"Sticky video" in Lesson

"Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -
Number of replies: 13

Good day,

I have been searching the forum pages for some advice but haven't been able to find something that exactly addresses my query. A similar situation was described here and I sincerely hope someone would be able to guide me in the right direction.

Basically, I am trying to find a way to add a video into a Lesson tool, in such a way that a student can open the first page (containing the video), start video playback and then proceed to the subsequent pages of the lesson, whilst the video remains "stuck" on the screen and playback is not interrupted. Similar to what was described by the original poster in the link I pasted above, we are trying to allow students to watch a video and answer questions on the video content, at the same time. I managed to achieve this on the desktop, by letting the video open in a pop-up screen. However, this does not work in the mobile app (or most mobile browsers), so I am trying to find another way of having the video remain playing on screen, even if the learner clicks to another page.

Is there any way of achieving this in the Lesson tool? (We do not want to use the Quiz tool, as we do not wish to award grades for the answers provided. And the Lesson tool allows adding additional content pages in between question pages, which we would prefer to be able to do.)

I would appreciate any insights/advice. (We are using Moodle 4.0 and Boost theme.)

With thanks and kind regards.

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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Giovanni Vosloo -
Hi Elizmarie,

This is a very strange situation, but I can see how it can be used. Moodle is going to have difficulty accommodating this, but there are other tools you can use. H5P is a free content creation tool with a Moodle plugin and it is permanently integrated now on new versions as well. H5P has an activity called "Interactive video" and this allows you to add content and questions on a live video. It is very easy to use and works on all devices.

This is the link to the site: https://h5p.org/
Here is the activity demo link: https://h5p.org/interactive-video

I hope this information helps.
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In reply to Giovanni Vosloo

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -

Hi Giovanni,

Thanks for your response and input; I appreciate it that you have taken the time to respond.

We actually considered using H5P and did a mock-up "lesson" which worked relatively well, in the sense that it would do exactly what I was aiming to achieve, on my desktop. But I had trouble replicating the desired effect on several mobile browsers. The biggest issue I had with it was that it would act very strangely when browsing via Safari, both on the normal mobile browser and on the app; it would give error messages (something to the effect of "Your organization has loaded unsupported content") in certain instances, and in other, request the viewer to re-login when trying to access the video, despite already being logged in. (And the login attempt would just not do anything; it would just keep jumping back to the login page.) As we anticipate a large proportion of our students to prefer using Safari to browse on their mobile devices, this is a rather concerning issue. (Also, since H5P did not work wonderfully well in our tests on any of the popular mobile browsers, it is posing some major challenges...)

Would you perhaps have some detail in terms of why the Lesson tool would not be able to accommodate video content in the manner I am trying to achieve?

With thanks and kind regards

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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Mary Cooch -
Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Documentation writers Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Moodle HQ Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Particularly helpful Moodlers Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Testers Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Translators
Hello Elizmarié - I agree about the H5P interactive video but just wanted to clarify that when you said the video pop up screen doesn't work in the mobile app you are referring to using the "linked media" feature of the Lesson activity, adding the video in there?
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In reply to Mary Cooch

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -
Hello Mary,

Thank you for your response!

I was quite excited about the "Linked media" option within the Lesson tool, as I also thought it would be ideal. However, I could regrettably not manage to get it to work; our video files are hosted on Vimeo, so I'm not able to select an available file from my system or from within Moodle, to link via the file picker. And an error message is displayed when I try to use the video's URL. Is there perhaps another way I have missed/overlooked?

I tried the following methods of adding the video file:
* adding the embed code (set to open in a popup window) in the "Description" box under Lesson settings
* adding the embed code into a content page (as the first page of the Lesson)

Thank you and kind regards
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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -
Hi Mary,

I wanted to send a follow-up on my previous response, as I actually managed to add a small video I had downloaded from Vimeo, as linked media into a Lesson. And it works perfectly in the app!! (I still need to test it on other devices/browsers, but on Android with Chrome, it works!)
Thank you for turning my attention back toward this option. Now I just need to figure out how to get our large videos linked in a similar manner, but via Vimeo. (I downloaded a larger video - just below 1GB - and tried to do the same, but the file upload doesn't seem to take place. The little 'pending' wheel just keeps turning. In any event, I wanted to test the functionality with an actual course content video, to see whether it would work, but I don't think the exact same procedure would be feasible, as we have too many videos.)

I also retried linking the video using the "URL downloader" option, after re-obtaining the URL from Vimeo. But it seemed to only insert an image of the video rather than the actual video; there was no replay functionality.

