Forum user: FunkyRes

http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/5857.html

It's a php class I wrote that generates html5 and flowplayer code for embedding multimedia, making use of php's json_encode() function for proper generation of the flashVars variable.

Since it uses the alternate embed method (pure object tag) no JavaScript is required.

The class does not support everything flowplayer does, but it does support everything I needed to do with it, and could probably be modified without too much trouble if you needed it to do something else (such as an alternate control bar or use of one of the other plugins).

Anyway, I thought it might be useful to some people.

The bug seems to be in my wrapper, firefox and others seem to compensate.

Here is page demonstrating the issue with different options -

http://www.shastaherps.org/bugs/ieflow.html

Here is code for the wrapper I use that triggers problem in IE -

http://www.shastaherps.org/bugs/rdb_audio.phps
(also linked to on ieflow page)

Marking as solved, as I don't believe its a fp problem.
I'll take my wrapper to the php list.

http://www.shastaherps.org/Record202

Works fine in Firefox / Opera / Chrome / etc.
Works with quirks in IE8 - have not tested in IE 6/7

The problem - once you play, pause does not work and the length does not work.

Embedded via object

<object id="fp_vch0" width="220" height="135" data="/media/flash/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
            <param name="movie" value="/media/flash/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf"/>
            <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/>
            <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/>
            <param name="flashvars" value="config={'key':'$07cb470b94495243b2c','playlist':[{'url':'/media/splash/audioVoucher.jpg'},{'url':'/vouchers/202-1.mp3','autoPlay':false}],'plugins':{'audio':{'url':'/media/flash/flowplayer.audio-3.1.2.swf'},'controls':{'height':'24','fullscreen':false}}}"/>
<!--[if !IE]>-->
            <audio id="h5_vch0" controls="controls" style="width: 220px; height: 24px;">

              <source src="/vouchers/202-1.mp3" type="audio/mpeg"/>
              <source src="/vouchers/202-1.ogg" type="audio/ogg"/>
              <p>
                <a href="/vouchers/202-1.mp3">202-1.mp3</a>
                <br/>
                <a href="/vouchers/202-1.ogg">202-1.ogg</a>
              </p>
            </audio>

<!--<![endif]-->
          </object>

Then comments to exclude ie from html5 are there only because I thought maybe that was the cause, but it is not.

Same mp3 embedded w/o the poster works as expected here:

http://www.shastaherps.org/herps/SierranTreefrog#multimedia

Differences:

In page where it works in IE8, flowplayer is fallback to html5 media (there is a reason for this)
In page where it works in IE8, an image is not part of playlist - just the audio.
In page where it works in IE8 - the mp3 is in web root. On specimen record page, the mp3 is outside web root, the referenced mp3 points to a wrapper. There's a reason for this (security - anyone who registers can submit audio vouchers, I do not allow any directory apache has write permission to be in web root, wrappers fetch user submitted audio/images)

I'm out of town, do not have IE at home, but I can make very basic test page to try and determine what causes the issue in IE when I get home. But there is no issue in Firefox or other browsers I've tried.

It's definitely autobuffering that is the issue.
Not sure if that is flowplayer or my flash plugin, but I've disabled it (doesn't really make a difference anyway) and all is well.

I have to do more testing, but it seems to only happen with autobuffering.

For what it is worth - the same file plays fine all the way to the end here:
http://www.shastaherps.org/herps/SierranTreefrog#multimedia

(same file just happens to be used - not all audio vouchers are also used on species description page and vice versa)

The differences between the species page (above) and the record voucher -

* FlowPlayer is embedded via js instead of object via pure html
* AutoBuffering is set to false
* The MP3 is served directly by apache.

So it has to be one of those three, but since wget gets the complete file I think it is an issue with 1 or 2.

The md5sum of the files though is identical:

[mpeters@li34-4 ~]$ md5sum /srv/shastaherps/record_images/202-2.mp3 
eba22605b601c1c5d44174467da0395f  /srv/shastaherps/record_images/202-2.mp3
[mpeters@li34-4 ~]$ md5sum /srv/shastaherps/www/media/mp3/202-PseudacrisCall.mp3 
eba22605b601c1c5d44174467da0395f  /srv/shastaherps/www/media/mp3/202-PseudacrisCall.mp3

http://www.shastaherps.org/Record202

flowplayer embedded via object tag:

<object id="fp_1_audio" width="220" height="135" data="/media/flash/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.3.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
   <param name="movie" value="/media/flash/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.3.swf">
   <param name="allowfullscreen" value="false">
   <param name="flashvars" value="config={'key':'$07cb470b94495243b2c','playlist':[{'url':'/vouchers/202-2.mp3','autoPlay':false,'autoBuffering':true}],'plugins':{'audio':{'url':'/media/flash/flowplayer.audio-3.1.2.swf'},'controls':{'height':'24','fullscreen':false}}}">
</object>

When I wget the mp3 I get the entire file and it plays all the way through, it only seems to be a problem when embedded in flowplayer.

