QuickTime Embed
QuickTime Embed is a WordPress plugin made to ease the pain of inserting QuickTime movies manually. Once installed, QuickTime movies can be added in your blog posts using simple, intuitive inline [qt:] tags.
Geoff’s QuickTime Javascript is used to detect and insert QuickTime movie, making this implementation XHTML compliant.
Vodcasting is supported. Links to download iPod version of your movie can be inserted below your embedded QuickTime movie, if desired.
Features
- uses simple, intuitive tags to generate QuickTime movies for your posts
- standards compliant: valid XHTML
- movie autostart can be globally turned on or off
- supports poster movie
- supports text only output for RSS that ask reader to visit the original post for QuickTime content
- supports vodcasting
- requires javascript to display content, but will prompt user to enable Javascript when disabled
- no annoying ActiveX pop ups for users that do not have QuickTime installed
Usage
There are 3 different ways to use the [qt:] tags, each method differs by the number of arguments you need to provide within the tags. Here’s a list of the possible cases:
- Embed a QuickTime movie only
- Embed a QuickTime movie with poster movie
- Embed a QuickTime movie with poster movie and iPod video download link
QuickTime movie only
3 input arguments are required, they are:
- path to the movie
- movie’s width in pixels
- movie’s height in pixels
Example input:
Example output:
QuickTime movie with poster
To use poster movie, make sure $qt_useposter (see Options) is set to 1. If $qt_autoposter is set to 1, poster movie argument need not be entered i.e. the tag usage is the same as the previous case above.
If $qt_posterpath is not defined, the poster movie is assumed to be named with the same filename (no extension) as the movie but with “_poster.mov” appended to it. If it is, the poster movie is assumed to be in the poster directory and with the same filename as the movie file.
For explicit poster movie location, 4 input arguments are required, they are:
- path to the movie
- path to the poster movie
- movie’s width in pixels
- movie’s height in pixels
Take note that the height of your poster movie should be 16px larger than the height of the main movie. The reason for this is that when poster movie is shown, the QuickTime controller will be hidden.
Example input:
Example output:
QuickTime movie with poster and iPod video download
5 input arguments are required, they are:
- path to the movie
- path to the poster movie
- path to the iPod format video
- movie’s width in pixels
- movie’s height in pixels
The default text link for downloading the iPod format video are “iPod version”. You can change this text to something else such as “Download podcast” if you wish by changing some of the options. Please refer to the Options section for more information.
Example input:
Example output:
iPod version (2.7 MB)
Users without QuickTime or Javascript
Unfortunately, not all of your users might have QuickTime installed on their computer. When it happens, the mighty QuickTime Javascript will detect and output appropriate messages that prompt these users to download and install QuickTime onto their computers. Here’s an example screenshot that show you how this works:
While most modern browser supports Javascript, some users are too afraid that Javascript will screw up their computer so they turn it off just to be safe. This becomes a problem because this WordPress plugin relies on Javascript to display the QuickTime movie (in order to be XHTML compliant). To solve this problem, “noscript” tags are used to prompt these users to enable their Javascript and refresh the page for the QuickTime movie to show up. Here’s an example screenshot:
Text only output:
By default, this plugin will output text that reads “[See post to watch QuickTime movie]” for your RSS feeds only. I don’t think there’s a point to include any Javascript or QuickTime embedding code in your feeds. :P
Options
Hopefully this plugin will work as desired in an “out of the box” way so that you don’t need to change anything. However, few extra parameters can still be tweaked if you want to have extra control over the plugin’s output.
Since this plugin is still in its early stage, setting options via the WordPress admin panel is not supported yet. For now, you will need to open up the php file using either your favourite text editor or WordPress built-in plugin editor to change some of the variables you can find near the top of the code.
