Vimeo!

[Polimayo]

I noticed there was a youtube channel which seemed obvious and a great feature but I would really love if there was a Vimeo (vimeo.com) channel integration that had similar things like a search option.

Vimeo is a great place for user-submitted content that has an emphasis on creativity and a little production value (not to mention HD support).

Loving boxee and keep up the great work. Thanks.

[Siberia]

I'd also love to see this, there's some really great content on vimeo, a lot more original that that of youtube and the HD is always a plus. There's a lot of great HD content on other websites that media users may really appreciate such as gametrailers.com.

[machater81]

I would also like to see vimeo in boxee beta maybe..

[guibarros]

Another vote for Vimeo!

[idan]

hey guys,

another vote for vimeo from me as well :)
its a cool site with some excellent content in super quality.

we will consider adding it as a media application to boxee, yet we will need to see how that can be added to our work queue.

but in the mean while i encourage all of our users with some basic python scripting knowledge to go ahead and implement vimeo (and any other cool content site) into boxee.

as you know, we are a platform (based on xbmc capabilities), and although we have yet to release a well documented plugin api with boxee features support (i promise its not far along the road), you can already take a look at the plugins supplied with boxee and use them as a reference for your own implementation.

here you can find the vimeo api documentation - http://www.vimeo.com/api

and here you can find some information on how to create plugins and scripts for xbmc which will also be supported on boxee - http://xbmc.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=26

let me know if you have some more questions.
idan

[NPerez]

i've taken a look at the Vimeo API, and thought about how this might be implemented in boxee. basic functionality like searching videos by keyword or user is very simple to implement.

..however, logging in is done via web-browser only with this API - presumably for security purposes. theoretically it could probably be done in boxee by parsing the login page & sending a post request with the user's info as any browser would, but that may be getting a bit too close to a tos violation, which could tick them off, resulting in a disabled api key.

right now i think it would be really easy to do a simple plugin for this with keyword/user search functionality, which doesn't require logging in, and i can borrow bits of code that i already have from working with similar APIs.

as for the more advanced functionality requiring a login, it can wait, and it would likely be best to discuss it with someone over at Vimeo just so they know what we're trying to do & can hopefully give their input on a mutually acceptable way to go about it.

[idan]

hey nick and all,

i think its always safer to start with the most simple implementation and work our way from there.

one thing that i see as a potential problem is getting the flv streams of the videos. currenly the way the vimeo api returnes it is just a link to the video web page.
for the vimeo implementation to run on boxee there has to be a way to parse that page and get the real link to the flv file. seen some info on it on the net but nothing was a working system.
maybe you should try sniffing the http stream and working out a method.

idan

[Jordan]

..however, logging in is done via web-browser only with this API - presumably for security purposes.

Well. You could just launch a web browser. Sure, it would be disruptive to the Boxee "experience," and require a keyboard, but it's better than nothing.

Probably the best thing to do would be to open a dialogue with the Vimeo people, tell them how much you love Vimeo, and how these issues are affecting your progress. I suspect they'll be pretty receptive.

[NPerez]

it may be possible, but the problem with that is, down the line people will be using boxee as a standalone media-center, probably without a desktop environment to run on top of, and with minimal, if any reliance on the mouse/keyboard. minimizing boxee to open a browser just doesn't work out well in those situations. personally, i wouldn't feel comfortable implementing that, but anyone will be able to edit the plugin source & make their contributions available.

i'll strike up a conversation on their api forums, and by the time i've finished the more urgent things on my to-do list, hopefully there'll be some answers on it.

i should also look into whether we really need any of the features that require the user to auth in the first place. something i definitely want is a "My Videos" area, but this doesn't necessarily need the user to log in to the service - it just needs your username, which can be stored in settings and a regular search-by-user can be done to get your stuff. even getting your contacts list can be done without actually logging in.

edit-
i think it'll be fine without authorizing at all, now that i've really thought about it & looked further into the api methods. you need to auth with the api if you want to upload,delete,modify,comment, or tag videos, or add/remove contacts. none of that is necessary for our purposes, so unless there's high demand, i'm not going to worry about it.

[Jordan]

it may be possible, but the problem with that is, down the line people will be using boxee as a standalone media-center, probably without a desktop environment to run on top of, and with minimal, if any reliance on the mouse/keyboard. minimizing boxee to open a browser just doesn't work out well in those situations. personally, i wouldn't feel comfortable implementing that, but anyone will be able to edit the plugin source & make their contributions available.

Okay, good points there.


edit-
i think it'll be fine without authorizing at all, now that i've really thought about it & looked further into the api methods. you need to auth with the api if you want to upload,delete,modify,comment, or tag videos, or add/remove contacts. none of that is necessary for our purposes, so unless there's high demand, i'm not going to worry about it.

Personally I use the "Like" functionality a lot, which would require a login, but I think you're right that a pretty robust experience is possible without authentication.

[preshit]

Here's my vote for Vimeo too. They have some really great stuff uploaded there on a daily basis. I'm a great fan on the LipDub videos.

Thanks for the efforts NPerez and idan. Much appreciated.

[NPerez]

they don't provide direct links to their videos.. the most i can get is the swf through oEmbed.

looking through their API forums, i'm seeing posts from the staff stating that you *have* to use the embedded swf player.

so this is on hold for now.

[idan]

hey nick,

one thing that i have noticed is that they do have a download link for some of the videos. its in the lower right side of the web page and its in a different format every time (guess it has something to do with the format it was uploaded in).
i also think you have to be a registered user to see the link.

but maybe you should look into it. cause in the api you do get the video web page and from there scraping the download link and pushing in to boxee is simple.

idan

[NPerez]

that's a good point..

the download link redirects to a file hosted on Amazon AWS, which should support streaming (muxtape uses it to stream mp3s).. it does require a login.

one thing I noticed is that those online video downloader services (like clipnabber.com) know how to grab the flv from Vimeo . they do it with only the URL to the video page, and they don't require a login at all. this could be very useful if it's reasonably possible in python. i'm going to look into this as much as possible, because if it can be done 100% clientside in boxee, then that opens many new possibilities. Clipnabber seems to have some privately available API functionality, but probably not free. Of course, I could have it run queries through Clipnabber without an API, but that opens up too many potential problems.

[idan]

hey nick,

thats a great idea.

these services indeed know how to grab the flv from the backend of the swf player (cause there always has to be one there). i think that some of them do that by listening to the packets being sent from and to the swf player and finding the flv link there, but i'm not sure.

let me know if you need any help with that and do let us know how you progress.

cheers,
idan

[unimatrixZxero]

They have cool HD content. It would be cool to me if this was included.

[NPerez]

i understand the demand for this is high and rising.. just want to re-assure you guys that it is coming. i had a proper solution for implementing it, and then they changed things around, but thankfully i later came across this post (http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=220138&postcount=3) from Voinage, xbmc scripting genius:p

hats off to him. things are coming along nicely with this.

[edrock]

things are coming along nicely with this.

can't wait! vimeo is a great service.

[riegersn]

Vote +1 for VIMEO !

[John Doe]

^ What he said :-)

[Arnie]

Vote +1 for VIMEO !

[F1ReMaN]

+ 1 for vimeo

[goeste]

lining up in the queue...


+1 for vimeo

[andreslucero]

I've added this to Get Satisfaction, please vote it up there so the developers can track it:

http://getsatisfaction.com/boxee/topics/vimeo_vimeo_vimeo

[tranceparance]

+1 for Vimeo

[rockboxee]

http://www.rockboxee.com/blog/vimeo_app_released.html