Contus Vblog Allows Videos Blogs in WordPress
Contus Vblog is a WordPress plugin which allows you to record videos as you post blogs.
It has a built-in recorder that connects to your webcam. When you post, you can see the button “Add Video Post” at top right of you editor. Just point the camera at yourself and start talking. That’s all there is to it.
You don’t even need to wait for the video to go live to view the video. You can view the preview of the recorded video as soon as you want, and decide to post the video or rerecord. You can also allow your blog readers/visitors to post video comments for your post.
Step 1. Download and install the plugin
IMPORTANT: you must have streaming media capabilities for this to work. These are provided by your hosting provider. The compatible streaming servers are red5 and FMS. Check with them and make sure you have this and also know the path to the streaming server.
You (obviously) have to have a webcam for this to work. So make sure your webcam is plugged in and ready.
Go to Plugins > Add New and search for Contus Vblog. Click Install Now on the next screen.
Step 2. Activating the plugins – there are two of them.
Click Activate Plugin
Contus actually installs two plugins. Only one of them may be activated. So check your plugin list and make sure you activate both plugins.
Then Click Edit under the Contus VBlog – you need to do some minor file editing.
Step 3. Edit file paths in the config.xml file in the contus-vblog plugin directory
Click Edit to go to the plugin files and the editor.
After you download Contus Vblog package, you need to change file path on two XML files and you
need to replace default logo with your logo.
Find contus-vblog/config.xml in the list of plugin files and click on it.
You will see this line:
Change this to the path to your logo image using your actual domain name.
Step 4. Change the paths in the config.xml file in the xml directory
This may seem a bit confusing since both files have the same name – config.xml. Note that one is in the main plugin directory and the other is in the xml directory. You can tell by the path contus-vblog/xml/config.xml
Go through the entire file and change every instance of http://www.yourdomainname.com to your actual domain name.
Pay attention to this line:
logopath=”http://www.yourdomainname.com/wp-content/plugins/Contus-VBlog/images/platoon.png” it is the same path you put in the previous file, showing the location of your logo image. It should be the same in both files.
Step 6. Configure the plugin
Go to Settings > Contus VBlog and adjust the settings. The most important thing to do here is enter the path to the server where the video will be uploaded.
Step 7. Create a page or a post
Go to Posts > Add New and you will see the new icon for adding a video post.
BE PATIENT – it may take a while before you see the results of your action. If you have a camera that needs to be turned on make sure it is turned on.
Step 8. Allow WordPress access to your camera and microphone
Click Allow
Step 9. Record
Choose your video and audio equipment from the drop down lists. Then click record.
Once you are connected to the server, your video will be uploaded and ready to publish. There will be some shortcode that appears inside your editing window, You can copy and paste the shortcode anywhere in you post or page,
At that point your posts can be all recorded instead of text. With the video comment plugin, your readers can also leave video comments.
Here’s what a list of video comments looks like. Clicking the thumbnail opens the full video.
Neatly explained 🙂
Thank you
You’re very welcome, Balasubramaniyam! 🙂
Kind regards,
Nick
Thank you for the article. I am trying out the plugin, but getting an error when trying to record. It never seems to connect to the server. I have installed red5 on the same server that I’m running wordpress on, but not sure what to put for the server path in the settings. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Brad
This is awesome, thanks for sharing.
Is there a way to allow users to record videos from the “front end” of a wordpress site? For example, a user wanted to record a video from any webpage?
Please let me know when you have a moment.
thanks,
Dan
thank you ;
but not sure what to put for the server path in the settings. Any help would be greatly appreciated.