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Video platform: a customizable, rich media solution | 11

3.3 Assignment constraints

The assignment knew some constraints. While most of the constraints of the project are mentioned in the project plan,
which can be found in Appendix B. The graduation project introduced some new constraints that came up later on. I found
out that I would have to design the video platform with the designer. The designer would do some small parts of the work
on the front end, and this meant that I had to coordinate with him, so that we would not get in each other’s way. This
meant we needed to discuss the video platform together in a careful way; we would make deadlines and other agreements
with each other.

Technologically, some of the newer constraints of the video platform were:
The video platform would use thumbnails for the videos; this means that I had to read the documentation of a video tool
that would be used for this part: namely the tool called FFMPEG. I have never worked with this, and even though it played
just a small part in the whole video platform, this small part was of great importance.

Video formats are a constraint; videos have not been standardized and different browsers play different encoded video
formats. I will need to be able to find out what the best encoding and the best format is to use, and also find the best video
player that will be able to play all the videos in all the browsers (including tablets and smartphones). But this video player
should be programmable so that an advertisement can be showed on the video player itself.

3.4 Methodologies

The video platform project would take place in an iterative approach. According to this methodology of working the focus
is put on creating a working prototype first and adding features to it in development cycles. This means that I had to work
on the beginning and designing a start for the video platform. This basic prototype would work in a very basic way without
many details, and then bit by bit all kinds of different features would be added to it in different cycles. This way you go
from a small basic prototype and you make it grow bit by bit and every time you keep extending it until you have reached
your final and working outcome.

To be able to achieve this, it means that I had to discuss short-term goals and long-term goals not only with my guides but
also with the designer since he was playing a role in it too. Besides these short-term and long-term goals, I had a lot of
freedom in working and in how I started and with which parts I would start. During these discussions we would also set up
some deadlines for when some parts would be finished. Discussions were of course ongoing and deadlines and goals would
change a bit if needed.

Development-wise these tools/technologies are used:

 PHP
 Laravel

 JQuery
 Bootstrap

 FFMPEG

 MySQL
 HTML/CSS