Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Erik Moeller]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Brion Vibber  wrote:
> Just thought I'd check in on what it'll take to get it going. No immediate
> rush, but I'd really love to have videos working on smartphones and
> tablets, and not everybody runs Firefox. :)

As a recap, this is about expanding video support to include h.264,
which is patent-encumbered (licensing fees are charged for some uses
of the format). Cf.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_video_codec_policy

Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
(keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
obvious consensus path forward.

Any takers for advancing the community conversation?

Erik
-- 
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VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[David Gerard]

On 11 December 2012 23:15, Erik Moeller  wrote:

> Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
> (keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
> allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
> etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
> good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
> obvious consensus path forward.
> Any takers for advancing the community conversation?


It's definitely in the class of things that would require strong
community buy-in, yes.


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Antoine Musso]

Le 12/12/12 00:15, Erik Moeller a écrit :
> Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
> (keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
> allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
> etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
> good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
> obvious consensus path forward.

Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
does not recognize software patents?


Hints:
 - I am not a lawyer
 - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.


-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Leslie Carr]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 3:44 AM, Antoine Musso  wrote:
> Le 12/12/12 00:15, Erik Moeller a écrit :
>> Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
>> (keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
>> allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
>> etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
>> good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
>> obvious consensus path forward.
>
> Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
> does not recognize software patents?
>

Fact for consideration: Currently our infrastructure is not set
up/able to host originals in the Netherlands.  And our storage
infrastructure takes more than just one server ;)


>
> Hints:
>  - I am not a lawyer
>  - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.
>
>
> --
> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>
>
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Leslie Carr
Wikimedia Foundation
AS 14907, 43821
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Luke Welling]

FirefoxOS/Boot2Gecko phones presumably also support Ogg Theora
and WebM formats, but they're not really a market share yet and may never
be in the developed world.

Without trying to downplay the importance of ideological purity, keep in
mind that Mozilla, who have largely the same ideology on the matter have
conceded defeat on the practical side of it after investing significant
effort.

Eg http://appleinsider.
com/articles/12/03/14/mozilla_considers_h264_video_support_after_googles_vp8_fails_to_gain_traction

With Google unwilling to commit the battle was winnable.

There is not an ideologically pure answer that is compatible with the goal
of taking video content and disseminating it effectively and globally.  The
conversation needs to be framed as what shade of grey is an acceptable
compromise.

Luke Welling


On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Antoine Musso  wrote:

> Le 12/12/12 00:15, Erik Moeller a écrit :
> > Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
> > (keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
> > allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
> > etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
> > good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
> > obvious consensus path forward.
>
> Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
> does not recognize software patents?
>
>
> Hints:
>  - I am not a lawyer
>  - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.
>
>
> --
> Antoine "hashar" Musso
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[David Gerard]

On 12 December 2012 17:26, Luke Welling  wrote:

> Without trying to downplay the importance of ideological purity, keep in
> mind that Mozilla, who have largely the same ideology on the matter have
> conceded defeat on the practical side of it after investing significant
> effort.


That's because their interest is in sheer marketshare. "Mozilla went
proprietary for bad reasons, therefore we should too" does not strike
me as a convincing argument.

We had this exact conversation before.


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Michael Dale]

As Brion points out, we get much better coverage. I enabled h.264 
locally and ran though a set of Android , iOS and desktop browsers I had 
available at the time:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TimedMediaHandler/Platform_testing

Pro h.264:
* No one is proposing turning "off" webm, an ideological commitment to 
support free access with free platforms in royalty free formats, does 
not necessarily require you exclude derivation to proprietary formats.

* We already are not "ideologically pure"
** We submit to the apple store terms of service, we build outputs 
with non-freedom iOS tool chain etc.
** We write custom code / work arounds to support proprietary non 
web-standard browsers.
* There is little to no chance of Apple adding "googles" codec support 
to their platform.
* We could ingest h.264 making letting the commons store source material 
in its originally source captured format. This is important for years 
down the road we have the highest quality possible.
* Chicken and egg, for companies like apple to care about wikimedia webm 
only support, wikimedia would need lots of video, as long as we don't 
support h.264 our platform discourages wide use video on articles.


Pro Webm:
* Royalty free purity in /most/ of what wikimedia distributes.
* We could in theory add software playback of webm to our iOS and 
android app.

