I recently started doing High Definition videos for one of my customers, and I ran into a problem with mp4 files streaming on websites. What was happening was the mp4 file had to download in full before it would start playing. Come to find out, the metadata for an mp4 is located in the back of the video file information, and the video will not play until it reaches the metadata information.
I found a program that moves the metadata information from the back of the mp4 file to the front, so that the file will start playing instantly and stream on a website, instead of waiting to start until the entire video is downloaded. This program is really easy to use, and works extremely fast, all you have to do is open the program up in a Windows OS, open the folder the movie file sits in and press edit all files in the lower left, then wait for it to work, takes a minute or less of time, and then you are done. Now the metadata is at the front of the mp4 file and it will play instantly without having to download the entire video file.
Download the program from this website.
Metadata Mover - Streaming MP4 Files.
http://rndware.info/content/MetadataMover
Screen Shot
Example of streaming .mp4 file using h.264 High Def Video codec in a flash player, high quality, small file size, no quicktime player. Video from InternetsVideo - Promotional Videos & Production.If you are unable to play the video it means you have an out dated Adobe Flash player, and I would recommend following this link to get the latest Adobe Player.
21 Comments
Thats great. Thanks for the link to this neat program..
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Hi, I was facing some problems with sreaming a MP4 on my site and I stumbled upon this post when search for soltuions.
I tried almost everything as stated on forums & sites but my problem just won’t go away.
1) My video wont play on IE7.
2) I need to refresh a few times to get the video to be playing on Firefox.
3) Sometimes afte few refreshes, it stops working on Firefox.
See, I saw your video here & I downloaded your video and use it on my site, it faces the same problems too but not on your site.
Was wondering could it be due to any server settings that is limiting my playback of MP4 at all.
Will appreciate deeply if you could render some help to me.
Thanks!!!
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If you can answer a couple questions I will see what i can do.
what is your website?
What web host are you using?
Are you using JW player?
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So… it is your server. I just downloaded your video and uploaded on my server, with no changes, and it works great. You can check out your video on your server if you want to change the file path to http://howbits.com/zz.mp4 and see that it works for you.
But if I try to play it from your server it just sits there trying to load up. What web host are you on?
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oh crap! I was right about it… its my server that is giving the playback problems.
I tried using your link and it is working perfectly fine! Thanks for your help! Wouldn’t have find out the actual problem without your help. 
Anyway, we are not on any webhost. This is our own rack server, paying the datacenter for rack space and bandwitdh.
What are the possibilities that could be causing this to happen? Could it be Apache?
thanks….
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Hmm as far as your own web rack. I really don’t know what could be causing. A corrupt apache installation could be the culprit.
It could be with your internet connection in general. Maybe something is blocking video transfers or large files. I noticed that my web player was recognizing the video file, but when it goes to stream it, it just sits there and does nothing but show the loading icon.
I try to stay away from self hosting, so I am not as informed with problems and issues that arise on the hosting end. Wish I could be of more help.
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Thank you for the prompt responses but we wouldnt be changing host as we own the server ourselves. So it is unlikely for us to change host and pay additonal every month. I’m trying to integrate this into my website so I need to host the files on our current server. Thanks for your help anyway, I’ll try to find if there’s any other causes to the streaming problem on my server now… thanks!!!
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I posted about my servers, before I saw your comment about you hosting your website.
I wasn’t expecting a prompt response from you….
I did a quick search and found this link, maybe it will help with your apache install.
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-34359.html
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wow! thanks again, I was searching over the net looking for any articles related to streaming for my server but u got to it first! I’ll try that out now and see if the problem goes away! cheers mate!
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Hi, it is me again.
The solution from the link you provided for me is definitely not working, I tried that. Anyway, I found more information for H264 Streaming for Apache. It requires installation of a module for Apache 2, details can be found here: http://h264.code-shop.com/trac/wiki/Mod-H264-Streaming-Apache-Version2#DownloadingandbuildingtheH264StreamingModuleforApacheversion2
I installed the Apache module, but sadly; my streaming does not improve at all.
