SmartS3 Video Plugin

UPDATE: The plugin has been taken down for the time being. I need to make some important changes. I hope to have it back up shortly.

This is the official page for the SmartS3 Video Plugin. This is a BETA release. Please report all bugs in the comments here.

Description

The SmartS3 Video Plugin lets you easily embed videos from Amazon S3 in your WordPress blog. Here’s a list of the key features of SmartS3:

Shortcode Generator. Embed videos from Amazon S3 into your WordPress blog without hassling with all the technical details yourself. Use the built-in shortcode generator to add a new video with just a couple mouse clicks.
Signed URLs. Leave your videos protected on Amazon S3, because SmartS3 generates signed URLs for every video you embed… automatically. This ensures no one can browse your Amazon S3 videos directly. In addition, every singed URL has an expiration date. So, even if someone paste the entire signed URL onto a sharing site, that URL will expire after a set amount of time (which you can customize).
HTML5 Support. Let your videos play in nearly every device known to man. SmartS3 uses an advanced detection routine to detect what browser and version a user is viewing your video with. Then, based on that detection, it displays the correct player (HTML5 or Flash). This detection is based on the H.264 video codec. This means, you can upload ONE (properly encoded) H.264 file and it will play in nearly every browser and device. This has been specifically tested with the following browsers and devices: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and GoogleTV.
JW Player Support. SmartS3 comes bundled with FlowPlayer; however, it includes support for the JW Player. Due to LongTailVideo’s licensing restrictions, SmartS3 does not come bundled with JW Player; however, you can download JW Player yourself, copy a couple files to SmartS3 and be on your way. You are required to understand and abide by LongTailVideo’s licensing restrictions.

Installation

Here’s how to install SmartS3:

Download SmartS3 from the WordPress repository.
Unzip the smarts3-video-plugin folder
Upload to WordPress and activate

Or, you can simply do a search for “smartS3″ in your WordPress install on the “Add New Plugin” page.

Setup

Before you use SmartS3, you’ll need to run through some setup steps in the admin menu. You’ll see a new menu called “SmartS3″ just below the “Settings” menu in WordPress. Click on the “Settings” sub-menu to go to the settings tab and setup SmartS3. The settings screen looks like this:

Here’s how to set each setting:

Amazon S3 Access Key – Your Amazon S3 access key found in the “Security Credentials” section of Amazon S3.
Amazon S3 Secret Key - Your Amazon S3 secret key found in the “Security Credentials” section of Amazon S3.
Default Player – Select the default player you’d like to use. This is customizable on a per-video basis. (See the Usage section).
Default Bucket Name – Default bucket for this site. This is purely optional.
Default Player Height – The default height of your players. Can be customized on a per-video basis. (See the Usage section).
Default Player Width – The default width of your players. Can be customized on a per-video basis. (See the Usage section).
Default Expiration Period – The default time in minutes before a video link expires. Can be customized on a per-video basis. (See the Usage section).

Usage

Once activated, SmartS3 add a new media icon to the WordPress Edit Post/Page screen:

To embed a new video, simply click this icon and the Shortcode Generator will open up in a thickbox.

1. Enter the URL of your Amazon S3 video and click “Next Step”

2. Modify any of your default settings and click “Insert Shortcode”

Then, simply publish your post and you’re all set.

Download

You can download SmartS3 from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Questions/Comments/Suggestions

You have two options:

1. You can leave a comment below and I may answer you. Just keep in mind that I work as full-time web developer and have numerous other commitments… and, this is a free plugin, so please don’t expect anything from me when it comes to this option. You’ll be less disappointed if you keep that in mind.

2. You can purchase premium support and I will set aside time specifically to help you with your issue. You can learn more about my premium support options here.

FAQs

How do I encode my videos so they’ll play on all the supported browsers and devices?

Encode videos as H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file. Those are the iPad, iPhone 4, and iPod 4 video specifications. With older Apple-product versions, you’ll want to drop down to H.264 Baseline Profile. Of course, that may mean nothing to you…

In that case, do what I do…

1. Use Camtasia Studio 7 for screen captures and encode them using the “HD” preset. That seems to work fine in everything.

2. For full motion videos, encode using your favorite video editor (Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, etc.), then run them through Handbrake using the “Apple-Universal” preset with the “Web Optimized” button checked. Yes, it’s double-encoding, but it’s better than encoding three different formats in order to support all the different browsers and devices (which is what you’ll have to do if you don’t use H.264). Plus, Handbrake is pretty fast… AND, you can queue up multiple videos to encode, press start, and walk away.

Please note: With this plugin, videos play on Apple devices using the HTML5 < video > tag. So, if your videos are encoded correctly to support one of those devices, they WILL play. Ultimately, how you encode your videos is more important that anything this plugin does for browser/device compatibility. Sorry, I can’t write a plugin for that!

How do I use the JW Player with SmartS3?

Go to LongTailVideo.com and download the JW Player. Be sure to get the correct license… this is on you! Extract the downloaded .zip file and open it up. Open the SmartS3 folder and navigate to the /extlib/jw/ folder. Copy the following files from JW Player to SmartS3:

jwplayer.js
player.swf
swfobject.js
license.txt

Upload all the SmartS3 files to your WordPress plugins folder and follow the normal installation and usage instructions… just be sure to select JW Player as your player.

How do I use a poster image with the JW Player?

The poster/splash images for the JW Player are pulled from WordPress. So, if your theme supports post thumbnails and you’ve set a featured image, SmartS3 will use that image. If your theme doesn’t support post thumbnails, you can create a custom field for that post with the URL of the image you want to use as the poster/splash image. I realize this is basic, but I do plan to upgrade this entire system in future versions of SmartS3.

Changelog

Version 0.5.7

NEW

added support for custom images. You can now embed multiple instances of a player in a single post and have a different poster image for each instance

CHANGE

updated shortcode generator to support custom images

Version 0.5.6

CHANGE

added overlay image to FlowPlayer posters to make it more obvious that it is a video

Version 0.5.5

BUGFIXES

fixed IE JavaScript issue reported by PJ Eby
fixed FlowPlayer scaling issue reported by PJ Eby

NEW

added support in FlowPlayer for poster images

CHANGE

changed FlowPlayer embed element from A to DIV

Version 0.5.4

BUGFIXES

fixed issue with thumbnails not showing up correctly when using the JW Player

Version 0.5.3

BUGFIXES

fixed fatal error if theme doesn’t support post thumbnails. We now check if the theme supports post thumbnails and if it doesn’t, we look for a custom field named “image”.

Version 0.5.2

NEW

added support for LongTailVideo’s AdSolution
added support for poster images in the JW Player

BUGFIXES

fixed fatal error when using the shortcode generator

Version 0.5.1

BUGFIXES

Bugfixes for path 404 issues. Issues caused by upload to WordPress SVN. The WP SVN changes the root folder which caused incorrect paths. This release should fix all those issues. Please leave a comment below if you’re running version 0.5.1 and are still getting 404 error or “black video screen” issues.

Version 0.4