* Reduced storage costs ( marginal, vs public good of access )
* Reduced licence costs for an h.264 encoder on our two transcoding 
boxes ( very marginal )
* Risk that mpeg-la adds distribution costs for free online distribution 
in the future. Low risk, and we could always "turn it off"


--michael

On 12/12/2012 11:26 AM, Luke Welling wrote:

FirefoxOS/Boot2Gecko phones presumably also support Ogg Theora
and WebM formats, but they're not really a market share yet and may never
be in the developed world.

Without trying to downplay the importance of ideological purity, keep in
mind that Mozilla, who have largely the same ideology on the matter have
conceded defeat on the practical side of it after investing significant
effort.

Eg http://appleinsider.
com/articles/12/03/14/mozilla_considers_h264_video_support_after_googles_vp8_fails_to_gain_traction

With Google unwilling to commit the battle was winnable.

There is not an ideologically pure answer that is compatible with the goal
of taking video content and disseminating it effectively and globally.  The
conversation needs to be framed as what shade of grey is an acceptable
compromise.

Luke Welling


On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 6:44 AM, Antoine Musso  wrote:


Le 12/12/12 00:15, Erik Moeller a écrit :

Since there are multiple potential paths for changing the policy
(keeping things ideologically pure, allowing conversion on ingestion,
allowing h.264 but only for mobile, allowing h.264 for all devices,
etc.), and since these issues are pretty contentious, it seems like a
good candidate for an RFC which'll help determine if there's an
obvious consensus path forward.

Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
does not recognize software patents?


Hints:
  - I am not a lawyer
  - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.


--
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[David Gerard]

Original thread from March starts here:
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/59684

As I noted back then, this is a drastic policy change that needs a lot
wider discussion, including on the wikis, than just wikitech-l.


On 12 December 2012 18:38, Michael Dale  wrote:

> * No one is proposing turning "off" webm, an ideological commitment to
> support free access with free platforms in royalty free formats, does not
> necessarily require you exclude derivation to proprietary formats.


This proposal is not about anything other than enhancing the shiny for
owners of iOS devlces. While the devices are indisputable really
lovely to use, this particular (shrinking) userbase does not
constitute a group in any way lacking in access to anything we do, on
any other device they own (and they do own other devices).

The only reason you can't view anything other than H.264 on iOS
devices is because Apple want to promote a given severely proprietary
format on their locked-down devices. This is not a reason for
Wikimedia to break principle.

Mozilla is not an argument. Mozilla doing the wrong thing for directly
commercial reasons is not any sort of argument for us to. It's only
pressure from users that will get the companies to use unlocked
formats.


> * We could ingest h.264 making letting the commons store source material in
> its originally source captured format. This is important for years down the
> road we have the highest quality possible.


Ingestion is an *entirely* separate issue, as I pointed out last time
around - it is erroneous to conflate it with output. (We should be
ingesting absolutely anything we can.)


> * Chicken and egg, for companies like apple to care about wikimedia webm
> only support, wikimedia would need lots of video, as long as we don't
> support h.264 our platform discourages wide use video on articles.


This claim makes no sense unless you are conflating ingestion and
output. We need more video on Wikimedia from every source we can
(including, per that other thread, the cheap Android mobile phones of
people in Africa), but that has *nothing* to do with whether we output
H.264 for the benefit of those who have chosen to use locked-down iOS
devices.


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Luke Welling]

Thanks for the link. I'll try and stay out of it until I've had time to
read the old thread, but I think this is an unfair characterization:

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:35 PM, David Gerard  wrote:

> This proposal is not about anything other than enhancing the shiny for
> owners of iOS devlces.
>

It's about providing knowledge to the rapidly growing userbase of mobile
device owners who fall outside the tiny segment that is Android users who
have deliberately chosen to replace the stock Android browser with Firefox.

Luke Welling
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[David Gerard]

On 12 December 2012 11:44, Antoine Musso  wrote:

> Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
> does not recognize software patents?
> Hints:
>  - I am not a lawyer
>  - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.


If anyone owning a chunk of H.264 had a problem with Wikimedia doing
things with H.264 in the US, it could only be bad for them. I would
suggest this aspect isn't really a problem.


- d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Rob Lanphier]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:35 AM, David Gerard  wrote:
> Original thread from March starts here:
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/59684
>
> As I noted back then, this is a drastic policy change that needs a lot
> wider discussion, including on the wikis, than just wikitech-l.

