Apple has a spec for using .m3u as a playlist file of .ts video segments. I understand it works on iOS devices and OSX Safari. Is it supported by any other browsers? If not, are there any other methods of segmenting a video into parts for independent download and playing?
Here's the apple spec for video segmentation:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/StreamingMediaGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html
"Is it supported by any other browsers?": No
"If not, are there any other methods of segmenting a video into parts for independent download and playing?": Adobe is making an effort to do something similar but I have yet to see it in production anywhere. They probably will not be compatible, at least at first.
CODECs matter. Hence, FireFox will likely never natively support it as Mozilla hates h.264. I'm also skeptical about native Chrome support too, but time will tell.
Related
Over a year ago we added an video page on our site. At the time OGV wasn't very good, and there was no good WebM encoders available, so we decided to use HTML5 and h.264 for webkit browsers (Chrome, Safari, etc.) and then fallback to Flash for other browsers (using the same h.264 source file.)
This has been working great for a while. Recently (month or two maybe, so over multiple Chrome versions - currently Version 24.0.1312.52 m) we discovered Chrome really lagging on the playback. We thought it was a server issue, so we upgraded the server, and it is still behaving the same. I remembered reading that Google wanted to drop h.264 and move everyone to WebM, and thought this performance was part of that. We converted some videos to WebM and tested them with Chrome and they lag just as bad. Same video (WebM) streams beautifully in FireFox, and the MP4 streams great in FireFox via the Flash plug in.
I went to YouTube and turned on the HTML5 video support, and found the videos to lag in Chrome too (when running at HD) while they play fine in Flash mode. (Even when HTML5 is enabled, some videos still play via Flash.)
Tested on both Windows 8 and Mountain Lion.
I've talked to co-workers and they are seeing the same issues. So it isn't just me. So my question is:
Is this an issue with our video encoding?
Is it a bug with Chrome?
Or is it just localized to us?
Is there a way to deal with this besides switching back to Flash?
This is the flag I mean. If the flag is disabled, the browser tries to use hw-accelerated video decoding, which I can grant provokes wrong and slow video renderization in some devices. If enabled, hw-accelerated video decode is never used, but the above mentioned problems disappear. It theorically increases decoding time in devices actually able to use such acceleration, but I've been working around this field for almost a year and I still didn't realize any difference in that matter. Still didn't get to know how to identify if a device will behave properly (the availability of this feature doesn't seem to grant its proper behavior) with such acceleration without testing, though.
I am doing some help videos, they are required to work on all browsers and devices - ipod/pad/phone android etc.
My understanding was you can do this with HTML5 and have fallbacks for each device/browser?
However i have had to add javascript to detect the browser then go off accordingly to different html pages where the video will play on that browser or device.
Surely there must be a simpler way to do this in ONE html page? What formats are used for each browser?
I am using ChromeFrame to get around the IE issues too.
Thanks
I recommend looking into video.js which takes care of browser support detection.
For video formats you can use mp4 and WebM together with video.js it should cover all browsers.
From the videoJS website...
Web Browsers
Whether a user has the latest version of a browser, or something
ancient like Internet Explorer 6, they'll get a similar experience
with Video.js which uses a super-lightweight Flash player for browsers
that don't support HTML5 video.
Video Formats
Web video formats can get complicated. Video.js can make it easier by using a single MP4 file for all users, or additional
formats like WebM, Ogg, and even HTTP Live Streaming for greater HTML5
compatibility.
PS. Be aware that there will be visual differences between browsers (mostly older IE browsers), especially when the Flash fallback kicks in. The fullscreen option is the most notable difference.
I really have researched this but I am still confused. In all of the HTML5 compatible browsers (although in this case I'm talking about Chrome 20 and Safari for Windows 5.1.7), if I specify some video using tags, is the idea that this should play without the user having to install plug-ins? Or will the user have to install a plugin such as WMP / Quicktime? Thanks in advance.
They will play without plugins. One of the key purposes of HTML5 is that you dont need anything but the browser to display content...and it works on all kinds of devices.
No, no plugins are required. The code required to play the video comes as part of the browser.
The problem with entrusting this to the browser, though, is there is a current inconsistency in which video/audio formats each browser supports.
For example, Chrome and IE9 will play MP3 audio, but Firefox and Opera play a different format.
I have to play an ogg audio file in the background when the user hits a "Music On" button. Currently the page uses an AUDIO tag, and it works in Firefox, but not in IE (confirmed by this table).
Is there a really cross-browser way to play an ogg audio file, if possible without Flash?
I am aware of the existence of specific libraries like JPlayer or SoundManager, but do I really have to use one of them? After all, it is just to play a sound...
Forget about cross-browser. Stick with ogg. It's much better than mp3 in every way. Tell people to change their browser to one which supports ogg (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Opera). If they don't want to change, then forget about them; they don't deserve to hear your audio. If your client doesn't understand this, leave him and let him waste money on one developer after another until he finds a "yes man" developer who will give him a terrible website that will be a nightmare to use and will need completely redeveloped in a year's time.
The Company I work for has dropped support for IE6 for apps and websites and dropped support for IE7 when it comes to apps. Personally, I don't want to be developing for IE at all until I met a friend of mine working elsewhere. She was allowed to work from home, but she had to use RDP (Remote Desktop Connection in Windows) thats supported as a web interface only via IE. Some companies use Windows Group policies to disable USB drives etc. The terminals in these companies can have IE only! So as much as I would hate to admit, cross browser compatibility is a serious issue.
Flash would be the number one choice of plugin to play ogg files. Now, the following scenarios may occur:
iOS (iPad and iPhone) : HTML5 Audio Tag
Android / Chrome / Safari : HTML5 Audio Tag
Opera
Firefox
IE
For 3, 4 and 5 it really depends on the user. Even if they have one of Real Player, QuickTime or Windows Media Player, the would be able to play ogg files. There is a case where the specific ogg codec is not installed. In this case they will get a prompt on the top of their browser, telling them to install the specific codec.
We are talking about people insisting on using IE or insisting on a really really old version of firefox and who don't have WMP (by default on Windows), RealPlayer or QuickTIme installed but have an Internet connection.
Even jQuery leaves out 0.0001% of users ! :-P
You can probably consider using a .wav file, but I'm not sure that works.
The simple answer: no, there's no way to do it without Flash. My approach: simply create a script that converts a single file to multiple encodings.
I am developing an HTML5 player on Windows, but I have some real difficulties to make a real cross-browser and platform HTML5 video player:
It seems that Firefox and safari have different format support on their video tag, .ogg for Firefox, mp4 based for Safari.
Meanwhile Firefox supports the .ogg format without further plugins, Apple Safari needs the Quicktime plug-in for playing mp4 video in the tag video. This doesn't sound good.
Apple hates Flash for its CPU consumption and extra plug-in, but for itself requires a Quicktime plug-in for playing video on HTML5. Why don't these browsers use a standard?
Quite simple.
Video is historically a minefield with regards to patents. People from the opensource world do not have the money to pay MPEG-LA consortium which controls H264. On the other hand, the codec proposed by Google and implemented by Firefox and Opera is felt as risky by company such as Apple, Nokia, or Microsoft. The issue is still not yet solved, but there is progress on discussions.
There was a very good summarizing post about it. I will try to find it again.
A good article on how to use the video element in your document
An excellent summary article about the issues
Actually, the HTML5 standards body was going to standardize on OGG (with the ability to use other codecs, as previous HTML versions would have said).
Most of the major players who already had a license with MPEG-4 said "screw you guys, we've already paid for a site license (and are part of the MPEG-4 consortium) so we're going to screw over the standards body".