Multimedia plugins filter

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What are multimedia plugins and how do I turn them on?

  • The Multimedia plugins filter finds URLs that point to multimedia resources in text and replaces them with an appropriate multimedia player.
  • Multimedia plugins can be enabled by the administrator in Site Administration>Plugins>Filters>Manage Filters.

Multimediaplugins.png

  • There are three settings:
    • On = always available for all courses
    • Disabled = always off for all courses
    • Off but available = each individual course teacher can enable the filter if they wish in their own course administration settings.

Supported media formats

  • The settings page -Site Administration>Plugins>Filters>Multimedia plugins gives the Moodle administrator the choice of enabling or disabling a number of formats:
  • youtube (displays videos hosted on youtube)
  • vimeo (displays videos hosted on vimeo)
  • .mp3 - MPEG Audio Stream, Layer III
  • flv - Flash video
  • f4v
  • .swf - Macromedia Flash animation File (Adobe, Inc.) Note: Only used in trusted texts as it has potential security issues
  • .ogg
  • .acc
  • .webm
  • .m4v
  • .ogv

The following formats are also available but not recommended for general usage:

  • .mov - QuickTime Video Clip (Apple Computer, Inc.)
  • .mp4
  • .m4a
  • .mpg - MPEG animation -
  • .wmv - Windows Media File (Microsoft)-not guaranteed to work in browsers other than IE and non-Windows systems
  • .avi - Windows file - not guaranteed to work in browsers other than IE and non-Windows systems
  • .ram - RealMedia Metafile (RealNetworks, Inc.)
  • .rpm - RealMedia Player Plug-in (RealNetworks)
  • .rm - RealMedia Streaming Media (Real Networks, Inc.)
  • .ra - Real Media
  • .rp - Real Media
  • .rv - Real Media

Usage

For information on how these are used within Moodle, see the relevant links (audio/video etc) in Working with Media

Required Software

Although Moodle prepares the media files to be played in the browser, the actual playback is handled by various types of browser plug-in software, primarily Adobe Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player and Real Player. If users do not have these installed they may be prompted to go and install them by their browser. These pieces of software are generally free, easily installed and widely used so this will only be an issue for small numbers of users.


FAQ

What is the best way of Embedding media in Moodle?

Sizing of windows in a popup to match media, or of the embed is a problem. Access to the right quality of player often means adding more code. At present Flowplayer is used. ?d=640x480 doesn't work any more.

  1. Interesting discussion on Moodle Mahem list: https://groups.google.com/forum/?pli=1#!topic/moodlemayhem/txt_5pNwATk
  2. Playing Flash FLV & SWF in MOODLE 2.0: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=163374
  3. What about SWF? There have been some security worries on using SWF. But tha advantage is that it comes with a player bundled in it.

Tracker issues:

  1. http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/PULL-96

How can I have embedded media resized appropriately?

Some thoughts on this are still in development.

  1. Detect size of file: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-8984
  2. Patch: http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDL-23870

An extract from here: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=169935

Hi, I am using Moodle 2.0 (Build: 20101214) for streaming lecture videos. The vids are encoded as FLV (flash video), H.263 video and MP3 audio. Aspect ratio is 4:3 (640x480). I upload the vids to a repository, and use the "add a file" feature.

The built-in player (flowplayer 3.2.3) works nicely, until you attempt fullscreen viewing. Flowplayer apparently has the scaling set to 'scale', which fills the screen and ignores aspect ratios.

from http://flowplayer.org/documentation/configuration/clips.html, I see that available scaling options are:

   * fit: Fit to window by preserving the aspect ratio encoded in the file's metadata.
   * half: Half-size (preserves aspect ratio)
   * orig: Use the dimensions encoded in the file. If the video is too big for the available space, the video is scaled using the 'fit' option.
   * scale: Scale the video to fill all available space. Ignores the dimensions in the metadata. This is the default setting.

My question is, how do I change this setting? where would I find it?"


Useful information to have, maybe.

See also

Using Moodle forum discussions: