MP4 Video Issue in Firefox?
Sep 26, 2012
By
Kelly Kerr
Hey gang!
So this is an interesting one. I built an interaction in Storyline that contains some small MP4 files that just display simple animations. When I run the interaction in Chrome and Safari, the MP4s play just fine. In Firefox, they show up as a static image and never "play", like it is only showing the first frame of the video.
The odd part is that this just started happening. When I built the interaction a few weeks ago, the animations worked fine in FF.
Any suggestions on what to check or where to look? I have already checked the MIME types on my server, and those are all fine. If they weren't the other browsers would not be playing the video either.
Stumped.
Thanks,
Kelly
10 Replies
Welcome Kelly,
One time I faced this the answer was to download the newest version of FlashPlayer. Seemed to clear it up.
Hope that helps,
Bob
Thanks Bob!
it is actually the HTML5 versions that are not playing back the mp4s in Firefox. The flash versions work fine. I should have mentioned that before.
Any other thoughts?
kelly
Hmm... doesn't Firefox use Flashplayer to play some MP4s? Might be related....
Quick search got a few hits on certain video tags not being supported via html5 in Firefox. Something about open licenses or some such.
Any browser/web video experts out there?
Hi, Kelly.
The HTML5 observation is an excellent one, and it was where I was going next if you hadn't already found it yourself!
Many of the features in HTML5 won't be supported by Firefox. Html5test.com is a neat site for testing your browser's support for HTML5. In a recent test, Firefox 15 scored a total of 340 points out of 500.
Here is a handy compatibility chart. Google Chrome is going to produce the absolute best results for HTML5.
Please let us know if you need anything else. Thanks!
So if FF doesn't support mp4 any more, which is what SL exported my movs as, what other options do I have for adding back in those animations?
kelly
Hello again, Kelly.
The issue is not that Firefox no longer supports MP4--it's that Firefox does not yet fully support HTML5. Again, taking a look at our Compatibility Chart, if your learners are using Firefox, you will need to publish your output in Flash.
If you need to distribute your output in multiple formats, here is a handy article on how Storyline determines which version of your content to display when users view it.
Ack!!!!
Ok, I know where I was goofing up now! I was focused solely on the HTML5 output page, not even thinking that the point of entry to a lesson is the "story.html" page and that it handles all of the re-direction for browsers and platforms. I was just focused on the perceived problem, which really isn't a problem.
What a rookie mistake! I've been doing this stuff since Authorware was a baby. You would think this would have been obvious! Geez...
Thanks again guys. Much appreciated. You may all point and laugh now.
Kelly
Kelly - what does that mean. I am having some issues with being able to play these videos on my mac.
Monica - It means that Firefox doesn't fully support mp4 videos in HTML5 yet. So in Firefox you should be testing your flash pages, and testing the HTML5 pages in a different browser. Because, when Storyline publishes your files out, the Story.html page checks to see which browser you are using, then sends you to the correct version of your storyline file for that browser. So Firefox would get the flash version, and Safari on an iPad would get the HTML5 version. Does that help any?
Monica:
I've got an iMac and my videos will preview fine, but won't play upon publish until I upload them onto the web, via dropbox. Something in the security systems apparently. Anyway, just thought this might help. --Daniel
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