streaming mp4 video off a server

dangerman

i was under the impression that if i put up an mp4 movie file, use embed/object tags then the movie would start playing as it loaded.

I have (I think) appropriate tags on.

Am I missing a fundamental point here? Do I need streaming technology of some kind on the server?

The movie loads completely, with just the blue quicktime Q before it will play. A 50 meg file loading this way is pretty frustrating.

Unfortunately, I can't show you it happening on the server. But here's the object/embed code:

<OBJECT HEIGHT="178" WIDTH="320" CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" >
<PARAM NAME="src" VALUE="111.mp4">
<PARAM NAME="CONTROLLER" VALUE="True" >
<PARAM NAME="AutoPlay" VALUE="true" >
<PARAM NAME="Loop" VALUE="True" >
<PARAM NAME="HREF" VALUE="111.mp4" >
<PARAM NAME="TARGET" VALUE="myself" >
<EMBED  SRC="111.mp4" HEIGHT="178" WIDTH="320" TYPE="video/quicktime" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"CONTROLLER="True" AUTOPLAY="Yes" LOOP="True" HREF="111.mp4" TARGET="myself"/>
</OBJECT>

any ideas?

Do I need this? http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/ ?

I've never done anything like this before - as if that wasn't obvious enough from the above...

evilhomer

Danger as far as I know the Embed tags will only force the movie to load in the browser (it is still downloaded as normal). A streaming video (i.e a video you just serve and do not allow to be downloaded) needs to be run through a streaming server as you linked to above. the media player (in this case quicktime) doesn't quite use the same technology to stream as it does just to load a mov file.

I had this problem a few years back on a project I was working on. A streaming server will sort that out for you assuming you don't want the video downloaded to be saved. otherwise you just have to wait for a sufficient amount to download before you can start playing it.

dangerman

otherwise you just have to wait for a sufficient amount to download before you can start playing it.

See thats what i'm talking about. I understand i'm not doing true streaming - but I thought the whole cleverness behind qtime/wmv/mp4 etc. was that as the file was being downloaded to the client it could play once a sufficient amount has been downloaded ala your sentence above.

However, the behaviour when I'm testing it (and i've tested it with other users now too) seems to be that it just sits there on the blue q until the entire thing is loaded.

Rollo Tamasi

As far as i know you would need a streaming mp4 server such as the Apple Darwin Streaming Server.

cgarvey

You don't need Darwin or Quicktime Streaming server. They are more efficient, compared to bog standard HTTP streaming, but they're not needed to stream MP4 media.

You're problem could be MIME type (you need to have "video/mp4 mp4" as a MIME type either in your webserver's config, or in a .htaccess). However, you're problem is more likely to be that the media is MP4.

I've googled a bit (and it's not easy with such generic terms like these!), some talk of a workaround to force MP4 content to play in the quicktime plugin (as against any other MP4 plugin/player). Others mention that the QuickTime plugin will only auto play (while still downloading) QuickTime media. I'm assuming from your .mp4 extension that you have a MP4 encoded video file, whereas to get the auto play to work in the QuickTime, you need a QuicktTime file format (using MP4 encoding), rather than a generic/standard MP4 encoded file. (.mov vs. .mp4). I've tried that bit, and it seems to work. You may want to search a bit more though.

.cg

TempestSabre

a "50" mb file? Are you trying to annoy people?

dangerman

TempestSabre wrote:

a "50" mb file? Are you trying to annoy people?

??

I don't get it. Ideally we'd like to have low + high quality versions, but what's the problem with a 50 meg file?

TempestSabre

Sure offer the different quality options. I can't imagine most people want to download 50mb files. But have you looked at the cost of hosting such files?

dangerman

TempestSabre wrote:

Sure offer the different quality options. I can't imagine most people want to download 50mb files. But have you looked at the cost of hosting such files?

If the content is good people will of course download 50 megs.

Yes, spent about two weeks investigating the cost of such files.

TempestSabre

Good luck with it so We tried it in the past providing video of products. But most people didn't find them that helpful. But it was boring industrial equipment. Not some babe, or such.