PARCEL MEDIA Video Tutorials: How to play movies, webpages, & more!
Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 9:00 AM by: Torley LindenI hope you’ve already read Jeska’s post on the new PARCEL MEDIA features in our 1.19.1 Release Candidate viewer! To use ‘em, you’ll need to:
I made 3 video tutorials to help you master these new features:
1. How to play movies, webpages, & more on your land - A friendly intro to existing media options (good if you’ve new to all of this) and I showcase what’s fresh!
2. How to make your own media screen - So you can watch movies, webpages, etc. on it! PARTY TIME!
3. How to use parcel media click actions - Control playback and content browsing more easily.
Also see our related Knowledge Base article for mo’ info!
(If you’re wondering why the menu bars are red in these vidtuts, that’s just because I made ‘em on a test grid before we released 1.19.1. So ignore that.)
Also on the video tutorial front — because apparently you can’t get enough of ‘em 
— more QUICKTIPS to come this week… keep watching and thanks for your ideas, I am happy to help and this ongoing feedback wave is amazingly inspirational!
-Torley Linden 
is avatar-centric
March 10th, 2008 at 10:15 AM
This is truly an evolutionary step for SL-WWW interoperability. There will be bugs to work out of course, but this is a big step forward in making SL the true next generation platform for businesses.
Thanks for providing a fun overview in bite-size pieces, as usual Torley!
March 10th, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Great tutorial as usual, I should link this so the hostesses I train can see clearly how to change the URLs for stuff like the radio stream. The ability to now view webpages is phemonmal just think of all the in world tutorials that could be improved by displaying a webpage… So many new things to mess with now.. I can’t wait until this region thing is fixed so I can log in
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March 10th, 2008 at 11:50 AM
I can see the benefits, however did you know these ‘functions’ have been available for around a year already?
Well until the code was changed and took away the many 1,000 USD’s of development and investment and creation of the Silver Stream Media Network, for the many thousands of users that have been using it since its introduction.
Hopefully that will be restored and allow this business to continue?
March 10th, 2008 at 11:54 AM
Great tutorials as always, and I really like the new features!
One suggestion that I have for LL is to expand the website URL playback a bit more to include in world GROUP UUIDs. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to have an object you just clicked to get the group information and possibly join? So much less of a hassle than having to use search, or worse… having to put your name on a list and wait for the owner to add you!
Just a little thinking outside the prim for ya.
March 10th, 2008 at 11:56 AM
A bit of a hangup is having to specify the mime type (image, web, video, etc) when giving a media url.
Will the next iteration of the media parcel settings let you simply enter a url, and it will get the mime type from incoming content? (just like every other web browser out there)
Am stoked just to see web on a prim thus far…
Buckaroo
March 10th, 2008 at 12:07 PM
(and to be clear.. I mean setting media via llParcelCommand* … where I may be relying on a notecard and have no idea what mime type a given url is supposed to be…
March 10th, 2008 at 12:18 PM
Hey can you all fix the RC? its been broken for a few days now for a bunch of people. And we’re having a repeating bug where standard SL runs at 1.1 FPS about 50% of the time logging in. Theres a JIRA:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5445
Hopefully since torley reads the blogs you guys can fix this…
and next time, TEST it before you force feed it to us! And test as in on a variety of machines, from high end to low end…. Not everyone has a fancy pants corporate monster PC
March 10th, 2008 at 12:25 PM
This new option is very helpful.
Hopefully a flash player can be added too.
Keep up the great effort
Thank you ,,,=^_^=,,,
March 10th, 2008 at 1:37 PM
I”d love to be able to use all these, but I’ve had continued problems with all viewers since 1.18.5.3 (the only viewer that works properly for me). I tried the RC yesterday and if Friends list showed, Groups didn’t and vice versa. Parcel info didn’t change when I crossed from one to another for ages. Media didn’t change from one parcel to another playing different music, and then I couldn’t get to About Land to check on anything. Could only tp within my own sim, Inventory wouldn’t load.
I keep reporting all this stuff - but nothing sorted yet.
I WANNA PLAY IN PRETTY LAND - I like the new interface and want to use it - I want the new media options - please help me get them fixed so that I can make use of this excellent tute.
