Hi
We have been having a few issues with video on our Moodle site and was wondering what would be the best format for teachers to use so it works in all the different browsers.
Specifically we have had issues with IE when linking to a multimedia stream when using the 'Add a Resource > Link to a file or website.
When we do this and past in the url of the streaming link it works fine in Firefox, i.e. opens up windows media player.
But when we do this in IE it opens the Moodle page that should launch the media player but it fails.
Has anyone any advice as we have to train our staff to know how to add the technologies and we are thinking that we might need a consistant approach.
Cheers for any advice
Hello! I've just sorted this problem out myself. We tried .mov and quicktime but it was good in some browsers and not in others.
I've resorted to .flv (flash video). This seems to be fine across everything and works simply with the link to method. The in-built player is more than fine, but there is an advanced player you can install (easily) at http://code.google.com/p/moodle-flv-player/
I did create my own skin (control panel) in flash to go with my movies and tried to embed them using script (without using the flv filter). But I had massive problems trying to get the script to work and no one on this board could help with that (someone kindly pointed me in the direction of the advanced filter) so gave up trying the complex method - I dumped the complex route and stuck to the flv filter and it's all fine.
The advantage of the advanced filter is that it's easy to change video size and choose a couple of control options.
Hope this helps!
I've resorted to .flv (flash video). This seems to be fine across everything and works simply with the link to method. The in-built player is more than fine, but there is an advanced player you can install (easily) at http://code.google.com/p/moodle-flv-player/
I did create my own skin (control panel) in flash to go with my movies and tried to embed them using script (without using the flv filter). But I had massive problems trying to get the script to work and no one on this board could help with that (someone kindly pointed me in the direction of the advanced filter) so gave up trying the complex method - I dumped the complex route and stuck to the flv filter and it's all fine.
The advantage of the advanced filter is that it's easy to change video size and choose a couple of control options.
Hope this helps!
I will second Scarlet on using flv. While I hate flash in general, it does cut across platforms quite nicely where as using QT, WMV etc will throw up more access problems and in general IE sucks with most embedded video formats.
Btw Scarlett, regarding embedding flv files in a page/label etc sometimes its better to avoid using the built in media filter as this restricts the video to a standard size (which you can adjust). This doesn't suit us as we have many videos using many different dimensions. So to get around this all you need to do is drop in this example link code and that's it:
<a href="http://jobloggs.org.uk/file.php/16/video/myembedvideo.flv?d=691x389"></a>
The important bit is '?d=691x389' which tells the video to play at the size you want. This is the way we embed all flv videos on our site. Works a treat.
Btw Scarlett, regarding embedding flv files in a page/label etc sometimes its better to avoid using the built in media filter as this restricts the video to a standard size (which you can adjust). This doesn't suit us as we have many videos using many different dimensions. So to get around this all you need to do is drop in this example link code and that's it:
<a href="http://jobloggs.org.uk/file.php/16/video/myembedvideo.flv?d=691x389"></a>
The important bit is '?d=691x389' which tells the video to play at the size you want. This is the way we embed all flv videos on our site. Works a treat.
Hi there,
I'm new to this, but so far seems to be working as per this forum - thanks.
Just wondering, the html code above to resize the video that worked great for my flash video, however it didn't work for my youtube link/video - can you give me a code that would work with youtube?
This is what i currently have for the video:
<a target="_top" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTM5rbERv4s&feature=related"> video</a><br />
And I want to resize it to make it smaller.
I'm new to this, but so far seems to be working as per this forum - thanks.
Just wondering, the html code above to resize the video that worked great for my flash video, however it didn't work for my youtube link/video - can you give me a code that would work with youtube?
This is what i currently have for the video:
<a target="_top" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTM5rbERv4s&feature=related"> video</a><br />
And I want to resize it to make it smaller.
If you go to the youtube video page and just below the video there is a box "embed" -which if you click on it- gives you some code to paste into your Moodle. The width and height are changeable in that code.
Albert:
FLV is the best option for you to go with. I also recommend you download and install the Advanced FLV filter.
