Forum user: chad_rfg

Thank you, I understand now.

I'm just having trouble with something and I don't want to post the question if it's already been answered.

I'm sorry if I'm being dumb here, but I can't figure out how to search the forums. The only search option I can find is the "Search Site" box in the upper-right corner of the screen.

When I use that, I get results, but when I click on one of the forum results, it takes me to the forum, such as "Installation", "Configuration" or "Scripting" and shows a list of threads, but not the thread I'm looking for.

It's been a couple of months since I've been here. I used to be able to search just fine. What am I missing?

I asked a similar question here: http://flowplayer.org/forum/7/17099

The responder mentioned that the problem was with the ampersand in the query string. He referenced this post here:http://flowplayer.org/forum/8/15861

I have not had a chance to try out the solution. Let me know if it works for you.

I have recently started hosting my videos on Amazon S3. This works great for all my publicly available videos. So for example, this type of link works fine:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/SudokuProfessor/FreeLesson1.flv

However, I have a set of videos that are only available to paid subscribers, so I'm storing them on Amazon S3 as private, then attempting to access them with what's known as "Query String Request Authentication." Simply stated this is a string would be similar to the one above, but it has authentication after it like this (this is not an actual working link):

http://s3.amazonaws.com/SudokuProfessor/FreeLesson1.flv?AWSAccessKeyId=0BKB3R8R2JJP3NSVJ1ND&Expires=1237709891&Signature=4ksLAFiKXna1EJ/AQeY=p/Y6NCVS

When I use a link like that, Flowplayer does nothing. The playback area goes black and nothing happens (not even an error message).

My guess is that all the stuff after the actual flash video file name (from the question mark on) is confusing it. I assume that it doesn't know what type of video it is (or maybe that it's a video at all).

(For those of you who understand S3 access, I have confirmed that my signature is correct, and I can use the link in the address bar of my browser to download the file. It's just that Flowplayer won't play anything.)

Does anyone know of a work-around in Flowplayer for this. I know I can probably work around it in S3, but that would mean making these videos publically accessible.

Thank you!!

Well, I'm defintely not an expert in this, but since no one else has answered your question, I'll give it a shot.

In short, I believe the answer is "no".

I think this is because an SWF actually contains both the video and the player itself. In other words, it is a stand-alone module.

I've come to this conclusion since I have software that produces an SWF movie, and there's no accompanying player.

Anyone else with any information?

Interesting... The files range in size from 45.7MB to 83.4MB. I'm encoding .wmv files. I'm using Riva Flash Encoder, which doesn't accept my version of .wmv files. So my process is: .wmv -> .avi (which is a huge file) -> .flv.

I've tried other encoders and got slightly better results, but not a huge difference.

What's the secret to small .flv files? The movies aren't long: 7-15 minutes each. But I need a certain quality, so people can see the details.

Thank you for your offer. Should we continue this discussion outside of the forum?

Ever since I got my site running about 2 months ago, I've gotten occational reports from users that the video stops and won't play past a certain point. For different users, it's different videos and different times. (Unfortunately, I seem to be dealing with fairly novice computer users, so getting detailed information is difficult.)

The only similiarity I can find is that many of the users who report problems are using AOL. (But even that is not true in every case.)

I was using Flowplayer 2.2.4, but just upgraded to 3.0.3 (commercial), and I'm still getting the reports. Has anyone else had these problems?

Here are a couple of examples of the pages where I get problem reports:
http://www.sudokuprofessor.com/1stVideoLesson.php

http://www.sudokuprofessor.com/5thVideoLesson428.php

Since I just started with the latest version, I'm not doing any special configuaration other than the Google tracking.

[Another interesting note is that when I was using v2.2.4, if I didn't specifically state "autoRewind:false", then when the video stopped unexpectedly, the user reported that it would return to the beginning and start all over again.]

Most of my users don't have any problems. But the few that do are creating a huge support issue for me.

Does anybody have any ideas? Thank you!!