ffmpeg convert mov file to mp4 for HTML5 video tag

Question

I looked everywhere here and on google - there is no valid command that works for IE9. some how IE9 is missing something. All that I tried worked everywhere else: chrome,safari,mobile device etc... I want one command that will convert it and I can use it in every device suppose to support mp4 in HTML5 video tag.

I use this commands:

ffmpeg -i movie.mov -vcodec copy -acodec copy out.mp4
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -vcodec libx264 -vprofile high -preset slow -b:v 500k -maxrate 500k -bufsize 1000k -vf scale=-1:480 -threads 0 -acodec libvo_aacenc -b:a 128k -pix_fmt yuv420p outa.mp4
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -b:V 1500k -vcodec libx264 -preset fast -g 30 adel.mp4
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -acodec aac -strict experimental -ac 2 -ab 160k -vcodec libx264 -preset slow -f mp4 -crf 22 lamlam.mp4
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -acodec aac -strict experimental -ac 2 -ab 160k -vcodec libx264 -preset slow -profile:v baseline -level 30 -maxrate 10000000 -bufsize 10000000 -f mp4 -threads 0 adiel.mp4

etc.. again all this commands produce a valid mp4 file which works on chrome,safari etc... and works even when I launch them in windows itself using window media player. When I put this file in the video tag (I am using http://videojs.com/) in IE9 it isn't working !

<div class="vidoco-content" style="margin-top: 20px;">
<video id="divVid" class="video-js vjs-default-skin vidoco-center" controls preload="none" width="600" height="400" poster="<?php echo(DOMAIN); ?>static/test.jpg">
    <source src="<?php echo(DOMAIN); ?>static/out.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>

If I use the software miro video converter to convert the same mov file to mp4 - it converted fine and I can play it in IE9! miro converter is also using embedd ffmpeg inside it so I am sure it's only a metter of the right ffmpeg command and parameters. In my apache htaccess I set the correct mime types for my files and I see it indeed correct when looking in IE developer tools:

AddType audio/aac .aac
AddType audio/mp4 .mp4 .m4a
AddType audio/mpeg .mp1 .mp2 .mp3 .mpg .mpeg
AddType audio/ogg .oga .ogg
AddType audio/wav .wav
AddType audio/webm .webm

AddType video/mp4 .mp4 .m4v
AddType video/ogg .ogv
AddType video/webm .webm

I am struggling with this for a long time so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

from orig link...

WebM is fully supported in ffmpeg 0.6 and later. On the command line, run ffmpeg with no parameters and verify that it was compiled with VP8 support:

you@localhost$ ffmpeg
FFmpeg version SVN-r23197, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on May 19 2010 22:32:20 with gcc 4.4.3
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --enable-postproc 
--enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libfaad --enable-libmp3lame 
--enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libtheora 
--enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-libvorbis 
--enable-libvpx

If you don’t see the magic words “--enable-libvorbis” and “--enable-libvpx” you don’t have the right version of ffmpeg. (If you compiled ffmpeg yourself, check to see if you have two versions installed. That’s fine, they won’t conflict with each other. You’ll just need to use the full path of the VP8-enabled version of ffmpeg.)

I’m going to do a two-pass encode. Pass 1 just scans through the input video file (-i pr6.dv) and writes out some statistics to a log file (which will be auto-named pr6.dv-0.log). I specify the video codec with the -vcodec parameter:

you@localhost$ ffmpeg -pass 1 -passlogfile pr6.dv -threads 16  -keyint_min 0 -g 250 -skip_threshold 0 -qmin 1 -qmax 51 -i pr6.dv -vcodec libvpx -b 614400 -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 -an -y NUL

Most of the ffmpeg command line has nothing to do with VP8 or WebM. libvpx does support a number of VP8-specific options that you can pass to ffmpeg, but I don’t yet know how any of them work. Once I find a good explanation of them, I’ll link it here and incorporate them into the narrative if it’s worthwhile to do so.

For the second pass, ffmpeg will read the statistics it wrote during the first pass and actually do the encoding of the video and the audio. It will write out a .webm file.

you@localhost$ ffmpeg -pass 2 -passlogfile pr6.dv -threads 16  -keyint_min 0 -g 250 -skip_threshold 0 -qmin 1 -qmax 51 -i pr6.dv -vcodec libvpx -b 614400 -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 -acodec libvorbis -y pr6.webm

There are five important parameters here:

• -vcodec libvpx specifies that we’re encoding with the VP8 video codec. WebM always uses VP8 video.
• -b 614400 specifies the bitrate. Unlike other formats, libvpx expects the bitrate in actual bits, not kilobits. If you want a 600 kbps video, multiply 600 by 1024 to get 614400.
• -s 320x240 specifies the target size, width by height.
• -aspect 4:3 specifies the aspect ratio of the video. Standard definition video is usually 4:3, but most high-definition video is 16:9 or 16:10. In my testing, I found that I had to specify this explicitly on the command line, instead of relying on ffmpeg to autodetect it.
• -acodec libvorbis specifies that we’re encoding with the Vorbis audio codec. WebM always uses Vorbis audio.