The advanced has a bit more controls than the one that comes standard with Moodle.
Good luck.
FLV is the best option for you to go with. I also recommend you download and install the Advanced FLV filter.
The advanced has a bit more controls than the one that comes standard with Moodle.
Good luck.
Cheers folks good info apart from I dont seem to understand how to get my vids in the .fla format
Cheers
Cheers
You don't say what your editing software is you are using. If it doesn't have a save as/export to/share to flv option then you'll have to get hold of some conversion software.
Just Google the file type you're working with, eg MTS or MOV, and 'flv converter' and there will be a lot of freebies and paid for results come up. Flv is very common and you're bound to find something.
Just Google the file type you're working with, eg MTS or MOV, and 'flv converter' and there will be a lot of freebies and paid for results come up. Flv is very common and you're bound to find something.
I second third and however many those who've said FLV 
Don't use .fla! That's the original file the programmer used to make the movie! ;)
We have similar problems at our school in relation to mp4s vs .flv... Flash has the browser support, but mp4 are about half the file size. My suggestion: get the latest Quicktime, get the techies to install it correctly, use mp4.
I'm sure that was just a typo!
If you progressively stream .flvs then they take up less bandwidth, and are therefore quicker to load, anyway. Progressive streaming is where you don't show the whole file straight away (which would cause load problems), but rather load a bit at a time while the movie is playing, thus negating any load delay. It's an excellent solution to adding video clips, even longer ones.
If you progressively stream .flvs then they take up less bandwidth, and are therefore quicker to load, anyway. Progressive streaming is where you don't show the whole file straight away (which would cause load problems), but rather load a bit at a time while the movie is playing, thus negating any load delay. It's an excellent solution to adding video clips, even longer ones.
You can use a flash-based player to stream from many different video formats, MP4 an FLV included. We tend to use JWPlayer rather than the built in flv player because we want videos to be stored on another dedicated streaming server.
Our format of choice is MP4/H.264 because it's playable by most newer hand-held devices as well as computers, so you only have to create one media file to work with both platforms. We used FLV in the past, and will likely to continue using it in some situations, but our plan is to phase it out and switch to MP4.
I look forward to HTML5's video format, which, while still in it's infancy, looks promising.
Our format of choice is MP4/H.264 because it's playable by most newer hand-held devices as well as computers, so you only have to create one media file to work with both platforms. We used FLV in the past, and will likely to continue using it in some situations, but our plan is to phase it out and switch to MP4.
I look forward to HTML5's video format, which, while still in it's infancy, looks promising.
Albert,
You said you didn't know how to convert your vids to flv...
Try AVS video converter, from AVS4YOU.COM I don't recall if it's free or not, but I used it to convert various formats. It's a doddle to use and you have all sorts of input and output options.
Brian
You said you didn't know how to convert your vids to flv...
Try AVS video converter, from AVS4YOU.COM I don't recall if it's free or not, but I used it to convert various formats. It's a doddle to use and you have all sorts of input and output options.
Brian
I find .swf is the best format, for speed of loading, .flv's take longer to load, and if your moodle connects via adsl, this will mean a slow upload time to the receiving client. You could connect your moodle via sdsl, but that's expensive, so the lesser of two evils (if flash could be described as evil) is .swf
+1 for .flv
There are many softwares available to convert video to flv I use total video converter occasionally to tell the truth I usually just upload my video to blip and they do the conversions,
What an explosive topic!
