Large Uploads in WordPress

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I’m working with a church that uses WordPress to manage their website and podcast. So far, they have a 200-step process every week for publishing the podcast (I exaggerate, but it is a huge step-by-step list).

Among other things, they have to:

  1. Record the sermon
  2. Master the sermon recording
  3. Create an MP3
  4. Upload the MP3 via FileZilla to their server
  5. Create a Sermon (custom post type) in WordPress
  6. Link the uploaded MP3
  7. Publish the post

There’s not much WordPress can do about steps 1-3 at the moment, but I’d like to simplify steps 4-6 if I can. I know some online applications are capable of very large uploads (GMail, Dropbox, and the like). Each sermon is 70-80 MB and far too large to process in a simple HTML upload form.

Is the Flash uploader capable of managing massive files like this if I max out the PHP filesize restrictions? Is there a better way to handle a large upload within WordPress?

Ideally, they’d be able to create a new Sermon (custom post type), upload the MP3 from the edit Sermon page, and have WordPress automatically parse meta information (ID3 tags, duration, etc.).

This would lead to a lower barrier of entry for new tech guys … and I might be able to take a weekend off for once 🙂

Thoughts? Ideas?

4 Answers
4

70-80MB is really not that large. Easily handled by the Flash uploader if your server is properly configured. Hell, I have a 2 gigabyte upload limit on my site. 🙂

When they’re writing the new “post”, they just click the add media button above the toolbar and upload it. It gets saved as an attachment that’s tied to the post and bam, done.

Parsing ID3 information is more complicated, but doable. Follow the EXIF code as an example.

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