Blip.tv & videos encoded with x264

[montython]

Blip.tv (video host) keeps original source files uploaded by the user besides the the copy re-encoded by them. When someone views the video, the re-encoded one is the default. But there's an option to select the source file(original video uploaded by the user) and view it.

Blip.tv re-encodes are in mp4 (they use .m4v extension) containers with h.264 video and aac audio. I thought, if the source files are in the same format (mp4, h.264, aac) they could be played back in Blip.tv's flash player embed. But this is not the case. If you are not on Google Chrome browser (which plays back the videos with html5 option), you get a warning that QuickTime plug-in is required. In either case you cannot watch the source files in Blip.tv's flash player embed. Blip.tv support team does not give a clear explanation on this, but there is information that some source files "might work" in flash player embed.

Is there a way to encode videos with x264 encoder which can be played back in Blip.tv's flash player embed? Anyone know anything on this by any chance?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Sounds like they either use the HTML5 <video> tag to display the original video. Or, if that is not available in the web-browser, they fall back to the QuickTime plug-in (or whatever plug-in handles the MIME type).

It is the web-site that tells the browser which plug-in to use. Or which MIME type the file that is to be embedded has, so the browser can choose a "suitable" plug-in from the installed ones.

In theory Blip.tv could use Flash Player (version 9.0 Update 3 or newer) instead of QuickTime to display the original video, if the video was uploaded in one of the formats that are supported by Flash Player.

But implementing "use Flash Player if possible, otherwise fall back to QuickTime" is more complex than throwing everything on QuickTime. Although QuickTime certainly isn't the ultimate playback solution either ;)

After all, only the Blip.tv support will be able to definitely answer your question. This would also be the place to file a feature request...

[montython]

Thank you LoRd_MuldeR. Yes, they probably use HTML5 tag and fall back to QuickTime plug-in for any video that was not encoded by blip.tv. I had little hope that maybe videos encoded with specific x264 options could be compatible with blip.tv's flash player embed. But now I am almost sure that this has nothing to do with settings.

It will be off-topic, but as far as I know only 2 Japanese video hosts have the option to play back user uploaded files. It would be very convenient if Vimeo, Blip.tv etc. had the same option. Blip.tv is very close, but I am almost sure that they will not change their way of handling user uploaded files. You upload a video at around 500-600 kbps (exactly the same container, video codec, audio codec) and they re-encode it at 1000 kbps. This might seem illogical at a first glance, but in a way I understand it. They just want to avoid "why doesn't my video work?" questions.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Thank you LoRd_MuldeR. Yes, they probably use HTML5 tag and fall back to QuickTime plug-in for any video that was not encoded by blip.tv. I had little hope that maybe videos encoded with specific x264 options could be compatible with blip.tv's flash player embed. But now I am almost sure that this has nothing to do with settings.

This would require them to detect "Flash Player compatible" videos on their side and switch to Flash Player for these videos explicitly. That's because if you want to playback videos through Flash Player, then you do not embed the video itself. Instead you embed your own Flash-based player "application" in the form of an SWF file (MIME type "application/x-shockwave-flash") and then let that application load the video from the actual MP4/FLV file. For most other video plugin-in's you simply embed the video file directly and specify the suitable MIME type (like "video/mp4"). Then the browser will chooses a suitable plug-in, which might be QuickTime but also might be something else (e.g. VLC's browser plugin). After all, even if Blip.tv had such a logic, only their team could give you the specifics...

It will be off-topic, but as far as I know only 2 Japanese video hosts have the option to play back user uploaded files. It would be very convenient if Vimeo, Blip.tv etc. had the same option. Blip.tv is very close, but I am almost sure that they will not change their way of handling user uploaded files. You upload a video at around 500-600 kbps (exactly the same container, video codec, audio codec) and they re-encode it at 1000 kbps. This might seem illogical at a first glance, but in a way I understand it. They just want to avoid "why doesn't my video work?" questions.

Probably detecting videos that already are in a "compatible" format is complex and error-prone, while re-encoding everything to something that works for sure is the "keep it simple & stupid" solution.

(You also have to keep in mind that different versions of plug-ins with different features/bugs are in use. For example Flash Player prior to version 9.0 update-3 didn't support H.264 at all. Later versions did support H.264, but had a known bug regarding Weighted P-Frames - which is fixed now. Other similar problems might exist, which doesn't make the task of detecting "compatible" videos easier)

[ronnylov]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=147758

I don't know if it still works but back when I wrote in that thread it was possible to remux into flv container with ffmpeg and then the x264 encoded original video played on blip.tv embedded player. I had to keep the bitrate below 1500 kbit/s to avoid buffering problems.

[montython]

That's good news ronnylov, thank you. Oddly enough, there is no need to remux h.264 video and aac audio into flv container. Just changing the file extension to flv is enough. I checked it and confirm that blip.tv flash player embed plays back mp4 files with flv extension.

LoRd_MuldeR, thank you again for your interest. Now, we know about at least one international video host that gives the option to play back user uploaded files in their flash player.