problems viewing video files

[fatr1ch1e]

Im having a few issues with the viewing and loading of video files. Using version 1.4.25 The videos when loading sometimes try to play but just sort of skip constantly on the first second. If you hit pause and wait till it has fully loaded it still does this until you refresh the page. Is there some way of me stopping this happening? All video files are .mpg and the issue is present regardless of browser, net connection or method of access, IE via gallery or a direct link to the file itself. Would a different video format be of benefit?

[phill104]

Without a link (mandatory for every support request) to your site I cannot be 100% sure but it sounds like you are running into the standard problems of plaing .mpg files over the net. Mpeg files are not best suited to streaming video.

Google streaming video and choose the format that suits you best. All have their pro's and cons. Remember that coppermine is just a repository for your files and as such is not designed to stream video. There are pligins for various video formats such as flash. Search the site for flash video plugin or .flv. I believe the excellent enlargit plugin supports flash video.

[Joachim Müller]

Real "streaming" is not possible easily (without preparation on the server side). When actually streaming, the client does not download the entire video, but only buffers part of it to replay it one the fly, and the server is sort-of broadcasting the data stream. After having played the content, the data is dumped automatically. What you're looking for is something else: you want playback to start immediately, after the download has started. This is often confused with "streaming", that's why you will find several google results that apply to your situation when you're actually looking for something else. If you want details on streaming itself (won't help you much in your situation though, but only makes interessting reading for those who are curious), start with the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media
As Phill suggested, MPEG files are actually not the best choice for immediate playback and buffering. Windows media video format (wmv) performs well in this aspect and gives nice compression results, and it has got a great andvantage: the encoders are available for free. Nearly everybody can play wmv, as nearly everybody has got MS Windows. The drawback is: it's a proprietary format. That's why I said "nearly everybody". The same thing applies for real media and apple quicktime: they have great codecs, they perform very well, but not everybody has got the needed software applications to replay them out of the box. There are several good reasons why users can't/won't separate plugins or applications that enable them to view particular media (e.g. corporate policies, concerns about security and system performance, technological issues etc.). That's why Youtube and all the other video sites use Flash videos: most users on the internet have a flash plugin installed in their browsers. Flash video works comparatively well as far as buffering is concerned. The only drawback is the effort needed on your side to encode flash videos, i.e. you need to convert your videos to flash video and you need to add a plugin to coppermine to play flash videos.

Joachim