Display Videos retrieved from Database?

Question

Hi all,
I am trying to display videos from my database, does anyone know how to do this? I would like to display the video on my jsp page. I have no problem retrieving it but how do i get it to have a player for example like embedding a video from Youtube. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Answer 1

Well it doesn't work as the video which you are retriving from the database is not in SWF / FLV or any shockwave supported format.
Well if i were given a similar situation i'd solve it by the below stratergy.
1).I'd Query my database and i'd get some metadata about the video like
(videoId interger(5) PK,videoName varchar(50) not null,isYouTubeVideo varchar(1) not null,youTubeVideoUrl varchar(200),videoMimeType varchar(40) not null)
2).On a basic grounds i'd apply a small display logic if the video is a youtube video( as youtube simply converts the videos into FLV format with a high compression ratio) or if the video's MIME type is video/x-flv (FLV's mime type) lets simply use youtube's standard embeding feature and render the JSP accordingly else use Media Player's embeding feature and render the JSP accordingly.
jsp code snippet
eg:*
<jsp:useBean id="videoBean" class="com.myapp.entity.VideoBean" scope="request"/>
<c:choose>
   <c:when test="${videoBean.YouTubeVideo == 'Y' || videoBean.videoMimeType == 'video/x-flv'}">    
          <object width="425" height="344">              
               <c:if test="${videoBean.videoMimeType == 'video/x-flv'}">
                    <param name="movie" value="fileServlet?fileId=${videoBean.videoId}"/>
                    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/>
                    <embed src="/fileServlet?fileId=${videoBean.videoId}" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/>
                </c:if> 
               <c:if test="${not empty videoBean.youTubeVideoUrl}">
                    <param name="movie" value="${videoBean.youTubeVideoUrl}"/>
                    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/>
                    <embed src="${videoBean.youTubeVideoUrl}" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/>
                </c:if> 
          </object>
   </c:when>
   <c:when test="${videoBean.videoMimeType == 'application/x-Shockwave-flash' || videoBean.videoMimeType == 'application/futuresplash'}">
          <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="425" height="344">
                <param name="quality" value="high"/>
                <embed src="/fileServlet?fileId=${videoBean.videoId}" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"/>
          </object>
   </c:when>
   <c:otherwise>
           <OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="425" HEIGHT="344" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player.." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
                  <PARAM name="FileName" value="${videoBean.videoName}"/>
                  <PARAM name="autostart" value="false"/>
                  <PARAM name="ShowControls" value="true"/>
                  <PARAM name="ShowStatusBar" value="false"/>
                  <PARAM name="ShowDisplay" value="false"/>
                 <EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="/fileServlet?fileId=${videoBean.videoId}" NAME="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="425" HEIGHT="344" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="0" ShowDisplay="0" autostart="0"/>
           </OBJECT>
    </c:otherwise>
</c:choose>
NOTE: I have taken an example of embeding media player as an alternative player in this example however as Balusc explains it is on you to choose an alternative player which can fit your client's requirement or the browsers which he uses.
Hope,that helps you out :)
REGARDS,
RaHuL