Oracle Video Client Software Guide
Release 2.1.8
A42334_4

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Chapter 3
Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in

This chapter describes the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in, which allows web pages to receive video from the Oracle Video Server through a UDP connection.

The Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in appears as a window in an HTML document. The plug-in has no control buttons. Users manipulate the video stream by using the mouse buttons. The primary mouse button toggles play and pause; the secondary mouse button displays a pop-up menu with various options (Play, Pause, Rewind to Start, and Loop at End).

See Appendix A, The Sample Applications for information on sample HTML pages included with the Oracle Video Client.

Requirements

In addition to the standard client requirements, the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in requires that you have a browser that supports Netscape-compliant plug-ins.

Installing the Plug-in

If you select the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in when installing the Oracle Video Client, the installer prompts you for the location for your web browser's plug-ins and copies the plug-in to that location.

You will need to restart your browser if it was running during the installation.

Using the Plug-in

To add the plug-in to your HTML document, add this element at the appropriate location in your document:

<embed src="oracle.mpg" width=352 height=240 mdsfile="mpi-file">

The mpi-file specifies the tag file for the video that you want to view.

When a user opens the page, the embed element directs the browser to copy the src file (oracle.mpg in the example above) to the client. By its file extension (.mpg) the src file tells the browser to search for a plug-in that supports MPEG files (the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in).

The src file:

can have any name
must be an actual file, a minimum of 1 kilobyte in length
must be stored in a web server directory, if your web page is on a web server
must be stored in the directory which contains your HTML page, if your web page is on a local PC

Note that the web server is different from the Oracle Video Server.

A sample 1-kilobyte file, oracle.mpg, is included with the Oracle Video Client. For more information see Oracle Video Web Plug-in: Unix Web Server in Appendix A, The Sample Applications.

Once the src file is completely copied to the client, the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in:

opens a UDP connection to the Oracle Video Server
allocates a stream
starts pumping video from the Oracle Video Server

The UDP video transfer is completely independent of HTTP.

If video is being played from the video server, the attribute mdsfile specifies the tag (.mpi) file pointing to the video you want to play. If video is being played from a local hard disk, mdsfile specifies the actual name of a video file. If you don't specify an mdsfile, the client software will actually try to play the src file. You can do this, but it isn't recommended, because browser has to download the entire src file before it can be played.

The video stream is automatically deallocated when the page is closed by the browser.

Note

The Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in cannot play video through a firewall, because it uses UDP to transmit the video (rather than TCP); most firewalls don't accept UDP packets.

Embed Attributes

The complete list of attributes for the <embed> element is:

src="file.mpg"

Mandatory. Identifies the type of plug-in (based on the .mpg extension). If the HTML page is being accessed from a web server, the file is copied to the client before video starts.

To show video from the Oracle Video Server, use the src attribute to specify a 1-kilobyte file and use the mdsfile attribute to specify an MPEG file on the Oracle Video Server.

width=nn

Mandatory. Specifies the width of the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in. If this is not the width of the video, the video will scale to fit the width attribute.

height=nn

Mandatory. Specifies the height of the Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in. If this is not the height of the video, the video will scale to fit the height attribute.

autostart=true|false

If true, video starts playing when page is opened. If false, the user must click on the primary mouse button to start playing the video. Default is false.

loop=true|false

If true, the video plays again after it completes. Default is false.

mdsfile=tagfilename

Specifies the tag file for the video to be played. If this attribute is not specified, the client will try to play the file specified with the src attribute.

server=omn_addr

Indicates the Oracle Media Net address of the Oracle Video Server that contains the video specified in the mdsfile attribute. This attribute is only meaningful when you also specify the mdsfile attribute.

std_opt=val1

Specifies any other standard plug-in options (such as "border=width").

This example shows an <embed> element that adds an Oracle Video Server Web Plug-in to a page that will accommodate a standard 352x240 MPEG video. The video playback begins when the user opens the page (autostart=true) and continues to loop (loop=true) until the reader closes the page.

<embed src="oracle.mpg" width=352 height=240 autostart=true loop=true  
server="UDP:192.25.102.201:5000" mdsfile="/mds/movies/venice.mpi">