Including Movie Files in Generated Albums

Including movies

Movie files are treated as any other image file. If the end user’s browser has the capacity to play the type of movie file included in the album, the movie will be played. If a particular type of movie file cannot be viewed, it is not a limitation in BluPlusPlus; often an appropriate plug-in can be downloaded from the Web that will enable a browser to play a movie file. If the end user has both Windows Media Player and QuickTime on his/her machine, most movie formats will be able to be played.

Unless a custom thumbnail is specified for a movie (see below), BPP will use a generic “film” icon for a movie file.

Supported Movie Formats

The following movie formats are supportedby default : asf, asx, avi, divx, mov, mp4, mpe, mpeg, mpeg4,mpg, mpg4, wmv, wvx, xvid, 3gp.

Supporting Additional Video File Types

BluPlusPlus will process any video file type listed in the supported-video.txt file. Simply edit that file and add the desired audio file type to the end of the list.

Movie Player Window Size

Unlike jpg images, movie files do not contain dimension information that can be accessed by JAlbum or BluPlusPlus. Therefore, the size of the window for movies must be set independently of the slide image size set on the JAlbum-Main tab. The movie window size is set on the BluPlusPlus-Slide tab. The movie window size must be set large enough to take into account the size of the movie player controls. Since different movie players require different amounts of space for their controls, some trial and error may be needed to obtain the desired result.

Frames for Movie Slides

Selecting an asymmetric frame for movie slide images (such as the typical drop shadows) will result in the movie image being offset in the frame. Either be sure to select a symmetric frame or modify the desired asymmetric frame so that it becomes symmetric.

Custom thumbnail icons for movies

Users can specify a custom thumbnail image to replace the generic movie icon provided by BPP. Each movie can have its own custom icon. The desired thumbnail icon image file should be named EXACTLY the same name as the movie file, except ‘.thumb’ is appended. Note: ‘.thumb’ does not replace the movie file extension but is added on. For example, if the name of the movie file is “test.mpg”, the thumbnail will be named “test.mpg.thumb”.) This thumbnail image file should be placed in the same folder as the original movie file.

Note for those having difficulty making custom movie icons work correctly:
Users having difficulty making the custom movie icon feature correctly should consult this FAQ.

Customizing the HTML code used to process video files

By default, BluPlusPlus uses <embed></embed> tags for video (and audio) files. This method was chosen because it maximizes cross browser and cross platform compatibility. By using <embed></embed> tags, the responsibility for processing the video file rests with the end user’s browser.

There are other methods of presenting video files to browsers which provide the end user’s browser with more information that will help the browser determine how to play the video file. Unfortunately, often by providing this additional information, some browser/platform combinations may not be able to play a vido file that would play fine using <embed></embed> tags.

If they wish, knowledgable users may change the HTML code BPP uses to present video files to browsers. This can be done either so that ALL video file types use the new code, but it can also be done on a filetype-by-filetype basis.

To change the HTML code for all video file types, edit the video-block.inc file in the BluPlusPlus-->config folder. To change the HTML code for a single video file type, add a file named video-block-xxx.inc (where ‘xxx’ is the desired filtype extension) to the BluPlusPlus-->config folder. For example, to add custom HTML code for .wmv video files only, create a file called ‘video-block-wmv.inc’ and place the desired custom HTML code there.