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Video Uploading and Wordpress--Help!

by kevalin
4 replies
I'm not sure this is the forum I should post this in; I apologize in advance if it's the wrong one, and ask that the Moderator send it to its proper place.

I have a Wordpress site on which I would like to feature videos (or slideshows) that the site's users upload.

I would like to set it up so that people can log in to their YouTube account and upload a video without leaving my site. The admin of my site, in turn, would be able to find these videos after being notified that the submission has been made, moderate them and then feature them on a regular basis.

YouTube's Developer's API information indicates that this or something like it can be done... but my programming skills are rudimentary at best. From what I can tell, there may be a way to "hook" my site's form plugin (cforms) in such a way that people can use the form on my site to both upload their videos to YouTube and more or less simultaneously inform my site's admin of the upload so he/she can find and embed it, but I have no clue of how to make that happen. Or if I'm even reading YouTube's information correctly, so that it can be done.

I am not averse to paying to have the work done, but I'm not even sure what I would be asking for, technically speaking. Programming? If so, what kind? Web building and/or Design? Something strange and alien that I can't even imagine?

ANY help, comments, or requests for clarification about what I want would be greatly appreciated. If this can't be done through WordPress, but can be done through a "regular" website, I'd like to know that, too... then I'd like some general information about how to do it. That is, can a rank amateur pull something like this together?

If no one here can help, then directions to any other forums, etc., that might have an answer would also be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, I'm well and thoroughly stuck.
#uploading #video #wordpresshelp
  • Profile picture of the author affiliatepro15
    Your best bet will be to hire a freelancer from elance or other site. Might be expensive to set something like that up though. Also, since they are uploading to YouTube, won't really have any moderation (except for what you show on your site)

    Any specific reason you want them to be uploading to YouTube?
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    • Profile picture of the author kevalin
      Originally Posted by affiliatepro15 View Post

      Any specific reason you want them to be uploading to YouTube?
      To avoid future bandwidth issues, mostly. Embedding vids from YouTube means they take all that on, not me, or so I gather. Though my site is new and untraveled at this moment (and this issue has brought work on it to a standstill these last few weeks), my full expectation is that once word of it gets around, the folks who are interested in the subject matter will be very inclined to submit videos. I'd rather avoid getting shut down because any possible growth outshines my ability to pay for it, particularly since this is not a site that will be likely to be explosively profitable, at least at the beginning.

      I suppose I could create an video submission form that includes receiving permission to load the submmitter's video to my YouTube Channel. Then, I could load them to my site myself... but I'd rather hoped to skip that step. This is not the only project I'm working on, my offline life limits my online work time, and hiring an admin at this point is unfeasible.

      Am I complicating a cheese sandwich, here? If that's so and there's a simpler way to do what I want to do: mainly, make it possible for users to submit videos my the site in a way that won't end up costing me more to run it than I can currently afford, please make suggestions. I'm all ears.
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      • Profile picture of the author hrbwp
        I'd recommend you use a plugin called Video Embedder. What I would do is create a form (cform would work, in fact I prefer it) that gives instructions to users to enter in their video id. The plugin's settings page gives many examples. An example video id the plugin gives for youtube (in red and the last part of a youtube url) is something like zORv8wwladQ. Then just use the value they submit. The plugin will allow you to embed the video with some short code like [youtube]zORv8wwladQ[/youtube]. The plugin works for many other video sites, not just youtube. If you'd like to automate the entire process I'd be happy to help you out, just send me a message.
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  • Profile picture of the author kevalin
    Originally Posted by hrbwp View Post

    I'd recommend you use a plugin called Video Embedder...
    Thanks for your suggestion, hrbwp. The plugin I currently use is Smart Youtube, but I will give Video Embedder a look. And I may well contact you for help in setting things up, if it works with the latest Wordpress upgrade (that seems to be a question for some site owners).

    Question about cforms: is it possible to have the address submitters upload their videos to a location other than my Wordpress site; eg., to a storage site such as DropBox or Amazon S3 (which I know very little about)? It looks like a possibility, but since you work with cforms, I figured I'd ask.

    Now that I've thought about it, I really want to have the option to moderate submitted videos before they get onto YouTube. If need be, I can always look at hunting up someone(s) on Fiverr.com or someplace to play moderator for batches of videos. Or I can enlist a friend or family member to help.

    I actually dummied up a draft of my upload form about the time I ran into this issue; so happens I'd already added a line where the submitter gives me permission to not only feature their video on my site, but on my site's YouTube Channel. Uploading submitted videos straight to a storage site might actually be a feasible option. Since they'll be fairly small (2 to 5 minutes each, at an average of 5MB's per 3-minute video), downloading them to another computer en masse for moderation won't freak out my ISP.

    Anyway, and yet again, any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    By the by... where is the "Thanks" button or equivalent in this place?
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