$qt_autostart: 0 to disable autostart, 1 to enable (strongly discouraged as it’s annoying from a user perspective)$qt_kioskmode: 0 to disable kiosk mode, 1 to enable (when enabled, right click menu is disabled)$qt_targetcache: 0 to disable caching of target movie, 1 to enable (target movie = main movie when poster movie is in effect)$qt_showcontrol: 0 to disable controller, 1 to enable (this only affects movies with no poster)$qt_useposter: 0 to disable poster feature, 1 to enable$qt_autoposter: 0 to disable automatic poster*, 1 to enable (take effect when no poster argument is given)$qt_globalposter: path to global poster (e.g. “/poster.mov”), this overrides everything, leave blank to disable$qt_posterpath: path to poster movies (e.g. “/poster/”), used when only filename is given as poster argument i.e. not absolute or site relative path$qt_moviepath: path to directory storing QuickTime movies (e.g. “/qt/”), used when only filename is given as movie argument$qt_ipodtext: text link to download iPod format video
* the plugin will append movie filename with “_poster.mov” as poster movie if $qt_posterpath is undefined, or look for poster movie with the same filename in the directory storing poster movies if defined
Installation
- Download and extract the “quicktime-embed” folder
- Upload the “quicktime-embed” folder to your WordPress plugin directory, usually “wp-content/plugins”
- Activate the plugin in your WordPress admin panel
Upgrade
- Deactivate the plugin in your WordPress admin panel
- Remove the “quicktime-embed” folder in your WordPress plugin directory
- Follow the installation guide above
Download
QuickTime Embed plugin 0.2 for WordPress (6kb .zip)
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Support
If you have any questions, suggestions, or found any bugs in this plugin, feel free to post them in your comments. I’ll try my best to answer them but there’s no guarantee, so don’t be disappointed if you do not hear back from me promptly. :/ If you find this plugin useful and feel like donating some money for my effort, please use the PayPal link below, thanks! <3
History
0.2 [2008.03.02]
- Major rewrite of the code
- Added: show hide controller feature
- Added: target cache feature
- Added: custom movie and poster path feature
- Added: global poster feature
- Added: global enable/disable poster feature
- Fixed: automatically detect .m4v filesize
- Fixed: height + 16px hassle
0.1.1 [2007.10.08]
- Fixed: server path error
- Added: kiosk mode support
0.1 [2006.07.09]
- Initial release
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{ 45 trackbacks }
{ 260 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
Thanks a lot for this plugin!
I have 2 questions. When I put my .mov alone, it works well, but when I put it with a poster, it doesn’t – just waiting after the clic without putting the vidéo on. Any idea?
Second: is it possible to use streaming files with the plugin?
Thanks a lot to take time to help!
This is a great Plug-in.
Worked “out of the box”.
Thank you!!!
email me if you want any help or add me on skype: aubreyisland
First of all, sorry for the late reply! aubrey island, you’re absolutely right and I should have included that in my code. I was thinking about the different case of hiding and showing controller bar when I wrote the first version. Anyway, a better approach is to write a code that decide itself if the 16px should be added and add it automatically if required. This way user only needs to worry about the actual dimension of the QuickTime movie. I’ll definitely get this done for the next version, and thanks for sharing your code with better vodcasting options. I’m not too familiar with iTunes podcast via FeedBurner but I guess I could look into that and improve the vodcast support in the next version.
chuck, you’re right about the siteurl vs. blogurl issues. I have learnt my lesson with my “Star Ratings for Reviews” plugin since some users can’t get it to work on their blogs. I’ll have this issue fixed for the next version. Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.
Hi,
Nice plugin! You should use the wordpress URI instead of the blog URI for this reason:
Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory
The path is incorrect to your javascript file and I suspect that is why Luke is having problems too.
chuck
I created a simple version with better Vodcasting (iTunes) options at http://evercambio.com/2007/01/02/qt/
hey I did
$height = intval($height) + 16;to fix the 16 extra pixels!I also did some mods to include embedding the QT in the feeds. Is this GPLv2? Do you want that code?
