Video previews
Introduction
Video previews in censhare Web
HTML5 launches the video tag. This allows videos to be played in the web browser without using the proprietary Flash plug-in from Adobe Systems. At this point, most current web browsers support HTML5 and the video tag. The HTML5 standard doesn't provide any support for certain video formats in so-called "user agents" such as web browsers.
Video formats consist of a container file with the embedded video and audio files. There are different container formats such as MP4 or Ogg. Video files are coded with so-called codecs such as H.264 or Theora. For audio files there are codecs such as AAC or Vorbis. To play a video file, all three elements of a video need to be supported: container formats as well as video and audio codecs.
Support for video formats is dependent on things like web browser type, the rendering engine in the web browser and the operating system. Even among the web browsers, there isn't one format that is supported by the most common ones. Still, the MP4/H.264/AAC video format enjoys pretty wide acceptance.
Support for video formats varies, for example depending on the web browser being used on a certain operating system. The support also depends on the version of the browser or whether the desktop or mobile version is used.
censhare Web
Previewing videos in censhare Web depends on a number of factors.
censhare Web uses HTML5 for showing videos. In addition, censhare Web uses the library MediaElement.js for showing preview videos.
Displaying videos thus depends on the support of video formats in the web browser, in MediaElement.js, and in the operating system.
Due to the many options, it is therefore impossible to offer a list of the video formats with which the preview will definitely be shown and played.
censhare Client (aka Java Client)
The censhare Client uses the native web browser of the operating system when displaying video previews. There is no access to the plug-ins installed in the web browser. Adding a plug-in will have no effect on whether a video will be played or not.
As in censhare Web, HTML5 is used for showing videos. The censhare Client embeds the video in HTML5 code and then shows it in a browser window. To display it properly, it is important that the video file has the right file extension for the container format being used, for example, "mp4" for the video container format MPEG-4. Otherwise, the video can't be played.
Due to these many dependencies, it isn't possible to provide a list of video formats for which videos will definitely be shown and played.
Links on supporting videos in web browsers
Find links on video formats that are supported in web browsers:
Supporting video formats in web browsers
Support of formation of videos in different web browser rendering engines
Support for audio and video HTML elements in web browsers
Compatibility of HTML5 and web browsers, including audio and video HTML elements
Reference to HTML video element