Shai
March 10th, 2008 at 2:19 PM
Torley’s the Bestest :)… hey Torley is there a way to make a all in one mini tutorial? instead of clicking play for each one?.. Also is it going to be possible to have multiple media settings in the future? I could see this being very useful to NCI for a few things.
Garn
March 10th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
It would be nice to have Flash in that browser then you could have stuff like youtube or things like that
March 10th, 2008 at 2:48 PM
Great features, will be even better when it’s interactive. RC client is not very stable though, and that’s putting it mildly.
Why use 3rd part Silver Stream Media Network when you can have HTML slideshows etc. using the SL client now?
Great to see they are sticking with Quicktime. Hope I never see Flash in SL, it ruined the internet!
March 10th, 2008 at 2:54 PM
The new client crashes on login every time.
ive uninstalled it. cleared cache. rebooted. reinstalled. reboot. relog crash. ive done it over and over.
am i the only one who CAN NOT use this new version?
March 10th, 2008 at 4:06 PM
Gee thanks, when will you actually be putting web browsing on prims? It’d be nice if you actually delivered what you said you would so long ago. Tying the media to the parcel makes it just about useless. All you could do is have 1 webpage for your whole shop, or split it into pieces and hope that they are standing on the one you want.
What ever happened to llSetPrimURL? Is that still coming or was that just another piece of vaporware spread by you lazy baboons who call yourselves programmers?
If you’re going to keep making new features which are all hype and no content, maybe you should just quit making new features and work on improving stability and reliability of the program.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:17 PM
This looks like a step in the right direction to me. Now im just wondering how long until the useless llLoadURL and llRefreshURL are implemented. Those will be extremely helpful LSL functions.
March 10th, 2008 at 4:34 PM
TORLEY: The link for creating the media screen is missing from your post. Click all 3 movie links above and you will see .
March 10th, 2008 at 4:36 PM
Torley’s video on Creating the Media Screen can be found here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-SJu23Ya4WY&feature=user
March 10th, 2008 at 5:28 PM
Awesome Torley but i cant use them in win2000 i guess the requirements page needs to be changed on SLs webpage
March 10th, 2008 at 6:47 PM
[...] I noticed that under my videos, such as the "PARCEL MEDIA" series I recently uploaded, there are: Watch this video in higher quality. / Watch this video in lower [...]
March 10th, 2008 at 7:34 PM
Web browsing on prims has pretty serious security and privacy issues. It’s a good thing that they’re going slow on this one.
March 10th, 2008 at 8:25 PM
Is it possible to scroll up and down on a web page?
March 10th, 2008 at 11:13 PM
Second Life News for March 11, 2008
From: MVC Second Life recruiting for UK office Quote from the site - Linden Lab looking for over 30 new faces, some of which will be based in its Brighton office.
From: KerryJ’s blog Linden Labs’ Second Life education blog - an old approach? Quote …
March 11th, 2008 at 12:02 AM
I think its kinda dumb that a website and movie URL would reside in the same box? why not have the ability to have both? I find it rather useless in its current form having to hit play to actually see the static website?? what good is that, i only hope that there will be some way to load a URL via a script and never have it affect the media URL, otherwise its 2 thumbs down from me.
March 11th, 2008 at 12:20 AM
Yes download the Release Candidate and see what happens. Good luck! =/
March 11th, 2008 at 12:25 AM
@ 19. I think you make a good point. While this is a “Release Candidate”… I think more prominent notice should have been made that this is a WINDLIGHT release. Why? Because the latest Windlight is buggy as can be, and people are crashing right and left trying to use it. In my case, it not only borked itself, but borked my existing regular SL installation. Result: I had to completely remove SL from my system and totally reinstall the regular version (after which problems went away. Well, comparatively so, anyway).
Some people can’t use Windlight at all because it flat maxes out their graphics cards. For some people Windlight runs more smoothly (at least until the latest release). Anyway, the fact that this is implementation of WindLight should definitely have been a major announcement. (I only noticed myself upon examining the “features” list).
