HTML5 <video> element on Android

Question

According to:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.0-highlights.html

Android 2.0 should support the HTML5 video element. I haven\'t been able to get th

Answer 1

Nothing worked for me until I encoded the video properly. Try this guide for the correct handbrake settings: http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=9694

Answer 2

HTML5 is supported on both Google (android) phones such as Galaxy S, and iPhone. iPhone however doesn't support Flash, which Google phones do support.

Answer 3

Roman's answer worked fine for me - or at least, it gave me what I was expecting. Opening the video in the phone's native application is exactly the same as what the iPhone does.

It's probably worth adjusting your viewpoint and expect video to be played fullscreen in its own application, and coding for that. It's frustrating that clicking the video isn't sufficient to get it playing in the same way as the iPhone does, but seeing as it only takes an onclick attribute to launch it, it's not the end of the world.

My advice, FWIW, is to use a poster image, and make it obvious that it will play the video. I'm working on a project at the moment that does precisely that, and the clients are happy with it - and also that they're getting the Android version of a web app for free, of course, because the contract was only for an iPhone web app.

Just for illustration, a working Android video tag is below. Nice and simple.

<video src="video/placeholder.m4v" poster="video/placeholder.jpg" onclick="this.play();"/>

Answer 4

After much research, in many different devices, up to now, I've reached the simple conclusion that MP4 is much less supported than MOV format. So, I'm using MOV format, which is supported by all Android and Apple devices, on all browsers. I've detected weather the device is a mobile device or a desktop browser, and set the SRC accordingly:

if (IsMobile()) {
    $('#vid').attr('src', '/uploads/' + name + '.mov');
}
else {
    $('#vid').attr('src', '/uploads/' + name + '.webm');        
}

function IsMobile() {
    var isMobile = false; //initiate as false

    if (/(android|bb\d+|meego).+mobile|avantgo|bada\/|blackberry|blazer|compal|elaine|fennec|hiptop|iemobile|ip(hone|od)|ipad|iris|kindle|Android|Silk|lge |maemo|midp|mmp|netfront|opera m(ob|in)i|palm( os)?|phone|p(ixi|re)\/|plucker|pocket|psp|series(4|6)0|symbian|treo|up\.(browser|link)|vodafone|wap|windows (ce|phone)|xda|xiino/i.test(navigator.userAgent)
                || /1207|6310|6590|3gso|4thp|50[1-6]i|770s|802s|a wa|abac|ac(er|oo|s\-)|ai(ko|rn)|al(av|ca|co)|amoi|an(ex|ny|yw)|aptu|ar(ch|go)|as(te|us)|attw|au(di|\-m|r |s )|avan|be(ck|ll|nq)|bi(lb|rd)|bl(ac|az)|br(e|v)w|bumb|bw\-(n|u)|c55\/|capi|ccwa|cdm\-|cell|chtm|cldc|cmd\-|co(mp|nd)|craw|da(it|ll|ng)|dbte|dc\-s|devi|dica|dmob|do(c|p)o|ds(12|\-d)|el(49|ai)|em(l2|ul)|er(ic|k0)|esl8|ez([4-7]0|os|wa|ze)|fetc|fly(\-|_)|g1 u|g560|gene|gf\-5|g\-mo|go(\.w|od)|gr(ad|un)|haie|hcit|hd\-(m|p|t)|hei\-|hi(pt|ta)|hp( i|ip)|hs\-c|ht(c(\-| |_|a|g|p|s|t)|tp)|hu(aw|tc)|i\-(20|go|ma)|i230|iac( |\-|\/)|ibro|idea|ig01|ikom|im1k|inno|ipaq|iris|ja(t|v)a|jbro|jemu|jigs|kddi|keji|kgt( |\/)|klon|kpt |kwc\-|kyo(c|k)|le(no|xi)|lg( g|\/(k|l|u)|50|54|\-[a-w])|libw|lynx|m1\-w|m3ga|m50\/|ma(te|ui|xo)|mc(01|21|ca)|m\-cr|me(rc|ri)|mi(o8|oa|ts)|mmef|mo(01|02|bi|de|do|t(\-| |o|v)|zz)|mt(50|p1|v )|mwbp|mywa|n10[0-2]|n20[2-3]|n30(0|2)|n50(0|2|5)|n7(0(0|1)|10)|ne((c|m)\-|on|tf|wf|wg|wt)|nok(6|i)|nzph|o2im|op(ti|wv)|oran|owg1|p800|pan(a|d|t)|pdxg|pg(13|\-([1-8]|c))|phil|pire|pl(ay|uc)|pn\-2|po(ck|rt|se)|prox|psio|pt\-g|qa\-a|qc(07|12|21|32|60|\-[2-7]|i\-)|qtek|r380|r600|raks|rim9|ro(ve|zo)|s55\/|sa(ge|ma|mm|ms|ny|va)|sc(01|h\-|oo|p\-)|sdk\/|se(c(\-|0|1)|47|mc|nd|ri)|sgh\-|shar|sie(\-|m)|sk\-0|sl(45|id)|sm(al|ar|b3|it|t5)|so(ft|ny)|sp(01|h\-|v\-|v )|sy(01|mb)|t2(18|50)|t6(00|10|18)|ta(gt|lk)|tcl\-|tdg\-|tel(i|m)|tim\-|t\-mo|to(pl|sh)|ts(70|m\-|m3|m5)|tx\-9|up(\.b|g1|si)|utst|v400|v750|veri|vi(rg|te)|vk(40|5[0-3]|\-v)|vm40|voda|vulc|vx(52|53|60|61|70|80|81|83|85|98)|w3c(\-| )|webc|whit|wi(g |nc|nw)|wmlb|wonu|x700|yas\-|your|zeto|zte\-/i.test(navigator.userAgent.substr(0, 4))) isMobile = true;
    return isMobile;
}

Answer 5

Maybe you have to encode the video specifically for the device eg:

<video id="movie" width="320" height="240" autobuffer controls>
  <source src="pr6.ogv" type='video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"'>
  <source src="pr6.mp4" type='video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2"'>
<source src="pr6.mp4" type='video/mp4; codecs="some droid video codec, some droid audio codec"'>
</video>

There are some examples of encoding configurations that worked on here:

https://supportforums.motorola.com

Answer 6

According to : https://stackoverflow.com/a/24403519/365229

This should work, with plain Javascript:

var myVideo = document.getElementById('myVideoTag');

myVideo.play();
if (typeof(myVideo.webkitEnterFullscreen) != "undefined") {
    // This is for Android Stock.
    myVideo.webkitEnterFullscreen();
} else if (typeof(myVideo.webkitRequestFullscreen)  != "undefined") {
    // This is for Chrome.
    myVideo.webkitRequestFullscreen();
} else if (typeof(myVideo.mozRequestFullScreen)  != "undefined") {
    myVideo.mozRequestFullScreen();
}

You have to trigger play() before the fullscreen instruction, otherwise in Android Browser it will just go fullscreen but it will not start playing. Tested with the latest version of Android Browser, Chrome, Safari.

I've tested it on Android 2.3.3 & 4.4 browser.