Implemented Upload video from mobile phone direct to post

[JamesBrown]

Users are so used to doing this on other social media platforms. Will this ever become a feature of xF?

We have an active facebook group and the forums, generally the forums are much busier than the facebook group, but after a big event this weekend, all the acvtivity is on the facebook group. this is because dozens of videos have been uploaded and commented on. Some live streams even.

No one can be bothered to get their videos rendered elswhere and post links, or upload them to the gallery and post links to the forum. I feel we need this feature fast. video is everywhere and not being able to easily add it to posts leaves me feeling disadvantaged.

 

[RobinHood]

Completely agree, I've mentioned this in a few places for quite a long time yet no one has posted a solution.

It means so much traffic is sticking to facebook groups for this very reason, it's so frustrating.

Video is what many users are sharing and talking about these days, we need better video integration especially seeing as it's so easy to create your own video now.

 

[JamesBrown]

Completely agree, I've mentioned this in a few places for quite a long time yet no one has posted a solution.

I've no idea, but I'm sure there are plenty of technical reasons why this is not implemented. But it's something forums should address soon, we are really being left behind here.

 

[RobinHood]

Video upload has been available for nearly 2 years in both XenForo Media Gallery and XenGallery.

I don't see why there's no solution for posts yet, seems crazy.

 

[JamesBrown]

Live streaming would be nice too roll on xF3.

 

[RobinHood]

Perhaps someone who knows what they're doing can look at the YouTube API to see if that would work.

It seems they have a data API for uploading videos to YouTube, they even have PHP sample code.

https://developers.google.com/youtube/
YouTube | Google Developers
Integrate YouTube videos and functionality into your website or application.
DEVELOPERS.GOOGLE.COM


https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started
YouTube Data API Overview | YouTube Data API | Google Developers
DEVELOPERS.GOOGLE.COM


https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/code_samples/php#upload_a_video
PHP Code Samples | YouTube Data API | Google Developers
DEVELOPERS.GOOGLE.COM



It would be great to get an integration into XF. Have all videos uploaded unlisted (or public, the video titles could optionally be specified at point of upload or by an admin to optimise for SEO) to a dedicated forum YouTube account so users don't have to have a youtube account or associate anything with their forum account.

Just register on the forum and upload through the editor when replying to a post. Nice and simple and easy, one click upload.

That would be a killer forum feature IMO and help take back one of the big advantages of facebook groups. About 30% of the posts in lots of groups for one niche I frequent are user generated videos from their phones.

 

[Pierce]

Should this be xF2 only mod at this point?

How do we background video upload? I assume users on youtube upload with a phone because if the connection is broken it just resumes?

Should it be made a "service" that is more suited for what needs to be achieved and more compatibility across multiple platforms, like apps etc.

 

[RobinHood]

It's not even in beta yet, who knows how long until it comes out, another 6 months?

How long then until lots of boards actually upgrade because all the mods they need are ready and feature matched with the XF1 equivalent, another 6+ months?

I mean, it's completely up to whoever ends up making it (or whoever ends up funding it), but all this waiting for XF2 seems to have really stagnated progress across the board for lots of the bigger existing mods.

I realise it's a balance between time and effort put into making it for XF1, getting utility and value out of it and then remaking it for XF2. I'm not a coder, so I don't know how much work it would actually take to make in the first place and then convert.

I do know that users in many niches would certainly use it right now.


I found this other service this morning for incorporating a video upload button into your platform from embedly

http://v.embedly.com/2FxA1Ruk

http://docs.embed.ly/docs/video-upload-button

It's expensive though, $100 a month for only 10 videos, then a $1 a video after that, way out the price range for most forums I imagine. Who can afford to justify $1 for a video reply if there's a lot of them? The site would have to be making bank.

If it really is possible to get quality YouTube integration, and it's free to get started, then I see the add on having some real longevity and being quite popular.

On YouTube, at a default API credit of 1 million units per day, if I'm understanding it correctly, it appears you can do quite a lot:

With these rules in mind, you can estimate the number of read, write, or upload requests that your application could send per day without exceeding your quota. For example, if you have a daily quota of 1,000,000 units, your application could have any of the following approximate limits:

• 200,000 read operations that each retrieve two resource parts.
• 10,000 write operations and 90,000 additional read operations that each retrieve two resource parts.
• 400 video uploads, 1500 write operations, and 50,000 read operations that each retrieve two resource parts.

 

[RobinHood]

How do we background video upload? I assume users on youtube upload with a phone because if the connection is broken it just resumes?

