[TYPO3-dam] New DAM based media player + Virtual file references in the DAM

[Dan Osipov]

DAM is not meant for remote video streams, or for remote files for that 
matter. This would be a new feature request, and would require a major 
restructuring.

As far as the last point - if you're using the latest trunk version, it 
contains a Media Types sub module under tools, which allows you to add 
new media types. If you're using an older version, you can add your 
types to $GLOBALS['T3_VAR']['ext']['dam']['file2mime'] and 
$GLOBALS['T3_VAR']['ext']['dam']['file2mediaCode'] arrays in your extension.

Dan Osipov
Calkins Media
http://danosipov.com/blog/

Alban Cousinié wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
>  
> 
> I am currently working on developping a multimedia library frontend plugin :
> 
> It is expected to list the audio/video medias based on their categories and
> archive flag and to allow users to focus on a media to visualize it using
> the media player.
> 
> It should be capable of showing up videos, audio and images using the JW
> media player at first (which unfortunately should be licenced for commercial
> use), than I may add 
> 
> later support for akamaï's open video player
> (http://www.openvideoplayer.com/) when the new release based on the new
> Adobe's open source Media Framework initiative Actionscript 3.0
> (www.opensourcemediaframework.com) will be available.
> 
>  
> 
> My goal is to have this plugin DAM based, and so far picking a physical
> video file from the DAM works nice.
> 
>  
> 
> But I am currently facing one big issue related to the design of the DAM : 
> 
>  
> 
> One feature wich is mandatory for me in this project is the ability to play
> remote streams from a flash media server. For such a purpose, I need to be
> able to create "virtual" DAM media elements : elements that appear in the
> database as records with all the metadata required to display their
> information properly, but which don't exist as files in the filesystem
> because they are distant RTMP streams or, say, youtube videos. 
> 
> What I expect to do is to have users manually create a "media" record in the
> "media" folder, set its media type to "video" or "audio", type in the
> interesting metadata, then provide a remote URL as a media source. 
> 
>  
> 
> This very problematic with the DAM for 2 reasons :
> 
>  
> 
> 1) Typo3 allows creating a DAM 'media' record manually, but won't allow the
> users to set the media type, nor the media source (path+filename) manually
> because these properties are read only due to the fact the DAM only expects
> media records to be created by the indexer by design.
> 
>  
> 
> 2) I have come up with a solution that extends tx_dam table, makes the media
> type selectable in the UI and adds  an 'advanced media source' field for
> specifying  a RTMP stream. So far so good... 
> 
> Now when I want to pick that record in the media player plugin flexform
> (wich opens up the DAM media wizard), I can't find any record created
> manually because the DAM wizard appears to only look for records which have
> a matching file located in the filesystem). I can overcome the problem by
> having users creating video placeholders as dummy .txt files renamed to .flv
> in the filesystem, but this really is not handy.
> 
>  
> 
> I do really like the DAM and find it a great idea to have come up with such
> an asset management tool for centralizing all Typo3 media management. I
> beleive it should be able to handle all media types and it would be too bad
> if I had to add another proprietary extension table for handling streaming
> media while the DAM should obviously be capable of doing the job. However
> this means quite important changes to the DAM as the media record have to be
> fully editable for the users, and the wizard has also to be modified to be
> able to display records that don't match a file in the filesystem. I wish we
> could come up with a solution for this.
> 
>  
> 
> One last problem I'm facing is when I filter the records in the DAM wizard
> using the video selection, only .avi and .wmv video types appear as
> available under the 'video' entry of the selection, while I have numerous
> .flv and f4v files indexed in the filesystem. If anyone can instruct me on
> how to add .flv and .f4v video types to the selection filter, that'd be
> helpful.
> 
>  
> 
> Best regards,
> 
>  
> 
> Alban Cousinié
>