Do .swf videos play on mobile phones/ipad?

13 years ago

.swf I believe is flash based, so no. It won't play on apple devices.

If you want a video to play on iOS, I would start looking into HTML 5, as well as webm style technologies.

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

if you want a video format the uses progressive download on ios and android then i would possibly look at 3gp - i created a mobile site for a client that hosted their own videos and it was total nightmare, but after a lot of testing with different formats and phones 3gp came out on top it seemed to be most compatible across a wide range of phones.

whilst MP4 is supported on the Android it makes you wait to download the video before it starts to play... iOS certainly has the upper hand on this as it will play the video as your downloading it!

One downside to 3GP i found is the quality of the output - you will need to tweak your settings when doing your conversion to get a really good output, it wont be as near as good as HD video but it will work across most mobile devices

HTH

Jay

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gorufus

13 years ago

The format that you want to encode your videos is h.264. That format seems to work the best across the board. It's actually the format that Google, Youtube, Apple, Adobe are backing these days. It's basically a newer version of mpeg4

If you download the free software Handbrake, you'll be able to convert pretty much any type of video.

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HigherPrThanGod 13 years ago

Right now, trying to provide mobile video is a bit of a mess but it's starting to improve. As mentioned above, h.264 is becoming the shiz. At least I think it is. I use WordTube plugin in WordPress and I wanna say it lets you do h.264 but I can't really test it.

I did some keyword research on the mobile market and found the numbers rather weak.. But that's just me.
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WillR

13 years ago

I don't believe there is one format of video that will work across all mobile devices as yet. For that reason I am still a bit hesitant about using video on mobile sites. That and the fact mobile connections are still so slow these days. People on the move want fast information, they don't want to sit there waiting for a video to buffer.

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

3GP is far more lightweight in comparison to H.264 - additionally it was developed specifically for use on mobile devices... so why not use it for its intended purpose!

Also as far as i am aware almost ALL 3G phones support 3GP video playback... its part of being classed "3G" - so it makes a good choice to use it... more info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3GP_and_3G2

hth

Jay

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gorufus

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Jay Moreno

3GP is far more lightweight in comparison to H.264 - additionally it was developed specifically for use on mobile devices... so why not use it for its intended purpose!

Also as far as i am aware almost ALL 3G support 3GP video playback... its part of being classed "3G" - so it makes a good choice to use it...

It may be lightweight, but as far as playback, if apple and android both support h.264, why not use it. Especially when they both back it's development?

Handbrake makes the conversion easy, and the best part about it, like I said before, is that it is free.

And I don't know about you Jay, but 3g was sooooo last year. LOL.... It's like the Best Buy commercials.... I'm only joking.

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

Originally Posted by gorufus

It may be lightweight, but as far as playback, if apple and android both support h.264, why not use it. Especially when they both back it's development?

Handbrake makes the conversion easy, and the best part about it, like I said before, is that it is free.

And I don't know about you Jay, but 3g was sooooo last year. LOL.... It's like the Best Buy commercials.... I'm only joking.

hhahaa it does seem pretty old technology but it works - trust me i went the way of h.264 when i originally did the original mobile site but i didnt want to have to download the video first on my android before watching... with current mobile phone carriers even with 3G and 4G waiting a few minutes to watch a short video is going to loose you potential clients if your selling something, most people waiting to download a video will probably cancel and move on...

as i mentioned before 3gp is lightweight and free and can be progressively watched and downloaded at the same time on both android and ios with no wait - also dare i say it people with yes "gasp horror" not using a smartphones can even play 3gp!

better still serve up both! and ask the user which they want to watch a low res version or hi res?

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howto 13 years ago

Android plays SWF because android is good
Iphone doesn't play swf because it is a badly made pile of junk

The part I love most about I phone is their terriable commercials going "can you <insert somthing lame that any other phone can do>. If not then you dont have an Iphone"
Can you watch flash on the go? If not then you must HAVE an I phone.

I was around when Ipods first came out and instead I bought and mp3 called an Iriver. My MP3 players llasted 6 years until a fat friend sat on me and broke its screen. Those Ipods were notorious for breaking after a few months even weeks!!! Apples products have always been poorely made lousey crap. The only thing they do right is marketing towards people who dont know much about technology and students.
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- jeskola 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by howto
  
  Android plays SWF because android is good
  Iphone doesn't play swf because it is a badly made pile of junk
  
  Very ill informed.
  
  Actually the reason is because if Apple allowed flash there would be little need for the purchase of apps. It's nothing to do with the tech.
  
  The problem with Android apps are that there is no screening of the apps - the Android app store is ridden with buggy and virus ridden apps.
  
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Chris Farrell

13 years ago

Originally Posted by warhero

Hey guys, I was just wondering if mobile phones/ipads play these types of embedded videos. I figure it's pretty important since so many people view the internet mobile now.

If not, is there a way to ensure your websites video will play?

Hi warhero,

No - I'm afraid they will not. At least not on an iphone/ipad.

Here's what to do to fix this (as you are correct in the importance of videos playing on mobile devices)

I'm assuming you use Camtasia -- as you mentionned the .swf format (which is a Camtasia format)

Instead of producing as .swf -- produce as an mp4. You will have this option when you select Custom Settings.

