Moodle in English: Video in 2.1.1+

Hi,

Last year I managed to embed a variety of flv videos in moodle 1.9. I can't recall if they were in lessons or quiz. The process was simple. The moodle install where I learned to do that was deleted ages ago because I had no time for it.

I have installed moodle 2.1.1+ and now am reconstructing material I had previously uploaded. This will hopefully include the videos..

However, although I have searched the forums and the moodledocs they referred to, I haven't found any form of understandable instructions on what I need to do if I want videos either in lessons or quizzes. I found reference to a mediaplayer for 2.0 but when I followed the link it took me to a mediaplayer which was clearly labelled as being for 1.9.

So my question is, without going to Uni for 4 years and learning coding language, how do I add video content to either (or both) lessons or quizzes?

I tried what I recall as being the old way (a space linked to a file) but that only gave me a text link which forced me to download the file and view it locally. Don't want that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 6:20 AM

I tried what I recall as being the old way (a space linked to a file) but that only gave me a text link which forced me to download the file and view it locally. Have you got your multimedia filters enabled and ll that? What type of videos are they? I've been able to use the old method in 2.1

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 7:07 AM

Mary,

I've literally only started looking at this again tonight as it's the next part of a lesson/course I wanted to add.

I looked at the multimedia filters and they're all set to on except swv and html5.

The video I uploaded as a test is an flv edited/created in ... I don't recall but probably camtasia. It may have been another program, but it just shows as flv.

That isn't an issue as whatever format is req'd I can create or convert files to it. I don't have many, so it's not a problem. What I'm trying to do is find a way that doesn't involve messing about with code (I'm okay with html, but nothing else). I've downloaded the current jwplayer a few minutes ago and put it on the server, but then I read somewhere in the forums (there are so many confusing messages) that I need a plug-in to use it with moodle. I just want plug and play!

I don't want to store files on youtube or upload/link to there. I want files on my server and no external links.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 3:08 PM

Can you go to demo.moodle.net and see if your flv will display on there? If so then we know it is an issue with your install of Moodle and not the file or something else. You shouldn't need to use the latest jwplayer because Moodle has its own player now, flowplayer, that should do this for you.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 5:23 PM

Mary,

Sorry, but are there some instructions somewhere that explain how to add a video to a quiz or lesson in 2.1? That's what I'm trying to find, without success! I don't want to link to youtube or add resource pages. I want to add video of whatever format in a lesson or quiz and want to read or see how to do it! It seems there are no instructions anywhere!

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 6:22 PM

well Brian; I did it on my 2.1 in the same way as I would have done in 1.9: I opened up a "lesson"; chose a content page and then in the tinymce editor of that page, selected some blank text, clicked the link URL button, and then clicked the box to the right of it to open up the file picker, uploaded my flv and then saved..and..it appeared? How were you doing it previously in 1.9? I will go and take a look at the documentation and if there is nothing, I will add it. EDIT What on earth am I talking about? You just use the moodle media icon and do it that way! As long as your filters are enabled. which you say they are.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 6:46 PM

Yeah, I used the moodle media icon and got a big 'you need flash player' message instead of a video, and a text link on screen and not a player, as was. I can't get what some sites. Just to show you, I tried to add a video to a random lesson page:

Here is what I get after I embed:

Then I am asked to get a different version of flash (this is actually while adding the link), but I use Win7 x64 Ultimate, and it seems there IS no flash update for this - have tried countless times. So after saving the lesson, and trying to use the flv, I get this:

All in all, this doesn't help when the video content is part of a lesson, nor do I want to share the download with everyone who registers for a course! Something isn't right...but as there are no instructions to follow, I have no idea what it is!!

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 7:00 PM

Can you embed video anywhere on your Moodle - like a label or a "page"? Do you have a log in to your Moodle so I could try from a different pc in a different country? (not that that should make a difference but you never know) Also -did you try to add your flv to demo.moodle.net as I suggested earlier?

