This is for desktop views, not mobile (tablet/phone) views.
I was just informed that one of my pages has a .mp4 video that does not play on Windows. I don’t know the browser version, I just know that the company tried to open the page on several PC’s of varying age and tried I.E., Chrome, and Firefox and nothing but black came up.
I have since added a standalone poster frame, so at least a still image shows up instead of a black header video.
I’m on an old Windows machine at my work and I get just the static image for both firefox and chrome, unfortunately.
I know when I’ve used a couple of stacks that allow video (Imapct or Sections Pro, for example) I am given the option/suggestion to include an mp4 version as well as a webm and an ogg format. I think this is why (though I don’t know off hand which browsers prefer which format). You can convert your video in a number of different ways, the free VLC player is able to do it.
You’ve got CSS code inside Javascript tags. That certainly will not be helping the situation and could even be the cause of the video playback problems you are experiencing (if your video player makes use of Javascript, for things like custom controls).
In Chrome 55 on Mac, I don’t see any video on the page you have linked to. This is the link to your video: http://www.talkingboxdmg.com/resources/ClientList2013-2_converted.mp4
It does not work for me in Chrome. I wonder if the server is setup with incorrect MIME types or the video is corrupt?
Thanks Guys, Ok, so I have not yet uploaded the WEBM version of the video (thanks for the heads up Jabo). In an effort to find the problem, I have cleared out the CSS code that Will suggested (not even sure why it was there), and just for the heck of it, I increased the Z-Index of the video on the page.
Will, the link you sent with the video played for me on Safari without an issue, but it did not play on Chrome 55 for me either.
Can you guys flush your cache and take another look? If still a problem, I will upload the Webm version, thought the amount of variables (and my complete lack of experience with Webm) in the Webm compression leads me to think I could increase the number of problems.
Just for further testing’s sake, I have a short background video on a site. When I type the resource path into my browser, the webm and ogg files both play. When I type in the url for the mp4 file, it just tries to download it into my downloads folder. I bet if you add those other files, it will play as expected.
(I can’t comment on the error Will is pointing out and what that is intended to target, however).
I’ll bet that Will is correct, ie incorrect mime types. I ran into this same exact thing a while back. none of the mime types for video were set up on the server.
I tried the Video Page in the Opera browser which was featured and had start and stop dithering. Only that first page had no automatic play action didn’t go. Manually was the method to engage it. Opera is a Swedish browser, used on Macs.
I’ve uploaded a new version of the Clients page, including a Webm version of the video. Seems to work perfectly in Chrome now.
FYI: Chrome on the Mac has become my tool to use to get an idea if I’m getting closer to working on the PC since Chrome seemed to have the same problem as the windows versions of browsers. Still don’t know if I’m right about the video working on a PC, but it at least now works on Chrome Mac.
Be sure to flush your cache (or reload a couple of times) to see if this now works for you.
Glad to hear it’s working on your Mac chrome. I’m not back to my windows computer until Monday, but I’ll give it a shot then if you still need a tester.
Don’t forget that as a developer of several popular audio and video stacks, I know quite a lot about how each of these browsers handles media content and the limits of compatibility
You’ve not fixed the problem as such. Chrome still cannot play your MP4 file and is instead trying the OGG version (which you’ve not provided) and then as a third and final fallback is trying the WebM version, which does, by chance, work. I can see the probing of each video format in the Chrome web inspector. It’s certainly not going to pass as an elegant way to fix video support on your website and you’re going to hit BIG problems in browsers that don’t support WebM (like Internet Explorer).
I still think there is something screwed-up on your web server, like incorrect MIME types or something wrong with your encoding of MP4 files. Have you asked your web hosting company to check?
Additionally I should emphasise that Chrome is not suitable as a tool for testing how something looks and works on Internet Explorer either. Both browsers have entirely different rendering engines and support for different media types If you do your research carefully, you will see there has been an ongoing “format wars” for many years between the different browser vendors.
Once again, I think the feedback you guys are giving me is incredible. THANK YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Will,
I will look into the MIME type on the server, though I am a numbskull about this kind of thing. I’ll take a look though and see if I can figure it out.
I’m aware that using Chrome on the mac is not a great substitute for actually trying different browsers, it just stood out to me that the problem I was seeing on the PC was also on Chrome. Once I added the WebM version of the video, the problem went away on both Mac Chrome and I.E. on the PC (Not sure which version).
Anyway, I take your suggestion seriously and will look into the MIME type in my web hosting server. What should the MIME type be? (I really know nothing about MIME).
Another approach, though unintuitive, is to upload to Vimeo. (BTW I don’t know why you want to run a video via your host instead of YouTube or Vimeo, but that’s a different issue.) Once converted Vimeo will allow you to download again. They do a fantastic job converting for the web with a small footprint. You don’t need to direct folks to Vimeo, just use the free account to create very efficient videos that you put on your hosting service.
Can you try to view the page on a PC again? The MIME type was correct on my web hosting service. I tried recompressing the video again but with a compatibility setting turned on. Same suffix, but the video seems to play in Chrome 55 Mac now without needing WebM. http://www.talkingboxdmg.com/clients/clients.html
Hopefully it plays on a PC now too.
Thanks guys,
Matt
