Proposal

In recent years, the distribution of digital video has taken off across Web 2.0 services, providing tools for people to upload, share, edit, and interact with video in exciting new ways. Currently tools exist in the open source realm to manage the distribution of audio media via websites, podcasts, and radio stations, but no open source equivalents exist for video files. As video cameras spread into more and more mobile devices, the need to share this content grows. While sites like YouTube and Vimeo provide a valuable service to a community of users, the control individuals have over the quality and format of their videos is slim to none. Tech-savvy users are left to roll their own tools, taking valuable time and effort away from producing the video content they seek to share.
Developing an open source digital video server would enable anyone interested in hosting and distributing videos to do so easily, without having to create their own software suite. Releasing the software under an open source license enables anyone to change and modify the service and tailor it to fit their specific needs.
Scope of Work
During the course of the summer, I plan on developing digital video distribution software to centralize the sharing of videos on the internet, televisions, and mobile devices. The core of the project will be in designing and implementing a web application to manage videos. These tools will enable anyone to easily setup their own video server, sharing videos in the formats they want and to the destinations they want. Plugins will be specifically developed to allow the embedding of videos on websites, scheduling of programs to broadcast over a television network, and making media available on supported mobile devices.
The main component of the project will be a web application from which users manage their video collection. Likely written in PHP, the application will be designed to maximize user customizability and control. Users will be able to add/import new files files, edit/update data associated with existing video files, and removed unwanted videos from the system.
A plugin system will be designed to allow videos to be easy distributed via several methods. Default plugins may include the ability to embed a video in a website, scheduled play out for use on televisions or public displays, and the ability to share on a mobile device.
Overall, the goal of this project is to develop a tool enabling better distribution and management of video files across the internet and traditional video distribution systems.