Front End Media in Drupal

With the onset of HTML5, there is a dramatic paradigm shift in the wake for online media content delivery. For well over 6 years, this industry has been dominated by the proprietary Adobe Flash Player, which has been used to deliver high quality media to audiences far and wide. This reign is coming to a dramatic end as new Open Standard technology takes its place. Yes, HTML5 is coming, and we need to be ready for it!

Over the years, much effort has been made on the backend of Drupal for media management. Many modules have been created to allow users to submit, convert, and then store media using a variety of different mechanisms. This effort is now in the works of being consolidated by the highly anticipated Media module which is currently in development. However, in the past, not enough attention has been given to the important role of media delivery on the client side. In addition, there are currently many different players to chose from that each have their own drawbacks and licensing issues. This needs to change!

In this session, Travis Tidwell will take you on a journey from past technologies and applications, to where we are now, and where will be in the very short future. Travis will then provide an introduction and walkthrough of the MediaFront module ( http://drupal.org/project/mediafront ), which was designed to completely change the way that multimedia is presented in Drupal.

In this session we will cover:

• The history of media content delivery
• Where are we now?
• How Drupal will lead the way in Open Standard media content delivery.
• The future.