Frank,
After communicating a bit with the ever-brilliant software engineeer
asi at Revver, I have a bit more insight into the problem we discussed
a bit on our Mefeedia pages regarding Revver videos from Blogspot
blogs not showing up on Mefeedia. If you want to view the full
discussion, it is on the Revver forum here:
http://forums.revver.com/viewtopic.php?p=9383#9383
A brief summary of the problem:
------------------------------------
Blogspot feeds displaying videos using the "flash embed"; code
generated by Revver don't display when the feed is imported into
Mefeedia. I've seen this with my own Blogspot feed and someone else's
as well - I think it would almost certainly be true for all Blogspot
feeds using that code, and probably for non-Blogspot feeds using that
code as well.
As asi mentioned in the Revver forum discussion, the problem appears
to be that the flashvars parameter (which contains the media and
affiliate id values) gets stripped out of the code so the videos can
not be displayed. Initially he felt that Blogspot might be doing
this, but when I checked my Blogspot rss feed, the flashvars parameter
and its values were still there, which led me to believe that
something in Mefeedia's import process is actually stripping out the
parameter and values.
A Manual Fix for the Problem
-----------------------------------
Asi provided me with the fix of appending the needed info to the end
of the src urls. After an initial goof on my part in applying the
fix, I made the adjustment as he suggested and the Revver video in my
latest Blogspot post imported perfectly into Mefeedia. I still didn't
get a thumbnail, but at least the videos will display with the new code.
A More Automatic Solution?
-----------------------------------
Now that the cause of the problem seems pretty clear, would it be
possible for Mefeedia to alter the way that RSS feeds are imported to
NOT strip out the flashvars parameter and its values? I think this
would be the best solution (maybe we'd even get thumbnails!) The
Revver videos from my Blogspot feed will display on Mefeedia now, but
not everyone will be aware of the problem/manual solution. (I would
underline that since it appears that Blogspot just passes thru the
flash embed code that I type into the RSS feed they generate, I think
the problem is broader than just Blogspot - it could be any blogging
service displaying Revver videos with the flash embed code, or
non-Revver videos if they are embedded with similar code).
If there is some reason why Mefeedia import process can not or should
not be altered in this manner, I'll see if I can get Revver to come up
with something more automatic, but I can think of a number of reasons
it might be better if the change took place on Mefeedia's end -
(possibility that thumbnails will work, effectiveness of solution for
non-Revver videos in RSS feeds with code similar to Revvers, potential
problems if modifying the Revver code messes up things on non-Mefeedia
sites).
***
So that's pretty much my knowledge/thoughts on the situation at this
point. There may be elements of the situation I am not aware of, but
everything I've seen seems to conform to the picture I have described.
I'll be happy to explain further if anything that I have mentioned is
not clear.
I am eager to hear your thoughts.
.
