FlexDaddy

Signing an Ooyala API query with AS3

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:21:58 +0000

In order to invoke Ooyala’s APIs we require that you sign each request using a combination of private keys, the request parameters, and an expiration time. The appended signature is generated with a SHA256 hash and then by creating a Base64 encoded string of the SHA256 digest. There are a few smaller steps outlined in our documentation such as limiting the signature to 43 characters in length, removing any trailing equals signs, and URI encoding the signature to make sure it is URL friendly.

The AS3CoreLib (available over at Mike Chambers github) contains a crypto package, and particularly a SHA256 class. It also has a hashToBase64 method, even better! But… the Base64 utility class it uses no longer exists in the Flash runtime. The class mx.utils.Base64Encoder needs to be replaced for our use case, and you can find many online. The Base64 class I’ve chosen is freely available for use and modification from Jean-Philippe Auclair. Check out his blog post for a Base64 optimized AS3 lib.

Download my complete source code, or if you want to create your own, the following are the steps I’ve taken to modify the Adobe SHA256 class with a different Base64 utility.

Firstly, edit the SHA256 class in com.adobe.crypto and change the hashToBase64() function to look like this -

public static function hashToBase64( s:String ):String
{
  var blocks:Array = createBlocksFromString( s );
  var byteArray:ByteArray = hashBlocks(blocks);
 
  // use the new Base64 class			
  return Base64.encode(byteArray);
}

Next you need to generate the signature and create the URL for the request following Ooyala’s guidelines for signature generation.

public static function generateURL(pcode:String, scode:String,
                                   requestType:String, params:Array):String
{
  if (!params["expires"])
  {
    // if no expiry time exists, add one
	params["expires"] = new Date().time + 900; 
  }
 
  var stringToSign:String = scode;
  var url:String = "http://api.ooyala.com/" + requestType;
 
  url += "?pcode=" + pcode;
 
  var keys:Array = extractKeysAndSort(params);
 
  for each (var key:String in keys)
  {
	stringToSign += key + "=" + params[key];
	url += "&" + key + "=" + encodeURIComponent(params[key]);
  }
 
  var signature:String = SHA256.hashToBase64(stringToSign);
  signature = signature.replace(/=+$/, "");
  url += "&signature=" + encodeURIComponent(signature);
 
  return url;
}

And using the class is fairly simple. Remember to get your Partner Code and Secret Code from the developers tab in Backlot, then follow the API requirements for the specific call you want to make.

In this example I’m querying the Backlot API to return details of a video. The result of a query is an XML document that could include a paginated list of results for the query items.

First, set up your query parameters. If you don’t include an expiration time for the query, the utility class will add one for you.

// query parameters
var params:Array = [];
params["embedCode"] = "";

Next, set your query type. This is the user-friendly RESTful URL structure that is appended to the API call, such as partner/query or partner/labels.

// query type
var queryType:String = "partner/query";

And finally, using your Partner code and Secret for your Backlot account, invoke the Ooyala API Utility in one of two ways, either return a URLRequest object, or a URL string.

// generate URL Request
var urlRequest:URLRequest = OoyalaAPIUtil.generateSignedURLRequest(
                                              pcode, scode, queryType, params);
 
var url:String = OoyalaAPIUtil.generateURL(pcode, scode, queryType, params);

The resulting XML from making the call will look something like this -

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 totalResults="1" size="1" pageID="0" statistics-as-of_text="Tue Jul 19 00:40:01 UTC 2011" limit="500" statistics-as-of="1311036001">
  >
    >12345678901234567890>
    >Big Buck Bunny>
    >The Peach open movie project>
    >live>
    >Video>
    >1297678678>
    >596458>
    >928670754>
    >1304451370>
    >1175731200>
    >1920>
    >1080>
     height="0" width="0">http://ak.c.ooyala.com/12345678901234567890/promo121984023>
    >
    >
  >
>

I’ve made this available as a Ooyala API utility class for you to use whenever you need to generate a signed URL for an Ooyala API call.

Download the Ooyala API Utility class for AS3 here.

Ooyala Django – another awesome Ooyala library

Andrew Spaulding — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 04:58:07 +0000

Recently I blogged about a bunch of Ooyala code libraries written for Ruby, Drupal, and PHP, and here’s another one to add to the list.

Ooyala Django as you might guess is a library developed for use with Django to leverage the Backlot Query API to return a list of content, link the content to specific url’s, and render video content using an ooyala_video tag within your Django templates. You could even use this library with just regular python code. Kudos to Jaymz Campbell for sharing the library over on github.

Ooyala libraries for PHP, Drupal, and Ruby developed by the community

Andrew Spaulding — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:45:57 +0000

It’s always important to build a strong community around you, to help push the boundaries, test the limits, and showcase the potential of what is really possible with your technology.

However, there’s often some great contributions from individual contributors outside of the traditional partner base, and I wanted to give a big Oo shout out to the following Ooyala developers.

