How to display youtube-like video player in website?

Question

I'm working on a website where I want camera-recorded vidoes to be uploaded, and be viewable (but not downloadable) to logged-in users only. I'd also like to edit the videos, have certain images appear in the background, and possibly note the time at which they last stopped watching a video. (I.e if they stopped watching after 30 mins, i'd like to start the video from 30:00 the next time they view it).

My question is,

1) Is there a way to dynamically add the selected images/animation as the background and .mp3 file as the soundtrack to the video, or will I have to do this manually for every video using a video editing software? (There will be 100+ videos). Any recommendations on the vid. editing software would be cool too.

2) Will I have to convert the videos to .flv using ffmeg, or is there a way to play them directly as .mpegs/.wmv files?

3) Obviously I'd need some kind of a video player (like youtube) where you can pause/stop/skip through the video. Is there a way to build this using Javascript/AJAX, or do I need to purchase a flash component for this? (If I have to purchase one, any recommendations for such a vid. player would be appreciated)

I'm using PHP 5, MySQL, and Jquery (Javascript) to build this project.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Flash would be the way to go it can do everything you described, including capture video from a users computer via webcam.

I doubt that there is a single pre-built flash file for this, you'll probably have to contract something, from someone with alot of action-script experience.

Answer 2

You may need to check into Flash programming with actionscript if you want to build the project as well. This is because if you want to play mpeg/wmv files then the browser needs to have a plugin that supports it and not everyone on the web does have that. Flash, on the other hand, has a large browsing audience. So the alternative is to convert it on the server.

EIDOS made a video mixer before they launched the Kane and Lynch game (I unfortunately can't find it online anymore). It was possible to edit video together with music and sound clips on a timeline.

There are several ways to get php work together with flash such as using AMFPHP. But you still need to hack in actionscript.

Answer 3

3) Check out (Flowplayer). Flowplayer is a really nice opensource video player for the web.

Answer 4

If the visitor can view it, the visitor has already downloaded it. That's also how youtube works, you download the video otherwise you can't see it. The computer can't show you something it hasn't downloaded.