http://www.osnews.com/story/23095/Idealistic_Pragmatic_and_H_264_Debate (no April fool joke)
http://www.osnews.com/story/23151/Rumour_Google_To_Open_Source_VP8_Video_Codec
http://www.osnews.com/story/23224/Jobs_on_Flash_Hypocrisy_So_Thick_You_Could_Cut_it_with_a_Knife
http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora
http://www.osnews.com/story/23242/Microsoft_Attempts_To_Defend_Its_H264_Position_Fails
http://www.osnews.com/story/23257/Scribd_Switches_to_HTML5_Adobe_To_Make_Tools_for_HTML5
http://www.osnews.com/story/23273/The_H_264_Debacle_We_re_Complaining_to_the_Wrong_People
http://www.osnews.com/story/23299/Why_Flash_Dissatisfies_Me_and_What_Adobe_Can_Do_About_it
http://www.osnews.com/story/23095/Idealistic_Pragmatic_and_H_264_Debate (no April fool joke)
http://www.osnews.com/story/23151/Rumour_Google_To_Open_Source_VP8_Video_Codec
http://www.osnews.com/story/23224/Jobs_on_Flash_Hypocrisy_So_Thick_You_Could_Cut_it_with_a_Knife
http://www.osnews.com/story/23233/Jobs_Patent_Pool_Being_Assembled_To_Go_After_Theora
http://www.osnews.com/story/23242/Microsoft_Attempts_To_Defend_Its_H264_Position_Fails
http://www.osnews.com/story/23257/Scribd_Switches_to_HTML5_Adobe_To_Make_Tools_for_HTML5
http://www.osnews.com/story/23273/The_H_264_Debacle_We_re_Complaining_to_the_Wrong_People
http://www.osnews.com/story/23299/Why_Flash_Dissatisfies_Me_and_What_Adobe_Can_Do_About_it
OK... great posts... what format would work best with iPad? Knowing that iPad is allergic to FLV?
None, don't buy one. IPad is too small, too expensive, insufficiently resourced to be viable. All it is is another NoteBook or an enlargened cell phone, take your pick. Not wasting my money on a toy.
try telling that to my Line Manger Mr Gadgetman himself!
Funny.. thank you for answering the wrong question ;)... we are committed to serve any device including iPad... so, what would be the best format?
You have put your finger on the problem... there isn't a *best* format. However, if you need to support Mr Job's products then probably H.264/MPEG4.
The second part of the question is how are you going to deploy these in Moodle when you have them? I do like the optional FLV module (the full version of JwPlayer) but that's Flash again. I'm not sure if that "falls back" to just a link to the file. It's that kind of thing you need.
The second part of the question is how are you going to deploy these in Moodle when you have them? I do like the optional FLV module (the full version of JwPlayer) but that's Flash again. I'm not sure if that "falls back" to just a link to the file. It's that kind of thing you need.
> Funny.. thank you for answering the wrong question ;)... we are committed to serve any device including iPad... so, what would be the best format?
Yes, that is very funny. Normaly people choose the best for something, a subject or a situation. Looking for the best for any, ... I don't know, may be that is the absolute.
This also highlights a fundamental problem in online teaching. There is some uniformity in a physical classroom, in terms fitness, the school can impose conditions on the tools and material they use. "serve any device" is definitely an online slogan.
Yes, that is very funny. Normaly people choose the best for something, a subject or a situation. Looking for the best for any, ... I don't know, may be that is the absolute.
This also highlights a fundamental problem in online teaching. There is some uniformity in a physical classroom, in terms fitness, the school can impose conditions on the tools and material they use. "serve any device" is definitely an online slogan.
I heard this from a boss about twenty-five years ago when the first IBM PC came out. Explosive topic.
...thought I'd stick another quarter in the machine and see if I win. From CNBC Research:
iPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April release and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.
“The iPad did not seem destined to be a runaway product success straight out of the box,” said Colin McGranahan, retail analyst at Bernstein Research, in a note. “By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion.”
At this current rate, the iPad will pass gaming hardware and the cellular phone to become the 4th biggest consumer electronics category with estimated sales of more than $9 billion in the U.S. next year, according to Bernstein. TVs, smart phones and notebook PCs are the current three largest categories.
Apple is now the second largest corporation in the world, behind Exxon-Mobile.
Yes, and our local school has just given all it's new student intake a free iPad for their use for the next 2 years... its only going to get bigger ... iPad is great and is not a toy ... but the future
Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen (Cagle.com)
Quoted in the "Tagesanzeiger online" http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/
Quoted in the "Tagesanzeiger online" http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/
Hello everyone involved/interested in this topic. You may like to know that Steve Jobs has backed down from his recent stance of anti-Flash. It now looks like the door is wide open for any development, which means FLVs showing on iPads/iPhones etc is all back on. This is exceptionally good news for me - and I'm sure many others working with Moodle - as a lot of my online lessons involve flash interactivity as well as FLV movies.
