Video Previews

[MikeM]

Hello - we have been using Resource Space for a few years now and have recently upgraded our hardware and are migrating our existing setup onto a new server.  We have the most recent svn version of the application and our installation check shows all checkmarks.  This is running on a Linux server.

One curious item, however.  The system does not generate video previews for .mov files.  Generates previews for .mp4 and .mfx with no difficulty, just generates a still image for .mov files.  I've attached a copy of the log for the preview which clearly indicates its looking to generate a .jpg file.  I've also attached a copy of our config.php file which indicates we're looking to generate .mp4 previews for video files.

Is there something special with .mov files that I need to change in the config.php file? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  We're ready to deploy the new system as soon as we can get this figured out.

thx!

Mike M

[MikeM]

Anyone have any ideas as to what might be happening here?  This is a brand new installation and we have the previous version running without issues?  Could really use some help!

thx

Mike

[J. Manuel Velasco]

Hi,

Have you tried to transcode a mov file out of RS in that new box?

Also, double check the allowed formats:

# Ensure the formats you are specifiying with vcodec and acodec are supported by checking 'ffmpeg -formats'.

I mean have your system the needed codecs to transcode a mov file?

I don't have a huge knowledge about media codec, so I don't know which code is needed for mov files but as a starting point of troubleshooting, I would try to check that.

Regards,

·_-

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[MikeM]

Thanks so much for the reply!!

I've been doing a bit more digging into this.  It appears that when I upload a .mov file the system generates an alternative "screen" image and a "preview" image.  Both of these are images and are not videos.  When I upload a .mp4 that doesn't happen.  RS generates a video preview and has the ability to download the original file.  Screen shots are attached.

Not sure why its generating the additional files with a .mov upload.  I've checked my config.php file and there are no references to alternative files.  As well, config.default.php has not been changed and there do not appear to be any references to alternative files that are active.

Would sure love to find out what's going on here!  Really need to switch these systems over.

Any input or thoughts would be very much appreciated!!

MIke M

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 2:20:00 PM UTC-6, MikeM wrote:

[J. Manuel Velasco]

Can you generate an MP4 file from your move files using ffmpeg in the command line?

If yes, and you can't find the reason/fix, you can search for a hook in the upload process once the file is in the server and transcode it (generate the preview) with the same options you found working in the command line.

Good luck!

•_-

[Jeff Nova]

Probably a silly suggestion but it sure sounds like MOVs are being viewed as images instead of movies. Maybe the extension is mapped incorrectly?

J

[MikeM]

Thanks Jeff - I thought of that.  Here's what our config.php file says:

$ffmpeg_supported_extensions = array(
		'aaf',
		'3gp',
		'asf',
		'avchd',
		'avi',
		'cam',
		'dat',
		'dsh',
		'flv',
		'm1v',
		'm2v',
		'mkv',
		'wrap',
		'mov',
		'mpeg',
		'mpg',
		'mpe',
		'mp4',
		'mxf',
		'nsv',
		'ogm',
		'ogv',
		'rm',
		'ram',
		'svi',
		'smi',
		'webm',
		'wmv',
		'divx',
		'xvid',
		'm4v',
		'dv'
	);

.mov is in there.  We've also migrated this from our older installation, so the config.php file on the new system is the same as the one on the old system.  The old system operates correctly with .mov files.  So, it looks like there's something that's changed with the new version.

New system is on SVN trunk, old system is subversion r9623.

thx
MIke

[Jeff Nova]

That’s not what I was thinking of. There are also arrays of extensions mapped to resource types. Did you check that?

Jeff

[MikeM]

Thanks Jeff - I have extension mapping in the config.default.php file.  Here's what's in there:

$mime_type_by_extension = array(
    'mov'  => 'video/quicktime',
    '3gp'  => 'video/3gpp',
    'mpg'  => 'video/mpeg',
    'mp4'  => 'video/mp4',
    'avi'  => 'video/msvideo',
    'mp3'  => 'audio/mpeg',
    'wav'  => 'audio/x-wav',
    'jpg'  => 'image/jpeg',
    'jpeg' => 'image/jpeg',
    'gif'  => 'image/gif',
    'png'  => 'image/png',
    'odt'  => 'application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text',
    'ods'  => 'application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet',
    'odp'  => 'application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.presentation',
    'svg'  => 'image/svg+xml',
  );

I also have this in config.default.php:


Mappings between resource types and file extensions.
Can be used to automatically create resources in the system based on
the extension of the file.
*/
$resource_type_extension_mapping_default = 1;
$resource_type_extension_mapping         = array(
    2 => array('pdf', 'doc', 'docx', 'epub', 'ppt', 'pptx', 'odt', 'ods', 'tpl', 'ott' , 'rtf' , 'txt' , 'xml'),
    3 => array('mov', '3gp', 'avi', 'mpg', 'mp4', 'flv', 'wmv'),
    4 => array('flac', 'mp3', '3ga', 'cda', 'rec', 'aa', 'au', 'mp4a', 'wav', 'aac', 'ogg'),
);

Perhaps $resource_type_extension_mapping_default should be set to 2??