Hi Luke, I tried your code and it works perfectly fine, meaning there’s no syntax error. If possible, you should send me a link to the post you are having problem with (leave the problem qt tags in there), and I should be able to find out what’s wrong from the XHTML source code. :)
hay, i’m probably making some kind of stupid mistake, but when i use the plugin absolutly nothing happens. i’m trying to du this:
[qt:http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbol/uk/movies/musicandlyrics/musicandlyrics_tlrf1_qt_500.mov 480 256]but the result is absolutly nothing in the entry. what am i doing wrong, i’m using your star rating plugin (it’s great by the way) and have no problems there.hay, don’t know if anyone else was stupid like me, but if you don’t have the files inside the actual quicktime-embed folder on your server, and u have taken them out and done something differen’t, it won’t work. needed to actually have those files inside the folder.
Troz
Hi Editor, your problem is most likely caused by the center aligned <div> you used. Your K2 style probably inserts extra padding for each div container, which contributes to the huge gap between elements.
You might want to remove the div align thing altogether (to see the difference), and if you still want to insert the copyright notice directly below the QuickTime video, you can consider assigning a special CSS class to the copyright and give it a negative top margin e.g. margin-top: -5px; (it will probably look nicer too if you make the font smaller ;)
Hope that helps! :)
P.S. I might consider adding optional parameter in the future release that allows users to insert copyright messages
I love the plugin, it worked like a charm the first timeout with no problems.
I’d like to know how to change the spacing above and below the QT movie. If you could help me I’d appreciate it. My site looks like it has too much spacing already and I’d like to condense it.
http://blog.inspiringmen.com/
Dear Eyn,
The site is not open to the public yet so I am not so keen on giving the link away. Anyway, since I wrote my message here I have researched some more about plugins and might have a look at your code sometime in the near future. If I find the bug I will let you know.
cheers,
Thor
Hi Thor, I’m not too sure why it’s doing that, you might want to point me to the specific page that give you that problem.
kim, use this tag style when you want to embed QuickTime videos, I think the tags you used are wrong.
[qt:/filmtrailers/2GIRLSFORSTREAMING.mp4 320 240]Thanks for this plugin, Eyn!
I am very new to webstuff and not sure why this isnt working,
a url issue?
any chance you might know?
same issue as #11 (sheriff)?
Thanks again!
kim
http://kimwood.org/ponderings/?page_id=5
Hi,
Thanks heaps for this great plug-in.
I ahev one minor problem though, and wondered if you knew why this happens:
When I write e.g.
[qt:/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/filmtestlarge.mov 425 256]
in my blog, it gets turned into the correct javascript code on the website, EXCEPT the dot before “mov” in the filename, which is converted to hex 00. This means the player is looking for a file with no extension. Stripping the extension of the uploaded file solves the problem, but it is weird isn’t it?
Thor
Ah! Thanks eyn!
Yeah, I think I’ll be looking into the parsing for the excerpt. It happens often enough to warrant it. Though I know very little about coding, I’ll jump in and let you know what I find. ;-)
Thanks again for this wonderful plugin!
First of all, glad your problem is solved, Daniel. Some plugins like this one only parse post content and not the excerpt. If you want the functionality, you can manually add a filter to the plugin yourself that parse the excerpt, or you could solve it the way you just did.
TremensS, I need “live” examples that show me your problems, written description like that doesn’t really give me enough information to give you my best advice. Controller bar are hidden when a poster movie is shown, but it should show in any other situations.
Hello,
I just tried and implement your seducing plug-in.
BUT, a couple of problems:
- no matter how high I set dimensions, the controller bar will never show;
- each time I enter WP (no even the post featuring the video; entering administration is enough), my test video resumes playing; as if it paused last time I closed my browser (only way to shut the video down, since I have no controller bar…)
I guess the second symptom may be linked to the first one; if in some way the absence of any Quicktime command prevents the QT “session” to close properly…
So, any idea for this controller bar?