Ooyala API PHP Client Library

Vance Lucas and Company52 created an Ooyala API PHP Client Library available over on github https://github.com/company52/Phoo. The library provides a great backbone for many of Ooyala’s API’s, including content ingestion, label management, channel management including creating dynamic channels, Ooyala analytics queries and more.

Ooyala Module for Drupal

Jared Bitner of Lullabot created an Ooyala Module for Drupal that allows you to perform synchronisation and batch importing of video content managed from Backlot. Check out a video of Jared introducing the Ooyala Drupal Module or head straight to Drupal.org and download the module http://drupal.org/project/ooyala. This module is a great for managing and maintaining your Ooyala video’s as a custom content type within your Drupal site, and synchronising your content taxonomy.

Tangerine, a Ruby Gem that wraps the Ooyala API

Anthony Navarre and Craig Williams have built Tangerine, a Ruby Gem that uses ActiveResource to wrap the Ooyala Backlot API. Head on over to RubyGems.org http://rubygems.org/gems/tangerine to learn more. This is currently a work in progress, but it’s great to see this kind of content being shared for others to use and contribute to.

Do you have your own Ooyala extensions or modules? We’d love to hear about it!

Create a cinema lighting experience with JQuery for your video player

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:19:04 +0000

I wanted to add a website dimming experience akin to video player features similar to those found on Hulu or on AdobeTV, where you can toggle the “lights” so to speak on your site. In my example I use some simple JQuery to append or remove a Div to the HTML DOM, and leverage some basic JQuery effects to fade in or fade out the Div. The darkened web site result is achieved by Div with a black background at 80% opacity that sits above all other web content on your page.

Try the example yourself, and turn the lights on and off!
View the source to see how it all works.

Virgin Mobile uses Ooyala for an improved customer experience

YouTube and Ooyala, publishing to the worlds largest video discovery destination

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:15:15 +0000

There’s no doubt about it, YouTube is the largest video search and discovery destination. And why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that! More eyeballs is more eyeballs, and we all want a greater viewership to our content, and of course, greater discoverability.

Ooyala’s YouTube integration has been a core part of our technology platform since 2008, enabling content owners to publish to their YouTube accounts. And through the extensive integrations, Ooyala enables round trip synchronisation of content between Backlot and YouTube, moving beyond simple content push to the YouTube’s platform. This means not only is your content in sync, but your metadata is also synchronised with the your YouTube assets. Changes to your video metadata within Backlot are updated on you YouTube videos, including video titles, descriptions and content genres. Have you deleted or unpublished content with Backlot? That’s ok too, your YouTube account will be updated with these changes as well.

Not only does Ooyala offer external publishing and content synchronisation with YouTube, you can also access YouTube’s vast video library, add a video to your library and manage and playback the content directly the Ooyala video player. Not only do you increase your content offering, but this will allow you to take direct advantage of Ooyala’s Actionable Analytics, giving you unparalleled insight into your viewer engagement.

Consider the following situation, you already have an existing YouTube library of content or you’ve found the next latest viral hit and you want to grab a copy to include in your video library. This workflow is seamless, and can be easily achieved by selecting Add New Content and choosing YouTube from the menu. Ooyala’s YouTube integration will allow you to either paste in the URL to the selected YouTube video or search the YouTube library directly.

Publishing content to YouTube is just as easy. Through Ooyala’s external publishing features you can simply add YouTube as a publishing destination, enter your username and password, and select the content you want to keep synchronised with YouTube. See the screenshot below.

A complete circle, being able to pull content from YouTube, and publish/synchronise your Ooyala library with your YouTube accounts.

Ooyala Direct upload, Federer and Nadal play Ping Pong Tennis

Andrew Spaulding — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 04:56:32 +0000

Yesterday I attended the Rally for Relief at Rod Laver Arena in support of the flood victims in Queensland, Australia. Tennis pro’s, corporate sponsors and those in the crowd managed to raise over $1.8M and counting, and will be matched by Queensland Energy Resources including any additional funds raised throughout the remainder of the Australian Open. If you’d like to donate you can participate at the official Rally for Relief website.

During the final session of the afternoon Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Kim Clijsters and local Sam Stosur teamed up for some mixed doubles, followed by the men vs the ladies in some “ping pong tennis”, where they alternate shots between them.

Visit the ATP World Tour site for a full write up on the tennis stars, the fun, and the funds raised! It was lots of fun!

The video was recorded using my iPhone 4, edited using iMovie for iPhone to compress the file to 360p (original source was 720p), and finally uploaded using Ooyala Direct, the mobile publishing application for Apple’s iOS platform. This is the ultimate mobile capture and publish workflow for any field reporter.

Google removes H.264 in Chrome and brings new challenges for video publishers

Andrew Spaulding — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:39:17 +0000

When Google announced their plans for an open, royalty-free codec by launching the WebM Project (with its VP8 codec) earlier this year, the video industry was unsure what the implications would be for H.264.

