integrating rich media with dita
DESCRIPTION
A better way to integrate video and other media into DITATRANSCRIPT
Integrating Rich Media with Dita
Wild Basin Media, Inc.
December 2010
Technology on the Move
Simplicity in Motion
Presentation Overview
Snapshot of OVID Output
A case for Flash Players
DITA and the Object/Embed Method
Problems with the Object/Embed Method
Solution
Online Video-integrated Documentation (OVID) Demo
HTML 5 & Mobile Devices (Time Allowing)
Flash
Flash Player
•Cross-platform viewership: 97%
•Plays *.flv, *.f4v, *.mp4 video container formats
•Ways to acquire Flash player:
•Create your own custom player with Adobe Flash (CS5)
•Hire a Flash developer
•Use an open source Flash player
Flowplayer (GNU General Public License)
JW Player (Creative Commons License)
Video DeliveryProgressive Download
Streaming
Pseudo Streaming
• HTTP protocol • Downloaded to end user’s computer• Easy to set up• Cannot seek
• HTTP protocol• Server-side scripting (e.g., PHP)• Limited seeking
• Real-Time Protocols (e.g., RTMP)• Video does not remain on end user’s computer• Can seek• Instant play • Handles long videos
DITA & Object/Embed
<object> in DITA Lang. Spec.objectDITA's <object> element corresponds to the HTML <object> element.
The <object> element allows authors to include animated images, applets, plug-ins, ActiveX controls, video clips, and other multimedia objects in a topic for rendering after transformation to HTML.
To support Flash video, the value swflash.cab is used in the codebase attribute.
• The <object> in the HTML enables rich media to display in Intenet Explorer.
• The <embed> in the HTML enables rich media to display in browsers such as NetScape and FireFox.
NOTE: While the embed tag is required to display these objects, the embed tag is not in the XHTML 1.0 Transitional tag set.
Paraphrased from http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/OS/langspec/langref/object.html
DITA <object> as Input <object id="flashplayer1" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" height="360" width="700" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" name="flashplayer1"> <param name="movie" value="player.swf"/> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/> <param name="bgcolor" value="white"/> <param name="flashvars" value="duration=3180&file=video.mp4&provider=http&autostart=true"/> </object>
(X)HTML <object> as Output
<object id="flashplayer1" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" height="360" width="700" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" name="flashplayer1"> <param name="movie" value="player.swf"/> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/> <param name="bgcolor" value="white"/> <param name="flashvars" value="duration=3180&file=video.mp4&provider=http&autostart=true"/> <embed name="flashplayer1" height="360" width="700" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" src="player.swf" bgcolor="white" flashvars="duration=3180&file=video.mp4&provider=http&autostart=true"/> </object>
Problems with O/E Method
The Object and Embed (O/E) Method for embedding Flash suffers from cross-browser compatibility issues. In the absence of a standard embed method, Internet Explorer uses the <object> tag, while Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera use the <embed> tag. In short, the inclusion of <embed> breaks XHTML validation.
Breaks XHTML Validation
Limited Tracking/Version Control/Content Management
A few videos can be inserted and manually tracked using O/E; however, management becomes progressively more difficult with every new video.Example: What happens when associated text changes?
Limited Overall Control of Video Presentation
Expanded in following slides...
SwfObject & Playlists
<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>
SwfObject Method“An easy-to-use and standards-friendly method to embed Flash content, which uses one small JavaScript file.”
Unlike the Object/Embed Method, the inclusion of swfobject.js does not break XHTML validation.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">
<head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/><title>Working assumptions</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script></head><body> ...
</html>
VALID
Playlists
A playlist is a file, usually an XML file, that tells the player where to find resources (i.e., audio, video and images) and provides information about the resources.
Examples• ASX (Microsoft)
• iTunes Library Format (Apple)
• Atom (W3C)
• MRSS
• SMIL (Open Source)
• XSPF (Open Source)
Pronounced “Spiff”
The Playlist Advantage
Playlists...•Centralize media management.
•Can be versioned, tracked and used within a CMS context.
•Contain metadata that can be searched.
•Can be repurposed (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Tech. Pubs).
•Allow for easy video “segmentation.”
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/"> <title>Example XSPF playlist</title> <tracklist> <track> <title>YouTube</title> <creator>Peach Open Movie Project</creator> <info>http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/</info> <annotation>Big Buck Bunny is a short animated film by the Blender Institute.</annotation> <location>http://youtube.com/watch?v=IBTE-RoMsvw</location> <image>bunny.jpg</image> <meta rel="start">10</meta> </track> <track> <title>Butterfly</title> <creator>Wild Basin Media</creator> <info>http://www.wildbasinmedia.com/</info> <annotation>Demonstration of how to use playlist tracks with the JW Player.</annotation> <location>Butterfly_2.mp4</location> <image>butterfly_1.png</image> </track> </tracklist></playlist>
Anatomy of XSPF Playlist
Video in root directory of
domain
Title displaysin player
Displays in player as thumbnail
Starts 10 seconds into
video
Full-Featured Playlist
“rtmp” indicates that video is
streamed
Namespace extends XSPFfunctionality
with JW Player
Unique ID ofvideo segment
Video segment starts at the 40 second mark
Video segment ends at the 55 second mark
Closed captioning file
Playlist “Flow”
1.
2.
3.
Link in document activates track within playlist.
Playlist provides information about the video to the
player.
Player plays video.NOTE: JavaScript, including swfobject.js, passes
information between the (X)HTML, playlist, and player.
...
[[[Add png of OVID]]]
OVID Demo
HTML5 & Mobile Devices
HTML5
Devices with embedded video support, such as Apple and Android mobile devices, do not always have the capability to render Flash video. The HTML5 <video> element allows the browsers on these devices to render video using cross-platform markup.
HTML5 <video> standard will validate in all modern browsers. Again, neither the <object> nor <embed> tags, which are used to embed Flash, have universally accepted standards.
Browser support for royalty-free and open-source video formats such as WebM and Ogg Theora.
Standards Compliance
Open Web
Device Variety
Mobile Devices
The Skyfire browser runs on iOS, Android, Win Mobile, and Symbian.
Apple’s iOS: H.264, MPEG-4
Google’s Android: H.264, H.263, MPEG-4
Blackberry’s RIM: H.264, H.263, MPEG-4
MS’s Windows Phone 7: H.264, H.263, MPEG-4
Nokia’s (Open Source) Symbian: ?
Currently Supported Video Codecs:
HTML5 provides video format failover for mobile devices.
Questions
Check out Taming Media Blog at
wildbasinmedia.net