Hey All,
I am a newbie to moodle. I tried installing jw player module in moodle. It seems that the jw player does come up when I tried to access videos. But then when I would like to make it screen reader accessible. This page http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/22/making-video-accessible#Example_Codes says that for doing that we need to add hidden controls to the page. Can anyone please let me know how to make that happen?
Thanks,
Ganesh
Hi Ganesh,
Are you using this module?: http://code.google.com/p/moodle-mplayer/
If so, to provide Section 508 compliant video, you'd need to provide an XML captions file with a timed text transcript. There's various caption authoring tools available that can produce captions that are compatible with the JW Player, i.e. TimedText .xml (AKA RealText and SubRip .srt).
For enhanced accessibility, you can also provide synchronised audio files for audio descriptions of what's on screen for the sight-impaired.
The Media Player module makes deploying this and much more very easy.
I hope this helps!
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thank you very much for your help.
Can you please suggest me some good automatic captioning software that you know? I just heard of youtube but then I guess you need to upload videos to youtube to do that if I understand right.
Also is there any possible way to add the hidden controls for play/mute/stop immediately above the control automatically through moodle as mentioned in http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/22/making-video-accessible#Example_Codes so that screen readers can make use of them?
Thanks,
Ganesh
Hi Ganesh,
Re Example_Codes - All of this code is taken care of in the Media Player module so you don't need to write any code. It's supposed to be for non-developers after all You can leverage a lot of the advanced features of the JW Player 5 with the Media Player module with a minimal amount of technical knowledge.
Re authoring/editing captions - I've used this one before and it works OK: http://webaim.org/techniques/captions/magpie/version2/ Also, SubRip is software for extracting subtitles from DVDs. It has an editor for .srt files.
I hope this helps!
Matt
Dear Matt,
Thank you very much for your help. But I have a few more questions.
After some time I figured what I actually want. What I am concerned is to get focus on the video controls just by using the TAB key again and again. Using Internet Explorer 8 browser I tried the video in the page http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/22/making-video-accessible#Example_Codes and also a moodle video page(using the jwplayer). In the former page I am able to get focus on all video controls(play, mute, bring to full screen mode etc.) Whereas in the moodle video page it does not work until you click on some control on the video. (strangely this works fine Firefox 4 beta but FF 4 is not even released so we are not sure of how FF 4 would behave the same way when it is released)
There is another bit annoying thing I find in IE 8 is that when I use the TAB key and get focus on the jump to dropdown and then hit TAB again it refreshes the page. So I had to actually use SHIFT+TAB to try to get focus when I was trying in IE 8. I probably should post this problem on another forum but please excuse me that I am new to moodle.
Again I would like to thank you for your support.
Thanks,
Ganesh
I think you need to set "seamlesstabbing=true" to get better tab ordering in browsers. Accessibility support is mostly built around IE and other browsers have been slower to include features for people with disabilities. I'd expect some inconsistency.
Hi Matt
Version : MOODLE 2.1
We have a SCORM based activities on our website. Basically, these packages have .swf videos. Unfortunately, APPLE iOS devices like iPad, iPhone do not Flash videos.
I came across JW Player 5 from www.longtail.com will solve the problem by embeding the player on MOODLE. I want to know where I need to place the following code that they have advised me to.
Any help is appreciated. Please let me know if there are any other alternatives. TIA.
Hi Sandeep,
If you're targeting iOS devices, you don't need the JW Player. The examples from LongtailVideo simply add the standard HTML5 video tags as a fall back for when Flash Player isn't detected.
I suggest looking at the documentation for HTML5 video tags, which is very simple and only requires a couple of lines of HTML script, and if you want everyone else who has Flash Player to view the video normally, without having to worry about which video CODEC their web browsers support, I recommend using SWFObject 2.x for the Javascript exmbed code along with your chosen Flash video player (JW Player is a good choice and so is Flow Player). SWFObject also has a code wizzard that'll output an HTML + Javascript page for you: http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/
The Media Player for Moodle 1.9 handles all this for you already. The only extra thing you need to know for targeting all platforms is to encode your videos as MP4 (H.264 CODEC) because iOS supports that natively (without Flash) and Flash can handle MP4, H.264, as well.
I hope this helps!
You're welcome.
BTW, if you look at the Media Player view page (moodle/mod/mplayer/view.php), you'll see that it's necessary to insert some Javascript code into the head section of the viewing page for SWFObject 2.x to work.
I think it may be possible to do this via a modification to a Moodle theme so that it includes it. It's a bit of a hack though and this is why we need the Media Player and SWF Activity Modules to embed Flash correctly.
Hi Matt
I was away all these days, so I could not work on this.
I have set up a clone of my Master Website, this allows me to experiment with various things.
Coming back to SWFObject 2.x; I just got lost, where should I start?
Thanks MATT
With the first step. There's plenty on this forum thread to get you started.
Hi Matt
This is what I understand and what I'm going to test:
1. Install/Embed a Flash player (like JW Player or Flowplayer) into MOODLE 2.1
2. Embed the SWFObject 2.x code into the header of my MOODLE theme
3. Test on iOS devices
However, I was wondering if this method will support rich interactive flash videos where user may need to click on a button or finish an activity before proceeding to next section etc.
Any suggestions/ ideas.
The HTML5 video tags hand over all responsibility for video playback to users' web browsers. Functions and features depend entirely on web browsers' native video playback support.
There are some things you can do with Javascript but it's limited.
I have a general question about JWplayer.
can I use jwplayer for free in my moodle website ?
or do I need to buy the JW player Pro?
thanks a lot
Hi David,
I recommend asking them directly and/or searching their user forums: http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forums/jw-player/licensing-questions
The last time I looked, licences were very cheap so if there were any doubt, I'd just get a licence to help the project along a little.
I hope this helps!
Hi Matt (or anybody who can help),
Could you tell me what options there are for a section 508 compliant media player in Moodle 2.2? I've been searching the forums without finding anything definitive but your name keeps cropping up
The media player you put together for 1.9 looked fantastic. I've being playing around with Kalutra 508 player and the JW Player with some success but I need something that will automatically replace the standard youtube player when course participants post videos from youtube so it needs to be easy to implement. Keyboard accessible controls would be a good start, we can use youtube for the subtitles.
I hope you can help, thanks in advance.
Karl
