Added some new media files to the library and in doing so found that GSP created thumbnails for both AVI and MP4 files.

So I've re-synchronised the whole library.

I now have thumbnails for about 95% of my AVI and MP4 files. Just don't understand why this isn't 100%, or why it was zero% before :-?

The synchronisation sometimes fails but clicking the synchronise button kicks this process off again apparently from where it failed.

Again, on the "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't" theme I get sound from some AVI files, but by no means all. Since they're all created by the same Casio camera I can't think why some work and others don't :-?

And although I've got thumbnails for my mp4 files, I still don't get sound or video. The playbar moves across the player and the time it displays for the clip looks to be right, but nothing by way sound of or video.

Any ideas?

Okay checked the whole album. F5 didn't do it on its own, but a re-synchronise of each folder that displayed any media file with the default thumbnail and then an F5, did resolve it :-)

I'll see if I can detect a pattern as to why some AVI's play sound and others don't.

But none of the above has had any positive outcome on playing mp4 movies at all, so all I've got for these at the moment is a nice thumbnail :-?

[edit]What might be the reason for the mp4 thumbnails having the correct 16:9 ratio but the player always opens using what looks like a 4:3 ratio? Does that point to something not being quite right for mp4 files perhaps?

[edit2]Nope that's not it, the player has the size set in 'Media Object Types'. Actually, feature request if possible... Can't the player auto size to the dimensions given in the metadata?

Roger Martin wrote:

2. Video/audio problems are often caused by a plug-in not being able to play the video/audio codec in a file. Consider converting them to a different format.

Is the plug-in not loaded by the Flowplayer? I can play these AVI and MP4 files in WMP11. Granted I did have to download some codecs for the mp4 files for WMP to play them.

Sorry I meant that the whole player resized to match the video aspect ratio so you don't get bars.

Hmmm, looks like Flash has supported mp4 & aac since version 9. So I assume that this version of FlowPlayer ought to be able tocope then?

Yeah I'm not up for that ;-) Another feature request coming up then... Can the installer cope with a new section that asks the user which plug-in they wish to use and then select an appropriate template to use?

MP4 is a container format, but if Flash/FlowPlayer can't understand the underlying video/audio codec, it won't be able to play. So be sure to use a supported codec.

As for AAC, GSP does not support that out of the box. I will investigate adding support for it. Meanwhile, you might be able to get it working by adding a record to the gs_MimeType table to tell GSP about the file type. Then add a record to gs_BrowserTemplate to tell GSP how to render AAC files in the browser. If you think FlowPlayer can handle it, you can copy one of the other records that specify FlowPlayer (like MP4).

I don't know the answers to your questions. Those have to do with what Flash and FlowPlayer support, so I respectfully refer you to websites that provide support for them.

Codecs/container formats/plug-ins get really complicated and messy, and I don't even begin to understand it all. That is why us web developers are looking forward to HTML5 and a common video/audio standard.

Just one thought...

My media files (and the photo's) are on another share on the WHS to where GSP is installed. This wouldn't be causing a problem would it? Bit of a long shot since the photo's are displayed and I can play the AVI files although they take a while to load even though they're restricted to 1m duration.

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't some issue with media being elsewhere that's all?

In one of our support emails I think you mentioned an option to change the media player used when clicking on a thumbnail?

I'm getting no where at all on the FlowPlayer website about the ability of Flash or Flowplayer to play mp4 files created by a mobile phone. A number of test files I've created with ffmpeg and My MP4Box that play in GSP (but without audio) don't play at all in WMP11 or PS3Media Server. So even if I managed to find a conversion setting suitable for Flowplayer it wouldn't then be usable in the other environments I use. It'll be easier by far for me to point my family at the codecs needed by WMP11 than get any contribution at all from the FlowPlayer forums.

Therefore I'd like to explore the option to use WMP11 for any of the movie formats but specifically AVI and MP4 instead of FlowPlayer.

Would you be willing to expand on what's needed?

Thanks
Hyde

Roger can you point me in the direction of the browser template? I would like to give this a try as I'm having the same problem with MP4's in Flowplayer.

Thanks Roger. OUTSTANDING project. Wishing you much success.

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