I'll keep trying with the "Linked media" functionality, as it appears to be the best bet for achieving my goal. If you perhaps have any further advice in this regard, I would be very grateful.

Thanks and regards
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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Giovanni Vosloo -
Hi Elizmarie,

Vimeo is tricky int eh sense that it has plenty of access control settings. So perhaps there is a setting that is not allowing the video to be accessed via a link or perhaps even that domain/website. We have had similar issues with our clients in the past.
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In reply to Giovanni Vosloo

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Rick Jerz -
Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Particularly helpful Moodlers Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Testers
Vimeo provides the ability to have different kinds of links: video link, download link, review link, and embed code. It also can control "who can watch" and "where can this be embedded." So you might be correct, Giovanni, that the OP's problem might have something to do with access control.

Elizmarie, does any of this make sense to you? Also, can you play this large video outside of Moodle? It might be that your large video has not completed its upload into Vimeo.

In my Moodle, if I post the video into a forum using Moodle's video tool, I use Vimeo's "copy video link" URL.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -

Hello Rick,

Thank you kindly for your reply and insights.

Yes, thanks; I understand what you mean regarding the type of video link originally obtained from Vimeo. I was actually supplied with a list of URLs and embed code links to use in testing of course setups, so perhaps I should request access to Vimeo directly and see whether there is not a more suitable link type.

The large videos replay well, both within and outside of Moodle. It's just that I'm struggling to find a way to get the video screen to 'stick' to the page/remain visible when a student scrolls through their content and question pages in the Lesson. It further appears that it is possible to achieve exactly that outside of Moodle (a friend who can code tested it by altering the embed code on w3schools.com/howto/try.asp) but the exact same script does not work within Moodle.

Be that as it may, I think you are correct that the large video might simply not have finished its upload, but if it takes that long on a single video, I have to find another solution, in any event. It won't be feasible for the number of courses we need to ultimately set up (30+ courses with 8 videos each), to wait that long for an upload. And uploading all that video content to our Moodle server is not feasible either. I simply have to find a way to link via Vimeo (I'll see if I can find a better link/URL option from Vimeo), or we'll have to consider using another repository type that indeed allows linking media. (I found a thread on this forum from 2012, where someone else actually also mentioned a requirement for a Vimeo repository, with another person volunteering to second the notion. However, here was no follow-up discussion and I assume the idea/request went nowhere, as there is still no Vimeo repository option in the file picker, from which to link media.)   

I remain hopeful to find a solution soon...

Kind regards

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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Giovanni Vosloo -
Elizmarie, are you by any chance in South Africa? Your name and surname sounds local to me smile

If so, then let me know, maybe we can work on this with access to your site to find the best solution.
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In reply to Giovanni Vosloo

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -
Hi Giovanni,

Yep, I'm proudly South African! Thanks for the offer; I'll let you know.

Kind regards
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In reply to Giovanni Vosloo

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -
Hi Giovanni,

Further to the above, I would like to get in touch to further discuss your offer. What would be the best means of reaching you?

Thank you and kind regards, Elizmarié
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In reply to Elizmarié Louw

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Rick Jerz -
Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Particularly helpful Moodlers Wužiwarjo-wobraz wo Testers
Vimeo has around four different URLs that one can use. Most of the time I use the "copy video link" URL (shown in the graphic below). Yes, perhaps the person supplying you with the URLs is giving you the wrong URL.

I have had some discussion in this other topic that might be helpful to you.

Here are a couple of ideas for you, Elizmarie.

1) To solve your desire for the video to "stick" on a page, one could always open up a second browser window (or tab) and keep it positioned on the video.
2) I am still unsure if your large video problem has more to do with Vimeo's uploading and conversion or with Moodle. It seems that it has nothing to do with Moodle. My question is, why are you uploading 1GB videos? If these are long videos, like several hours, consider breaking them into sections. If these are short videos (such as under 30 minutes), are you compressing them to something like MP4s? My 25-minute-long videos are typically around 300MB.
3) Two things to consider about uploading videos to Vimeo.  First, uploading time takes longer on a slower Internet connection.  Sometimes your ISP provides slower upload speeds since more people primarily download things from the Internet.  Check your upload speed with Speedtest.  Second, Vimeo "transcodes" videos after they are uploaded.  Transcoding time depends upon the size of your video and how it was produced, meaning the codec.  Again, Video is pretty quick about transcoding MP4 videos. 
4) You are correct. It is typically not recommended to put videos on your Moodle server.


Attachment Vimeo URLs.png
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: "Sticky video" in Lesson

by Elizmarié Louw -

Hi Rick,

Thank you for all your suggestions. I will review and consider all.

Have a lovely day further.

Kind regards 

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