Thanks for your help
TsS
That’s good Daniel!! I couldn’t read the comments earlier, but you solved it by your way ;) Greetings
AHA! It works now! The switches I used:
the_excerpt_reloaded( 120, ‘‘, ‘content’, TRUE, ‘READ MORE >>’, FALSE, 1, FALSE);
Ah, I see. The Quicktime Embed isn’t working because when viewing categories, the HTML is stripped from the post. So Excerpt_Reloaded will fix that. NICE.
So, I found theloop.php and found the the_excerpt() call. I replaced it with the_excerpt_reloaded(); but I’m not sure where to go from here.
Now I see the call for the quicktime in my posts instead of the actual player.
what switches did you use to make it work?
Hey Thanks, Mr. Anderson,
I’m sorry, but I’m a noob when it comes to code. How did it work for you? Or better asked, how do I use Excerpt_reloaded to fix the problem?
Thanks, man, I appreciate your help. :-)
Have you tryed the excerpt_reloaded plugin… it seems it solves the problem ;)
First off, I love this plugin! It’s the best implementation I’ve found.
I have a bit of a problem with running it with the K2 theme. It works on every section of the theme except for viewing categories.
An example:
http://www.redforty.com/press/category/videos/spots/
I’m guessing the Javascript of the K2 theme is preventing the plugin from firing, but I can’t figure out why it only happens in the categories.
Thanks for the help!
Oh, PS. What is Kiosk mode?
Hi Walter, I’ll add kioskmode option in the next version, for now, you can try this updated version to see if kioskmode works for you. :)
Is there a way to enable kioskmode?
Thanks,
Walter
Using your plugin with an rtsp link works fine when I use a poster movie. Thanks for the help with this and good work with the plugin. I haven’t tested the new version of your code because I prefer that the user needs to click on the poster before the video starts. I use a poster which says ‘click to watch’ so the user knows what to do and the video doesn’t just play auto each time the page is displayed.
Thanks again,
Darren
Hi Darren, I’m not too sure but I believe my initial version should work with rtsp links, provided that poster movie link is given when using the qt tags. Doing so will show the poster frame first, then when the user click on the poster, rtsp server will be contacted and will attempt to stream the video.
Anyway, I made some changes to the plugin to support rtsp link better, you can download the fixed version here (just replace the older php file with this one). I am not sure if it’s working properly since I do not have a streaming server activated on my host so I cannot test this myself. Please give me feedback if this fix works for you. You will need to provide a dummy poster movie for this fixed version (i.e. provide a valid poster argument when using the qt tags), and the difference from previous version is that now user will connect to the rtsp server right away without them clicking the poster movie.
Hi,
This is a neat plugin. Has anyone managed to get it working with rtsp links?
As it doesn’t seem to work, as is, with rtsp links I wondered if it could be tweaked so that it used Apple’s AC_QuickTime.js code instead. I think it would just involve changing some of the parameters and the order they are in when calling the function. Has anyone attempted this?
Thanks,
Darren
So, the plugin rocks.. which leaves only one question.. where can I get the whole video that you used for an example in this post?
Hi !
Your plugin is very nice !!! I love it !
But I think that something is missing… a quicktag button in the editor tool… !
Do you know how to make it work ?
Thx !
sorry to take up so many of your comments with this issue. Turns out it was a conflict with another plugin.. the polite-ifier.. I love your plugin! thank you very very much. take good care!
I’m sorry but your code works for me when I copy and paste them into my blog post and ststic page like this one. The problem you have right now is not with the JS file but with the PHP file. Does the plugin work for you when you try to embed a QuickTime video in a normal blog post instead of a static page? Honestly, I can’t see the problem right now, you might want to try deactivate the plugin, delete the “quicktime-embed” folder from your plugins folder, then go through the installation steps again.
If still nothing works, you can try reaching me on MSN messenger. Just send me an email (can be found in the plugin php file) with you messenger handle and I’ll try to contact you back.
