I was contacted by someone having trouble converting .mov files to mp4
mainly so they could be played on mobile devices that don’t support QT,
like Droid. Of course the vids still need to be compatible with every
other desktop/mobile platform, too. I don’t have any of these files at
the moment but apparently he has tried numerous mp4 formats (straight
mp4, mp4 for iPhone, mp4 for Mobile, etc.) using various conversion
apps. So instead of the mp4 Just Working across the board it’s sporadic
depending on the device (big surprise, right?).
I should be receiving the files later today so I can have a look-see but
in the meantime does anyone have any sage conversion advice that will
save me hours of putzing around?
One last thing: The current .mov files use a default controller and are
dynamically loaded from a custom CMS partial but when this person tried
using an mp4 (not sure which format) he said the controller was missing
in most cases. I’ve done some local testing and using the same partial
code (below) my mp4 functions just as the the .mov file does, controller
and all. So my question is: Does the below code need to be modified for
cross-platform mp4 use?
I’ll be watching this with interest: video is one of the most confusing things about developing for the web, cross-platform. There are almost as many platforms as video formats. I’m in the process of converting several dozen HD MTS files to HD .mov, and then to .mp4 using MPEG Streamclip to get the file size down to something manageable. After that, I’ll need to find a ‘low bandwidth’ solution, since this particular site has customers in Asia and eastern Europe, not to mention South America, that are still on telephone modems. This doesn’t work on Android 2.2.1, either, and I’ve already spent hours “putzing” around trying to solve this. Maybe it’s the Android version??
Video on dial-up will for the most part never ever work. 3K/s to 5K/s is just not enough bandwidth. I will let the Freeway experts answer the rest of your questions. My advice would be have a 2nd web-site for low bandwidth customers. They know who they are and would appreciate the thoughtfulness on your part.
Dale Josephson
Dale Josephson Consulting
Apple Developer & Support
(530) 241-8227
email@hidden
On Jul 25, 2011, at Monday11:50 AM, Rick Vieh wrote:
I’ll be watching this with interest: video is one of the most confusing things about developing for the web, cross-platform. There are almost as many platforms as video formats. I’m in the process of converting several dozen HD MTS files to HD .mov, and then to .mp4 using MPEG Streamclip to get the file size down to something manageable. After that, I’ll need to find a ‘low bandwidth’ solution, since this particular site has customers in Asia and eastern Europe, not to mention South America, that are still on telephone modems. This doesn’t work on Android 2.2.1, either, and I’ve already spent hours “putzing” around trying to solve this. Maybe it’s the Android version??
My initial research and experience has suggested that very small video files could be made available alongside the larger ones, probably in a pop up window (I did this once a while ago for another site). A separate website wouldn’t work, but a page within the existing site, intended for low bandwidth users, was my idea, with a listing of all of the small video files that could be opened in a pop up window. While we are not targeting dial up users, it’s inevitable that we will have some, although our target market for these instructional videos would be broadband users.
Beyond this, I have no idea how to get these videos to run cross-platform on mobile devices. If HTML5 is the solution, I’d sure like to know how this would work in Freeway before I go to the time and trouble of video file conversions.