Index

Overview

<vidi> is a small program to allow a group of people to tag a video file, using one laptop to host the video, and client machines (desktops/laptops/ipads) which can connect over wifi to the host machine. Everything is done in the browser.

It's easiest to install on a mac running Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6+). You need to have Administrator privileges. On other systems, see the Technical Notes below.

Current Version

The current version can be retrieved from http://applied-eclectics.org/node/vidi. Feedback and questions can be sent to vidi@applied-eclectics.org but don't expect a timely response.

Usage

  1. Install the program
  2. Set up a session for people to join, by adding videos and naming a session. This allows you to keep your tagging episodes separate.
  3. Make sure everyone is connected to the same wifi network
  4. Tell the participants to open up their browser at the URL for vidi.

Participants give themselves a name, and click go. The video loads. When a participant clicks the tag button, the video pauses, and they can enter a note which is time-stamped to that place in the video. The note is saved with the session on the machine the program is installed on.

Printing from the active session page uses a different style sheet, so only the tags are visible; this is a simple report. There's also a report link on the session page, which will just load the tags.

The admin page is only accessible on the machine with the program. Sessions can be added to or reviewed at any time. All data is stored in the vidi.sqlite file in the vidi folder.

Installation

This part only needs to be done the first time.

That's all for the program. Next setup web sharing, which allows other people to browse information on your computer.

Now your computer can share with other people. The next step is to connect to or create a wifi network and find the URL you'll be using.

Setup the session

Participants can now join this session by browsing to your URL, and creating or selecting an existing name to identify their tags.

You can change whether the session displays existing tags with the Controls.

Videos should be in one of the following formats:

iTunes can convert video to the right formats.

Connect to the session

This needs to be done each time you use a different wireless network. You can either use an existing wireless network, or create one on your own machine for people to connect to. This is especially useful in large organisations where the wireless isn't easy to setup.

Connect to an existing network

Everyone in the session will need to be part of the same wireless network; so make sure it's easy to connect to before using this option.

Or

Setup your own wireless network

If you create your own network, you and your participants will not be able to access the Internet until you've rejoined the usual network.

Your URL

The participants will need to connect to the same network, then open a browser and go to the URL.

There's 2 options for the URL, one using the computer name, the other using the IP address (numbers). In some situations, the IP version (with the numbers), will work where the other one won't.

If the computer was named "my-laptop", and your username on the computer was "esther", and the IP address given was 192.168.1.2 then the URL would be:

	http://my-laptop.local/~esther/vidi
	or
	http://192.168.1.2/~esther/vidi

Technical Notes

vidi is a pretty simple program, nothing really clever is going on, just a php server for ajax requests with some HTML 5 goodness.

MacOSX version 10.6.x isn't a strict requirement; it just saves lots of instructions. There's no reason vidi can't be installed on any machine as long as it supports the following:

System Requirements