Railo 3.0 released - Features part III - Multimedia

As you might have read in my previous entries, Railo 3.0 introduces some new multimedia tags and functions. In this blog entry I will show you how to use them.

The three new tags in Railo 3.0 are:

• <cfvideo>
  Tag for manipulating videos
• <cfvideoplayer>
  Displays a video with several options
• <cfvideoplayerparam>
  Adds videos to a certain playlist initialized by CFVIDEOPLAYER
• isVideoFile()
  As the only new function at the moment

The video conversion functionality is supported only in the Railo Develop and in the Railo Enterprise version. In order to use the necessary video components, you can just start using the tag or go to the Railo Server Administrator and upload the corresponding video components. You will find more information in the Railo Server Administrator under Services/Video.
Further below you'll find the complete documentation for the three tags. But let us start with some examples. The source video I am using for my examples can be downloaded here: Source video
First of all we will retrieve some information about the video. This can easily be done with the following call: This displays something like this:

info

Struct audio Struct channels string stereo codec string aac samplerate number 44100 duration number 28400 height number 720 video Struct bitrate number 2095104 codec string h264 format string yuv420p framerate number 23.98 width number 1280

Now you can use the following syntax in order to convert this video into something else:

Note that if you only define either width or height the corresponding other size will be calculated by Railo automatically.
OK conversion done, now we should extract an image: You can of course extract a full size image and use the CFIMAGE tag or the image functions of Railo in order to resize it. This might lead to better results as well.
If you want to concatenate two videos just use the following syntax (resizing and setting other parameters is not supported at the moment): Now every conversion and extracrion is done so let's display the video: Please note, that you have to set width and height as soon as you are using external videos. Otherwise Railo will throw an error. This produces something like this:

info

Struct audio Struct channels string stereo codec string aac samplerate number 44100 duration number 28400 height number 720 video Struct bitrate number 2095104 codec string h264 format string yuv420p framerate number 23.98 width number 1280

Looks nice, and this is how to create a playlist with the CFVIDEOPLAYER tag:

The isVideoFile() function returns a boolean telling you whether the passed path to a file is containing a valid video file (including images) or not. Railo does not only check the extension, but in the background the meta data of the file is analysed and evaluated. The source I created (including the source video) can be downloaded here.

And finally here's the plain documentation for the three VIDEO tags:

CFVIDEO

Name	Type	Required	Description	Action
action	string	Yes	Type of video manipulation that the tag performs. Valid actions are [info,convert,cutimage,concat]	-
aspectratio	string	No	Aspect ratio (16:9,4:3)	convert
audiobitrate	string	No	Sets the audio bitrate. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality (example: 10kbps, 10mbps, 10bps)	convert
audiocodec	string	No	Force using a certain audio codec	convert
audiosamplerate	string	No	Audio sample rate. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality	convert
author	string	No	Set the author meta data of the destination video	convert
buffersize	number	No	Set the buffer size for the conversion	convert
comment	string	No	Set the comment meta data of the destination video	convert
copyright	string	No	Set the copyright meta data of the destination video	convert
debug	string	No	Fills a variable with this name with the shell call to the converter.	convert
destination	string	No	Sets the path of the destination video	convert,cutimage,concat
execution	string	No	Allowed values are [quality, performance]	convert
fps	number	No	Sets how many frames per second shall be used	convert
framerate	number	No	Alias for fps	convert
height	string	No	Set the height of destination video	convert,cutimage
max	string	No	Sets the maximal length of destination video. You can define either frames (f) or a time in milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s)	convert
name	string	No	Name of the destination video	convert
nameconflict	string	No	Sets how Railo should proceed if a file with the same exists in the target directory. Valid values are [error,skip,overwrite,makeunique]	convert,cutimage,concat
profile	string	No	Defines which standard profile to be used (declared in the video.xml)	convert
quality	string	No	Alias for profile	convert
result	string	No	Sets the name of the struct that holds the result when executing action info (default is cfvideo)	info
source	string	No	Sets the path to the source video that will be converted	convert,concat,info
source1	string	No	Sets the first source video for action concat	concat
source2	string	No	Sets the second source video for action concat	concat
start	string	No	Sets the offset for the conversion or extraction of an image in the source. You can define either frames (f) or a time in milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s)	convert,cutimage
title	string	No	Sets the title meta data for the destination video	convert
videobitrate	string	No	Sets the video bitrate. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality (example: 10kbps, 10mbps, 10bps)	convert
videobitratemax	string	No	Sets the maximum video bitrate when a variable bitrate is used. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality (example: 10kbps, 10mbps, 10bps)	convert
videobitratemin	string	No	Sets the mainimum video bitrate when a variable bitrate is used. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality (example: 10kbps, 10mbps, 10bps)	convert
videobitratetolerance	string	No	Sets the video bitrate tolerance of the variable bitrate. The default is the same as the input or part of defined quality (example: 10kbps, 10mbps, 10bps)	convert
videocodec	string	No	Forces the use of a certain video codec	convert
width	string	No	Sets the width of destination video	convert,cutimage

CFVIDEOPLAYER

Name	Type	Required	Description
allowfullscreen	boolean	No	A click on the 'full screen' button of the player displays it by filling the complete screen of the client
autostart	boolean	No	Set this to true in the player to automatically start playing the video when the page is loaded.
background	string	No	Alias for bgcolor
backgroundcolor	string	No	Alias for bgcolor
bgcolor	string	No	Set the background color
debug	boolean	No
download	boolean	No	Set this to true to display the download button in the player controlbar
fgcolor	string	No	Set the foreground color
foreground	string	No	Alias for fgcolor
foregroundcolor	string	No	Alias for fgcolor
group	boolean	No	When multiple videos are defined, you can define whether the videos should be broken into parts or played as a single video
height	string	No	Height of the video player. This attribute must be set, when the source video is not stored locally (eg. http://...)
id	string	No
lightcolor	string	No
linkfromdisplay	boolean	No
linktarget	string	No
overstretch	string	No	Sets whether to stretch images/movies to make them fit in the player. Set this attribute to true in order to stretch them proportionally, fit to stretch them disproportionally and none to keep original video dimensions
passthrough	struct	No	Attributes that should natively be passed to the flash player
playlist	string	No	Set whether to display a playlist or not. Values may contain right or below
playlistsize	number	No	Size in px of the playlist. If playlist is set to right of display this represents the width otherwise the height of the playlist
playlistthumbnails	boolean	No	Sets whether to display thumbnails in the playlist or not
preview	string	No	Path to a preview image (JPG)
screencolor	string	No	Sets the screen color
showpause	string	No	Display the pause button in the player control bar
showplay	string	No	Display the play button in the player control bar
showtimeline	string	No	Display the timeline in the player control bar
target	string	No	...
thumbnails	boolean	No	Alias for playlistThumbnails
thumbs	boolean	No	Alias for playlistThumbnails
video	string	No	path to video file (flv/mp4)
width	string	No	Width of the video player. This attribute must be set, when the source video is not stored locally (eg. http://...)

CFVIDEOPLAYERPARAM

Name	Type	Required	Description
author	string	No	Author metadata
flash	string	No	path to a flash file
image	string	No	Alias for preview
index	number	No	For further usage
link	string	No	Link associated with the playlist entry.
preview	string	No	Preview image for the playlist entry.
show	string	No	Display the video in the playlist.
title	string	No	Title of the video in the playlist
video	string	No	path to FLV file