Hi folks,

The WMF Legal team is evaluating the license now to inform this
decision.  I don't have an ETA for this since they're a little
shortstaffed right now and we're heading into the holidays.

Rob

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Matthew Flaschen]

On 12/11/2012 03:02 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
> However, every other mobile browser I've tested doesn't support Ogg Theora
> or WebM formats. Mobile Safari, Chrome, the old stock Android browser,
> Opera Mobile, and the IE 10 engine in our Windows 8 tablet app will show
> the thumbnail, but won't play the video because they need MP4/H.264.

Did you test WebM in Android Browser 2.3+ or Chrome for Android 18+ (I
think this is latest).

http://caniuse.com/webm says those support WebM, but I have not verified.

Matt Flaschen

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Rob Lanphier]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Matthew Flaschen
 wrote:
> On 12/11/2012 03:02 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
>> However, every other mobile browser I've tested doesn't support Ogg Theora
>> or WebM formats. Mobile Safari, Chrome, the old stock Android browser,
>> Opera Mobile, and the IE 10 engine in our Windows 8 tablet app will show
>> the thumbnail, but won't play the video because they need MP4/H.264.
>
> Did you test WebM in Android Browser 2.3+ or Chrome for Android 18+ (I
> think this is latest).
>
> http://caniuse.com/webm says those support WebM, but I have not verified.

I was able to play the WebM file of the locomotive on the front page
of https://commons.wikimedia.org just now on my Nexus 7 using Chrome,
so at least on very new stock Android devices, all is well.  My much
older Galaxy S didn't fare so well, though, so I would be willing to
believe that Android devices with proper WebM support are still
relatively rare.  That said, the replacement rate for this hardware is
frequent enough that it won't be long before my Nexus 7 is "much
older".

Rob

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Daniel Friesen]

On Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:35:40 -0800, David Gerard  wrote:


On 12 December 2012 18:38, Michael Dale  wrote:


* No one is proposing turning "off" webm, an ideological commitment to
support free access with free platforms in royalty free formats, does  
not

necessarily require you exclude derivation to proprietary formats.



This proposal is not about anything other than enhancing the shiny for
owners of iOS devlces. While the devices are indisputable really
lovely to use, this particular (shrinking) userbase does not
constitute a group in any way lacking in access to anything we do, on
any other device they own (and they do own other devices).

The only reason you can't view anything other than H.264 on iOS
devices is because Apple want to promote a given severely proprietary
format on their locked-down devices. This is not a reason for
Wikimedia to break principle.

Mozilla is not an argument. Mozilla doing the wrong thing for directly
commercial reasons is not any sort of argument for us to. It's only
pressure from users that will get the companies to use unlocked
formats.
- d.


Sorry, but this isn't just about iOS and wanting to lock into proprietary  
video formats.


Hardware decoders for WebM are still rare. I hate H.264, but right now  
H.264 is the one format with hardware decoders in practically every device.


And that's pretty important. Mobile devices are low power. Without native  
hardware decoding video playback is taxing on the CPU and has bad  
performance. And more importantly, it becomes a significant drain on the  
device's battery life. An utter sin for anyone targeting mobile.


--
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Brion Vibber]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Matthew Flaschen
>  wrote:
> > Did you test WebM in Android Browser 2.3+ or Chrome for Android 18+ (I
> > think this is latest).
> >
> > http://caniuse.com/webm says those support WebM, but I have not
> verified.
>
> I was able to play the WebM file of the locomotive on the front page
> of https://commons.wikimedia.org just now on my Nexus 7 using Chrome,
> so at least on very new stock Android devices, all is well.  My much
> older Galaxy S didn't fare so well, though, so I would be willing to
> believe that Android devices with proper WebM support are still
> relatively rare.  That said, the replacement rate for this hardware is
> frequent enough that it won't be long before my Nexus 7 is "much
> older".
>

Aha, that's good news! I'll run more thorough tests... Android 2.3 is still
a majority so depending on whether this is really a 2.3 thing or a 4.0
thing we may or may not have enough coverage for Android.

I'm not sure that hardware decoding is available for WebM on many (any?)
devices, so performance seems to vary even on software that understand it;
Firefox on my Galaxy Nexus runs the WebM video on
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Panda very nicely but our Firefox OS
test device with a much slower CPU is too choppy to watch.

Another possibility is that we could invest time in making a standalone
WebM player application for iOS, Windows 8/RT, etc that we can easily
direct people to install without administrative privileges. It wouldn't
have hardware acceleration and it would be a poorer user experience to pop
out of the browser or Wikipedia app, but it would be possible.

