Summary:

Turtle Skin allowed me to 'cheat' to get streaming video for an MP4 format file by simply renaming the filename extension from .MP4 to .FLV . This seems to trick user's browsers into using the Adobe Flash Player instead of the Quicktime player, and the more recent Flash Players have the capability to stream .MP4

Gory Details:

Well ... I've been playing around a lot to get 'web videos' into a quality, size and format which is easily accessible by various family members.

I've read a lot of recommendations on here to use files with the .FLV extension so that the flash player picks it up.

What I've boiled down to now is using Sony Vegas 9.0 to combine, edit, adjust multiple video clips into a movie and then render it into a "Mainconcept AAC H.264" .MP4 format (with whatever size settings you like the best).

• .MP4 is usually picked up by the QuickTime plugin for most people's browsers
• This means they need to have the QuickTime plugin
• And it's a 'download the full movie then play' behaviour.

Because of this people often recommend the .FLV extension (which is what YouTube, Google and others use to stream video) to get the Adobe Flash Player plugin to trigger on your video.

So that brought me to looking to MP4 to FLV convertors since Sony Vegas currently does not render into .FLV directly unfortunately. I tried a few, but the .FLV always ended up 'blurrier' but did work better in my family member's browsers.

So .. here comes the dirty trick.

• instead of 'converting and re-encoding/wrapping' MP4 to FLV ... just rename the file from a .mp4 extension to a .flv

A post from videohelp.com is what led me to try this:

http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/best-mp4-to-flv-program-qualitywise-t367664.html

{quote}

Pros:

• Dead simple and 'lossless' way to get your .MP4 to stream using the Adobe Flash Player

Cons:

• .FLV native wrapped files do behave a 'little better' in the Flash Player with a faster start in my experience than these renamed .MP4s, but the quality level maintenance and lack of another encoding/rendering step make this very attractive.

So ... why the post? I'm still very early into trying these mechanisms, and wanted to see if others had had the same experience. I'd be interested to hear if this worked for others who have .MP4 files from sources other than the Sony Vegas rendered output. Also does this work for other Jablum skins for folks (I've only tested in Turtle).

Edited by: ckemp on 23-Mar-2010 06:56

More testing ... (to add this into the search engine for Jalbum ...

1) Take a .MOV generated from an iPhone 3GS
2) Run the command:

qt-faststart.exe 100_0001.mov 100_0001-qtfaststart.flv

This result is a re-wrapped .FLV file which is playing very easily for me on multiple computers and browers which support the Turtle skin. The file is still a touch large in my opinion via this method, but it is fast and smooth from what I have found.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the qt-faststart.exe executable so use it at your own risk and take the appropriate safety pre-cautions if you choose to use it.

Thanks for this Laza.

I have an issue of late. The Flash Player is no longer loading in the turtle skin for me in some configurations.

I have jalbum 8.7.5 and Turtle 1.2.3

For the following album (and others):

http://jalbum.net/browse/user/album/636041/

The player does not show up in:

Computer 1:

Chrome 5.0.375.70 + Flash Player 10.1 (this used to work on a previous Chrome + Flash Player combo on this computer)
IE 8 + Flash Player 10.1

Computers 2 (and 3):

Broken:

IE 6 + Flash player

Works:

Firefox + Flash Player

Note that I can view Youtube videos using all of the above combos with no issues.

I modified the mtype just to test things out and put the .mp4 into the QT section and QT fired them up (but doesn't play them as well as the flash player).

I have tried a complete uninstall and re-install of the flash player, but that does not seem to have helped. Is there some sort of configuration in turtle skin Flash player inclusion which differs from the youtube inclusion?

And I have a second question... there is another page which has the following HTML and it seems to work on many of the browsers I use:

<video controls="" autoplay="" style="margin: auto; position: absolute; top: 0; right: 0; bottom: 0; left: 0;" name="media" src="http://www.someurl.com/foo.mp4"></video>

Is that something which could be made an option in turtle as well on the slidepage?

Edited by: ckemp on 12-Jun-2010 23:34

Thanks Laza!

I'll download the beta and check it out. I appreciate the help as always

John, most users need FLV (or MP4) from AVI or MOV not the reverse, so this utility won't help them. (if this is not a linkspam anyway)

Sorry to spoil your business but XMediaRecode is free.