Should it be made a "service" that is more suited for what needs to be achieved and more compatibility across multiple platforms, like apps etc.

Sorry, I don't quite follow?

 

[Pierce]

1st paragraph is a video issue. Uploading 1080 hd video might take more than a minute. As such putting it as a background task would be important...

An external service say one more designed for websites.

Say when you want to upload video it opened a native app.

You post your text with video. When you hit post it communicates back to your site the text + progress bar of the video upload which turns into the video once done....

1080 is 150MB per minute of data.

Even if I created the service I wouldn't be able to upload more than 20-30 seconds

 

[RobinHood]

God, this is so frustrating. So many people just expecting video upload capabilities.



This is the latest reply from a newly registered user replying to the registration welcome PM.

After that he went off and joined two of the facebook groups and uploaded the videos there.

This isn't even a teenager or someone from the younger generation, this is a 50 year old creating video content.

Video is in demand across all demographics now that we've all got high quality video capture and editing devices in our pockets.

 

[Pierce]

This is why limits on uploads is pointless

 

[RobinHood]

Aye, my attachment limit is set to 200mb at the moment, I do get people directly uploading short 10-30 second trouble shooting videos from their phone where it's easier to record the problem than try and explain it or take photos.

It's clunky to view though as you have to download them to view them, and it doesn't usually work at all on mobile.

It's also incredibly annoying for the user if the video file ends up being larger than that.

 

[RobinHood]

Reddit launches its own video hosting platform
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40973259

 

[Kintaro]

I see a solution to this integrating media upload to the xenforo media gallery directly on posts.
But this is not on xenforo radar right now.

Take look here:
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...a-photo-when-creating-replying-a-thread.87060
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/auto-add-to-gallery-if-video-posted-in-a-thread.127464/

 

[Jim Fox]

I just now tried to upload a Christmas display video into a post on my forum and just found out we can't upload videos? 99% of what people upload are photos, so I never tested video uploads before, I just assumed though that videos could be uploaded. BTW I am using XF 1.5.

This sure has me scratching my head.

 

[TPerry]

I don't see why there's no solution for posts yet, seems crazy.

Odds are it's because of the base requirements on the server side. Odds are most shared hosting plans would not meet the requirements.
XFMG has requirements that must be installed on the server to do video (ffmpeg).

 

[RobinHood]

There are no requirements for the forum owner if it uses the YouTube API or some other hosting service that off loads the heavy lifting to AWS

 

[TPerry]

There are no requirements for the forum owner if it uses the YouTube API or some other hosting service that off loads the heavy lifting to AWS

Not everyone uses (nor desires to use) AWS. And I know of no video processing service that does background conversions for display elsewhere other than a YouTube type site that requires the material to be held by them.
And not everyone has their own YouTube account, which last time I looked was a requirement for uploading videos, which an API would most likely use associated with that one user.

I KNOW as an admin I would NOT want to have to set up a site YouTube account and allow end users to upload videos to an account associated with MY username as you then become responsible for the content. Good luck proving that that child porn/snuff film/bomb making how-to that was uploaded to your account wasn't your responsibility, and even if able to prove so, uploading a non-approved YouTube videos that are in violation of YT policies would most likely end up with said Admin account suspended.

The only "easy" solution for direct uploading requires the associated processing via the site itself. This requires adequate storage (for said videos) and adequate processing power for the conversion into the correct format. The format that an iPhone uploads is not the same as an Android, which is not the same as a Windows phone.

 

[AnneMoss]

Thanks for pointing me at this thread @RobinHood

I only just opened up video uploading on our site but I'm already seeing the HUGE potential this has (cat videos!). I don't want people to upload to YouTube. I want the content on my server so it doesn't disappear after the user deletes it from their YouTube account (has happened to a lot of videos).

What I would expect from a video upload capability in 2018 is pretty much what Facebook offers -
1. Easy one-click upload (i.e. on mobile, a single click shows you your gallery where you can choose a photo or movie).
2. Directly from post and not via the gallery.
3. A way for the platform to reduce file size as it's being uploaded and adjusts resolution to web display.
4. Something that tells the user there's an issue with file size (if there is) BEFORE the upload actually begins.
5. Most importantly - something that keeps the upload going even when the user leaves the page. The user is then notified of the complete upload when they get back to the site (and with an email notification).

Anything less than that is putting us at a huge disadvantage IMO. And right now, none of these features are supported.

I understand that this may not be relevant to sites on shared servers but for those of us with the ability and willingness to invest in the required resources, this should be an option.

I guess the question is - how much would it cost to develop such an add-on?