Overview

The Islandora Video Solution Pack is used to ingest digital videos into Fedora. It supports creation of derivatives in various different video formats, and requires the server-side installation of accompanying codecs to enable this functionality. It can also be configured to stream the video to a player window on-site using JWPlayer.

Dependencies

FFmpeg version 1.1.4 has been tested. It can be downloaded here

FFmpeg sample compile flags: --prefix=/usr/local/stow/ffmpeg-1.1.4 --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libfaac --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid

 remove the --enable-x11grab flag on the ffmpeg configure.

Downloads

Release Notes and Downloads

Installation

This installation can be very tricky, and possibly the most difficult of all components of the Islandora stack. Please see this post regarding past installs on the Islandora Google Group for details: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/islandora/wuOjmRTY5Rs

Configuration

Set the path for FFmpeg, select configuration options and viewer in Administration » Islandora » Video Solution Pack (admin/islandora/video).

The Islandora Video Solution pack can be configured at http://path.to.your.site/admin/islandora/solution_pack_config/video, and includes the following options:

Viewers

If players have been correctly installed on the server, you will be able to select which one to use here. 

Creating OGGs locally only exists for legacy compatibility. Unless you have a very good reason for doing so, you should not use this option. If necessary, view ffmpeg2Theora documentation for more on creating OGG derivatives.

Paths to FFmpeg/Theora executables

For derivative creation, the Video Solution Pack needs to know the location of the binaries that perform conversion. On Unix-based systems, this can often be done by running:

whereis ffmpeg ffmpeg2theora

Check for binary package files located in folders called 'bin' (such as /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, etc.).

Video conversion in any context is an extremely resource-heavy task that can be very taxing on the computer performing it. In the case of Islandora, when using these derivative creation options, the task is called upon and performed by the 'apache' user on the same server Islandora is running on and that users are performing other tasks with. When creating video derivatives on ingest, please consider either delaying ingest to a low-traffic period of time, or performing derivative creation on another machine altogether.

Content Models, Prescribed Datastreams and Forms

The Video Solution Pack comes with the following objects in http://path.to.your.site/admin/islandora/solution_pack_config/solution_packs:

A collection created using the Video Solution Pack's content model will have the following datastreams:

RELS-EXT

Default Fedora relationship metadata

MODS

MODS descriptive metadata record created during ingest

DC

Dublin Core descriptive metadata record

OBJ

The original video file ingested

TECHMDFITS technical metadata record created during ingest
TNThumbnail image pulled from a frame of the video by ffmpeg2theora
MP4MP4 derivative created during ingest by FFmpeg and used by JWPlayer if no suitable video exists
MKVMKV derivative created during ingest by FFmpeg

The Video Solution Pack comes with the Video MODS Form.

Development

If you would like to contribute to this module, please check out CONTRIBUTING.md. In addition, we have helpful Documentation for Developers info, as well as our Developers section on the Islandora.ca site.

The Video Solution Pack includes an ingest/purge load test that is disabled and unusable by default. This particular solution pack was chosen for load testing due to the resource-heavy process of creating video derivatives and ingesting several potentially-massive files. To enable and use it:

  1. Make sure that the Testing module is enabled and that all prerequisites for derivative creation are satisfied for the Video Solution Pack.
  2. Edit the islandora_video.info file in this folder, removing the ; and whitespace before the line files[] = tests/islandora_video_load_test.test
  3. Create a folder in the tests/fixtures/ called load, and place as many videos in that folder as you would like to ingest. These files all must fit within the size specified by your php.ini file's maximum post size, and they must have a file extension supported by the Video Solution Pack, otherwise they will not be picked up by the load test.
  4. Clear the Drupal cache.

The video load test should now be available to use by navigating to http://path.to.your.site/admin/config/development/testing, checking 'Video Load Test' in the Islandora Video section, and then clicking 'Run tests'. The test will compare the original file to the file ingested into Fedora to see if they match.

THIS WILL NOT WORK ON OPERATING SYSTEMS THAT DO NOT SUPPORT THE PHP GLOB_BRACE FLAG (E.G. SOLARIS).