Is it best to use a video file or a link to streaming service for H5P interactive videos?

Submitted by rclay100 on Thu, 03/22/2018 - 13:41
Forums: 
Content creation

Hi,

My question is in the title of this post and I’m interested to know if there is a recommended way for adding video to the interactive video content type. I’m unsure of how HTML5 video works in H5P – e.g. progressive download, pseudo streaming? If uploaded, will a video file need to be downloaded before it can be played back or seeked in the H5P player?  

I’m really thinking of whether we should upload video files to services such as YouTube or Vimeo or if simply uploading files is OK? For example, if we used YouTube could we benefit from adaptive streaming and true streaming playback? Also, is there a file size limit for videos that are uploaded directly?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks
Richard

Content types: 
Interactive Video
icc's picture

icc

Thu, 03/22/2018 - 16:16

Hi Richard,

When uploading a file directly it will stream as long as the web-server and browser support this. Also, the quality of the stream may vary depending on the web server, browser and the encoding of the video, however, most modern software and codecs does this well. Sadly, there is no advanced streaming support for adaptive quality like you get with YouTube. The file size limits are only determined by your web server.

It's hard to say what's the best solution for you, but if you expect many users and would like a media library you can manage I'd go for something like YouTube or Vimeo Pro. If you have fewer user and would like to save time and keep it simple, you can start out with uploading the video your self and see how it works for you. You might want to use a tool like FFmpeg and optimize the video for streaming before uploading it. You can also upload multiple files of the same format containing different qualities that way the user can choose what suits them best.

rclay100

Thu, 03/22/2018 - 17:42

Thanks for getting back to me - that’s useful information to know. I think I'll start with uploading directly, trying different qualities and see how I get on.  

I will also look at optimising my files. The article Optimizing MP4 Video for Fast Streaming looks to be a useful read.

digitsant

Sat, 06/06/2020 - 15:08

What is the recommended video screen size? 1920 x 1080 or 640 x 480? Thks

otacke's picture

otacke

Sun, 06/07/2020 - 16:35

Hi digitsant!

I think it would be helpful if you went in to a little more details - in particular about your setting and the purpose of the video. Otherwise, a general question will only yield general answers that won't really help you.

Best,
Oliver