Just trying to work out what the standard aim is for html5 video in sizes, currently I have my videos around this size:
WebM - 4.1Mb
MP4 - 4.9Mb
Ogg - 8.1Mb
Is this acceptable and would this be affecting the speed of my video as at the moment it seems to be freezing.
Thanks
I suspect that your carousel is trying to play the videos before they've loaded enough data (so you're seeing stuttering and freezes).
You'll probably need to look into the javascript HTMLMediaElement API, making sure you don't start automatic playback before the readyState reaches HAVE_ENOUGH_DATA.
(By the way, if you need compatibility with older browsers too, have a look at MediaElement.js, which gives you the same API, but with a Flash/Silverlight fallback too.)
Related
I need to play MPEG-1 files dynamically from a browser. Uploading them to YouTube or converting the videos is not an option.
How can I do this?
I've seen this, but the answers do not apply to MPEG-1. Is there a way to play mpeg videos in HTML5?
The video tag is not working for the file with Chrome:
<video class="fullscreen" autoplay>
<source src="video/test2.mpeg">
</video>
It just displays a black box and stuttering noise/sound. I can verify that the video is not corrupt because I can play it with VLC. I only need this to work on one specific browser (it does not have to be cross-compatible). Plugins are OK too, as long as I do not have to convert the video. Though I'd rather avoid them.
Some browsers don't support older formats in <video> on purpose, to limit number of crappy, legacy, and potentially insecurely implemented video formats on the web.
The only combination that has a decent chance of working is H.264 (MP4) and WebM (or Ogg Theora), so you must convert the video and for good browser support you will have to generate at least these two formats.
The good news is that modern codecs are much more efficient than MPEG-1, so you'll get much smaller files.
Other options may be:
Give users a direct link to the video so they can download it and play in an external player like VLC.
Embed video using oldschool <object> element, and hope some browsers still have legacy plugins that can play videos (but e.g. Chrome has recently removed support for all plugins except a couple written specifically for Chrome's own API).
Use Emscripten (asm.js) to compile an MPEG-1 decoder to JavaScript and decode the video yourself to <canvas>. JS these days is fast enough to pull that off (although it will quickly drain battery of mobile devices, and a poor video codec combined with an extra download of a JS decoder will be a massive waste of bandwidth).
You can play MPEG-1 videos using JSMPEG: https://jsmpeg.com/
Sample code here: https://github.com/phoboslab/jsmpeg/blob/master/view-stream.html
How does one go about streaming video in HTML5 ? I can go with using a single browser of the latest version if I have to.I need to be able to start playing from any location of the movie even if the entire video has not been loaded by the browser.
WebRTC ?
I've already seen this question and no one has answered.
Does not allow the viewer to skip to the middle of a video in any
browser. They must watch the video straight through start to finish,
which is not ideal.
This is the main point for streaming.
Currently if you want to use pure HTML5 and work cross-browser you are limited to progressive streaming with the <video> element.
While that still does allow the user to skip ahead via the scrubber or programatically by setting the .currentTime there will still be some buffering while the browser re-loads enough content to be comfortable playing smoothly.
Solutions like Smooth Streaming, HLS do not work across browsers today so you would require a Flash or Silverlight plugin, though with MPEG-DASH being recognized by the W3C there is some hope for the future as samples like this demonstrate http://dash-mse-test.appspot.com/release-notes.html
For today however if you want to stick with an HTML5 solution and you have source in a format the works with the browser then you should be fine
Chrome has implemented the Media Source API in the mean time. Hoping the rest will follow.
http://www.w3.org/TR/media-source/
Abstract
This specification extends HTMLMediaElement to allow JavaScript to generate media streams for playback. Allowing JavaScript to generate streams facilitates a variety of use cases like adaptive streaming and time shifting live streams.
I noticed in youtube, for the same resolution, like 360p
for the same video (with the same video id)
html5 videos are much larger in size than flash videos
is there any relationship on video size between html5 and flash?
thanks
This really depends on what codec you are using and what are the settings of the video (bit-rate, frame-rate), codecs usually also have certain adjustments. Flash and HTML can both play .h645 video, same profile, same settings. In that case it would be identical (since it would be the same file), but not all browsers and operation systems support all codecs. For instance, this one is proprietary, and Firefox doesn't support it.
