I posted four new OSMF recipes on Adobe's cookbook site this afternoon, and thought you might care to see 'em:

Playing Multiple Pieces of Media, Consecutively, with the OSMF ParallelElement
Playing Multiple Pieces of Media, Concurrently, with the OSMF ParallelElement
Dynamic Streaming with OSMF
HTTP Streaming in OSMF

And, as a reminder along these lines, I'm teaching this year at MAX, as a MAX Master, on 'Designing Custom Video Players with OSMF' (you can browse the catalog of talks and presentations and then you can register here).

Share and enjoy!

-r

Are you a server geek? Would you rather use Ubuntu vs Windows or OSX? Do you have massive scale consumer Web and J2EE experience on middle tier applications?

Almer/Blank prides itself on excellence in engineering. We design, build and service high traffic Web and mobile applications. We are seeking a professional, self-motivated, detail-oriented Server Engineer to join our team.

What you need:
- Linux server installation/administration experience
- RDBMS installation/administration experience (MySQL, PostGreSQL, etc)
- Apache Web Server installation/administration experience (Split configurations, module mgmt, etc)
- Email server installation/administration experience (Sendmail, QMail, Exim, etc)
- WAN experience (TCP/IP, UDP, Bind, etc)
- Java application deployment experience (Tomcat, GlassFish, J2EE, JAX-WS, etc)
- PHP application development/deployment experience (PHP5 preferred)
- Extensive OOD and OOP experience
- Familiarity with enterprise architecture patterns and application design patterns (MVC, State, Factory, etc)
- The ability to architect Web tier applications
- Distributed computing experience
- System/Data backup and recovery planning experience
- Mission critical application support experience

What you'll be doing:
- Applying your expertise to many, many interesting technical problems
- Resolving IT related issues including but not limited to:
*Level 1: User administration, software/hardware requests, application troubleshooting
*Level 2: System issues; network/system outages; software compatibility issues, etc.
- Maintaining outsourced hosting partners including Web and email.
- Designing scalable solutions that deliver engaging experiences to the Web and mobile devices
- Proactively providing architectural guidance to multiple projects
- Relaying technical issues and status to senior and executive management
- Learning new development languages

What's in it for you:
- Work with some of the best application developers on planet Earth!!
- Friendly, fast-paced environment
- Competitive compensation
- Huge growth potential
- Full Benefits
- Flexible hours
- Close proximity to Venice Beach

So if you are a server expert this opportunity peaks your interest,
please apply today!

I've already got a few ideas and things I want to try on the Nexus One, so guess I know what I'll be doing for the next week when I get home from work.

As you may know, OSMF 1.0 has been release, so one of the first tasks I set for myself was to test the code I wrote in April for OSMF 0.95 (which I posted, along with the screencasts of my talk at FITC, here). And, lo and behold, all of them worked!

Well, all except one. The final demo file, the Full Sample Player was playing, but the video was invisible and all the controls were disabled. So I set out to figure out why. (For those who don't want to read to the end, you can download the updated project file, for Flash CS5, here.)

It wasn't long before I found the culprit. It turns out that the MediaPlayer in OSMF now dispatches the 'ready' MediaPlayerStateChangeEvent when the video is ready to play for the first time — not just when it's ready to play again. So, the result of my last code sample, with OSMF 1.0, was to hide the video and disable the controls — at the start of the video playback! Not what I wanted.

So, if we just remove lines 157 and 158 (seen below), from the _onMediaPlayerStateChange function, the player will work.

case "ready":
	_disableControls ( ) ;
	_cleanUpVideo ( ) ;
	break;

But now, when our video ends, the video doesn't get reset (or 'cleaned up' or however you want to say it) — it looks ugly and doesn't behave how we would expect (because we just removed the code that's supposed to clean up these videos).

So, how do we clean up at the end of a video? Well, you can now listen for the TimeEvent.COMPLETE event on the MediaPlayer instance — when it's fired, the playback of your media is done.

So, if we add this line to the _setupOSMF() function:

_mediaPlayer.addEventListener ( TimeEvent.COMPLETE , _onComplete , false , 0 , true ) ;

…and then declare the _onComplete function, adding back in those two lines we removed from the _onMediaPlayerStateChange function:

private function _onComplete ( evt : TimeEvent ) : void
{
	_disableControls ( ) ;
	_cleanUpVideo ( ) ;
}

One final note… Adobe added in string constants for all of the MediaPlayerStateChangeEvent types, grouped in the new MediaPlayerState class. So instead of comparing against the string, "ready", you can now compare against the string constant of MediaPlayerState.READY. All of them are listed here and have been included in the updated source files that accompany this post.

See you in October at MAX in LA!

And, as always, share and enjoy!

-r

I just received word this morning that Adobe has made me a MAX Master Speaker. This is the inaugural year for the MAX Masters program, and it means that I have had an average rating of at least 4.8/5 from at least 50 MAX attendees.

I consider this designation a real privilege. I take my speaking engagements very seriously, and it is nice to feel that effort rewarded in such a tangible way — especially in the context of a conference like MAX, which has so many high-level speakers.