I’m so sorry! please have a look: http://www.artsy.ca/featured
I have the quicktime-embed folder with all the files, the plugin is activated.. but you can see that on the above page near the bottom
[qt:http://www.artsy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/nigel_demo.mp4 288 254]
the tag simply renders but no movie… could it be that it’s because I’m using an mp4 movie? this is handled by the quicktime plugin too as far as I know.. if I put a regular set of quicktime tags
Alex, this plugin is supposed to work with pages as well. For example, this plugin page itself is a page, and as you can see the QuickTime video works. :) I believe you might have downloaded the older zip package that doesn’t include the js file. It’s my mistake, please download the new zip package that has everything included, and upload the “qtobject.js” to your “quicktime-embed” folder under plugins.
Hopefully it works for you this time. Sorry for the trouble. :p
Hello! this looks like a great plugin, however.. it doesn’t seem to work on pages.. is there a trick to get it to work? like adding a filter somewhere perhaps? Any help is appreciated.
Unfortunately, Sandi, the answer is no. I’m not sure how Blogger works, but if you can insert code to your XHTML header, you could implement this manually by importing the Javascript “qtobject.js” in the <head>, then call the Javascript appropriately in your blog post. It will look something like this:
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
var myQTObject = new QTObject("/video/eyn/demo.mov", "demo", "480", "256");
myQTObject.addParam("autostart", "false");
myQTObject.write();
//-->
</script>
<noscript>(Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page)</noscript>
Change the parameters accordingly when using. The <noscript> part is optional, just to make it more user friendly for people who doesn’t have Javascript turned on.
Can this be used with Blogger? I want to put a quictime video on my blog.
Hi Sheriff, I checked your site and I think you included an extra space between “qt:” and the URL to your QuickTime movie.
Also, you have forgotten to upload the Javascript “qtobject.js”.(I just realized I forgot to include the js file in the zip file, sorry, please download the updated zip again) One more advice for you is to disable directory listing by default using .htaccess since I can browse to your plugin directory to see which plugin you’ve installed. Great for helping me to find out the problem you have, but not a good idea to leave it like that if you want more security and privacy to your server. :)To disable directory listing, put in the following line to the .htaccess file in your server root:
Options -IndexesP.S. Thanks for telling me about the problem, I couldn’t believe the js file is totally missing in the zip package! *shake head* Someone should have told me earlier!
Hey there-
I am having trouble getting the plug to work. I have activated it in wordpress, and set the link to the movie as you have shown here, but still no movie playing. I have tried the other plug by QuickTime Posting. Please let me know what I am doing wrong.
Check http://www.mrandersonmd.com/?p=47
But you are right, it’s a theme problem, I’m using K2, but with Default theme it validated with no problems…
Thanks anyway… your plugin is really awesome… I will not have solved by myself…
I don’t really get your comment, MrAnderson. Are you referring to your own site or this plugin page? If you have any problem with this plugin please give me the url of the page involved. Thanks!
With all that said, it’s very unlikely that your problem has to do with this plugin since it doesn’t use any “ol” or “ul” tags.
Strangelly I get this error at the Validator
Line 213 column 6: end tag for “ol” which is not finished.
Finally it works. the old rule: keep on tryin … thx a lot.
It doesn’t work for me. I used this form to publish the movie to my new blog
[qt:/www.opami.com/wp-content/demo.mov http://www.opami.com/wp-content/demo_poster.mov 480 256]
So what’s wrong with it? Anyway it looks pretty good in your site, cuz it’s working there! keep on!
best wishes
klaus from germany
Thanks for the link she, if I do decided to use their method then I’ll probably just make a new plugin and rename this one to QuickTime Embed JS or something like that. :)
Newton, thanks for the compliment. The girl singing in the video is Ai Otsuka (大塚 愛) and the song name is Kingyo Hanabi (金魚花火), which literally translate as “Goldfish Fireworks”. I’ve written a few reviews about her music and if you are interested, feel free to visit our forum to find out more about her. ^^
Congratulations for this great job!
Hey… Can you tell me who is singing in the video, and the name of the music?
Very nice work!
For web standard of your quicktime plugin, thinking about this link would be good.
Anyway thank you very much! and moreover i’m moved by contents of this blog.