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***SOLVED***Problem when inserting an HTML5 video

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 11:59 am
by RowlandFM
This is a real puzzler - at least for me!

I am building a music web page, which lists several musical videos. Each one has been placed into the page by inserting the WYSIWYG-supplied HTML5 video player (under "Insert") and they are each linked to an embedded mp4 video file. There are currently 7 videos on the page and all look just as they should on the design page; but, once previewed, or published, one of them - and only one of them - has the visual appearance of the HTML Audio player, not video player.

For just for half a second after publishing, or previewing, the black rectangular video screen appears as it should for this particular video; but it then immediately takes on the visual appearance of the light grey round-edged audio player and, of course, behaves as such, just playing the audio from the video file.

I have checked that the format of the videos is the same as the others - just to repeat, the other six are working just as expected. In fact the only difference between this particular video and the others is that it is the shortest (being just 1 min, 43 long); but surely that can't be the reason?!

Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Thanks.

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 iideos

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 1:10 pm
by BaconFries
Are you sure that the file raffy.mp4 is a video file and not just audio. Viewing the source of the page https://rowlands-stuff.me/ and clicking on that file it plays as a audio file only not video.
I also suggest that you read the following on naming of files using spaces within them.
How do I name my pages, images and other files?

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 video

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 5:18 pm
by RowlandFM
Thanks for the suggestions, but it's exactly the same file that plays fine as a video file on YouTube (although I have simplified its naming to that used on YouTube). Also, like the other files on the same page, it has an mp4 extension, which I believe is a standard video file extension (as opposed to, for example, mp3, which is a standard audio file extension. Finally, if I double-click on the file in Windows explorer, it starts playing normally as a video. So everywhere else it is behaving just like a video file!

As far as the file naming is concerned, vs 18 of WYSIWYG brings up warnings if any file is labelled in a non-standard way when it is publishing the site. raffy.mp4 is, intentionally, very simple and didn't bring up any such warnings. I have actually renamed the file a few times and that didn't help either.

It really is baffling!

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 iideos

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 5:25 pm
by crispy68
typically .mp4 is video but I believe it can be audio only.

I did a quick google search and this is what I found:

If your MP4 file plays only audio, it could be because:

Your MP4 has an unsupported video codec.
Your MP4 has no video data.
Your MP4 is corrupted or encrypted.


Have you tried converting the file to .mp4 again? Maybe something got messed up in the conversion? Maybe convert it to another format and back to .mp4?

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 video

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 5:52 pm
by RowlandFM
Thanks, I'll try that. Because it's working fine as a video file everywhere else, I'll just insert that video into my video editing software just as it is and then re-encode.

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 video

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 6:09 pm
by BaconFries
There is a difference on how video is played/supported in the browser than locally on your PC with the editing software In chrome it expects the video to be encoded H264 so if the video is encoded at H263 in the mp4 then it won't play the video. I suggest you try to re-encode to the correct code with your editor and try again.

Re: Problem when inserting an HTML5 video

Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 6:35 pm
by RowlandFM
That seems to have solved the problem. Many thanks for your help.