[opencms-dev] storing video assets?

[Jens-U. Mozdzen]

hi eelboy,

I'm running a video site using Opencms. Originally I tried storing the videos 
in the database, which was doomed to fail once the objects grew from "short 
clips" to "medium-length clips"... and we're counting seconds here.

In the end I got away with creating a new class that allows me to use RFS 
links inside Opencms - that way I can create a resource in Opencms with all 
the benefits (attributes, access, visibility etc) but still have the content 
stored in the RFS. In addition, I needed a new data type that uses that loader 
class.

I found it helpful to create utility classes that let me create galleries of 
videos, with the extended feature of treating multiple video files of the same 
name (and a corresponding image) as a single video, letting the user pick the 
format of choice (like flv, rm, wmv), and managing several new attributes like 
"location", "camera operator", "copyright" etc.

I disagree with the other response to your question, stating that maintaining 
the videos in the database had no added value - not using Opencms 
functionality to create dynamic galleries, access control and various other 
options would have been a real downer for me. OTOH it is perfectly right that 
the amount of data might easily kill your Opencms installation (for instance, 
the video is fully pulled from the database before sending it to the browser - 
in memory!) My JVM needed to be boosted significantly to serve even smaller 
videos...

Regards
Jens