Feeds and Media Module: A Drupal 7 Media Utopia? [#1041804]

I’m an intermediate Drupal user at best and certainly not a developer, so i hope i’ll be able to communicate clearly. I’ve attached a mockup to help illustrate what i’m trying to get at here.

Media module for Drupal 7 seems like an answered prayer for the Drupal community. If you haven’t yet, it’s worth checking out.

So when i first started playing with Media module, i thought it had potential to be paired with Feeds in a really powerful way. Familiarizing myself a bit more, it seems the potential is huge (but there are definitely some challenges).

Imagine every Flickr photo, Youtube video, Vimeo video (and most other third party media) you post automatically populating a streamlined media library on your Drupal site which includes all metadata (tagging, description, title, creative commons license, geotagging, etc.). Furthermore, custom display sizes (from thumbnails to full resolution) are also automatically generated for all this third-party media. The media itself remains hosted on its respective third-party site, but your Drupal site treats it as if it were hosted locally. This perpetually updating media library is then available to be added to fields, employed in a WYSIWYG editor or any other way you chose within your site.

Of course some of this will sound familiar to users of FileField/ImageField/ImageCache/ImageAPI/EmField, but Media module’s streamlined handling of files and its searchable library are nevertheless representative of new day for media handling in Drupal. The fact that media items/media metadata are independent of nodes seems like one of the most fundamental changes. And it’s the automatically part that i’m most excited about (which is where Feeds comes in)...

In the past, when one created a feed importer and mapped media to an EmField, a node was created. The Media module, however, doesn’t create nodes, terms or users. It creates “media assets.” Therefore it seems to me (and i certainly may be wrong) that if Feeds is to be employed to create media assets from, for example, a YouTube stream, then a new processor is required: a “Media asset processor.”

If i’m on the right track, then it seems that if such a configuration were paired with modules like Media: Flickr, Media: YouTube, Media: Vimeo and so on, then every bit of one’s third-party media/metadata can be automatically set to feed into Drupal’s media library, without creating nodes.

This seems pretty epic. But perhaps i’m way off base and i just need to get my nose in a Visual QuickStart Guide or something. Maybe you can all let me know.

Seriously, is any of this a possibility or i am really missing something? Don’t forget to check out the attached mockup!

Comment	File	Size	Author
	feeds_media_asset_processsor_mockup.jpg	316.05 KB	stephen Piscura

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Comments

Comment #1

XiaN Vizjereij CreditAttribution: XiaN Vizjereij commented 27 February 2011 at 18:35

How could i missed your post. Definitely subscribing to this pretty neat idea :)

Comment #2

jmb CreditAttribution: jmb commented 3 March 2011 at 19:17

Comment #3

JacobSingh CreditAttribution: JacobSingh commented 5 March 2011 at 23:52

Let's talk more about this at DrupalCon, you going to be there?

Comment #4

kehan CreditAttribution: kehan commented 11 March 2011 at 01:58

subscribing

Comment #5

SeanBannister CreditAttribution: SeanBannister commented 11 March 2011 at 06:02

sub

Comment #6

Brian294 CreditAttribution: Brian294 commented 14 March 2011 at 00:23

+1 sub

Comment #7

benanderson CreditAttribution: benanderson commented 22 March 2011 at 18:49

Comment #8

TimelessDomain CreditAttribution: TimelessDomain commented 6 April 2011 at 02:34

is this issue going to be planning for features related to Media & Feeds integration OR is it for the actual initial integration? If it is for the actual integration then future posts should be directed to #1032792: Mapper for Media otherwise keep on brainstorming!
Perhaps this issue could evolve into a features https://drupal.org/project/features module?

Comment #9

Niklas Fiekas CreditAttribution: Niklas Fiekas commented 6 April 2011 at 11:57

Subscribe.

Comment #10

TimelessDomain CreditAttribution: TimelessDomain commented 6 April 2011 at 22:21

Building a feeds mapper to map Media Assets in the form of a Media Entity directly into the Media Asset library without having to create other types of entities (content types/taxonomies/users/etc.) is what this thread (Stephen) is suggesting (as per the attached mockup of mapping directly into Media Entities). This would reduce the load & the amount of content (compared to the method I outline) since you would only have to create 1 Entity instead of 2 to add a NEW Media Asset to your Media Library. Although the other method is much more adaptable & therefore has a lot more use-cases.

I outline in-depth here http://drupal.org/node/1032792#comment-431382 that we should be able to map to an Entity and it's Sub-Entity at the same time through Feeds. Creating new Media Assets through any Entity containing a Multimedia Asset field structured as a Media Entity. All Multimedia Asset fields are structured as Media Entities (fieldable) as they can only contain such.

As a new Media Asset is being created through any Entity interface by feeds (whether a Media Entity(as pointed out by Stephen) or as a Sub-Entity Media Entity of another Entity:
-> the Media Asset URL or filename needs to be checked for uniqueness
-> then some actions need to take place accordingly (whether leaving unchanged, deleting & re-creating, fully-updating (keeping same node ID) or partially updating (only updating specific attached fields & meta-data - i outline this idea more on the other page, but this is where Stephen was heading with his idea).

Both options should be possible, but as of now the patch allows the starting point for the Sub-Entity Media Entity of another Entity method. I have not tested for uniqueness or the ability to update/overwrite existing Media Assets through creating a new Entity with a Sub-Entity Media Entity attached.

Comment #11

CandieBandit CreditAttribution: CandieBandit commented 17 May 2011 at 22:33

Comment #12

Niklas Fiekas CreditAttribution: Niklas Fiekas commented 17 May 2011 at 22:35

As of #1086958: Switch from Media Entity to File Entity we are now talking about importing files. Media entities are gone.

Comment #13

paulgemini CreditAttribution: paulgemini commented 18 May 2011 at 00:00

Comment #14

good_man CreditAttribution: good_man commented 26 May 2011 at 00:02

Very good starter project #1150410: Media Feeds

Comment #15

rickmanelius CreditAttribution: rickmanelius commented 6 June 2011 at 23:06

subscribing

Comment #16

Niklas Fiekas CreditAttribution: Niklas Fiekas commented 16 June 2011 at 21:06

With #1033202: [Meta] Generic entity processor this feature isn't far away. In fact it could work out of the box with generic entity processors. If not, support might go into Media Feeds or a FileProcessor in Feeds.

Comment #17

bibo CreditAttribution: bibo commented 17 October 2011 at 23:40

Since there is a follow button nowadays I won't write "subscribe". Instead I'll just say that I support this idea :)

Comment #18

bjlewis2 CreditAttribution: bjlewis2 commented 20 October 2011 at 20:02

Media Feeds might be what you are looking for!

Here's an excerpt from the media feeds project page.

Another scenario: Use Feeds: YouTube Parser to parse a video feed from YouTube. Media: YouTube can then claim the video url. There you go - video feed imported.

Comment #19

stephen Piscura CreditAttribution: stephen Piscura commented 15 November 2011 at 03:52

@bjlewis2: For sure, that's one way of getting near to the original intention of this post. But it sounds like #1257672: fid's (file id's) as unique targets would ultimately move Media Feeds into the direct creation of file entities, as opposed to the creation of nodes with file entities attached to them.

Comment #20

Niklas Fiekas CreditAttribution: Niklas Fiekas commented 15 November 2011 at 12:17

Files as unique targets is about adding a checkbox to allow file id's to be the unique key, when importing. #1181710: Provide a file processor is probably the issue you mean - and #1033202: [Meta] Generic entity processor might take us a big step towards this. Changing the issue title a bit ...