Here's a link to the Apple statement, while it doesn't specifically mention Flash, it definitely is the right interpretation:
Apple statement
Sorry to all those who are anti-FLVs, but this has definitely pushed it higher up the list!
Here's a link to the Apple statement, while it doesn't specifically mention Flash, it definitely is the right interpretation:
Apple statement
Sorry to all those who are anti-FLVs, but this has definitely pushed it higher up the list!
Trying to get a cross-platform solution with moodle 2.02 i got MPEG4 to work in ipad, iphone, Ubuntu, Win7 (IE9 & Firefox) & OSX, and the best thing with the ipad was i could make it go full screen and it looked great. I created a page in moodle and linked to the file which was in its own media directory, uploaded outside of moodle, eg -
OK
Im coming back to this, what if I already have all these wmv files and need them converted to somthing else. I ask as I have around 5000 wmv files that have recently stopped working in all browsers. These files are already being used in a course.
I was hoping that I coud search and replace the .wmv with .fla and then just put all the new files in the right folder
Cheers
Execpt for few cases, I am not running any video files in Moodle. Instead I link to files on seperate streaming video server. In this case it's an old Apple machine, running quicktime server.
Only one thing constant in Tech and that is change.
If the consumer trend is any indication, it's whatever a tablet/mobile device can play could be/should be the determining factor in which video format to serve from Moodle - that, along with, a survey of 'clients' and their personal devices. Since it's a consumer trend, that could change again ... soon (or, at least, within your working lifetime).
Interestingly enough, this just recently:
"Adobe Systems has confirmed that it is abandoning the Flash Player in future mobile browsers to focus on HTML5, a decision that immediately ignited concerns among mobile app developers, many of whom are working with Android apps.
Adobe "will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations," according to a blog posted by Danny Winokur, general manager of interactive development for Adobe. Those configurations include the chipset, browser, OS version and more, he said. The changes will take place following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook, he added.
Winokur promised Adobe will continue to provide bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations."
and an Adobe blog:
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html
Am thinking more and more that a repository of video outside of Moodle might be the strategic approach ... ie, YouTube or YouTube for Edu (recently announced availability).
One thing for sure, proprietary formats (that can't play on X, Y, AND Z's) should be abandoned ... ie, convert to something more universal.
Take a survey of your clients (students) and ask them about their personal technology (not their preferences). There's your answer!
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Hi,
Please check the Videofile add-on for Moodle 2.5 at https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_videofile .
I wanted to use mp4 videos and I found that the Quicktime player would be the default brought up by Moodle 2.5.2.
I found that I had to disable the Quicktime player and leave the HTML 5 Player enabled.
The player checkboxes are listed here:
Site Admin : Appearance : Media Embedding (/admin/settings.php?section=mediasettings)
The Quicktime player is listed as playing Files with extension *.mov, *.mp4, *.m4a, *.mp4 and *.mpg
The HTML 5 player is listed as playing Video files with extension *.webm, *.m4v, *.ogv, *.mp4 and others.
I hope this helps someone else! Cheers!
Old post, but video is still a nightmare. (under 2.6)
I finally understand today why mp4 videos were always played in Quicktime across different browsers (Chrome, FF, IE). I came to think that HTML 5 was an urban legend.
Then I unticked Quicktime Player and all of my mp4 videos were displayed directly in the browser. No more Quicktime plugin!
However, if I have teachers using .mov format, their videos wil no longer be embeded.
How come Quicktime is not simply the fallback?
Hi,
Currently, I have the impression that .mp4 is working pretty well over the whole line right now.
As a sidenote, I would like to send a small shoutout to the OBS-project for putting out a great open source tool for creating Screencasts, live streams, webinars, ... under Linux, Windows and MacOS. (https://obsproject.com/)