H264 or Flash? Which is it?

[jroller]

Have a video uploaded and posted as a test at the following:

http://www.fdhsyearbook.com/YearbookUnlimited/FDSoccer.html

Using this embed code:

<object width="640" height="426" ><param name="movie" value="http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2010071401.swf" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="flashVars" value="s=ZT0xJmk9OTUxNTU2MDU1Jms9S1V0NEwmYT0xMzEyMTYxNF9u UGdYdSZ1PUZESFNZZWFyYm9vaw==" /><embed src="http://cdn.smugmug.com/ria/ShizVidz-2010071401.swf" flashVars="s=ZT0xJmk9OTUxNTU2MDU1Jms9S1V0NEwmYT0xMzEyMTYxNF9u UGdYdSZ1PUZESFNZZWFyYm9vaw==" width="640" height="426" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object>

How do I get a non-flash version of the video posted to my site? Again, this is a test, but my target audience will be using cell phones, often iphones. Not real sure what to do, but this is my first foray into this.

Thanks....

[nigelbb]

The video itself that SmugMug delivers is H.264 MPEG4 but the embedded player is Flash. So the answer is that you do get H.264 video but cannot get a non-Flash player embedded on your site.

[jroller]

The video itself that SmugMug delivers is H.264 MPEG4 but the embedded player is Flash. So the answer is that you do get H.264 video but cannot get a non-Flash player embedded on your site.

Ah! Thank you.

That, of course, is of no value for my needs. What is the point of delivering H.264 video as Flash? Any way to show a single video without anything else on the screen without using Flash?

Thanks again...

[nigelbb]

I don't think you quite understand. Along with the video file you need a video player. The embedded player that SmugMug use is written in Flash because that is what is installed on 95% of computers & incidentally if you get an 'Embed Video' link from any other video hosting service e.g. You Tube or Vimeo you will also get a Flash player.

Sadly there is no simple answer & this is why everyone is getting so excited about HTML5 & the prospect of not requiring a browser plugin to play video. Unfortunately HTML5 is not fully defined yet & while Safari & Chrome support playing H.264 video using HTML5 tags unfortunately Firefox only supports playing video in the Ogg format. Internet Explorer however does not support the HTML5 VIDEO tag at all. Even if it all worked the functionality of the Flash Player is currently far greater than the simple video player proposed for HTML5.

It is possible to write your own HTML code for your website that uses the Flash Player if accessed by IE or Firefox & the browser's built in HTML5 video player if accessed by Safari (e.g. on an iPhone) or Chrome but that as they say is an exercise left to the reader. That would require you to directly access the H.264 file on SmugMug which is possible but unsupported but you would need to host the Flash Player on your own website.

[jroller]

You are right; I did not fully understand the nature of it all (and, certainly, still don't). I appreciate your response. It is very insightful. Thanks.

My need is to be able to host my video files somewhere, embed those files in my website, and have those files play appropriately, automatically, and instantly for whatever device accesses it (iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, Desktop browser, whatever). That is much more complicated than I imagined.

I have researched it further since my initial post, finding a service called Bits on the Run that seems to offer a solution. Akamai and Amazon and others also, but I have only done initial tests with BOTR.

The research continues...

Thanks again.

[nigelbb]

I have researched it further since my initial post, finding a service called Bits on the Run that seems to offer a solution. Akamai and Amazon and others also, but I have only done initial tests with BOTR.
I took a look at BOTR & it's interesting that they do have a solution with an HTML5 player which has a fallback to Flash for those browsers that do not support H.264 with the HLML5 VIDEO tag (Internet Explorer, Firefox & Opera).