It's much, MUCH easier for us to flip the H.264 switch... there are
ideological reasons we might not want to, but we're going to have to put
the effort into making those player apps if we want all our data accessible
to everyone.

-- brion
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Michael Dale]

On 12/13/2012 12:38 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:

It's much, MUCH easier for us to flip the H.264 switch... there are
ideological reasons we might not want to, but we're going to have to put
the effort into making those player apps if we want all our data accessible
to everyone.


+1 its non trivial amount of effort to integrated native players across 
at least 3 major platforms, ( iOS, Android, Win8 ), And as pointed out 
in the thread, low power android / firefox OS devices include h.264 
hardware decoders but will fail for medium resolution webm.


I think Wikimedia mobile product needs to come up with some 
recommendations for the Board / community to evaluate. There are trade 
offs in effort and resource allocation.


Is integrating software video decoders with native apps the best use of 
resources? or are there other higher priority efforts? Or more 
realistically, the ideological hard line, means kicking the proverbial 
video on Wikipedia bucket further down stream, which is also a trade off 
of sorts.


--michael

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Brion Vibber]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 10:38 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:
>
>> I was able to play the WebM file of the locomotive on the front page
>> of https://commons.wikimedia.org just now on my Nexus 7 using Chrome,
>> so at least on very new stock Android devices, all is well.  My much
>> older Galaxy S didn't fare so well, though, so I would be willing to
>> believe that Android devices with proper WebM support are still
>> relatively rare.  That said, the replacement rate for this hardware is
>> frequent enough that it won't be long before my Nexus 7 is "much
>> older".
>>
>
I can play the current media on the front page of Commons in Chrome on my
Nexus 7, but it won't play in position on either desktop <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> or mobile <
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> ...

Sigh. :)

Still some work to be done on compatibility...

I also notice that the  elements in the  seem to start with
the original, and aren't labeled with types or codecs. This means that
without the extra Kaltura player JS -- for instance as we see it on the
mobile site right now -- the browser may not be able to determine which
file is playable or best-playable.

This may be contributing to the rrraaalllyyy slow performance I see on
our FirefoxOS test device -- which understands Ogg Theora and WebM but has
no hardware acceleration for them, and a relatively slow processor. If it's
pulling a 1920x1080 original to play on a 320x480 screen, it's going to be
slower than it needs to be.

-- brion
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Brion Vibber]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 2:56 PM, Brion Vibber  wrote:

> I can play the current media on the front page of Commons in Chrome on my
> Nexus 7, but it won't play in position on either desktop <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> or mobile <
> http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> ...
>

On more careful testing, the *desktop* web site shows the video on the
Nexus 7 (and 10) while the *mobile* site shows only a black rectangle when
trying to play.

I also notice that the  elements in the  seem to start with
> the original, and aren't labeled with types or codecs. This means that
> without the extra Kaltura player JS -- for instance as we see it on the
> mobile site right now -- the browser may not be able to determine which
> file is playable or best-playable.
>

It looks like Chrome on Android 4+ (and MAYBE 2.3 but I can't verify it
yet) plays WebM but not Ogg Theora. So on the desktop site, the JS finds
the WebM sources and they play. On the mobile site (with no video JS
available) the first source which is the Ogg Theora original gets selected
by default and doesn't play.

Adding 'type' attributes listing the file type and codecs used should allow
Chrome to see the WebM versions and play them by itself, and get us working
on newer Android devices in Chrome/Browser as well as Firefox...

Filed as: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43101


Alternately or in addition, we could pull in some of the JS for the mobile
site too, but we'll have to evaluate stuff.

Whee!

-- brion
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Michael Dale]

On 12/13/2012 04:56 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 10:38 AM, Brion Vibber wrote:


On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Rob Lanphier  wrote:


I was able to play the WebM file of the locomotive on the front page
of https://commons.wikimedia.org just now on my Nexus 7 using Chrome,
so at least on very new stock Android devices, all is well.  My much
older Galaxy S didn't fare so well, though, so I would be willing to
believe that Android devices with proper WebM support are still
relatively rare.  That said, the replacement rate for this hardware is
frequent enough that it won't be long before my Nexus 7 is "much
older".


I can play the current media on the front page of Commons in Chrome on my
Nexus 7, but it won't play in position on either desktop <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> or mobile <
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche> ...

