At Wits End Created Nov 16, 2009

This one's pretty easy. The file:

http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/halfsizemovies/Choice.f4v

cannot be found.

You may have uploaded the video to your server, but your server can't find a file named 'Choice.f4v' at the location you've specified.

*Sometimes* this is caused by your server not properly set to serve video files.You're running an Apache server so this isn't likely the problem, but it's still a remote possibility.

Your JavaScript file and the Flowplayer SWF file seem to be okay (your server finds them). Just be sure to also include the Flowplayer controls SWF in the same place as the main Flowplayer SWF.

Yes. I think if you looked at that location you found the flash file called "Choice". Although I have probably 40 quicktime video files on this website that play just fine you are telling me that it cannot serve flash (only).
Yours is the only (and therefore best) answer I have been given so far.
If this is the case, how do I fix it? Do I talk to the ISP? or is it a setting I change.
Answer: I'll call the ISP.
Thanks.

Is the filename Choice or is it Choice.f4v?

In any case, you can help troubleshoot this by creating a subdirectory and allowing indexing - you do this with the htaccess file for that subdirectory. It's basically Options +Indexes.

Put your video in that subdirectory, making sure you upload it in Binary (not ASCII) mode. Then point your browser to the subdirectory. Your file should be listed.

Click on it and see what your browser does. It should either start downloading, or you should be prompted to download it. If you get an error, or the file appears as junk text in your browser, then your server is likely misconfigured.

OK. Thanks for the tips. I have done a little with htaccess in the past. I'll see if I can configure that and try the subdirectory.
Still, though, if my server is misconfigured will I be able to fix it or does my ISP half to do it. They tell me they are not able to service (or some other word like that) Flash issues.
I see no place to make that change so far.

One more thing... The file name is Choice.f4v and I have tried it with a lower case "C" also. No Joy.

You may want to rename your file to have a plain .flv extension. Flash doesn't care.

Yours is (by the extension) a Flash-specific encoding of an MPEG-4 clip. The .f4v extension is not commonly used, and your server may not know what to do with this type of file. So it pretends to do nothing.

For the most part, you should limit extensions to .flv or .mp4. Most servers seem to be okay with those.

You sound like you know how to do this stuff. I bet you could troubleshoot it in 10-15 minutes. If I gave you $30 can you fix this? If so, what do you need from me to do it?

Well, I could try.

Best to send me email for any particulars. My email address is my username here @ gmccomb.com.

BE SURE to provide a descriptive subject or your message won't get past the spam filters.

In any case, it would still be worth your time to do a quick test renaming the file. Some Apache setups are very limited and disallow unknown file types (extensions that have not been added to the MIME type list). Probably a security thing, but it's a PITA.

Okey doke. First I will explore the mime thing like I just told backtrash. If that won't work I will email you. It may take a day or so because I have a commercial shoot tomorrow after which I will edit the spot and am not sure how much I can attend to this in the next few days. It is important but I am a sole operator and am forced to prioritize.
Thanks for your assistance thus far.

Looks like it has nothing to do with file suffixes, but that the file simply is not in the specified location:

~$ wget http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/pk_test_choice.html
--2009-11-17 02:08:26--  http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/pk_test_choice.html
Resolving fitzvideo.com (fitzvideo.com)... 66.226.69.155
Connecting to fitzvideo.com (fitzvideo.com)|66.226.69.155|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 553 [text/html]
Saving to: `pk_test_choice.html'

100%[==============================================================================>] 553         --.-K/s   in 0s      

2009-11-17 02:08:26 (14.3 MB/s) - `pk_test_choice.html' saved [553/553]

~$ wget http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/halfsizemovies/choice.flv
--2009-11-17 02:08:34--  http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/halfsizemovies/choice.flv
Resolving fitzvideo.com (fitzvideo.com)... 66.226.69.155
Connecting to fitzvideo.com (fitzvideo.com)|66.226.69.155|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
2009-11-17 02:08:35 ERROR 404: Not Found.

You can see I got your html page but nothing on the url specified for your video.

Yes, 98% of the time it's simply a misplaced file, but the OP is insistent the file is in the proper location.

Both here and on the JW Player forum there have been posts regarding servers (mostly IIS, occasionally Apache) returning 404s on mis-typed MIMEs. Mine will send anything, with any extension, but I am aware of some "lock down" modules that prevent distributing unknown file types, presumably as a security precaution.

Though I still have my doubts, this could be the case with the OP. That's why I suggested the open index solution. If the file displays in the index, but still comes up as a 404, that's the answer.

OK. I appreciate that. As it happens, I had been on hold for about an hour when the guy finally answered at my ISP. He says (without describing the problem) that they are aware of it and will fix it within 24 hours. At that time they will either have fixed it and I will know what the problem was or they won't tell me. If they do fix it and tell me I will let you know what the deal is. If they don't fix it I'll get back to you on this issue.
Again, thanks for your help.
BTW, he says I would be better off using .wmv files...
1st, as a 25+ year Apple guy, I find it abhorrent.
2nd, bein's I'm trying for maximum visibility I am under the impression that Flash is the way to go (after 20+ years of championing QTime).
What is your opinion on video file type?

If you're looking for maximum visibility Flash and FLV are your best bets. You should use On2 VP6 encoding, not H.264 encoding (which is suggested by your use of the .f4v extension).

I'd re-encode using FLV - On2 VP6 preferred over Sorenson Spark - and upload that file. Using H.264-encoded files reduces your "visibility" by a certain extent because those videos will not play on versions earlier than Flash 9 Update 3 (otherwise known as v9 r115).

VP6 will play on Flash 8 onward, so it will cover all versions of Flash 9. Be sure to use the VP6-E (not VP6-S) output selection.

