video

One of the last major projects I was privileged to work on (along with some other awesome colleagues) while I was working as the Director of Web Development for the Archdiocese of St. Louis (see 'A New Job' on my blog for more info) was the Eucharistic Congress website and video.

One of the major benefits of using a robust content management system like Drupal (which archstl.org uses) is that you can actually build 'special sites' that highlight certain events or causes without building an entirely separate website. For example: Every organization in the Archdiocese has it's own website, with its own content managers, its own forms, news pages, articles, etc. through the use of Drupal's 'Organic Groups' module.

For the 2011 Eucharist Congress, instead of building a separate website, and then linking back to the Archdiocesan website, we built a single page template for the Congress home page (using a standard Drupal template (.tpl.php) file), and then set up all the rest of the content (a registration form, some information pages, etc.) in Drupal.

The results are pretty impressive (you have to visit the site to see the jQuery-enabled page load effects, which look great on any device—no Flash here!):

In addition to this awesome website (the front end was designed by Ben G., who works in the Archdiocese's Catholic Youth Apostolate), an excellent video highlighting the Eucharist was produced, and is visible (in HD!) on YouTube:

Kudos to the team who helped with all of these promotional materials for the Eucharistic Congress! I think this raises the bar, or at least pushes it a little, for Catholic dioceses hoping to spread the word about their larger events!

For the past year, I've watched the HTML5 <video> element debate (mostly over video formats/containers) with a great interest—I abhor having to use Adobe Flash on my sites to embed video, especially since that means many videos don't work on my Linux workstation (which doesn't have Flash), or on my iPhone/iPad.

The HTML5 <video> element (and similarly, the less-supported <audio> element) promises to take away the stress of having to have flash players, FLV-encoded video, etc. just to show a viewer a non-static piece of content.

In its simplest form, you can add the following code to embed a video on your page:

<video src="video-file.m4v"></video>

On my Drupal sites, I've been wanting to be able to simply grab an m4v video exported from iMovie, QuickTime, or straight from my camera, attach it to a post via a filefield, and have it display. In the old days, I would use SWFTools to embed the video using Flash.

I've found a solution that, in my opinion, is much more elegant, using the <video> element, with a Flash fallback for Internet Explorer:

1. I set up a filefield with which I can attach an m4v file to a piece of content.
2. I enabled Custom Formatters (an excellent Drupal module for CCK), and set up a simple formatter for this filefield with the code below:

For the past week (and the next), I've been in the Eternal City, helping the Redemptorist community stream their 24th General Chapter. They wanted to share the proceedings in a more immediate fashion with the broader Redemptorist community around the world, and this is probably the best way to do it.

A few months ago, I was approached by the Redemptorists' communications director and asked what kind of equipment he would need to take a live video feed from a multi-camera setup, and broadcast it on Ustream (free streaming = a good solution - you can also use Watershed or a similar paid service if you need it).

I found a great little Analog-to-Digital converter from Canopus, the ADVC-55, and also purchased the ADVC-PSU5V AC Adaptor Kit with it (since the PC laptop the Redemptorists have has only a 4-pin/no-power FireWire port. I've used a variety of DV bridges in the past, and always had trouble with keeping a reliable DV stream into the computer. Luckily, the Canopus does a great job, and has not once caused a blip in the DV stream - it takes composite video in (along with audio, if need be), and converts it to a DV stream over firewire.

I didn't even have to install a driver on the Vista PC, as the DV stream acts as a generic DV-over-FireWire stream. Therefore, Ustream immediately recognized it and put it online.

For audio, we are using an output from the sound mixer, converted from XLR to 1/4" stereo minijack, and it sounds pretty good. You can easily control the volume of the signal either (a) at the board itself, or (b) using Ustream's volume slider. Note, however, that you should listen to the stream so you can see whether or not the sound is clipping. If it's clipping, you may need to use a different signal, or change the input on your computer from mic to line level.

This kind of setup works great for those who have in-house video systems, as it is probably the easiest way to convert analog video (composite, RCA-jack video, or S-video) into a usable source for Ustream, Watershed, and the like.

More on streaming via Ustream

• How to stream from TriCaster Broadcast/Pro to Ustream.tv or Watershed
• How @archstl Streamed the Installation Mass Video Online and via Satellite
• Live Streaming from an Event using Ustream or Watershed

Any other suggestions?

A nice throwback to the early days of the 'Net, when things were more orderly and peaceful... actually, this is still pretty much how things are run! My favorite character is Mr. Router. :-)

You have any good YouTube/other videos you'd like to share? Just sign in (or sign up if you don't have an account) and paste in the embed code in a new blog post!