A couple of thoughts of approaching this from the permissions perspective: 1) Can you structure the server folders so that the permissions are set on folders to only allow access to certain groups of staff? You might want to have a look at the advanced permissions to see if you can tweak these in a way so that files can be executed without being generally available.
2) Could you set the permissions dynamically by calling a script from FM, that makes the video accessible then run another to set the permissons back to in- accessible. This would rely on being able to use the Windows run as option to make sure the script executes with the correct permissions to change the permissions -- might be tricky and would be windows only. 3) I think for streaming you will have to look at converting to flash -- and may well have to look at hosting the clips on a web server -- but you could probably still use FM as the front end? Web serving should solve a lot of the permissions issues though. The problem with (and elegance of) the FM system is that it uses the built in OS media plays to play the files, which requires access to the files. Good luck Forbes PS The windows equivalent of the Finder is Windows Explorer (often known as My Computer) -----Original Message----- From: FileMaker Pro Discussions [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Pietro Mazzoni Sent: 17 June 2008 14:09 To: [email protected] Subject: Video clip serving Dear fellow Filemaker users, I am looking for advice on how to make a major modification to a video database I maintain. The database is a catalog of brief video clips, each a few minutes long, about 6,000 of them and growing to a projected 20-30,000 over the next few years. In order to make these clips accessible to my colleagues in my division, I set upt the database with container fields that store a reference to each video clip file. When the user double-clicks on the container field in a record, the appropriate video player is launched (WindowsMedia player for wmv clips and Quicktime for mp4 clips). The database is served by Filemaker Server 7, and the video clips are stored on a separate network volume. Users access the database with Filemaker Pro 8 using either Windows XP or Mac OS X machines. This system works beautifully, but it requires that the volume containing the video clips be accessible to the user's computer, i.e., that the network volume where the clips are stored be accessible to the user. Due to new privacy concerns related to a new category of users joining our workgroup, I need to restructure the database so as to control access to the video clips through Filemaker. Specifically, our new guidelines make it not acceptable for users to be able to mount the server containing all the video clips (even with read-only access permission). The point is to prevent users from being able to make their own local copies of the entire video clip library. So I am trying to come up with a new scheme with the same functionality, but that does not require the end-user to have direct access to the volume containing the video clips. Specifically, I need to implement the following features: 1. Users log into the served database 2. When users double-click on a field with a video clip, the video clip plays. 3. The video clip must not be accessible through direct disk access, i.e., it must not be accessible through the Finder (in Mac OS X) or through (whatever name describes the Finder in Windows; is it really "Internet Explorer"?) 4. Ideally, the video would play only in "streaming" mode, and not be downloadable to the user's computer. 5. The database should contain only references to video clip files. Keeping all the video clips within the database is not practical and not a good idea, as the size would become unwieldy. For No. 4, I am aware it's a separate question, which may be solved by using Flash rather than Quicktime/Windowsmedia. But I am stuck at steps 2-3. I can write a stript that selects and imports a particular video clip temporarily into the database for viewing purposes, but I don't see a way to play a video clip within Filemaker. Any suggestions would be welcome, because I find myself having to contemplate converting the whole thing to a Web/browser-based system, and I'd rather not do that if i can avoid it. Currently Filemaker server 7 is running on a Windows XP machine, but I have the option of switching to a Mac OS X machine. Users mostly run FM-Pro 8 on Windows XP laptops, but a few users access the database from Mac OS X computers. If a choice MUST be made, the group's priority is for Windows machines (though I will go to great lengths to maintain Mac accessibility). Thank you in advance, Pietro -- ******************************************************************************** The information in this email and any files transmitted with it is confidential and may be legally privileged. 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