H.264 has become the de facto standard for encoding and delivering high quality video on the web and across devices, however the hot news from Google today to drop support for H.264 to enable open innovation has thrown a cat amongst the pigeons, so to speak.

TechCrunch: The Gloves Are Off: google Chrome Browser Will Drop Support For H.264 Video Codec
Engaget: Google will drop H.264 support from Chrome, herd the masses towards WebM and Theora
ReadWriteWeb: Google Says It’s Open or Not At All for Video on Chrome

So what does this mean for my video?

Backlot from Ooyala can help simplify this worry, by not making it a worry at all!

It can be daunting and often a challenge to encode your video to multiple formats, resolutions, codecs, frame rates and more in order to support the platforms and environments that your customers use to view your content. In 2007 we were the first company to offer a video platform with its own encoding system, and since then have encoded over five million hours!

What can Ooyala do to help?

We will help you mitigate the risk of being unable to reach your audience by removing the pain of video encoding and video distribution.

As a technology provider we believe it is extremely important to make it easy for publishers to reach consumers independent of codecs and player technologies. This is why Ooyala supports more than one delivery option, including Flash, Silverlight, HTML5 and other standards and player technologies. We were a launch partner when Google announced the WebM Project and we will continue to evolve our services to support it in the future.

[UPDATE Jan 12, 2011] This post is now also available on the Ooyala Blog

Virgin Mobile uses Ooyala for an improved customer experience

Andrew Spaulding — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:58:44 +0000

Virgin Mobile have really changed up the way they support their customers. Through new help and support widgets embedded on various pages, customers will have access to hours of Ooyala video content providing users with FAQs, reviews, and help and support topics. Need to learn how to configure your voicemail? No problems! Just watch this video.

Ooyala’s Backlot really shows it’s strength here with actionable analytics. Not only are the do the Engagement Reports help you find the best spot to place your ads, they also show you second-by-second engagement and abandonment data.

Virgin Mobile can leverage analytics and engagement reports to understand if their customers are getting to the answers within the video. If half of their viewers are dropping off after 15 seconds then they know they have work to do with their content and video production.

Very insightful!

Find out more in the press release or read the article in The Australian titled “Virgin’s video answer to reduce service calls“

Ooyala, the leading Online Video Platform

Andrew Spaulding — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:42:22 +0000

My friends and family always ask, “What is Ooyala?”. That’s if they can pronounce it first!

Ooyala (pronounced oo-YAH-lah) means cradle in Telugu, a Southern Indian language. The name really describes what we at Ooyala are doing, and that’s giving birth to new forms of innovation in online video. Ooyala’s end-to-end video platform known as Backlot makes it easy for anyone to upload, transcode, manage, publish, analyze and monetize their video assets. All of this tied together gives you extreme flexibility to deliver the best possible video experience to your consumers, by understanding what they do with your content.

Over the coming weeks I will be posting exciting examples of how our customers are delivering video to the web, mobile devices and other consumer electronics.

You can even try it out for yourself!

Go ahead and register for a FREE TRIAL ACCOUNT.

Good bye Adobe, hello Ooyala!

Andrew Spaulding — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:05:35 +0000

It’s taken me some time to catch up on things, but as you can probably tell from the title I’m no longer working for Adobe, and have joined an amazing team of people at Ooyala! I wanted to share with you my farewell email to my fellow employees at Adobe as I embark on the intriguing world of video delivery, analytics and monetization!

Stay tuned… there’s many great things coming!

October 3rd 2010 marked my 5 year anniversary with Macromedia and Adobe, and it has been an absolutely amazing experience. I can’t begin to explain just how far my career has progressed with the lessons and challenges I have overcome, and I am extremely grateful for them all. More than 5 years ago Macromedia was the company that I dreamt of working for; and it really has been a dream job!

It’s amazing how many people you get to meet in 5 years, and I’d like to thank everyone that I worked with for extending your hands and either welcoming me on a visit to another office, working with me at a conference, teaching me a new skill, or just saying g’day. Thank you all for your friendship, support and leadership.

All of this and more has made the decision to leave much more challenging. I love the technology!

My time with Adobe has more than adequately prepared me for the new challenges and new experiences that await. Thank you to Adobe for providing such amazing life changing opportunities and opening so many doors.

Adobe is a great company, with some really REALLY cool technology, but I won’t be straying too far. I’m off to join Ooyala as Senior Solutions Architect for Australia and New Zealand. Ooyala uses the world’s best in class video technology, the Adobe Flash Platform with their primary video player built with AS3 and Adobe Flex, a desktop management tool running on Adobe AIR, and videos streamed with Flash Media Server. I’m very excited that I can continue to focus on the technologies that I love.

I will miss you, but will endeavor to keep in touch. The world really is such a small place, and the IT industry even smaller. I’m sure I’ll cross paths with many of you in time. I look forward to sitting in the stands at Adobe events being excited by the passion demonstrated in your presentations!

Adobe Flex 2 available NOW!