To solve my issue with streaming for time being, I signed up a free trial account at: http://www.simplecdn.com to host my mp4 files and stream them on my site.
You can check their packages out and they do provide very good streaming speed, so you wont have to switch webhosts for streaming speed.
Another site that I found which is good for usage based streaming with zero contract is: http://www.imediasee.com/Per-GB-Video-On-Demand-Streaming-Packages
In the meantime, I’m still trying to solve my server streaming issues, please lemme know if u can think of any other solutions that may help in my situation.
thanks again!
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What are you planning to do with your website, or rather what is your business plan for it?
Btw, want some usability advice for your website design?
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Have you tried loading up a different video type and seeing if it works? Such as wmv or flv? If those formats work then, it’s down to corrupted h.264 mp4 file handling.
If you are uploading videos with the intent of seeing if the videos work on your server, you don’t need to code it in every time. Just go to
http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player-setup-wizard
and type in the link to the video under the file properties. Then click update preview code and play the video.
Saves you some time when testing streaming ideas and doesn’t require any programming on your end.
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Wow… fast reponse from u…
I tried FLV, for sure it does work for FLV but FLV’s quality & file size are too huge compared to HD quality MP4 with smaller file sizes….
Only MP4 is giving me problems. And it gives the same issues when I’m used your MP4 file in the demo above…
Look at my test pages now:
1) http://x264-bb.com/vids/ - MP4 File is hosted on SimpleCDN’s server
2) http://x264-bb.com/vids2/ - MP4 File is hosted on my own server
Apparently, the same MP4 File but simply won;t work on my server….
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Ya, i know FLV is larger file sizes. The intent was to see if your server could stream large file sizes such as flv and wmv correctly. If it couldn’t then it’s problem with rack streaming video. If it’s isolated to one file type then it’s down to the streaming of that file or server coding for mp4 file types.
By the way, have you seen the great quality for Silverlight, which is a microsoft codec. Small file sizes beautiful quality. I host http://www.billionaireadvantage.com on the howbits.com server. With silver light you can go full screen with no quality loss with great detail. The file sizes are smaller then a mp4 but the quality is High Def.
Take a look at that video it’s a long power point presentation but very nice quality and you can read the small text in the presentation. The video streams fast and is a really small file size.
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I’m concern about DRM for Microsoft’s Silverlight using WMV..
hence didnt explore further to trying it.. LOL… 
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Not a bad reason to not use Silverlight.
I prefer silverlight for presentation videos that require extremely high quality and small file sizes because a lot of people will be watching it.
As far as DRM, I have not looked into Microsoft’s Play Ready DRM service.
The sad part about any DRM services for Videos, is that someone can use camstudio / camtasia desktop recording to capture the video. So I don’t put protection on my video files because if someone wants it bad enough, you can’t stop them, so why spend money on it, in my opinion.
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guess what, I tried using WMV & not having much problems streaming it using the JW Flash Player Setup Wizard page but the huge disadvantage is that the viewer has to install Silverlight before watching it.
Additionally, my filesize difference is not much smaller than my MP4 file & quality is slightly inferior compared to MP4. I’m using Sorenson Squeeze for encoding the WMV at these settings:
http://ezpics.novia.com.sg/images/7i7ahaobyyp3uorzd8u.gif
What do u use for encoding WMV?
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I use Avidemux or allok for encoding.
I just do single pass, 300 kbps rate for the recording I showed you. When i recorded it i was only using the windows codec 9.
Sorry about the delay, this message didn’t send me an email saying i had a new comment.
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Thanks man, I am looking for some source
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I’ve managed to solve my problem streaming mp4 on my server!
All i needed to do is to disable compression for videos on /etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-deflate.conf
# Don’t compress images and other uncompressible content SetEnvIfNoCase? Request_URI \
\.(?:gif|jpe?g|png|rar|zip|exe|flv|mov|wma|mp3|mp4|avi|mp?g)$ no-gzip dont-vary
Added MP4 to the list and everything is working as good as it supposed to be!
This is all caused by the module deflate on apache…
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Wow,
Thanks for this! I was experiencing the same problem. I’m going to check out the software you recommended.
Thanks
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