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Wowza + JWPlayer 6 = iPad "Error loading media" / Codec Question

An interesting issue:

Our encoded MP4 files work fine on PC’s, but produce an error on iPads/iPhones… “Error loading media. File could not be played.”

The exact same player and code plays “sample.mp4” (Big Buck Bunny) perfectly… (sample.mp4) is included with the Wowza Server package.

We are running the latest versions of Wowza server and JWPlayer 6.

http://core.hutson-howell.com/cgi-bin/offinity.cgi/offinity/home.html?c=hh&i=api&a=video_ourmp4

http://core.hutson-howell.com/cgi-bin/offinity.cgi/offinity/home.html?c=hh&i=api&a=video_bigbuckbunny

The only rational explanation I have is that we encoded our MP4 differently than you guys encoded the “sample.mp4” file.

Some direction or advice?

We encode on Windows machines.

Hello there and welcome to the Wowza support forum.

Please see this guide for setting up Video on demand streaming:

How to set up video on demand streaming

Be sure to follow this step:

To play your own content, copy it to the [install-dir]/content folder and substitute its file name in place of sample.mp4 in the sample URLs in this section.

And this guide on using JW Player:

How to use JW Player with Wowza Streaming Engine

There is an example for streaming to iOS devices.

A sample URL for iOS would be:

http://[wowza-ip-address]:1935/vod/sample.mp4/playlist.m3u8

Please let us know if you need help after double checking you have this all configure correctly.

Kind regards,

Salvadore

For iOS devices you need to use a video codec of H264 and AAC audio. A profile of “baseline” is recommended for broad support on iOS but a profile of “main” is supported on some of the newer iOS devices.

Kind regards,

Salvadore

Um. I appreciate the response, but that doesn’t seem to relate to my problem… at all.

We have already looked at all of that documentation. This is self-evident, as the streams and server in general… appear to function properly.

The question is… why would one encoded file play on iOS (iPhones/iPads), and another encoded file not play on iOS (both encoded files play just fine on PC’s). In other words, the Bunny video (sample.mp4) streams to iOS as it should, yet our encoded MP4’s do not.

Again…

sample.mp4 (the bunny video included with the server) plays on iOS.

ourfile.mp4 does NOT play on iOS.

The only variable is the difference in the encoded files.

The only rational explanation (at least the first explanation to disprove) is that the two encoded files were encoded differently.

Which of course, lead me to my original question…

What are the encoding parameters used for the Bunny video?

OR… What are the best encoding parameters for files, across the board?