Mike M

[Jeff Nova]

Nothing looks incorrect here, sorry to say. I think in order to solve this for you I’d have to gain access to your system at this point, which I’m happy to do. 

J

[jta...@scenichudson.org]

We're new users with a similar problem. Using a Bitnami RS 8.6 installation running on GCP, .mov and .mkv  files show up as generic icons and only provide users with the option to download the file.  If I transcode the file to .mp4, it still has a generic icon (no preview image) but it at least allows a user to view the clip from within the resource view. So far my workaround for assets that are .mov files is: manually transcode to .mp4, upload the clip, manually generate a jpg from a frame of the video, upload that as a preview image for the clip. The preview image then replaces the generic icon in search results or when viewing a collection, but there's no indication that it's a video until a user clicks on it. 

Is there something that we're missing? Is poking around in config.php files to verify extension mappings our next step? 

[MikeM]

Interestingly, when I upload a .mov file with an H264 codec things seem to work fine and RS generates a preview.  That is problematic however now that Adobe has stopped supporting older codecs in Quicktime.  You are not able to export an H264 quicktime from Adobe Premier any longer.  However .mov's with ProRes codecs do exhibit the problem where previews are not generated on Resource Space.

Seems to me there is something particular going on with Quicktime .mov's and Resource Space.  As you indicate, if I upload a .mp4 all is fine.

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 2:20:00 PM UTC-6, MikeM wrote:

[Jason Taylor]

This is a good tip. I’ll see if transcoding the .mov files to H.264 works for us. 

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[MikeM]

Jeff - what options would I have to get you to have a look at our system.  We're kinda spinning our wheels here and not being able to figure this out.

thx

[Yair Krauze]

Mike,

I have not run into this problem myself, but since you are moving from an older version your config file may simply be missing some setting used by the new code base.

Take a look at the config file example (includes/config.default.php).  There is a section you may want to play with:

# Params examples for different cases:

# Converting .mov to .avi use "-g 60 -vcodec msmpeg4v2 -acodec pcm_u8 -f avi";

#

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["name"]="QuickTime H.264 WVGA";

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["filename"]="quicktime_h264";

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["extension"]="mov";

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["params"]="-vcodec h264 -s wvga -aspect 16:9 -b 2500k -deinterlace -ab 160k -acodec mp3 -ac 2";

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["lines_min"]=480;

# $ffmpeg_alternatives[0]["alt_type"]='mywebversion';

[MikeM]

Thank you for the reply Yair, however its my understanding those config entries are for "alternative" files which would be automatically generated along side the original.  In my case its the previews which are simply not working for Quicktime files (other than Quicktime H264 which is being abandoned by Adobe and Apple).  We still need to operate using Quicktime Prores.  I just can't seem to get the previews to work with that.  Here's the heading of the section I believe you are referring to:

# FFMPEG - generation of alternative video file sizes/formats
# It is possible to automatically generate different file sizes and have them attached as alternative files.
# See below for examples.
# The blocks must be numbered sequentially (0, 1, 2).
# Ensure the formats you are specifiying with vcodec and acodec are supported by checking 'ffmpeg -formats'.

Again, appreciate the reply, but don't think that's the issue.

Mike

[Fabrix Xm]

Could be an issue with ffmpeg and Quicktime Prores files ?

[MikeM]

Well, interestingly it seems like Quicktime ProRes files created in Adobe Premier using Adobe Media Encoder do NOT generate previews while Quicktime ProRes files created with ffmpeg DO generate previews.  Very confusing.  I will continue to do tests here

[MikeM]

Also, can't seem to generate previews from .mxf files either.  Frustrating.

[MikeM]

we also did tests with Apple compressor and DaVinci resolve.  Quicktime ProRes exports from those don't generate previews either.  Perhaps something has changed in ffmpeg?  We are running 2.8.15 on the new system.

On Monday, December 3, 2018 at 1:23:47 PM UTC-6, MikeM wrote:

[MikeM]

Finally figured this out.  It all had to do with our ffmpeg string.  Here's what we've ended up with -

$ffmpeg_preview_options="-vcodec libx264 -b:v 1500k -preset slow -acodec aac -strict -2 -ac 2 -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -vf format=yuv420p";

The key was the -strict -2 arguments.  Because we are using ffmpeg 2.8.15 that version still requires the -strict -2 arguments or will fail on the aac audio codec encode.  Took me a while to figure this out, but its all working seamlessly now.

Sorry for the many posts about this, but we're good to go now.

Mike M

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 2:20:00 PM UTC-6, MikeM wrote:

[Frederick Yocum]

@Mike M

Thanks for documenting your progress, I am sure someone else (maybe even me) will need it in the future.

> Sorry for the many posts about this, but we're good to go now.

[sc...@holehogmedia.com]

Thank you for posting this. This solved my issue with Prores proxy. It is great to be able to find solutions like this.

Scott R.