Serving local windows media files via PHP

[AeonOfTime]

Hi everyone,

I am working on a project where I have .wmv files stored outside of
the server's www root, and want to serve them via a custom web
interface. It's all on windows, and is only intended to work locally
on the physical machine it runs on (don't ask, the customer is
king...).

Right now I have a working prototype in which I use a PHP script
(called movie.php) to serve the target file. In the HTML page, I have
an OBJECT tag that refers to the script, like so:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer " WIDTH="512" HEIGHT="384"
CLASSID="CLSID: 22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loadin g Windows Media Player components..."
TYPE="applicati on/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="movie.ph p?fileID=12345" >
<PARAM name="ShowContr ols" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatu sBar" value="true">
<PARAM name="ShowDispl ay" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="autostart " VALUE="true">
<EMBED TYPE="applicati on/x-mplayer2"
SRC="movie.php? fileID=12345"
NAME="MediaPlay er"
WIDTH="512"
HEIGHT="384"
ShowControls="1 "
ShowStatusBar=" 1"
ShowDisplay="1"
autostart="1"
pluginspage="ht tp://www.microsoft.c om/windows/windowsmedia/download/
default.asp">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

The movie.php script itself is pretty simple too (stripped down to the
essentials):

<?php

$timeout = 60 * 60 * 24 * 2;
header( 'Cache-Control', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Pragma', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Expires', gmdate( 'D, d M Y H:i:s', time() + $timeout ) . '
GMT' );
header( 'Content-Type:video/x-ms-wmv' );
readfile( $file );

?>

This gives me a working player, but the big downside is the player
won't let me skip the clips :(

The seek bar does not respond to any requests to skip ahead, and
pausing the video resets it to the start. Any idea on how I can fix
this so I can skip ahead as much as I wish?

Thanks a lot!

[petersprc]

Hi,

Seeking usually involves a partial GET request (http://www.w3.org/
Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec1 4.35).

You could handle the range request in your script and send the byte
range specified in $_SERVER['HTTP_RANGE'] along with appropriate
headers. Example here: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.fread.php#84115

Alternatively, you can let Apache send the requested part directly by
using mod_rewrite and a map containing authorized sessions. Good
example here: http://bytes.com/forum/thread10523.html

The first is more flexible in terms of authorization and logging etc.
The second method would have slightly better performance, but I
wouldn't worry about it unless you're handling very high loads.

Regards,

John Peters

On Jul 30, 12:52 pm, AeonOfTime <s.mordz...@gma il.comwrote:

Hi everyone,

I am working on a project where I have .wmv files stored outside of
the server's www root, and want to serve them via a custom web
interface. It's all on windows, and is only intended to work locally
on the physical machine it runs on (don't ask, the customer is
king...).

Right now I have a working prototype in which I use a PHP script
(called movie.php) to serve the target file. In the HTML page, I have
an OBJECT tag that refers to the script, like so:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer " WIDTH="512" HEIGHT="384"
CLASSID="CLSID: 22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loadin g Windows Media Player components..."
TYPE="applicati on/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="movie.ph p?fileID=12345" >
<PARAM name="ShowContr ols" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatu sBar" value="true">
<PARAM name="ShowDispl ay" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="autostart " VALUE="true">
<EMBED TYPE="applicati on/x-mplayer2"
SRC="movie.php? fileID=12345"
NAME="MediaPlay er"
WIDTH="512"
HEIGHT="384"
ShowControls="1 "
ShowStatusBar=" 1"
ShowDisplay="1"
autostart="1"
pluginspage="ht tp://www.microsoft.c om/windows/windowsmedia/download/
default.asp">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

The movie.php script itself is pretty simple too (stripped down to the
essentials):

<?php

$timeout = 60 * 60 * 24 * 2;
header( 'Cache-Control', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Pragma', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Expires', gmdate( 'D, d M Y H:i:s', time() + $timeout ) . '
GMT' );
header( 'Content-Type:video/x-ms-wmv' );
readfile( $file );

?>

This gives me a working player, but the big downside is the player
won't let me skip the clips :(

The seek bar does not respond to any requests to skip ahead, and
pausing the video resets it to the start. Any idea on how I can fix
this so I can skip ahead as much as I wish?

Thanks a lot!

[C. (http://symcbean.blogspot.com/)]

On Jul 30, 5:52 pm, AeonOfTime <s.mordz...@gma il.comwrote:

Hi everyone,

I am working on a project where I have .wmv files stored outside of
the server's www root, and want to serve them via a custom web
interface. It's all on windows, and is only intended to work locally
on the physical machine it runs on (don't ask, the customer is
king...).

Right now I have a working prototype in which I use a PHP script
(called movie.php) to serve the target file. In the HTML page, I have
an OBJECT tag that refers to the script, like so:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer " WIDTH="512" HEIGHT="384"
CLASSID="CLSID: 22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loadin g Windows Media Player components..."
TYPE="applicati on/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="movie.ph p?fileID=12345" >
<PARAM name="ShowContr ols" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatu sBar" value="true">
<PARAM name="ShowDispl ay" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="autostart " VALUE="true">
<EMBED TYPE="applicati on/x-mplayer2"
SRC="movie.php? fileID=12345"
NAME="MediaPlay er"
WIDTH="512"
HEIGHT="384"
ShowControls="1 "
ShowStatusBar=" 1"
ShowDisplay="1"
autostart="1"
pluginspage="ht tp://www.microsoft.c om/windows/windowsmedia/download/
default.asp">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>

The movie.php script itself is pretty simple too (stripped down to the
essentials):

<?php

$timeout = 60 * 60 * 24 * 2;
header( 'Cache-Control', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Pragma', 'private, max-age=' . $timeout . '' );
header( 'Expires', gmdate( 'D, d M Y H:i:s', time() + $timeout ) . '
GMT' );
header( 'Content-Type:video/x-ms-wmv' );
readfile( $file );

?>

This gives me a working player, but the big downside is the player
won't let me skip the clips :(

The seek bar does not respond to any requests to skip ahead, and
pausing the video resets it to the start. Any idea on how I can fix
this so I can skip ahead as much as I wish?

Thanks a lot!

Don't use wmv.

In addition to solving the player problems, you'll reach a wider
audience and prevent leeching by using mpeg and Flash - see
http://www.webvideozone.com/public/171.cfm

C.