Indymedia Upgraded to Allow Multiple Embedded Videos and Audio

Friday August 01, 2008 02:00

by admin - 1 of Indymedia Collective

Stories and comments can now include multiple embedded videos and audios

The software used to run the Indymedia website has now been upgraded with the latest release (Oscailt 3.2) which now allows users to post stories and comments with multiple embedded videos and audios.

Previously you could only have embedded one video per story or comment. The embedded video was also recently upgraded a few months back to allow for embedded Politube.org video which are preferrable to YouTube videos because of licensing and the fact that they support independent media outlets and activists and are a non profit organisation.

Embedded Video:
The method to publish a embedded video is similar to the pre-existing scheme except now you must not only select the embedded video type but also the number of them. A corresponding number of text boxes will then appear for you to enter the video ids. As before you must enter the video ID. In the case of Politube this is s simple number like 817

Note: All the embedded videos have to be of the same type in any given story or comment.

Embedded Audio:
These are really just external links to .mp3 files and the Oscailt software will display an embedded audio player as in the example below. This is a GPL licensed player and unfortunately does not have all the full set of features of a commercial player. The player will also be displayed for ordinary audio files but will appear blue for embedded or external audio and green for audio (mp3) files uploaded to Indymedia.

To publish just select the number of embedded audio links and then a text box will appear and enter in the full URL to the external mp3 file.

Event Publishing Update:
The other significant visible change to Indymedia from this software release is that you can now enter the Start Time of an event. If it is not entered then it defaults to 00:00 and does not get displayed.

The rest of the changes to Oscailt are largely internal and do not affect the external visible part of the site but overall they make the software more useful and robust. For more info see click on the Oscailt logo at the bottom of the page to go to the Oscailt Source Forge page.

Examples:
The two embedded videos are part 1 and 2 of an interview on YouTube of Richard Heinberg about the topic of Peak Oil. Heinberg is a well known writer and thinker on this topic.

The two sample embedded audios are part 1 and 2 of an audio interview (or podcast) of Phillip Sutton of Climate Code Red by Jason Bradford on the Reality Report hosted on Global Public Media. The title of this programme is: Climate Code Red: The Case for a Sustainability Emergency

The existing Editorial Guidelines that are used for text and images will apply to the publishing of embedded video as for stories and comments. Similar to the guidelines for Other Press (relating to stories and media that are published elsewhere on the web), embedded video should be accompanied with a summary or description of the video and its context.