Question

I am supposed to implement a MP4-Video-Stream with HTML5. Users can upload videos, others can watch them.

It hast to work in IE9, Chrome and Firefox.
But apparently you have to have different Codecs for each.

Right now i work around it like this:
<video controls poster="preview.png" >
<source src="film.mp4" />
<source src="film.webm" />
<source src="film.ogv" />
</video>

But since the user isn’t supposed to convert it to different codecs and upload the video three different times, I don’t like it very much.
We are using JavaEE, so I guess there might be some way to convert the Videos on the Server-side?
But I am open to any kind of alternative.

Answer 1

With HTML5 there is no other choice but to use different codecs with different browsers. Your conversion can be done on the server if you wish using ffmpeg. I don’t think there is any other alternative for you if you want to stick to HTML5 playback.
This is where flash scores over HTML5 for the moment where a single file can serve all the browsers with a flash player.

A command of the following type can do the conversion for you.

ffmpeg -i <input> -acodec <audio codec> -b:a <audiobitrate> -vcodec <video codec> -b:v <videobitrate> <output_file>

Direct binaries are available for ffmpeg for many operating systems.