A good and cheap VP6 encoder is the standard On2 Flix program. I think it's something like $40. They have a version for the Mac.

According to the docs flowplayer needs at least Flash 9.0.0. That's almost 9.0.115 ;-)

And there's the possibility to serve mp4 with flv fallback. Of course the files would have to be found ;-)

The one disadvantage of Flash: it's quite cpu hungry, and with mp4, depending on your compression settings, even more so.

>According to the docs flowplayer needs at least >Flash 9.0.0.

Right. That would be for any Flash app based on ActionScript 3.

>That's almost 9.0.115 ;-)

True, though it's some 18 months difference in release. My own *unofficial* testing shows about 10% of Flash 9/Flash 10 users are below 9r115, and that's for my North American and Western Europe traffic.

I'm not going to argue about coverage because I think it completely depends on the site in question, the content on it and what parts of the site are well indexed by search engines.

Eg. if you have a video only type site generally people will have updated flash before viewing. But if you're running a business site with a single video or two-only really for promotional uses the stats/flash versions I've seen have been substantially different.

I just looked at the google Analytics for a video/media only site and for 84k unique visitors over the last few months only 9 of them had 9.0 r47, and only 2 or 3 visits from each version below that. More people had blocked all flash than had sub 9.0.115 versions lol. Again this I think is completely because people know its a media site before going there.

Looking at another site that has nothing to do with media but has a small promotional video on it tells a completely different tale. The visitors seem to mostly be coming from other offices, business or seemingly old pc's and many more mac's than the other site. This site shows almost 15k unique visitors far below flash 9.0.115, out of 28k total.

I really like the mp4 setup with flv-Vp6-E fallback for business websites. If the user has updated flash they get the mp4 if not they get the still decent looking Vp6 flv.

Overall I'll be extremely happy when flash versions below 9.0.115 are a thing of the looooong gone past.

Agreed. The bulk of my traffic is corporate.

MP4 (but not f4v) fallback is a great idea not so much for PC playability but for compatibility with iPhone and other mobile devices, a rapidly growing segment. I'm constantly surprised at all the YouTube videos that still have no MP4 counterpart, and won't play on my iPhone.

That said, I think the OP needs to square away why his server is not finding his video, and then he can work out the intricacies of Flash version and platform fallbacks!

>Overall I'll be extremely happy when flash versions below
>9.0.115 are a thing of the looooong gone past

The latest version of Mozilla prompts users to upgrade Flash if it has an older v9 or v10 build that is exploitable. They found some 80% of Firefox users had exploitable versions. The new "fixed" versions have been out for what, three months or so. FF users are supposed to be on the ball, yet that's an awful lot of people using a version of Flash that could compromise their machines.

Frankly, I can't wait for versions below 10.1 to be long past. Adobe is said to have dramatically improved the security aspects of the platform.

I can tell I have hit the vein of gold. You guys obviously know what you are talking about and have just given me some very important insight and I appreciate it. I will save this thread for review.
As soon as my ISP tells me why my .f4v files cannot be located I will let you all know the reason and how they fixed it (if they let on).
I come from all of this as a video producer interested in the best quality playback I can manage. Over the years I have featured QTime on my website even though the majority of people at first could not see it. Early on, bandwidth was the biggest concern. Then and continuing, file type has also been an issue.
Lately my thinking was that any file that was "flash" would be picked up equally and if that were the case I went to mp4 for its look. I have considered it superior among recent codecs and have been an early adopter. Now that I see mp4 may lessen my overall visibility I will re-encode to flv.
Thanks for all the data everyone.

I just checked your site/test page again. It seems as though the file is just not there http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/halfsizemovies/Choice.flv
You may want to check how you upload it, and what folder its actually ending up in. Also does the file have the correct permissions? You could try setting the file to 754 or 755 via your ftp program.

Considering you renamed it to flv I'm guessing what gmccomb mentioned about the mime type 'f4v' not being recognized by the web server while being a good point may not apply. It would be very odd if apache couldn't recognize flv. Someone would have to go out of their way to disable that.

As for the mp4/flv debate, if the website isn't mission/business critical use mp4. The quality is much better and the file size will be smaller.

OK, fellows, I told you I would get back to you when I found the solution. It has been found and was one of those maddening things that one would not suspect. After 3 tries I finally got a tech at my ISP that had the right idea. Here is what happened....
I work in a Mac environment and for years have ordered my data alphabetically in order to find it. Occasionally I will put files/folders "to the top" of a column by placing an "A." in front of their name to force them to the top. Years ago I learned another trick that will force names to the top of an alphabetic column by putting one or more empty spaces before the name. This will put the name with the space at the top. A name with 2 spaces will go up above that and so on.
For some reason on this project I decided to use that method to order my files and used the "empty space" method to put the output Flash files at the top of the column.
If you see where this is heading...
My ISP server will not accept spaces before names. The weird thing is that in their own file manager the spaces don't even show. At one point I had suspected that might be the problem and I tried to erase the blank spaces. But, when I re-ran some of the files to try .flv vs. .f4v the spaces came back and I either decided it didn't matter or did not notice them because they don't show in their file manager.
Anyway, the whole problem was resolved by taking "empty spaces" off the titles of the Flash files.
Regardless, thanks for the help all of you provided. I learned some other things because of it.
Here is a test page that should work for you now if you want to check it out:
http://fitzvideo.com/pktest/pk_test_choice.html

Had you enabled directory indexes on your server, as I suggested above, you would have seen this in an instant. It pays to learn how to use htaccess files. They're a basic tool for Webmasters.

Good idea. I will put it on my list of things to do.
See you soon! Right now I'm going flying!