Oh...and another thing... when I add media I too get a popup "you need to install a plugin" or whatever, and as you add the link it does come up just as a blue lik - however - I ignore both those and save -and then once saved, the video appears as OK. However, something is amiss with yours because when I replicated this on a Lesson just now and I clicked "preview", it did preview the video, whereas yours doesn't.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 8:01 PM

Mary,

I sent you a PM with log-in details. If you have time to look, I'd be grateful!

Yes, I went to the moodle demo site but couldn't work out what I could play with. Besides, even if I got it to work, I wouldn't know why...and what stops it working on mine.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 8:25 PM

I just sent you a PM back

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 9:09 PM

OK - for the benefit of others more knowledgeable: I went into Brian's Moodle -first of all; I can confirm all the settings are right for it to play media files like flv but it wasn't. I uploaded an flv to Brian's course and the same to the demo Moodle to check the URLS - the URL on the demo Moodle once uploaded and displayed and viewing page source had, unsurprisingly, a ref to videoplayer:

whereas Brian's on his page just showed the blue link with the URL as in:

So my first question is: are you absolutely sure you have flowplayer on your server in the /lib directory?

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 9:16 PM

According to cpanel...yes.

flow

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 9:20 PM

Actually; it's not just flowplayer -the first thing I tried was an mp3 and that wouldn't play in the mp3 player either.., and it's not the theme, before anyone suggests it, because I changed the theme to standard and that didn't make a difference. So somewhere along the line, Brian's Moodle is not making the connection between media files and their player .Have you changed any permissions for users at all?

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 9:32 PM

There are no users, so I haven't even thought of changing permissions!

Is there an alternative that would work, something external? I've seen reference to jwplayer but nothing about how to actually use it. In fact, there is nothing, so far as I know; no description or explanation about how to get video to function in lessons in moodle 2.0! Surely I'm missing something?

If you can't see the problem Mary, I'm sure I'll never find or fix it.

I've already lost a day and a half of work time over this. I have a week of holiday to get on with creating content and instead I'm totally unable to move forward! This is why I abandoned moodle last year - I seemed to spend more time reading forum posts about problems than working!

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 9:50 PM

Hi Brian. Don't abandon Moodle again! We will get this sorted! (if not me then someone!) There don't seem to be any pages re video in Moodle 2.0 so you have spurred me on to write some later this weekend - although I will only write the stuff we've been talking about. Your site should work! Have you tried embedding from youtube? If that works, then you could upload to youtube privately (they don't have to be public I think) and do it that way. But that is not an answer; I know. I have to go into the real world shortly but will be back to think it through again.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 10:16 PM

No, I haven't used youtube. I haven't been able to see a private files facility, but even so, I don't want stuff on a different site, private or not. Like you say, it isn't the solution anyway and whatever I set uo there I'm going to have to redo in the future.

Thanks for looking anyway. I'll leave that log-in on the server for now.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Doug Moody - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 10:33 PM

Brian,

Your trials sound a lot like mine several weeks ago. I settled on placing vidoes as files (resource-add file) When users click on the file link, it opens in Flowplayer. Embedding a link in an HTML page using the "Moodle Media" icon never worked for me.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Saturday, 20 August 2011, 11:39 PM

Doug,

I've seen other comments too. However, when you want to incorporate something in a lesson, resources in pop-ups aren't so helpful. I just wish I knew what other programs would do the job.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 12:19 AM

Doug -who is your webhost? I know Brian's is hostgator. (just looking for clues...)

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 12:44 AM

Mary,

I went into cpanel and dug out the error_log. It's 16mb in 4 days....

It keeps saying certain things in php aren't set up or working properly. I had this with hostgator before...Every time moodle requires a higher level of php, it turns out to be a level hostgator can't quite offer. I forget what module was missing last time (they said they couldn't add it as it would require .....). I suspect this may well have some bearing on what's going on.

