Integrated Players for AVI...

[Jingo]

Hi - I can't seem to get any movie file to play on my system when I click the thumbnail... only a larger preview image displays.  If I try to download the movie file, then it comes up with my default player as an option to run in the download box... does my system need to be configured to use a default player?  If I double-click the file directly from explorer, my default players runs the movie successfully.  THx!

[Mario]

The HTML5 standard does not support proprietary formats like AVI. it only supports MPEG/MP4, WEBM and OGG files.
Some browsers (Apple?) may support additional formats, but that is not standardized.

To support something like AVI directly would require a special plug-in, like the evil Flash Player. I don't support this. All world is moving away from Flash for good reasons.

I thought I had explained that in the WV help, but apparently not. Will do so for next update.

Here is the official reference:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Supported_media_formats

It also has a list of which browsers support what.

[Jingo]

Thx Mario - interestingly enough, I cannot get mp4 files to play either but will check browser settings, etc.

[jch2103]

Unfortunately, MP4 has a lot of 'flavors'; some are compatible with HTML5, some aren't...

[Jingo]

Beginning to realize it!

[Mario]

Beginning to realize it!

Video files are unfortunately an even larger 'pest' than image formats or metadata. There are so many format variants in use (MP4 is basically a container that can hold all kinds of video and audio streams) and not all players or browsers support all format variants.

This is not under my control and I cannot do anything about it. IMatch WebViewer uses the <video> HTML element and hands over the file name. If and how your browser displays the video is totally up to the browser. And it sometimes even depends on the platform on which the browser is used. A video may play on Windows but fail on Android tablets and vice versa.

Professional video productions stick to the most basic, widely accepted MPEG formats for good reasons. The videos produced by cameras and all kinds of software out there often does not and produces exotic flavors which only work in that particular camera/software combination. Users often recognize this too late.

A software like Handbrake often does wonders with erratic videos by re-packing them in standardized ways.

YouTube de-codes and re-encodes every video that is uploaded to ensure maximum compatibility with a wide range of devices, browsers and video players. I envision this decoding module as a very complicated piece of software - because it needs to be able to handle so many input variants. But then, Google has enough money to throw an entire department of engineers at this task...