March 11th, 2008 at 12:26 AM
Oops. Meant @ 13. (I gotta stop blog posting in the early morning hours! LOL)
March 11th, 2008 at 1:23 AM
i am using vista ATI X1800 and this release with Windlight is not crashing for me. Web media is great new feature…
I hope for soon to be implemented interaction and
PLS dont forget that ppl want to set text on prim easily and fastly to be visible to all avatars at same time so some simple llsethtmlonprim just for text would be great.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:40 AM
This is SO wonderful — thanks for sharing this and making the link so prominent on the new client. :^ ) I’ve already FLickred and blogged about it.
March 11th, 2008 at 3:43 AM
D:
Please don’t encourage people to use the 1.19.1 client, Torley. It’s really broken in a lot of ways.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:17 AM
Dear Torley,
Will try to remain ZEN … ZEN …. ZEN … ZEN …
I think NOBODY (counts also for Voice and Windlight) ever asked for adding such things to SL … Or otherwise post a list with all who demanded for that thing …. inclusive if they are employees of Linden Labs
Fell pls remain ZEN … ZEN … ZEN … ZEN ….
As manager I learned first to fix all what is broken, before adding thing. And to check if the fixes are working properly (that s something we call, in Europe, QUALITY CONTROL)
Secondly, dear Torley I learned another skill, COMMUNICATION with everybody …
But a humble Thank You Torley for all those great Tutorials you already gave us …. so we become smarter in our SL ….
Love and kisses
Fell
March 11th, 2008 at 4:49 AM
Torley, just when I don’t think you could possibly do any better, you prove me wrong! These are INCREDIBLE!
Yay!
Thank you SO MUCH, Torley!
March 11th, 2008 at 5:31 AM
@30 I asked for webpage inclusion around… 2 years ago? The video and music have been in a while.
Its useful for land owners, means they can put events coming up, blog, news etc on a webpage and just update that insted of making a new texture every time. Unfortunatly its implimentation leaves a lot to be desired - cant have video and a website in one parcel? cant have 4 different websites in the same parcel? why do we have to press play to see a webpage? why is the webpage static? etc etc.
(Workaround for 4 websites on one parcel, create a webpage with 4 tables that show each of these sites and just stretch the texture inworld)
Sl is run in teams, theres a dedicated bugs team that currently average out at around 2-3 bug fixes a day, after thinking about how long it takes to work out if its server or client side, find, edit, compile check, repeat - thats quite good. Unfortunatly there are over 2000 reported bugs and growing, i havent checked the balance between new and solved bugs, this would be a useful statistic!
This will take some time to get to acceptable levels (so im keeping my claim in previous comments) and you could argue that if any team needs help this is the team, but keep those features coming in, when HaVoK 4 + website on a prim is properly realised and the bugs reach acceptable levels (no programs are bug free) then this ‘product’ would have its (quote) Big mans pants on (/quote).
What other features are there that would greatly improve world interaction on the client side? mine would be a new version of the cube prim with rounded corners, where you can choose which edges to round and/or corners and at what amount.
Another would be more of a research for future version than a feature, but would help the populace at hand, what about an anonymous customer survey of peoples hardware? if it was done and presented nicely like Valves Steam survey that happens every 6 months or so, it would be cool - telling you what systems to be aiming for average-good performance while making low-end customer go ‘Damnnn i need to upgrade, 65-75% of people have a better system than me!’.
Anyone else got ‘features’ they would like to add? (i know were going to get ‘less crashing’ etc - but the bug-gers are on that already)
March 11th, 2008 at 10:30 AM
One issue that I want to say for long time. It is the DISTANCE DRAWING of the graphic. In the new UI, it preset from LOW to ULTRA. ULTRA has default 265m distance drawing. I use ULTRA, but need to reduce the setting of 265m to 64m, because of the download time. Especially, it trouble me after TP and cannot reduce time much by reduce distance after arrived new place. ULTRA de facto become custom.
If everyone use HIGH or ULTRA with their default settings, I am sure network loading increasing and user must unhappy to wait at the same time.
