Some screens of the current progress of my upcoming Epic Mob Video Bandit desktop app. Click for full size image.
Results from search for Austin Powers. The players support internet search, direct url link to video or drag and drop. Movie types supported are flv and mp4.
The search panel. This section utilizes the Adobe AIR service monitoring feature to detect not only internet availability but also video service availability. If no services are detected, all internet related functions disable themselves until they are detected as being available again. A visual bar indicates service status.
The snapshot viewer onstage. All panels slide in and this one uses a semitransparent background so you can see the video underneath. Clicking on an image removes it from the batch list. You can take snapshots at anytime as long as a movie is loaded and can stop the playhead and scrub to take snapshots or just snap away at your hearts content while the movie runs and the viewer adds the snapshot as you go along.
The video player used is a customized iSunset Koolmoves mediaplayer by Wilbert Brants. The tool icons react to what is happening in the interface and enable / disable themselves depending. For instance if there are no images in the batch, the batch export button is hidden.
Another view of the search panel being used as a movie is running. On complete the current playlist is replaced with a search return, drop action or direct video link push. On all playlist loads the first video automatically runs.
A batch export in progress. The end user selects the directory to place the exported images in. They can export as JPG or PNG and can either retain the batch after export or delete the batch after export by using a checkbox selector. All exported images have a unique name so overwriting is impossible.
The temporary Epic Mob logo in place until the actual logos come onboard. This is the main backdrop to the interface and the entire video app slides out to view it. The help section will be a Flex HTMLcontrol with a PDF and is still being coded so is not shown.
Adobe Air Controlling Koolmoves 7 MediaPlayer Component
Extracting Screenshots From Koolmoves 7 MediaPlayer Component With Adobe AIR
I just started the Adobe AIR wrapping for Blip Bandit which will be named Video Bandit. These screenshots are early in the AIR build and are to work out logic. The layout will be changing. New additions AIR brings to the table are:
1. Snapshot support with batch dump of all screenshots as JPG, PNG or GIF format.
2. Drag/Drop support to allow video files to be dropped right on the app for viewing/snapping.
3. Direct URl support to push remote videos into player individually.
4. Downloading of any remote video.
5. Drag Out support if I can get it to fly
6. Multi platform desktop support thanks to Adobe AIR.
I have updated the login script for wpBBS and posted it for download in the source code section. Simply replace your current login script with the one included. For users already running a wpBBS system you can simply download the one script. The entire wpBBS package has also been updated with the new script for users who have not yet installed wpBBS.
*For this example on load I am forcing a playlist with two flash videos that have cuepoints. Otherwise the bandit acts normally and a search will replace the forced playlist
Now that the Bandit core is working, it’s time to add some functionality. First up is cuePoint handling. Now on face value cuePoint handling may seem an odd choice for a feature but many flash developers create flash videos with cuePoints for presentations or other uses and may need a way to test the created points in realtime. Some flash users simply need videos with cuePoints to develop code or are searching for flash videos with cuePoints. Since public flv players rarely display them or even indicate if they are present in a flash video it made sense to add support for them in the bandit.
Above is the cuePoint support in action. Using one of Wilberts SimpleTable components, any cuePoint found in a video is displayed (as it is encountered) onscreen as a colored box starting in the upper left down to the bottom left (as a live dynamic table) of the video display area. On mouseover of each the cuePoint boxes it’s cuePoint name is displayed. On click of a box, the playhead is advanced to that cuePoint (even if paused). Boxes can be any size, any color and their alpha value can be set with the constructor.
To round out the cuePoint coding I have added two text displays to the lower right of the player to inform users of how much time has elapsed and what the video total running time is (in seconds). I also used Wilberts MediaPlayer class’s change event so I can reset the table if users choose a new video from the playlist.This covers all three instances when the table might need to be reset.
1. When an item in an existing list of items completes (and a new video is sent to the player).
2. When the user manually chooses a video from an existing list.
3. When a new search is completed and the list is repopulated (which automatically runs the first video from the list of found videos).
Instead of using the metadata which lists all cuepoints, I instead add items reading the cuePoints themselves as they are encountered. This is for pure eye candy effect so it can show off Wilberts table being built dynamically. Coding was added to support this eye candy so even if you jump back the playhead, when the video resumes playing from the jump no cuePoint that was previously read is duplicated as it reads from array to see if the cuePoint has already been added to the table.
A prototype based on my Flex 3 / Adobe AIR media bandits, this is a FLV search tool that hits Blip TV and searches for videos based on a search term. This prototype is just for me to work out namespace handling in KM7 and busting feeds without E4X (which KM7 will hopefully support soon!!) and is a rough draft only. I still want to add the video download ability, cuepoint reading/display and other things like my Flex ones do before I call this one ready for prime time.
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