Then - I'd suggest using Easy Video Player - as they make sure that your mp4 files will play on a mobile device.

If you don't have EVP - you could use something called an iframe. It's not as tricky as it sounds. I'm not sure if I can link to pages on my site -- so rather than risk getting in trouble - please PM me -- and I'll talk you through this.

Kindest

Chris

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Vulk

13 years ago

From what I heard the ipad doesn't support flash.

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alniches

13 years ago

Besides video format in 3gp that is widely usable on conventional iphones, I am not sure what other formats would or would not play.

For Iphones, non-jailbroken, I think there's an VLCplayer app in the app store. Since VLC player plays almost any type of videos, I don't see a reason why it wouldn't for .swf.

For Jailbroken Iphones, maybe you can try downloading an app called Frash from cydia. I read somewhere that its supposed to play flash videos like a youtube video or something like that.

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

isnt swf typically the flash video player and flash video flv... typically if you put video directly into flash and embedded it passes each frame - at approximately 30 frames a second and depending on the size of the video thats gonna end up one big file!

if it it is really a flash file you could always convert the swf file into a html5 check out googles swiffy @ Google Swiffy

hth

jay

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ShiningHero

13 years ago

Wow and thanks guys. That sure is is a lot of information in this thread now.

Yes I use camtasia, and I produce it in .swf because I've found it the easiest to embed.

I've got a .swf embed code that I just stick in my .html file and make sure the video is on my webserver and that's it. I've found everything else to be more complex.

I don't want my mobile viewers to be greeted with a blank page, but I'm faced with the challenge of what to do now.

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Chris Farrell

13 years ago

warhero,

Do you have Easy Video Player or EZS3?

Let me know -- if you do -- all your problems are solved!

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bonn

13 years ago

You can encode swf files to reference a URL if playback fails. Most people encode the swf files to play a youtube version of their video on non flash phones. Pretty engenius.

Thats what a ton of our customers do. Our platform handles it automatically for you though

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

Originally Posted by bonn

You can encode swf files to reference a URL if playback fails. Most people encode the swf files to play a youtube version of their video on non flash phones. Pretty engenius.

Thats what a ton of our customers do. Our platform handles it automatically for you though

i think you will find its the script that embeds the swf file that will show the url - not the swf file, it wouldnt work period on a non flash file.. just saying

also it doesnt make sense to br embeding the videos into a swf file if your going to use video with flash then you would be much better off using a flv flash video file...

as i said before 3GP is the way to go for your own hosted videos - otherwise i would use youtubes mobile html5 embed code! hey but what do i know?! LOL

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

They do on my Droid, but don't on a lot of devices. I do mobile websites for people and two clients have insisted on adding video to their sites, even though I recommended that they don't use it on their mobile sites. Played for me but not for the clients themselves, which I thought was ironic that they still wanted to keep the video on the site.

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ShiningHero

13 years ago

Hey guys, I'm really not interested in paying for something, I just want to find a way to make my site more mobile friendly if possible.

The video just has to work for mobile viewers too ya know? Taking all advice thanks everyone!

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Jay Moreno

13 years ago

Originally Posted by warhero

Hey guys, I'm really not interested in paying for something, I just want to find a way to make my site more mobile friendly if possible.

The video just has to work for mobile viewers too ya know? Taking all advice thanks everyone!

For a free and simple option upload the video to YouTube then use the html5 embed code...

See this article for more info how to embed youtube videos for mobile YouTube Launches New HTML5-Friendly Embed Code

The method should enable video playback on most smartphones including the iPhone and android as well as most modern desktop browsers

If you want your videos to play across the widest range of devices devices using progressive download, meaning the end user doesn't have to wait I 110% recommend getting apples QuickTime video pro at around $20 its not free but it won't break the bank and knocks out the best quality 3gp video with some tweaking... Take a look at Oakridge Bellows - Metal Expansion Joints on your iPhone/android to see what I am going on about.. Viewing it on anything else other than a mobile phone the video quality would be sub par, but for a light weight video format that was developed specifically for mobile devices it's certainly worth looking at.... However please note the desktop version of the site the videos are all mpeg4

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MrRSmith

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Jay Moreno

For a free and simple option upload the video to YouTube then use the html5 embed code...

See this article for more info how to embed youtube videos for mobile YouTube Launches New HTML5-Friendly Embed Code

The method should enable video playback on most smartphones including the iPhone and android as well as most modern desktop browsers

If you want your videos to play across the widest range of devices devices using progressive download, meaning the end user doesn't have to wait I 110% recommend getting apples QuickTime video pro at around $20 its not free but it won't break the bank and knocks out the best quality 3gp video with some tweaking... Take a look at Oakridge Bellows - Metal Expansion Joints on your iPhone/android to see what I am going on about.. Viewing it on anything else other than a mobile phone the video quality would be sub par, but for a light weight video format that was developed specifically for mobile devices it's certainly worth looking at.... However please note the desktop version of the site the videos are all mpeg4

Good info Jay, especially about the youtube html embedding code. Thanks for the tips everyone.