Answer 2

My issue was the pixel formatting.

Adding -pix_fmt yuv420p fixed it in IE for me.

Answer 3

For ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i {input}.mov -vcodec h264 -acodec aac -strict -2 {output}.mp4

You may also add the -q:v/-q:a parameter to specify the quality of the video. You may also use HandBrake which is a simpler encoder than ffmpeg.

For HandBrake:

handbrakecli -i {input}.mov -e x264 -E facc -o {output}.mp4

 

EDIT: I found the solution! Here is a ZIP with a working demo that I tested on IE 9 and Firefox!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/kyavlpudybg0bc1/HTML5_video.zip

Also, the above demo has a flash fallback, so it should work on IE8 and less.

Same ffmpeg command used.
EDIT: I had to re-upload the video, since my hosting service is down for now. Now it is hosted on mediafire. I found they are the best file sharing service. Minimum ads, no registration, no 30 sec wait.

 

Also, check out this discussion on the videojs website: http://help.videojs.com/discussions/problems/1020-ffmpeg-command-produce-your-demonstration-video.

VERY IMPORTANT! Make sure to click the 'Allow Active Content' button to allow the video when running locally!

Video of the problem I have and my solution: See my demo mentioned above.

HTML code used while testing:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<video width="320" height="240" controls>
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg">
  Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

</body>
</html>

I analyzed a working test video that w3schools provides (it works on IE), and I found out that they used HandBrake to encode the video.

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'movie.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: mp42isomavc1
    creation_time   : 2010-05-11 10:32:06
    encoder         : HandBrake 0.9.4 2009112300
  Duration: 00:00:12.61, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 202 kb/s
    Chapter #0.0: start 0.000000, end 12.612000
    Metadata:
      title           :
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 320x240, 80 kb/s, 29.65 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.31 tbc
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2010-05-11 10:32:06
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 115 kb/s
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2010-05-11 10:32:06
    Stream #0:2(und): Subtitle: mov_text (text / 0x74786574)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2010-05-11 10:32:06`

Answer 4

Had the same problem a while ago, and i successfully resolved in this way:

First , download the latest version of ffmpeg (or build from the official github repository (https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg ), if you want to make some experimentation).

Then try this:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -c:a libfaac -strict experimental output.mp4

Hope this will help out!

Answer 5

A Primary journey to ffmpeg

---

Download latest ffmpeg and its presets http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Follow the instructions to install Ffmpeg Binary In Windows

---

Instructions:

1. Get the latest build from the arrozcru autobuilds page
   
2. Unzip the folder into C:/Program Files/ffmpeg
   
3. Add C:/Program Files/ffmpeg/bin to your system’s PATH environment variable
   

Optional libx264 preset setup:

If you use libx264 presets (by using the -vpre flag) you need to do the following setup.

1. Create a HOME environment variable for your user pointing to your home directory. (e.g. for Vista/7/8 C:/Users/moose or for XP C:/Documents and Settings/moose )
   
2. Create a .ffmpeg folder in your home directory
   
3. Copy the preset files from C:/Program Files/ffmpeg/share/*.ffpreset into %HOME%/.ffmpeg
   
4. Now you can open a command prompt and use ffmpeg. :D (e.g. This is my Vimeo video conversion command. ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec libx264 -vpre hq -crf 24 -g 25 -acodec libmp3lame -ab 192k -ar 44100 output.mp4 )
   *NOTE: libfaac is not included in the build since libfaac is considered to be a non-free plugin
   

Remember to set the HOME environmental variable in windows

1. Copy the presets under the environmental variable folder
   
2. You need to use the following commands to convert using ffmpeg:
   

For mp4 (H.264 / ACC):

ffmpeg -i INPUTFILE -b 1500k -vcodec libx264 -vpre slow -vpre baseline -g 30 "OUTPUTFILE.mp4"

For webm (VP8 / Vorbis):

ffmpeg -i "INPUTFILE"  -b 1500k -vcodec libvpx -acodec libvorbis -ab 160000 -f webm -g 30 "OUTPUTFILE.webm"

For ogv (Theora / Vorbis):

ffmpeg -i "INPUTFILE" -b 1500k -vcodec libtheora -acodec libvorbis -ab 160000 -g 30 "OUTPUTFILE.ogv"

Answer 6

I spent many hours trying to figure that one out. I finally found how to do this properly using avconv (or ffmpeg)

1. Convert the video to MPEG4 using H.264 codec. You don't need anything fancy, just let avconv do the job for you:

   avconv -i video.mp4 -vcodec libx264 pre_out.mp4
   

2. Move the file info to the file header, so the browser can start playing it as soon as it starts to download it. THIS IS THE KEY FOR IE9!!!

   qt-faststart pre_out.mp4 out.mp4
   

qt-faststart is a Quicktime utilities that also support H.264/ACC file format. It is part of libav-tools package.