Theora Vorbis, the another codec, supported by Firefox, it, on average, offers somewhat more conservative compression, which offers perhaps a little bit better quality while sacrificing size. I.e. it is larger in size, but maybe a little bit more sharp / detailed, not really sure, I can't tell the difference from watching the video.
So, while files don't have to differ in size, for the sake of compatibility you would have to have at least 2 copies of your video encoded in different formats, if you want to use HTML video tag.
Can I click on some time and eventhough the video is not downlaoded till that time and the video starts playing from the time I clicked?
If yes, what would be a better option for viewing streamed video- HTML5 or flash player like JW player? WHich one will have less lag?
HTML5 browsers generally don't support this, however I believe the video tag in Safari will work with the Apple HTTP Streaming format for this functionality. For something that works across all browsers, Flash Player can do it using either RTMP streaming or HTTP Streaming (either with our without OSMF to support this). Probably the easiest place to start is with OSMF, which supports both RTMP and HTTP streaming of video.
I have tested this with Firefox and Firebug and while you can "seek" to a point in the video without having to watch video preceding the point you wish to seek, this still causes the entire video file to download.
Indeed, each time you seek in Firefox 4, the entire video downloads.
This may change and improve as HTML 5 video implementations become more mature and may differ based on the actual browser being used.
More information on the test here:
http://www.stevefenton.co.uk/Content/Blog/Date/201106/Blog/HTML-5-Video-In-Real-Life/
Our company is making a mobile version of our website. We have several product videos we want to show on the mobile version.
When I try to use
video
I get sound playing but a black screen on my htc incredible android os phone.
I'm thinking that the video is playing but in a different browser window. I need it to display all in one window without having to switch to a different window.
I tried the html embed tags and get no video or sound at all, from what I've read these tags are not very realiable cross browser.
I also just tried the html5 video tags below. I get an icon identifying that it's a video file but it doesn't play.
<video src="video.wmv" controls="controls">
your browser does not support the video tag
</video>
Is there a special format the video file needs to be in? Should I be using the href or embed tags, what other options do I have?
If it helps to know, I'm using the mobile doctype on my webpages.
Thanks
The video format you need to send to the browser varies by browser. Firefox supports Ogg Theora, everybody else seems to support H.264 in an MPEG-4 container (MP4 file.)
See here for an example: http://html5demos.com/two-videos
In any case, WMV won't work.
Android doesn't support the WMV format normally. Here is a list of the supported formats:
http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html
If iPhone/blackberry/etc don't have a format in common, you may need some javascript magic based on the user-agent to choose which file to embed.
I've found a simple solution to my problem. YouTube. Upload videos on youtube that need to play on your mobile web site and they work. PERIOD.
No fuss! Just copy the embedded URL from the YouTube video page to your mobile page and your all set to go.
I'm not exactly sure how YouTube makes the videos compatible.I'm guessing when uploading the video it's automatically converted into several formats so that the right codec / container is played based on what smart phone is accessing the page.
This list is not extensive and I'll probably think of more later, but comment if you can think of any more advantages or disadvantages of using YouTube for mobile videos.
Advantages:
++ YouTube is universally accepted amongst most major smart phones (therefore your video should play!).
+ If you have limited bandwidth you don't need to worry about wasting any bandwidth of your own.
++ Easy to setup, little to no configuration (setting video resolution). It just works! (encapsulation...)
Disadvantages:
- YouTube symbol during video play back
- It's not hosted on your hosting service. May not be tracked by some analytic services. (requires custom tracking? onclick java-script event?)
- YouTube bandwidth may not be acceptable for smooth replay? (although from initial video viewing bandwidth seems acceptable (minimal buffering...), but not confirmed...). Probably mostly dependent on the cell phone 3g / 4g connection quality.
- limited video file size / resolutions? shouldn't be a problem because you'll want a lower quality video for smart phones.
I would like to know exactly how YouTube make it's videos compatible with smart phones so if necessary I could host the videos myself, but for now this seems to be the best choice.