FLV > HTMl5 = IPHONE? :::: HELP
 

Hi guys, any idea if it's possiible to play FLV videos on Iphone/Ipad using HTML5?
we don't want to convert our flv videos to any other format since it's a huge db.

It's possible? How?

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Paul K.
SeeMyBucks

:thumbsup

Using the <video> tag? I don't think so. It's browser dependent though, as far as I know. Might be available eventually, but I wouldn't count on it.

no way Jose. HTML5 is meant to REPLACE Flash, not to play along :2 cents:

You should really use one of the frameworks such as sencha touch. Upload video to youtube and show it through sencha framework.

Here is a quick sample for you:

"Media": [{
"id":"28542",
"title":"mirrortrackmovie",
"type":"video",
"thumb":"http:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/X-z3_-7pwZ0\/default.jpg",
"video_host":"youtube",
"video_id":"X-z3_-7pwZ0",
"video":"http:\/\/youtube.com\/v\/X-z3_-7pwZ0"
}]

It does require some skills though but it worths it....

currently html5 <video> tag will perfectly play videos on a few supported browsers but fallback is still required. The whole thing is about codecs such as H.264 and Theora. They do the main job and there are issues about that.

ios doesn't support flash and never will. encode your videos to .mp4. flv is dead.

which is EXACTLY the point he's trying to avoid.

Of course, someone using our CMS wouldn't have this problem since this is solved by default in an automatic way :winkwink:

well, not dead, but you have a point there :2 cents:

That's how I roll. If you use h.264 in .mp4 and the default flash player with html5 playback you can accommodate almost everyone.

Now, repeat after me:

FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS
FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS

Hope it's clear now :thumbsup

yes, the fact that "FLV CAN'T PLAY ON HTML5 PLAYERS" is an obvious spam of something. You're getting wiser by the minute :thumbsup

and the fact that you answered something that is nowhere close to the question is... well, you put the name you want to that.

See, if I wanted to spam my CMS I would have said something among the lines of:

"THE ONLY CMS THAT CAN HANDLE HTML5 AUTOMATICALLY IS........... AND YOU CAN GET IT AT ................................"

But, well, I didn't say it :Oh crap

just wait a few more years and you will see your self walking upside-down. Everything is changing too fast.

Thanks for the info guys.
Babaganoosh: do you think that will I lose quality encoding flv to mp4?
the size will be the same? (approx). Thanks!

Porko - it's been a long time! Happy to see that you're still going strong!

I spoke on the HTML5 seminar panel at the 2010 XBiz Summer Forum in Las Vegas last year and demonstrated the iPad playing inline video in the browser. Elevated X has offered iPad compatible pay sites AND automatic iPad video encoding for more than a year. The quotes above are correct. h.264 .mp4 video is the way to do it.

Anytime you encode using compressed video as a source file, the results will be lower quality. If you go from FLV to MP4 it may not be ideal but it will be better to have lesser quality iPad videos than no iPad videos at all :2 cents:

If you're looking to take your existing videos (Flash, WMV, AVI, MPG, MOV etc) and automatically convert them all into both iPad and mobile compatible videos, the Elevated X CMS is a solid choice.

Elevated X adult CMS demos are available live by phone or on our site at http://elevatedx.com/demo.php

Feel free to call me with any questions or for more info. My direct line is 800-690-9277 ext 1

AJ

Yes, you'd definitely lose quality. If you have the original files I would just reendocde from those. Honestly if you have a relatively fast multicore box in-house you can script ffmpeg to encode all of the videos hands free.

Just to elaborate a little more...

If you have the original files, encode 3 or 4 different resolutions and bitrates and use something like jwplayer to implement stream switching (which works on the flash player but not on the html5 fallback player).

The flash player will play the highest bitrate appropriate for that particular user and can drop back to a lower framerate without starting over if the network can't handle the bitrate. I started doing that on a blog last month and I am really surprised how much of a difference it made in my traffic and especially my bounce rate.

Unfortunately the html5 player can't do stream switching but it will play whatever video you want it to. I play my second lowest bitrate by default (which is 700k).

on your recode, can you be sure to remove my videos from your members area library, thanks so much!

BTW, remove this girl from your pics while you are at it, this was shot in my own bedroom:

http://ebaked.com/pics/06.jpg

encode mp4 instead of flv

You CAN convert your flv to mp4 with no loss of quality. Because flv video is nothing more than a package holding mpeg4 inside, you can strip off the flv package and be left with raw mpeg4, aka .mp4.

To do using ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i "filename.flv" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "filename.mp4"

The magic is the "copy" part, which tells ffmpeg to just copy the video and audio with reencoding it. Once you have plain mpeg4, most anything will play play it because again all of the popular formats are packages for mpeg4, so most any player already knows how to play mpeg4 after unpacking it.

WRONG WRONG WRONG.. I know you're a smart guy, but, while true that flv is just the container, the videos are encoded to H.263 and usually mp3 audio. The "mp4" videos most people talk about these days are encoded with H.264 with AAC. mp4 is also a contained and could contain mpeg4 encoded videos.

In order to be able to handle the changes that are coming, you need to keep your original source videos that you do your conversions from and be ready to re-encode.

At this point it's prudent to encode them to H.264, AAC in an mp4 container. That will give you higher quality in smaller file sizes and will be able to play on ipads etc.

Apple has stated they'll never support Flash videos... ipads support HTML5 and the final video standard for that has not been finalized if it ever will be.. Apple has a stake in H.264 with some patents and so they want everyone to use that.. However, Google bought On2 for a reason. They want the encoder to be free to everyone. H.264 is NOT technically free and people are supposed to be paying licensing fees in some cases. There's a date coming up, can't remember when, and it could end up that everyone using H.264 commercially has to start paying for it.

Googles wants the HML5 video standard to be WebM which is based on the VP8 version of the On2 encoders. They're trying to get video card manufacturers to build it into their chipsets. It's true that YouTube has provided H.264 videos for awhile now. However, their HTML5 beta version of YouTube is providing WebM videos.

I think ffmpeg can now decode WebM videos but not sure if they have the encoder part working yet.

If you want more info about the status of the HTML5 video standard, you can check out this page..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video

Fffmpeg can encode/decode to/from webm starting with ffmpeg (ffmpe >= 0.6).

If you convert FLV to MP4 (H264 + AAC) you will not loose quality, however the filesize will be usually bigger. You need the original files to convert to H264 + AAC (and you will get probably the same quality as the original at a lower filesize). You cant use copy.

Ffmpeg can encode a file to a special H264 + AAC that will work on iphone, ipad, android, blackberry (and probably more smart phones).

lots of good info

Thanks for the info guys!

i doubt he will

Before I go giving pointers... is (are) your server(s) linux, or windoze?

:thumbsup

But he did at least explain why some sponsor's mp4's are fucked up.

:1orglaugh

I've tried to go from .flv to .mp4. Like someone said earlier, flv is usually h263 with mp3 audio. Trying to go to h264 with aac will definitely yield a loss in quality. I have no idea how bad it will be. I guess the only way to know is to try it.