The mp3 file is actually sent by a wrapper script because it is uploaded by user and I don't let apache have write access to directories it serves. I don't think the problem is in the wrapper script since wget does retrieve the entire file, but in case it might be, here is the php for the wrapper script:

$AUDIO_PATH="/srv/shastaherps/record_images";

$thispage=$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$thisarray=explode("/",$thispage);
$n=(sizeof($thisarray) - 1);
$req_audio=$thisarray[$n];

if ( strcmp($req_audio,'rdb_audio.php') == 0 ) {
   die();
   }

$fullpath = $AUDIO_PATH . "/" . $req_audio;

header("Content-type: audio/mpeg");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header('Content-length: ' . filesize($fullpath));
header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="' . $req_audio . '"');
header('X-Pad: avoid browser bug');
header('Cache-Control: no-cache');
readfile($fullpath);

I don't have a media computer set up to my TV, I don't like the sound of even quiet fans while watching my TV and I've yet to find a media computer that is quiet enough for me that also doesn't run too hot. But I do sometimes plugin my laptop video output to the TV (which is really just a fancy LCD monitor).

I do watch 720p mkv files of my favorite shows, which are h.264 for video and AC3 for audio. Since I don't have surround sound anyway, I decided to try my luck transcoding to mp4 and see if I could effectively stream it via flowplayer from my computer room (I have gigabit to the TV cabinet). I came up with this script -

#!/bin/bash

base=`echo $1 |sed -e s?".mkv$"?""?`

vidTrack=`mkvinfo ${base}.mkv |grep "Track type" |grep -n "video" 
  |cut -d":" -f1`
audTrack=`mkvinfo ${base}.mkv |grep "Track type" |grep -n "audio" 
  |cut -d":" -f1`

mkvextract tracks ${base}.mkv ${vidTrack}:${base}.h264
mkvextract tracks ${base}.mkv ${audTrack}:${base}.ac3

a52dec -o wavdolby ${base}.ac3 > ${base}.wav
rm -f ${base}.ac3
normalize-audio ${base}.wav

ffmpeg -i ${base}.h264 -i ${base}.wav -map 0:0 -map 1:0 
  -vcodec copy -acodec libfaac -ab 128k -y -f mp4 ${base}.tmp
qt-faststart ${base}.tmp ${base}.mp4

rm -f ${base}.h264 ${base}.wav ${base}.tmp

There are probably other ways to do it, but using flowplayer is nice because it's cake to use php on web server to generate list of available vids and create the players, click a link to get the chosen file in flowplayer with a nice fullscreen option.

It may not be the best solution if you do have surround sound, as you lose the AC3 - but it works very well for me with a less sophisticated TV setup, and lets me neatly keep the large files elsewhere on the LAN.

I don't know how well it would work over wireless, but I suspect even 802.11g would be fast enough to start playing before it finishes buffering.

Yes - interesting, but I'm back to doing it via javascript as it seems browsers with scripting/flash blocked by a script blocker won't show the fallback content (bug IMHO in the content/script blockers) so the best way to do it is to have the fallback content by default and have javascript replace fallback content with flowplayer iff flash is available.

I'm still using json_encode though, for dynamic generation of the javascript.

Thought you might want to know the link to Vimeous demo download is 404 - at least the one here:

http://goodingsmedia.com/labs/vimeous/

If using the content plugin on a page that is sent with application/xml+xhtml mime type, flowplayer breaks. Even if your content is as simple as a single paragraph.

Send same page with text/html and it works just fine.

I think something is inserting malformed content, which xml doesn't tolerate.

Is this a known issue or do I need to provide access to an example?

Works now.
It seems to be the - in the var name.

http://www.shastaherps.org/js/38-flowplay.js

(loaded in document head)

players don't load, error console gives the following:

Error: missing ; before statement
Source File:http://www.shastaherps.devel/js/38-flowplay.js
Line: 16, Column: 7
Source Code:
var fp_0-bullfrog = flowplayer("fp_0-bullfrog");

When I comment out those lines, players all load, but I want a handle for event scripting.

Can I via javascript send a new config to a loaded Flowplayer instance?

IE flowplayer already loaded by browser, some javascript action sends that player a new flashvars configuration string, flowplayer disregards the old and acts on new.

Worked for me (Shiretoko on Linux) but what I suspect is happening is a script is mis-behaving under certain conditions and thus exiting.

When I view your site w/ scripting disabled, download is the normal behavior, so the script that loads flowplayer is probably broken under certain conditions.

Nothing jumped out at me as the possible cause though.