Sigh. :)


I think this relates to the page not being purged after the transcodes 
are updated. If you purge the page, will probably give the nexus a more 
playable flavour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Haroche should work on your nexus now ;)

TMH should add page purge to the job queue, but not sure why that page 
had not been purged yet.




Still some work to be done on compatibility...

I also notice that the  elements in the  seem to start with
the original, and aren't labeled with types or codecs. This means that
without the extra Kaltura player JS -- for instance as we see it on the
mobile site right now -- the browser may not be able to determine which
file is playable or best-playable.


For correctness we should include "type". But I don't know if that will 
help, the situation you describe.

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/38665/

But certainly will help in the other ways you outline in the bug 43101

AFAIK there are no standard source tag attributes to represent device 
specific playback targets ( other than type ), so we set a few in data-* 
tags and read them within the kaltura html5 lib to do flavour selection.


We of course use the Kaltura HTML5 lib on lots of mobile devices, so if 
you want to explore usage in the mobile app happy to support. For 
example including the payload into the application itself ( so its not a 
page view time )


peace,
--michael


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Brion Vibber]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Michael Dale  wrote:

> I think this relates to the page not being purged after the transcodes are
> updated. If you purge the page, will probably give the nexus a more
> playable flavour.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Serge_Harocheshould
>  work on your nexus now ;)
>
> TMH should add page purge to the job queue, but not sure why that page had
> not been purged yet.


Aha! That could explain it yes.



> I also notice that the  elements in the  seem to start with
>
>> the original, and aren't labeled with types or codecs. This means that
>> without the extra Kaltura player JS -- for instance as we see it on the
>> mobile site right now -- the browser may not be able to determine which
>> file is playable or best-playable.
>>
>
> For correctness we should include "type". But I don't know if that will
> help, the situation you describe.
> https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/**r/#/c/38665/
>
> But certainly will help in the other ways you outline in the bug 43101
>

Awesome, thanks! I'll test it out and make sure it does what I expect...
currently cloning MediaWiki again in my Linux VM so I can use libav on it
without having to compile it under OSX ("all the fun of old proprietary
Unix under the hood!"), so will probably test it a bit later. :)


> AFAIK there are no standard source tag attributes to represent device
> specific playback targets ( other than type ), so we set a few in data-*
> tags and read them within the kaltura html5 lib to do flavour selection.
>
> We of course use the Kaltura HTML5 lib on lots of mobile devices, so if
> you want to explore usage in the mobile app happy to support. For example
> including the payload into the application itself ( so its not a page view
> time )
>

I'll explore that as well. Spiffy!

-- brion
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[Antoine Musso]

Le 12/12/12 21:57, David Gerard a écrit :
> On 12 December 2012 11:44, Antoine Musso  wrote:
> 
>> Could we host h.264 videos and related transcoders in a country that
>> does not recognize software patents?
>> Hints:
>>  - I am not a lawyer
>>  - WMF has server in Netherlands, EU.
> 
> 
> If anyone owning a chunk of H.264 had a problem with Wikimedia doing
> things with H.264 in the US, it could only be bad for them. I would
> suggest this aspect isn't really a problem.

Morally I must agree.  Legally I emit a huge doubt on this assumption.

We had the SCO - Linux affair [1] a few years ago where some "unknown"
company started sueing anyone using Unix based on copyright
infringement.  It only takes one company and a bunch of lawyers to start
being sued.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_controversies

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Video on mobile: Firefox works, way is paved for more browser support

[David Gerard]

On 14 December 2012 10:26, Antoine Musso  wrote:
> Le 12/12/12 21:57, David Gerard a écrit :

>> If anyone owning a chunk of H.264 had a problem with Wikimedia doing
>> things with H.264 in the US, it could only be bad for them. I would
>> suggest this aspect isn't really a problem.

> Morally I must agree.  Legally I emit a huge doubt on this assumption.
> We had the SCO - Linux affair [1] a few years ago where some "unknown"
> company started sueing anyone using Unix based on copyright
> infringement.  It only takes one company and a bunch of lawyers to start
> being sued.
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_controversies


I was thinking legally too, but yeah, danger of patent trolls on
serving - I was thinking only of the big guys. Definitely one for WMF
legal.

Ingestion should be feasible outside the US, though, if accepting
encumbered formats (e.g. anything a mobile phone records) is deemed a
legal hazard.


- d.

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