an object will be taken from the name of the file,
   but extension .flv will be removed and also all dots will be replaced by
   underscores. This is due to some bug in Flowplayer. Also title is set
   automatically from file name. All underscores and hyphens are replaced
   by spaces and first letter is capitalized.

Testing

  Windows::
  
    <INSTANCE>/bin/test.bat -m Products.FlashVideo

  Linux::

    <INSTANCE>/bin/zopectl test -m Products.FlashVideo
 
License

  This product is free, distributed under GPL license - see 'license.txt'.
  There are special conditions to use 'FlowPlayer' - see 'flowplayer_license.txt'

Credits

 * Peter Michaels - sponsor (development of version 0.8.3)

 * "London Deanery":http://www.londondeanery.ac.uk - sponsor (development)

 * "Capital Stewards":https://www.capitalstewards.org - sponsor (development)

 * "Fry-IT":http://www.fry-it.com - sponsor (Development, Flowplayer license)
 