I'm currently set to run a lab on building OSMF video players, but I believe that I will also be giving my Practical AS3 lecture, as well (the version of that same talk from last year's MAX is viewable here, on Adobe TV).

The MAX Session Scheduler has gone live. Check it out. And see you in November!

-r

I know blogging's been light for the past several months. Work here at Almer/Blank has had me pretty consumed.

But, as I gear up and prepare for a busy autumn of talks and courses, you can expect some heavier posting.

First up, I'll be presenting at FITC San Francisco — the first SF installment of the really amazing FITC conferences.

On day one, August 17th, I'll be giving my talk, 'Hearing Pictures with Synthia' — you can see an earlier version of that talk, from FITC Toronto in April, here, and play with Synthia at SynthiaHearsPictures.com.

Then, on day three, August 19th, I'll be giving a talk on 'Getting Started with Adobe Open Source Media Framework (OSMF)' in the 'Adobe Under the Hood' room — a version from FITC Toronto in April you can view here.

It will be an amazing conference, with a ton of great talks. Early bird pricing ends July 2nd, so get your tickets now!

Share and enjoy!

-r

The contest ended yesterday, and we picked a winner. Congratulations are in order to Kenny D. from Los Angeles, who provided the winning entry — and who will shortly receive a brand new iPad.

We're not posting Kenny's idea just yet — because we might actually use it. But, it outlined a very specific and creative implementation of Synthia as a Facebook application.

For those of you who submitted ideas, thank you very much. And to everyone, stay tuned through 2010 for further updates to Synthia!

Thank you,

-r

On Wednesday, June 9th, Adobe will be hosting a FREE 90-minute session, run by Lisa Larson-Kelley, on the formal launch of the 1.0 version of the Adobe Open Source Media Framework (OSMF). Lisa will also cover the beta release of "Strobe Media Playback," a pre-compiled SWF media player (including source code) based on OSMF.

The invitation is here and you may register here.

[blockquote]In this session, Lisa Larson-Kelley will introduce you to the fundamentals of Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), Adobe’s standard video player libraries for building playback experiences and monetizing video on the web. She’ll give you a high-level overview of why you’d want to use OSMF and what it can do, and then dive into its underlying structure and some simple sample code to get you started. This session is for beginner to intermediate programmers and web developers who want to gain a better understanding of OSMF, and how it can simplify media player development.[/blockquote]

Share and enjoy!

-r

Interactive design and development company Almer/Blank is taking its new photo hunt game,  "Spot The Dogference,"  off the leash and out of its Venice Beach, Calif. studios. The fun, new game fetches two similar, yet different, photos of random dogs for a fast-paced, side-by-side comparison test of your eyes. In a twist on standard "Spot the Difference" -type apps, Spot The Dogference allows dog-loving users to get involved by submitting pictures of their four-legged companions so that they may be featured in future versions of the game.

The basic premise of Spot The Dogference is simple: a player views two seemingly identical dog images which actually have minor differences. The player must find and select all of the "dogferences"  before the timer runs out. The faster the player finishes each round, the higher the score. There are currently three levels of play plus a "Bonus" level, with each one becoming increasingly difficult as a player advances.

Other features of Spot The Dogference:

• Integrated Twitter status. A user may log in and have their Twitter status updated with their Spot The Dogference score - a sort of "high score" board. All scores are also updated on the "Spot The Dogference" Twitter account at twitter.com/dogference.
• Integrated AddThis functionality (formerly ClearSpring). Users can share Spot The Dogference across multiple social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.
• Mochi Ads. These banner ads, placed within the game play, allow for Spot The Dogference to be self-sustaining and free for users to play.
• Structure: The game was architected using the PureMVC framework, allowing maximum portability and reducing future engineering hours with rebranding.

Sit, stay and then roll over to the site to see how well you Spot the Dogference! www.spotthedogference.com

So I edited it down a bit (cutting out the Q&A, which unfortunately was not audible on my microphone), chopped the sections down into individual videos, and posted them to YouTube. I thought it might be a good reference if I embedded all of them in a single post, along with the source code you'll want for each lesson if you wish to follow along in Flash CS4 or CS5.

In this talk, I cover:
- what is OSMF
- OSMF capabilities
- The basic structure of an OSMF player, including the MediaElement, MediaPlayer and MediaComposition
- Dynamic Streaming (the files for that video also include HTTP Streaming)
- Subclipping
- The key MediaPlayer properties and events required to build a media player

The talk and these files all use OSMF 0.9 from Sprint 10, which you can download here.

The Slides

Part 1: Overview of Adobe OSMF

Part 2: Getting Started with OSMF in Adobe Flash

download the files to accompany this video

Part 3: Dynamic Streaming with Adobe OSMF

download the files to accompany this video

Part 4: Composite Elements in Adobe OSMF

download the files to accompany this video

Part 5: Subclipping

download the files to accompany this video

Part 6: Key MediaPlayer Properties And Events in OSMF

download the files to accompany this video