Has anyone been able to have an H.264/MP4 file start playing without Flash fully downloading the entire video first? I'm using a normal HTTP server, but I know this works with FLV files - I just want to know if I'm wasting my time trying to get the H.264 to work the same way. Thanks!
Able to play H.264 files without full download? Created Jan 6, 2009
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Views: 1787 Replies: 5 Last reply Jan 10, 2009
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Reply to:
Able to play H.264 files without full download? , from
oscar
Please see this thread:http://flowplayer.org/forum/7/11943#post-11969
Reply to:
» Able to play H.264 files without full download? , from
Anssi
Thanks!
Reply to:
Able to play H.264 files without full download? , from
oscar
In case anyone else runs into this problem, here's the answer:
The Adobe Flash component cannot start playing a video until it gets some important information about the file. This information is normally stored at the END of a typical MP4 file, so the entire thing must be downloaded before it starts playing.
The information can be moved to the beginning of the file. One utility that does this is "qt-faststart", which is part of the source code for "ffmpeg". It doesn't normally come in the binary bundles, but you can easily built it on Linux systems.
Another utility that will fix this is "mp4box", which is also handy for many other MP4 file purposes. This is good for Windows users because it's easy to find a Windows binary build of this program.
To "fix" an MP4 file for streaming, run this command line:
mp4box.exe -isma filename.mp4
This will change the original file, so you might want to make a backup up first!
The Adobe Flash component cannot start playing a video until it gets some important information about the file. This information is normally stored at the END of a typical MP4 file, so the entire thing must be downloaded before it starts playing.
The information can be moved to the beginning of the file. One utility that does this is "qt-faststart", which is part of the source code for "ffmpeg". It doesn't normally come in the binary bundles, but you can easily built it on Linux systems.
Another utility that will fix this is "mp4box", which is also handy for many other MP4 file purposes. This is good for Windows users because it's easy to find a Windows binary build of this program.
To "fix" an MP4 file for streaming, run this command line:
mp4box.exe -isma filename.mp4
This will change the original file, so you might want to make a backup up first!
Reply to:
Able to play H.264 files without full download? , from
oscar
I made a GUI program for Windows to make MP4 files faststart. It moves the metadata to the beginning.
http://www.datagoround.com/lab
http://www.datagoround.com/lab
Liam Gooding
Custom swf skins, custom swf plugins, custom JS plugins, video CMS -
http://goodingsmedia.com
Posts: 338
Registered:
Dec 16, 2008
Reply to:
Able to play H.264 files without full download? , from
oscar
User's who are converting server side (linux) and have already compiled ffmpeg will also have qt-faststart installed in:
ffmpeg/tools/
To find the path to the tool, login to the server with ssh and type:
Then the command line in your scripts will be (PHP):
For users who's qt-faststart doesn't seem to have been compiled during ffmpeg install (mine was)
http://www.saiweb.co.uk/linux/ffmpeg-mp4-does-not-stream-qt-faststart
ffmpeg/tools/
To find the path to the tool, login to the server with ssh and type:
which qt-faststartThen the command line in your scripts will be (PHP):
exec("path/to/qt-faststart original.mp4 new.mp4")
For users who's qt-faststart doesn't seem to have been compiled during ffmpeg install (mine was)
http://www.saiweb.co.uk/linux/ffmpeg-mp4-does-not-stream-qt-faststart