Not a bug iPhone video upload won't playback on desktop

RobinHood

RobinHood

Well-known member
Affected version
2.1
This is a snippet from a video I tried to upload to my forum. It plays back great on my phone, but only the player controls appear on desktop. Video sound is available though. Seems to happen here too:


What I see in Chrome:

194866

Firefox:

194867


Frame rate: 1080p at 60fps

Auto HDR: on

Format: High Efficiency

Phone: iPhone X

iOS: 12.1.3
 
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It quite simply means that Chrome and Firefox do not support those codecs. You’d probably find that Safari plays them fine.

There’s not a lot we can do about this but on your side you would just have to upload using the high compatibility format.

This is the exact efficiency vs compatibility trade off they allude to in the camera settings.

Essentially you can’t expect a proprietary video format to be supported by all vendors.
 
God dammit Apple! :mad:

Ruining all the video features I want to use 😭

I guess we need that transcoding option up and running sometime, nudge nudge, wink wink 😉
 
I'm not so sure people really want that, at least, not in the same way we provide in XFMG.

I mean, it's better than nothing, but depending on the size of the video you could be talking a delay of several minutes while the video transcodes, plus the impact it would have on the server with multiple people uploading videos at once. XFMG has a queuing system, that would merely cause even more delays.

And what do we do while the video is processing? Display the post with no video? Delay the post until the video is ready? Both of those really suck.

Would be really nice if there was a client side API for media encoding one day.

There's a kind of funny JavaScript port of FFmpeg which apparently works, but it's still slow, so... :)
 
Chris D said:
I'm not so sure people really want that,
Click to expand...

I'd say people just want to point, shoot and upload and for it to work. Unfortunately if Apple defaults their device settings to use their space saving, but more incompatible codec settings then a lot of people will be frustrated that it seems their video is buggy. Especially if they upload it from their device, submit it, it plays back great for them, then there are people commenting in the thread that they can't see it or they can only hear audio.

Chris D said:
I mean, it's better than nothing, but depending on the size of the video you could be talking a delay of several minutes while the video transcodes, plus the impact it would have on the server with multiple people uploading videos at once. XFMG has a queuing system, that would merely cause even more delays.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think eventually that will have to be the case for any site that seriously wants to offer video to their members. If they need to pay for a beefier server to process it, then so be it. So much of the banter with my gaming mates, and hobby friends from other circles involves video these days. Screen casts, short clips, instructional videos, guides, tutorials. General video snippets from our day to day life that we want to share with each other.

It's part of why so many have migrated to facebook groups and now splintered into WhatsApp sub groups. Those services all accept and crunch video.

Chris D said:
And what do we do while the video is processing? Display the post with no video? Delay the post until the video is ready? Both of those really suck.
Click to expand...

I think the way it's done on Facebook and YouTube is to delay the video until it's processed before posting the content live and sending out any notifications. Yes, it might suck in that it's not instant, but it's the nature of the beast and at least means all the end users have a good experience and can watch the content without trouble once it goes live.


194871


194869
 
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I filed a report with Apple suggesting they offer users the option to upload the high compatibility version of video to websites when using their iOS devices, that way the transcoding can be done locally on the powerful A series chip before upload if the user wishes and their video is more likely to go live instantly, and save on server side transcoding cost. Long shot, but hey.
 
I just tested Reddit too, they also process and transcode the video, holding back the post from going live until it's all ready.

194947
 
Chris D said:
And what do we do while the video is processing? Display the post with no video? Delay the post until the video is ready? Both of those really suck.
Click to expand...
Display a video placeholder stating that the video is currently being processed and will be displayed when ready.
This is what YouTube does (at least when uploading through the API and immediately accessing the URL after the upload has finished).

As already stated as feedback for the HYS, I think video upload needs to be as foolproof, easy and reliable as possible - eg. support resumable upload and transcode on server side for compatibility.
 
I think the placeholder is only available to the uploader though?

At least I think that's the case with Facebook and Reddit. There's no point showing a placeholder to everyone else, especially when it's a reply in an existing thread, or sending out any notifications as otherwise those quick on the draw will click to view and be presented with a notice saying the content isn't ready yet, doesn't really make sense.

With YouTube, I do believe the the link goes live immediately, so anyone with the link might see the placeholder. But YouTube also live updates the video with each quality setting as the transcoding process continues.

For example, if you refresh 30 seconds after upload, you may be able to view the 720p version, a few minutes later, refresh and the 1080p version, a few minutes later refresh and you can see the 4k version. I doubt any subscriber notifications are sent out until this process is 100% complete.
 
Chris D said:
I'm not so sure people really want that, at least, not in the same way we provide in XFMG.

I mean, it's better than nothing, but depending on the size of the video you could be talking a delay of several minutes while the video transcodes, plus the impact it would have on the server with multiple people uploading videos at once. XFMG has a queuing system, that would merely cause even more delays.

And what do we do while the video is processing? Display the post with no video? Delay the post until the video is ready? Both of those really suck.

Would be really nice if there was a client side API for media encoding one day.

There's a kind of funny JavaScript port of FFmpeg which apparently works, but it's still slow, so... :)
Click to expand...
We definitely want this.

Other software makers and social media sites have figured this out.

Video uploads were supposed to be a great new feature for 2.1, but it looks like it has only been half implemented.

It is very disheartening to see the other suggestion thread ignored by you guys for the last 6 months.
 
So:

Which formats will embed?

I have WEBM and MP4 embedding so far. .MOV of course is incompatible with most web browsers.

3GP sits there as an attachment, won't embed.
MKV sits there as an attachment, won't embed.
 

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