Would this require a database?

[tomster2300]

I didn't know where to put this, so I stuck it here. Please move it where ever it needs to go.

I have been asked by the department in which I work if I would be interested in redesigning one of their websites over the summer.

A static website design would be no problem, but this contains a good number of videos which they want to be accessible through a search field. Basically they want to create metadata for each video, then have that pull the videos when people look for them.

I'm no computer science person, so I have no idea how to design a database. But, I do know how to operate Wordpress. Would a MySQL database be appropriate for this, or would I need something more elaborate?

I asked my friend about it today, and he suggested making a page for each video then using Google custom search, but I don't feel that's the right direction to go with this. While they won't be adding any additional videos to the database, they want the metadata for each video.

So, any suggestions on how to do this?

Thanks!

[glc]

Moved to......would you believe Web Development!

[Force Flow]

It depends...what "metadata" would you need?

If you're thinking keywords for each video (and there aren't too many videos), you could get away with reading a plain text file or XML file (since you said things won't change much).

As for the actual search function, you'll have to whip something up. The google site search is only really good for posts/articles. You can't really find keywords for videos unless they are in the file name, or they have their own dedicated page with specific content (like the titles of videos or video info section found on youtube)

But...you could get around the need of building a small search function by having the keywords/title displayed along with the video and leave them to be searched by the google site search.


So, there's a few different ways to approach this, and certainly more than I can think of off the top of my head


[edit]: Maybe something like this for an XML file?

<video id="1">
     <title>the title</title>
     <length>05:13:02</length>
     <link>http://link-to-video</link>
     <keywords>
          <keyword>mykeyword</keyword>
          <keyword>keywordtwo</keyword>
     </keywords>
</video>

[tomster2300]

Originally Posted by Force Flow It depends...what "metadata" would you need? If you're thinking keywords for each video (and there aren't too many videos), you could get away with reading a plain text file or XML file (since you said things won't change much). As for the actual search function, you'll have to whip something up. The google site search is only really good for posts/articles. You can't really find keywords for videos unless they are in the file name, or they have their own dedicated page with specific content (like the titles of videos or video info section found on youtube) But...you could get around the need of building a small search function by having the keywords/title displayed along with the video and leave them to be searched by the google site search. So, there's a few different ways to approach this, and certainly more than I can think of off the top of my head [edit]: Maybe something like this for an XML file? <video id="1"> <title>the title</title> <length>05:13:02</length> <link>http://link-to-video</link> <keywords> <keyword>mykeyword</keyword> <keyword>keywordtwo</keyword> </keywords> </video>

I think I'm looking at around 40 videos, which shouldn't be too many to make this work with a XML file.

Do you think I could just create a javascript search box that displays the contents of the XML file below the search box when it hits a keyword?

I was told Friday that they wanted an embedded streaming flash version each movie, as well as a hi-def, downloadable quicktime version. Could I embed flash into a XML?

I think this might work.

[Force Flow]

For embeded videos, look at the JW Player. It can play FLV and h264 videos. Free for non-commercial use, but you'll need a license for commercial use.

As for the XML, the most you can do is have a link to the video and/or some sort of unique ID. XML is just plain text.

I'm not sure how a javascript search would work, if at all. It would still need to contact the server for the XML file, which might need to be served by a server-side script. If that's the case, you'd be effectively looking at AJAX.

I'd suggest just doing the search function with a server-side language, probably with PHP or .NET or whatever your webserver is prepped for.

[tomster2300]

Alright, new update. It looks like this is what they want done -


While I thought they had 40 individual videos, they actually have one long one that they want to jump around with using SMIL files. The thing is they don't know how to make the transcripts embedded in the file searchable by the user. So, here's what I thought about doing and I want to know if it would work or not.

We have one video with numerous SMIL files based on specific in and out points in the video. Those files also have the transcript text embedded in them, and have the code to display the transcript as subtitles over that segment of the video.

I would then create a XML file and make a separate item tag for each video segment. I would write up a short description for each one, then link to the corresponding SMIL file. That link, when clicked, would then launch the video format and play it based on the SMIL file.

So, that still leaves how I would find the right segment through a javascript search box. Here's what I think - I take the transcript that corresponds to that specific video segment, and place it within meta tags for each item in the XML. With the javascript search referencing the XML for its results, it should display those that hit any of the words of text.

So...what do you guys think?

[Force Flow]

If it's still all one video file, I would keep it within the video tag...maybe something like this?

<video id="1">
     <title>the title</title>
     <length>05:13:02</length>
     <link>http://link-to-video</link>
     <segment id="1">
          <SMIL>thefile</SMIL>
          <keywords>
               <keyword>mykeyword</keyword>
               <keyword>keywordtwo</keyword>
          </keywords>
     </segment>
     <segment id="2">
          <SMIL>thefile</SMIL>
          <keywords>
               <keyword>mykeyword</keyword>
               <keyword>keywordtwo</keyword>
          </keywords>
     </segment>
     <keywords>
          <keyword>mykeyword</keyword>
          <keyword>keywordtwo</keyword>
     </keywords>
</video>