No, seriously, I'm asking: Why is it so fucking impossible to get a video file to someone?
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No, seriously, I'm asking: Why is it so fucking impossible to get a video file to someone?
As far as I know, MP4 is as close to universal as it gets & should work for almost everyone on almost any platform/app.
But about 4 out of 5 times it just... doesn't.
No playback at all.
Video, no sound.
Sound, no video.
In browser, or app.
On Mac, or Win.
In the futuristic Year of our Lord 20-fucking-26.
- but do tell me all about how advanced the #tech world is...
@jwcph I must confess, I'm very intrigued to know what's going on there!
In-app playback (e.g: WhatsApp) is very picky about what container + codec you're using, browsers tend to be less so, and native apps (e.g: VLC) generally "just work" ... at least in my experience.
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No, seriously, I'm asking: Why is it so fucking impossible to get a video file to someone?
As far as I know, MP4 is as close to universal as it gets & should work for almost everyone on almost any platform/app.
But about 4 out of 5 times it just... doesn't.
No playback at all.
Video, no sound.
Sound, no video.
In browser, or app.
On Mac, or Win.
In the futuristic Year of our Lord 20-fucking-26.
- but do tell me all about how advanced the #tech world is...
@jwcph Feels like a "Discord" issue, it's pretty standard for other services to automatically convert videos. Say, I don't recall ever having video issues on Mastodon or Telegram! But Discord is PITA.
I might be wrong on some parts because I have no clue if Masto or Telegram convert videos, I'm just assuming...
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@jwcph Feels like a "Discord" issue, it's pretty standard for other services to automatically convert videos. Say, I don't recall ever having video issues on Mastodon or Telegram! But Discord is PITA.
I might be wrong on some parts because I have no clue if Masto or Telegram convert videos, I'm just assuming...
@jwcph That said, I feel you. This sucks.
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No, seriously, I'm asking: Why is it so fucking impossible to get a video file to someone?
As far as I know, MP4 is as close to universal as it gets & should work for almost everyone on almost any platform/app.
But about 4 out of 5 times it just... doesn't.
No playback at all.
Video, no sound.
Sound, no video.
In browser, or app.
On Mac, or Win.
In the futuristic Year of our Lord 20-fucking-26.
- but do tell me all about how advanced the #tech world is...
@jwcph MP4 is just a container, it depends on how the audio and video has been encoded. I would've thought the "default" for mp4 is H264 for video and AAC for audio.
EDIT: Let's just force install VLC on everyone's machine!
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@jwcph MP4 is just a container, it depends on how the audio and video has been encoded. I would've thought the "default" for mp4 is H264 for video and AAC for audio.
EDIT: Let's just force install VLC on everyone's machine!
@UKFilmNerd @jwcph
This... MP4 is not really a "format". It makes no sense since it could be MP4 with AV1 video codec or whatever which would break many places since the hardware doesn't know what to do with it. -
@UKFilmNerd @jwcph
This... MP4 is not really a "format". It makes no sense since it could be MP4 with AV1 video codec or whatever which would break many places since the hardware doesn't know what to do with it.@jalict @UKFilmNerd Not wrong, but also not relevant - no user should have to give a single fuck about these distinctions, any more than they should need to worry about the molecular composition of the tires on their cars.
It should just work, because that's what it's for, and we've had literally more than a generation of "computers for everybody" to make it happen.
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@jwcph Feels like a "Discord" issue, it's pretty standard for other services to automatically convert videos. Say, I don't recall ever having video issues on Mastodon or Telegram! But Discord is PITA.
I might be wrong on some parts because I have no clue if Masto or Telegram convert videos, I'm just assuming...
@samerion Oh, this is far more basic - we're not talking services, we're talking "this person has a video & that other person needs to see it" & they both have a computer & email.
Getting the video from one to the other should be as trivial as wiping your nose - or indeed as sending an email, which even grandmothers have known how to do for decades.
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No, seriously, I'm asking: Why is it so fucking impossible to get a video file to someone?
As far as I know, MP4 is as close to universal as it gets & should work for almost everyone on almost any platform/app.
But about 4 out of 5 times it just... doesn't.
No playback at all.
Video, no sound.
Sound, no video.
In browser, or app.
On Mac, or Win.
In the futuristic Year of our Lord 20-fucking-26.
- but do tell me all about how advanced the #tech world is...
BTW at least one instance of this involved VLC also not doing the trick...
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@jalict @UKFilmNerd Not wrong, but also not relevant - no user should have to give a single fuck about these distinctions, any more than they should need to worry about the molecular composition of the tires on their cars.
It should just work, because that's what it's for, and we've had literally more than a generation of "computers for everybody" to make it happen.
@jwcph Thank you. Just last week I was screaming because Apple has removed every protocol that would allow networking of different generations of their own machines. Even behind a firewall where the insecurity of protocols like FTP doesn’t matter.
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@samerion Oh, this is far more basic - we're not talking services, we're talking "this person has a video & that other person needs to see it" & they both have a computer & email.
Getting the video from one to the other should be as trivial as wiping your nose - or indeed as sending an email, which even grandmothers have known how to do for decades.
@samerion Oh, by the way, it's almost as difficult internally... like, we have all our assets on a shared remote volume & we're on a professionally managed Sharepoint / Microsoft infrastructure - but it's easier to walk to somebody's desk with your laptop in hand to show them a video (even if they're in another building on campus), than somehow relaying the file location to them...
