Web Workshop

Maurice Farmer

Web Manager Business School

Chair, Web User Panel

What’s a Web Workshop?

•Share ideas•Learn new things•Help each other

->Create a community

Moving pictures on the webThe past, present and future

Tom Johnson

Faculty Multimedia Manager, Natural Sciences

Video and the web

A variety of formats are available

Real Media

Dependent on downloading RealPlayer software

Windows Media

Wide user base but difficulties for playback and third party software needed for non-Windows machines

QuickTime

Already installed on all Apple machines but download required for other platforms

Adobe Flash

Brief history

• Developed by Macromedia and first released in 1996• 1999: 100,000,000 installations and included with IE5• 2002: Included in all popular browsers and Windows XP standard install• 2005: Bought by Adobe, YouTube launches• 95% of web users able to display Flash content

Advantages

• Available for all platforms, totally cross-browser compatible• Advanced multimedia functionality (video since version 6)• Inbuilt programming language (ActionScript)• Ability to include overlays, animations, database and XML functionality

Statistics

Use of Flash

Use of Flash

Imperial College

Goals

• Deliver video across Imperial sites in a standard format

• Branded and centrally hosted area for video content

• Use of Web 2.0 functionality and interaction with popular sites

• Detailed statistics

Where will content go?

• Embedded in College CMS pages

• Central video area

• RSS feed

Imperial’s solution

Embedded Flash player

Video information

List of video tags

The player

Video window

Play/Pause Progress bar Volume control Menu

Fullscreen link

Player menu

Related video

carousel

Video information

Links menu

Links menu

Related link

Video tags

Sharing options

RSS feed

How does it work?

MySQL database XML feed Player

RSS feedServer

The future

Developments

• Flash streaming server

• General media player

• Live stream player

• Improved captions including XML driven annotations

• Embeddable videos for non-Imperial sites

• Personalised player

• Interactive slides

Any questions?

What next?

1. Today’s slides will be on the Webguide

2. Next Workshop in October

1. How to improve the WebGuide? Email suggestions to m.farmer@imperial.ac.uk