Oliver_Henniges - 12:28 am on Dec 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

I am currrently trying to embed the first videos on my site, and following most recommendations I would like to stick to the widely spread youtube-standards.

If I understood things correctly, the core video is stored as a flash-video in flv-format, but you need an swf-container to show it (otherwise the media player attempts to download the file instead of displaying it within the website. The alternative way is to embed a player via javascript?)

I found that php offers a number of flash-functions coming along with the ming-framework. I find that quite convenient, because I think this bears the chance to add sequences to the video just by modyfying the php code instead of generating a comeletely new video.

However, experimenting with some of the code snippets found here on webmasterwolrd and some other resources I didn't get a single stream displayed properly, yet. So my first question is:

What do I have to do to get ming running? I uncommented the appropriate line in php.ini, and my php-info file (php 5.0.5) shows two rows:

Ming SWF output library enabled
Version 0.3beta1

Does this mean all necessary compontents are installed? Or is any additional graphics-library required? Is ming deliverd with the php 5 bundle or do I have to download anything additional?

Heres my html code:

<object classid="CLSID:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="450" height="450"
codebase="http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0">
<param name="movie" value="ming2.php">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="scale" value="exactfit">
<param name="menu" value="true">
<param name="bgcolor" value="#000040">
<embed src="ming2.php" quality="high"
bgcolor="#000000" width="450" height="450"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
</embed>
</object>

It is supposed to embed an experimental file named "ming2.php", which currently looks like this:

<?php
$filename = "test1.flv";
ming_useswfversion(6);
$s = new SWFVideoStream();
$s -> __construct ($filename);
$m = new SWFMovie();
$m -> add($s);
header('Content-type: application/x-shockwave-flash');
$m->output();
?>

Which, of course, doesn't work.

1) What are the minimum lines of code necessary to get that file "test.flv" displayed in a flash-player? (this test-file works fine, it is shown in e.g realplayer the way it should).
2) How could I add some seconds of an image-dump-jpeg in the beginning?
3) How can I add some seconds of a "page" containing some text?
4) What do I have to add to get these "play", "rewind" "forward-" etc buttons displayed?

Any help is well appreciated. I know, that the easiest way would probably be to buy adobe products and create the swf-file from that, but I 'd really love to learn more about the way flash videos are created and the elements they may contain.