Have just fired off a query..

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 1:23 AM

Told you..

Here's what the tech wizards at hostgator who set up the php have to say:

"The main website on your account insegnanti-inglese.com is configured to run PHP scripts with PHP 5.3, but was loading a php.ini configuration file built for PHP 5.2. This is the reason for the errors regarding API version mismatches. I have set your account to use the correct PHP configuration file, and the errors have stopped. "

Will let you know if this makes any difference..

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 1:27 AM

hmm..that's a bit spooky because I was having similar problems on another forum thread with another person I was helping with Just as long as Hostgator's definition of "correct configuration" involves php 5.3 and not reverting back to 5.2 as the hosts on my other problem thread did -thus disabling his Moodle altogether...

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 1:46 AM

Hostgator are, in my opinion, the worst webhost you can use. I spoke to some of the moodle specialists last year but they all seem determined to make people pay at least £1000 a year, even for a site that it not operational. Vampires.

So, I stayed with hostgator. Sadly they leave a lot to be desired, even if they are ridiculously cheaper.

In this case I have looked at a new php ini file they have added (I now have php.ini and php53.ini - who the hell knows why?) and it reads to me as if certain modules that moodle was demanding are in fact disabled. Despite requests to the contrary.

Muppets, the lot of them.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 2:00 AM

Which modules have they disabled?
Do your videos display now?

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 3:30 AM

They had given me a setup for both 5.2 and 5.3 on the same server. Christ knows how.

The modules were ;extension=magickwand.so
;extension=imagick.so
;extension=pdo.so

However, nothing has changed. They have apparently sorted out the php and enabled the missing mods, but I still have np video at all. I can link to images files and nothing else.

PLEASE will someone tell me if there is an alternative program and how to use it? I've been sitting on my pc since 10.30 this morning, and I still can't do something as basic as display a flv file.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+ (php extensions)

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 6:34 PM

Does anybody know about php? I have had problems with the server hosts, who have apparently forgottten how to set up php on a server. They finally claim to have sorted this out: "The errors should now be resolved. This was now being caused by the php53.ini file in your home directory. It needed to be updated as well for the additional modules to work." The additional modules being a selection of modules the hosts disabled because they were registering errors...because they were incorrectly set up.

Anyway, the changes they have made still do not allow me to use video with moodle unless I use youtube - is this a google conspiracy?

According to my current php ini, the following modules are enabled or disabled. Does anyone know if any of those which are disabled should in fact be enabled?

[Zend]
extension=magickwand.so
extension=imagick.so
;extension=oauth.so
extension=pdo.so
extension=sqlite.so
extension=pdo_sqlite.so
extension=pdo_mysql.so
;extension=uploadprogress.so
;extension=gnupg.so
;extension=mailparse.so
;extension=fileinfo.so
;extension="ixed.5.2.lin"
;zend_extension="/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.9/php-5.2.x/ZendOptimizer.so"

Failing errors in the above, I can't see any reason now why videos don't work. But they don't.

Brian

(Edited by Mary Cooch -to clarify the subject heading) original submission Sunday, 21 August 2011, 11:34 AM)

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Howard Miller - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 7:28 PM

I was just reading through this.... I have a few random thoughts that might help (or make things worse):

* Are we essentially saying that the multimedia filter doesn't work?
* Can you step through - slowly - the steps you are taking to upload a video. I know this sounds like a stupid question but there are a few different ways this can be done and I want to be sure
* Have you turned on Debugging? You might be 'lucky' and get some additional errors.
* Are you now 110% confident that, if you go to Site administration > Server > Environment, all requirements are properly met?

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 9:25 PM

Howard,

Thank you for replying. Okay, I shall describe step by step (and do it as I speak..) the 2 ways I normally use to try to add an flv to a lesson.

