Implemented Upload video from mobile phone direct to post

JamesBrown

Well-known member
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.
 
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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.

My point was that the only the video uploading and transcoding could be offloaded to AWS or similar, that way anyone on any hosting plan could use the service. The admin wouldn't have to configure AWS themselves, just sign up to a service that utilises it. If it's going to be done, it needs to be done in a way that can scale, and be accessible to as many sites as possible for the best value.

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.

If you're worried about your users uploading content like that then you've probably got bigger problems with your community that need addressing, although I have seen spam porn videos uploaded here at XF.com in the gallery, that's addressable with spam controls though. If you're concerned then the videos could be moderated before going live or only let trusted user groups have access to that functionality. I wouldn't write YouTube off completely, to me it seems like the perfect way to make video accessible for smaller communities as the API is there and it's free, before they make the jump to a privately hosted, transcoded and potentially monetisable service.

TapaTalk used Vimeo for all their in app video uploading for a while. They've since removed it, said they're working on an new solution but as far as I can tell it's not come back though.

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.

Except that's not necessarily easy due to the unique server setup and CPU allocation for every single self hosted site, then you have to install and configure ffmpeg, which isn't user friendly at all for many admins. Hence why it could make sense to have service that offloaded the heavy lifting to AWS or similar. That way storage and processing power per dollar could potentially be the best value.

I can see there being demand for 3 different products potentially.

* A YouTube integration for smaller communities who want fast, reliable and free/cheap hosting for user vids after the cost of the add on.

* A native built in uploader for self hosted and self processed videos. For sites with sensitive content or admins who are particular about where the content is hosted and can afford the servers to process it. I guess essentially what the gallery does now with ffmpeg, but the ability to upload to posts.

* A dedicated forum video cloud solution based on AWS that can scale, that admins on any hosting package can sign up to and use without worrying about killing their hosting or bandwidth. You pay per how much you use/process, all the video could be managed through an interface so they can be reviewed, moderated, pruned and monetised via pre, mid or post roll ads and user group access.

The increased and continued growth in video content creation and the issue with file size is another big factor in the case for a native mobile app. With a native mobile app you can use the resources and CPU on the mobile device to resize the video before uploading. This is what What'sApp does when you share videos.

This reduces the processing and hosting cost on the forum's end, and also makes for a better upload experience for the user as the upload will be quicker and the post will go live quicker once the upload is complete.

That becomes an additional potential revenue stream too, as you could limit the upload quality to say 480 or 720p by default and only allow 1080p or higher for premium members.
 
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I’ve noticed that YouTube are starting to flesh out the non-video community side of things.

Seems like they want to keep the conversation on their platform, rather than having people upload and share the links elsewhere as much.

Channels now how a community section and more and more text posts or ‘channel threads’ are appearing in my feed.

Some are pure text, essentially creating a thread with text content that channel subscribers can read and respond to. Some are text posts, but with a video associated with it, completely separate from the normal video page and associated comments

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Another vote here for some sort of video integration. We have a very strong community and people want to upload vids direct to our site. We are potentially losing people to FB groups in the same niche due to the ease of video sharing. Sever space and processing aren't an issue for us but if an AWS method for passing it off that would be really handy.

IMO XF is a superb product, it has been a massive boost for our community since moving from VB a couple of years ago. Direct video upload is a must though if forum owners are to fend off the constant pull of FB groups.
 
BUMP! Man we need this sooooo bad! I feel like forum software should be able to emulate core features of any other social media outlet. XF has been and is amazing. We just need video very badly. I am willing to pay what is needed to see this happen and to also maintain it on a server level. PLEASE someone
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?

BUMP! Man we need this sooooo bad! I feel like forum software should be able to emulate core features of any other social media outlet. XF has been and is amazing. We just need video very badly. I am willing to pay what is needed to see this happen and to also maintain it on a server level. PLEASE someone, please!
 
BUMP! Man we need this sooooo bad! I feel like forum software should be able to emulate core features of any other social media outlet. XF has been and is amazing. We just need video very badly.
This is a XF2 suggestion thread, you need to like the first post in the thread to show support.

I am willing to pay what is needed to see this happen and to also maintain it on a server level. PLEASE someone
If you want to pay someone to create this addon, then you need to post a request in the Custom service/development requests forum.
 
If you need this function now, then Invision board has it now! Developed by Matt Mecham.
https://invisioncommunity.com/news/product-updates/43-videos-r1071/


Except that feature, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t have the option to do any processing on the video. With the XF video implementation in the media gallery, you have the option to transcode the video and optimise it for size and file format, which is rather important as video quality and file sizes get bigger.
 
I've got video upload to my xenForo gallery direct from a phone and set it to a max of 300mb which is roughly 3minutes of phone video - as you can appreciate a few uploads and your members could easily fill your server disc space - ours is set to 100mb for members and 300mb for staff.
So yes it is possible, however I'd say that to be workable you would need the video to run through software server side first to compress it otherwise it could cause problems, especially on a shared server environment.
You would also need to be able to block hot linking otherwise if you are on metered bandwidth that could soon be exhausted as people use your uploading facility to share their videos.
 
Thanks for pointing me at this thread @RobinHood :)

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).

...

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.



On my personal shared server WP blog I never once considered remote hosting of videos & music, but for reasons of total control uploaded them all to the site. Mainly in the past as FLV. It's not as if Google ever suddenly collapses a service people have come to rely on...

Besides, it's faster being loaded without external resources all-in-one.
 
YouTube is now adding more social feature to make it easier to to create a community around your video content on their platform.

With messaging and chat to other users

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YouTube is now adding more social feature to make it easier to to create a community around your video content on their platform.
Once more...it's amazing what an application specific to a platform can do. But - there is only ONE youtube platform. There are many different XenForo based ones.
People that spend money on various add-ons/additions to their site to improve it - or to work in conjunction with it - will have issues since a generic application platform chunks their modifications out.
Going to present it via an application using a wrapper? Then why not just use the browser instead.
 
Not really sure what you're getting at Tracy.
Users want video, every major social media site has it built in these days.
If we can't bring video to our forums, then companies like YouTube are just going to add their own forum/social features to their video sites so users can create communities there instead.
 
Not really sure what you're getting at Tracy.
Users want video, every major social media site has it built in these days.
If we can't bring video to our forums, then companies like YouTube are just going to add their own forum/social features to their video sites so users can create communities there instead.

You can "bring" videos to your forum...simply purchase the Gallery add-on.
I agree there does need to be a little better integration with the gallery add-on in which an option to upload a video becomes a part of the "attach files" or if you drag/drop a video it then prompts you for gallery related input to save into an automatically created personal gallery.
But my point is.... you are never going to have a FaceBook type app (or in this case a YouTube type app) which is apparently a point of contention for you as you mention "with messaging and chat to other users". Those come with a specific platform application typically.

The other issue that will always present it's head is that those on shared hosting will typically never be able to use it (upload video directly) as usually there is a conversion process that has to occur... and unless you offload that to another service the shared hosting providers will not be "happy" with the resource usage that it requires.
 
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