However, I also experience many time that need to get more distance drawing. So my preference 95% of time is minimized on screen. I suggest to make all LEVELs to 64m, plus a distance button on the bottom tool bar. This is more practical.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:23 PM
Never mind all this rubbish, I just want to be able to move and talk without a 5 second delay from my keyboard to my screen. Network is permenantly red on the lag meter and this has been happening ever since I was forced to get that new update.
Why oh why do i bother to waste my time and money at this place.
Well starting to lose intrest, just reminds me of the laggy days from last year.
I guess if the majority of people are fine, don’t waste time on me and the minority, there’s a party to plan afterall.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:25 PM
[...] Weblink: Linden Blog [...]
March 12th, 2008 at 9:32 AM
@30
There you go again. Or, at least you embody the spirit. What spirit you ask? The ignorant and completely unconstructive one.
Including new features is what drives the development forward. To stop dead in their tracks now, not adding anything unless you have suggested it would if anything kill the product.
And as a bonus, this time the new feature is added in a careful way letting people try it out without risking too many security issues biting them in the ass. It’s clearly stated that this is a first step and as such, it’s commendable.
Asking for lists of people who suggested a new feature is just absurd. Arguing that noone asked for a new feature and hence it should not have been done is almost equally absurd.
With other virtual worlds in the making, the value of SL has to be preserved and increased and adding new features is doing just that.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:35 AM
Hi,
What about the music parcel options? Why somebody see music radio stream as stars and somebody not?
Best Regards,
shaq
March 13th, 2008 at 7:59 AM
Usually, only the people with “Media” rights on the parcel can see the URL of the stream. However, enabling “Admin Options” in the client overrides this limitation.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:47 AM
Hi,
Did You think to make media option per object? not per parcel? It would be nice option in case of media movie screens in the parcel or to show differnt web pages in the pracel !!! Now on all media screens in the parcel (I know you can subdevide) the content is same.
Best Regards,
shaq
March 16th, 2008 at 9:42 AM
Microsoft Agents have been around a long time, anyone using the search function in Microsoft XP for example will have used them..
I have used Merlin for a long time as an interactive guide to web pages, programs that can use web links, all kinds of htm related stuff.
unfortunately.. SL insists on taking priority for its window over the ms agent window, so Merlin gets hidden or flickers.. it would seem to a solvable problem.. one can overide SL and merlin stabilises.. but of course SL is disabled..
and ive just tried to implement the tutorial using the second life release candidate.. and my about world window doesnt have the same functions that the one Torley used.. its plain.
i couldnt get a web page to load in an object.. even a bbc web page using Torleys method.. i had to put a script in the object and open the web page independent of the object via that..
the url was the same in both the script and the “about land” web page input, but there was no ability to get the object to display it using the about land url way…. i got nothing.. the script in the object worked fine.. Torley, a great method it is.. i am sure.. but it has to work easily and some error or way of discovering why it doesnt work.. if it doesnt.. is just as important.. else folks will give up..
if you exclude some functions that htm can do now.. then SL will exclude itself… it requires the ability to eat the whole cake.. not just the icing… and if one has to leave the party to eat the cake… then it better be a good cake and worth the effort..
for anyone curious about using MS agents, here is the example i tried to use
http://www.incony.org/secondlife/MerlinSecondLife.htm
March 16th, 2008 at 10:41 AM
How do I open the new J2C file format for snapshots saved to hard drive (without me buying a graphics/image program)?
March 29th, 2008 at 7:00 PM
Second Life Tutorials and Quicktips
Torley has posted another video tip of the week and a few days ago, some more quicktips, this time involving voice chat, so, without further ado, here they are, and his posts from the Second Life Blog, *VIDEO* Tip of the Week #28: Particle editing magi…
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:40 AM
Ok this is all well and good but wheres the quicktime tv channels to play on it ive looked everywhere and all you get is trailers and snipets no channels like a club music channel or movies or entertainment its rubbish absolute rubbish :((
May 6th, 2008 at 7:31 AM
I have problems with the TV in island. I deed to the group owner of the island but the menu stop the work. In parcel i change of the web content to movie, but dont work the menu of the object deed to group. Its correct? And now? Much people have the same problem. My island is residential and this is a big problem because the residente waiting see the movie in yours lands.