First things being obvious and equal for both attempts;
Create lesson or edit an existing one. We'll start with a content page..
Decide where to add the file, place cursor, click moodle media icon (why a guillotine?), click find file in pop-up box, choose upload file, browse, select file from my drive, give it a name, click upload. Image saying 'click here to download plug-in' arrives in preview box of file picker. Click 'insert' because there is no alternative and I already have flash player. I then see what you see below.

Click save and go to look at lesson. See this:

Following exactly the same procedure in here, with exactly the same file gives us this:

mac.flv

I have also tried by importing the video file into the repository, then accessing it as a locally stored file, following the same procedure, without any difference to the result. In each case I end up with a text link from which I can only download, not view. I have tried this in both firefox and explorer.

Now, I'm not a moodle techie otherwise I wouldn't be asking this, but Mary seems to know quite a bit about moodle and she had a peek at the setup and said it was okay. If your tech knowledge is good I'm quite happy to send you a log-in to do the same. The more the merrier!!

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 9:30 PM

Brian ! A guillotine? You have spent too much time abroad! It is a film strip

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 9:33 PM

Debugging is on, yes. The only faults showing were with reference to the various php modules I referred to earlier. However, I have now switched it to display on screen, to see what happens 'live'. The error_log is currently empty.

Maybe tthe solution is to reinstall another version of moodle? Could it be..?

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Howard Miller - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 10:21 PM

and the environment settings? I want (you) to be absolutely sure you meet the basic requirements. If you want to pm me your admin details, I don't mind having a poke around...

howardsmiller AT gmail DOT com

Does this ONLY happen with a lesson? What happens if you display a video as a (simple) file resource or embed a video in a Page resource? An example in a lesson just strikes me as quite specific. I am keen on eliminating things

I don't like this download plugin thing at all. Please tell me you have tried this on different browsers and, preferable, on a different client computer. If not please go and do it

I know you gave login details to Mary, but I really can't tell if she saw the problem at all herself.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Sunday, 21 August 2011, 10:52 PM

@Howard,

I just sent you an email.

Have just uploaded and installed this week's version of 2.1+ but it didn't change anything.

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Howard Miller - Monday, 22 August 2011, 12:31 AM

Just to update.... I seem to be able to reproduce some of this behaviour on my own 2.1.1 site. First bit looks like a bug in the filepicker (there's a surprise!). The video is shown in an object embed which doesn't work properly.

However, the multimedia filter *does* work for me, so I will investigate this aspect further on Brian's site. Watch this space.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Monday, 22 August 2011, 1:07 AM

Well, seeing as it seems it's not my incompetence or imagination, I have reported this as a bug. MDL-29032

Brian

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by Doug Moody - Monday, 22 August 2011, 6:43 AM

Brian,

As I said before, I also had similar problems. My solution was to install version 2.0.3, THEN upgrade to 2.1.1. Maybe the 2.1.1 upgrade left something out of the install. All I know is that it started working doing it this way, but trying to install an upgrade from my 1.9.10 directly to 2.1.1 never would work right.

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Re: Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Monday, 22 August 2011, 9:27 AM

@Doug,

This wasn't an upgrade. Although I set up a moodle site last year I abandoned it through lack of time....when I thought I had time to do some work, I saved the course, deleted moodle and started again. Everything new. The upgrade I referred to on here was from 2.1.1+ of last week to 2.1.1+ of this week! Thanks though.

Brian

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Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Monday, 22 August 2011, 9:44 AM

In the past two days, Mary Cooch, Howard Miller and Mary Evans have all burgled my site and had a look-see. First, thank you for that.

Today has been a weird day. However, it seems that the site is now largely working properly. I'm not sure why. There were problems with hostgator which they promised to fix this morning - I'm assuming they did, although whatever they did made no immediate difference.

Howard managed to replicate some of the problems I'd found on his own site, though I'm not entirely sure which ones.

Fed up, but at least content that there was something wrong, I reported a bug. Then I switched off the pc, totally fed up at wasting my time, and put some food in me.

