Status bar not moving Created Aug 28, 2009

The timeline problem you indicate, and the fact that the duration shows 0:00, means your video lacks some important metadata. Metadata is used for things like the height and width of the recorded video, and the duration.

Your video lacks duration metadata, which is why you have the problem.

The best thing would be for you top post-process your video with a metadata injector. A good (free) with a graphical interface is flvmdi. Just search for it on Google or Yahoo and you'll find it.

Thanks for your response,
I kinda thought I'd have to add on, but what I'm confused about is, I literally just swapped my vid for the downloadable test vid and the problem occurred.
I am very new to this, so I will look into your suggestion, and hopefully get a better understanding of the whole scheme.

Cheers

Paul

Edit:
Not wanting to shy away from downloading more stuff, but considering my first post, is this really necessary, I'm looking at the meta data inhttp://jsr.oikofugic.com/ and my change was just a flv file, all else remains the same, My apologies if I'm not seeing the wood for the trees.
Thanks again

Paul

Yes, it's necessary. Your file was not correctly converted. If the file's no good, you don't get good playback. (For your "wood for the trees" analogy, think of the video as the trees. Without the trees you've got sand dunes.)

You *could* skip the metadata step if you used a better converter program to begin with. Most of the ones out there are pure crap. If you're interested in getting a good one, and don't mind paying a little for it, this one is a standard-bearer (I have no connection with this company):

http://www.on2.com/index.php?387

Thanks gmccomb,
Ok, can't get my head around it, but I am a believer.
This is in fact the second conversion I tried, the initial one only played the audio, but was ok locally.
Spent a while looking at solutions for that, and concluded it must be the file quality.
But is the status bar not a function of the player, and the quality of the video file can affect the player?
I most certainly am atop a lofty dune.

Cheers
Paul

Yep On2 is the one to use with Flash video. They were just acquired by Google.

It looks like simply your file is missing the duration metadata. You can use Flvtool2 to embed this into the file.

Hi thanks for the link, will try that a little later and let you know how I get on.
gmccomb I tried flvmdi, but got error after 94% just having one of those days I guess.

Cheers

Paul

You can use flvtool2, like Anssi suggests, and there are others if flvmdi isn't working. I like Yamdi, but it doesn't have a graphical interface.

What conversion program are you using? It seems to be particularly bad at what it's supposed to be doing!

To help a newcomer out, this one time I've reprocessed your video for you, and put the corrected clip here:

http://www.buenacreek.com/flowplayertest/Jodi_computer_0001_1.flv

Go there, download it, and replace with the one you have on your server. I think you'll find the player now properly tracks the time, and shows the duration.

Hello again,
Never thought I'd be injecting meta data when I got up this morning.
For the conversion I used coolWMVtoFLVconverter (Sorry, I know..)
I used flvtool2, that worked, but didn't effect the video,
Results below

stereo: true
framerate: 30
audiosamplerate: 22050
videocodeid: 2
audiosamplesize: 16
filesize: 0
height: 480
audiocodeid: 2
videodatarate: 0
duration: 0
width:640

file size and duration both 0, I need to read up on this I think.

I initially just intended to play with windows movie maker, my short video is just a test, and to test deployment on a web page with the player.
I had no idea about meta data and hidden quality.

Anyway thanks for the proper conversion, and for everyone's help It now works perfectly.
Any suggestions for good conversion software for future projects.
Thanks again

Paul

Well that's the purpose of tests, to discover where things go wrong and fix them.

Don't feel bad about not knowing about metadata. Many of the people who create these freeware and shareware converters don't either! <g>

If you run your metadata program on the clip I re-processed for you, you'll find all sorts of interesting additional metadata has been added in. Flowplayer makes use of many of these, and this added metadata enhances the video playing experience.

So even if you get a converter that properly inserts the minimum metadata needed for playback (duration, width, height), it's STILL a good idea to pass the converted clip through an injector.

Note that metadata injectors don't actually change the video or audio of your clip. These just find out things about your video, and assemble the information at the start of the file. That way, the information is immediately available to Flowplayer when it first loads your clip for playback.

For better conversion software, there's the On2 Flix Standard I pointed you to. At $40 it's pretty good. Their "Pro" version adds a bunch of features you may not need. It's $250.

The VAST majority of freeware and shareware converter programs you'll find are based on the FFmpeg free software. It's notorious for not inserting proper metadata for FLV files.

> I used flvtool2, that worked, but didn't effect the video

I wanted to address this separately so it wouldn't get lost.

With flvtool2 you have to explicitly tell it to update your file. You do that with the -U switch (-U for Update).

Don't be getting all techno on me now, I'm just easing into this..

Like this?

flvtool2 -P -U jodi_computer_0001_1.flv

No seriously I'm loving it,
thanks again for all your help.

flvtool2 -PU jodi_computer_0001_1.flv

or

flvtool2 -PU jodi_computer_0001_1.flv new.flv

(keeps the original)

However, before using this command line be sure the transient discriminator is locked into the variant position, with no chance of aural feedback through the tertiary elemental phase.

That elemental phase had me stumped for a while,
but I ran my original through the meta injector and it successfully added the data allowing the status bar to work.

Releasing docking clamps.