5 hours later I logged on and discovered that the flv and mp3 files that I'd tagged on the front page as part of the bug report were working. My logs suggested Mary Evans had been up to mischief, as she quickly confirmed.

Mary had apparently turned on the swf filter, which I'd already tried, and also the 'allow embed and object' filter. I think she also moved the mediaplayer filter to the top of the list. Whatever that means.

I went to look at the security report and two red boxes were threatening to mug my mother if I didn't turn off the offending filters. Curious, I turned them off. The flv and mp3 continued to work - in firefox. I spoke to Mary and admitted I was baffled.

I then tried the site in IE9, first in 64bit and then 256bit (why are there two versions?) and discovered that in the 64bit version the flv and mp3 were still just line links, but in the other version they were working normally. I also tried chrome, and everything was working with that too. I went back to IE9-64 and entered the course and added another flv to a lesson. It showed as a link only. I then went into the site using firefox (3.6) and the flv displayed and worked as it should.

I have absolutely no idea now what the problem was, or why it continues to affect one of two IE browsers (or why I have 256 and 64 bit versions of the same program). However, it is now plainly less of a problem. Well, provided users don't use IE9-64.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Howard, I'd love to know what problems you identified with filepicker, because I don't know what they were and if they still apply! I suppose I'd better scratch the bug report, even if I don't know why...!

Thanks to those who offered help and suggestions; most appreciated. When it explodes again and refuses to work tomorrow I'll need to ask you for help again!

Brian

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by Howard Miller - Monday, 22 August 2011, 1:57 PM

The problem I had was the filepicker's preview of the video you had just uploaded. It did the 'you don't have the right plugin' thing when you plainly do. At a glance, the object embed looked wrong to me but I'm not a expert.

Everything else worked fine for me (a completely vanilla 2.1.1+ install)

Glad you got it working.

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Monday, 22 August 2011, 11:52 PM

Thanks Howard,

I appreciate you taking the time yesterday.

Brian

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by Jon Witts - Monday, 22 August 2011, 8:09 PM

Brian

The two versions of IE are because you have a 64bit Version of Windows installed. The Windows operating system will let you run native (64 bit) applications and also the older (and perhaps still more common) 32 bit applications.

However, the lovely people at Adobe have not developed a 64 bit version of the Flash plugin for IE 64 bit; hence why the flv videos are only showing as text links in IE 9 64 bit yet work in IE 9 32 bit... There is no Flash plugin in your 64 bit browser to display the embedded flv file...

A pain I know; but it is even more fun getting Flash video to play reliably on 64 bit Ubuntu Linux that I run...

Jon

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by brian avery - Monday, 22 August 2011, 11:53 PM

@Jon

Another vote for the wisdom and forward thinking of microsoft and adobe then? Thanks for the explanation; it waspuzzling me a bit!

Brian

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by ces moce - Friday, 26 August 2011, 1:36 AM

Hello

I know it is not the exact subject of this conversation.

I'm using moodle 2.11, i m looking on how to configure the flowplayer.

I want to desable the buffering. I just don't know where to do it, since it should be possible.

The reason is my course takes way to much time to load because of the quantity of video

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by Mary Cooch - Friday, 26 August 2011, 1:47 AM

Hi Ces. I gave a possible solution in the other forum thread where you posted.

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Re: Probably maybe hopefully almost solved. : Video in 2.1.1+

by Francisco Lara - Friday, 25 November 2011, 1:42 AM

I'm having the same issue. I've installed moodle 2.1 in my own computer. I can watch the videos if they are files (resource-add file) but embedding a link in an HTML page doesn't work.

How can I turn on the swf filter and also the 'allow embed and object' filter?

EDIT - I found it and now it's working:

1) Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Filters > Multimedia plugins > Settings

2) Administratrion > Security > Site policies and enable Allow EMBED and OBJECT tags

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