One expert please explain this to me....

[Shepherd81]

Hi,
I need someone who has deep knowledge of formats and video formats to explain something to me. It helps if you know the process behind downloading videos from reddit or facebook and then sending them on whatsapp.

My problem is that sometimes when I download a video from reddit and try to sent it to my friend on whatsapp the video in whatsapp wont be recognized and doesnt has a "preview" and also keeps a unique name or the name of the original title where I downloaded it.
like seen here: https://gyazo.com/e514c5520670d3ef157ae91c11dc369d
I try different websites to download videos easily, mainly the ones that pop up on google search first and it workst 90% of the time like a charm.
But sometimes the video gets named "DASH_720_X.mp4" and then it looks like this in whatsapp:
https://gyazo.com/40646af32152456c6273e0205488553a

I want to understand it why and how can I prevent it beforehand.
I got no problem to start up a command prompt and convert the video with ffmpeg, it's just I need to understand first what's causing it. Is it the wrong video codec whatsapp is not supporting, is it the container thats different than the other videos!?

[LigH.de]

This question is hard to answer without specific examples. There are many container formats out there. And each container may contain different combinations of content formats. Not all of them are equally supported by all kinds of browsers. Just one example: AVC (H.264) in MP4 is pretty common, HEVC (H.265) in MP4 less, WebM (VP8/9 in an MKV subset) is different again. Then there may be variants which are streaming-friendly, whereas the opposite may fail to display anything if the download is incomplete.

Providing links of examples would be useful, or at least MediaInfo reports of such downloads.

[Shepherd81]

This is just one example of a video that Whatsapp doesnt support and I had to fiddle around with ffmpeg but no matter what container or codec I chose, whatsapp didnt recognize the video.
https://gyazo.com/b1b837ff39d8395ec12a7335d3fbdaca

I tried Mpeg 4 with MP4, or H264 with AVI and some more. I should have written it down to be 100% which combination I took but it was annoying that none would succeed.

[october262]

This is just one example of a video that Whatsapp doesnt support and I had to fiddle around with ffmpeg but no matter what container or codec I chose, whatsapp didnt recognize the video.
https://gyazo.com/b1b837ff39d8395ec12a7335d3fbdaca

I tried Mpeg 4 with MP4, or H264 with AVI and some more. I should have written it down to be 100% which combination I took but it was annoying that none would succeed.

this here explains what video formats are accepted - https://blog.online-convert.com/how-to-prepare-your-videos-for-whatsapp/

[TimA-C]

Why not just send "your friend" the link to the original video rather than tying up the web and helping to create the need of yet more electricity guzzling server farms? Problem solved. Think of all the extra time you'd have to do something more fun and/or worthwhile. And, of course, people wouldn't think that you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent . . .

[Shepherd81]

Why not just send "your friend" the link to the original video rather than tying up the web and helping to create the need of yet more electricity guzzling server farms? Problem solved. Think of all the extra time you'd have to do something more fun and/or worthwhile. And, of course, people wouldn't think that you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent . . .

Well since we are giving personal advice's here let me give you one too: "you shouldn't project your character on others!"

[LigH.de]

It doesn't have to be a snowman ... eeh, online converter. Of course you can use a local application too. Recommended attributes are:

• Container = MP4
• Video codec = AVC (H.264)
• Audio codec = AAC

But it appears to be important that the whole result is not bigger than 16 MB. So you may prefer a 2-pass encoding where the video stream only is limited to e.g. 15 MB.

[TimA-C]

I didn't give any personal advice, I just asked a question. The fact that you went all rude and defensive, and didn't answer my question kinda says it all.

Have a good weekend.

[LigH.de]

Fortunately,

you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent

is not rude at all.

[TimA-C]

Fortunately,

you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent

is not rude at all.

If I were to say something like, "Oh dear, did you miss that day at school when they taught english comprehension?" then, yes, that probably could be considered to be rude. If you'd included the whole line when you quoted me - "And, of course, people wouldn't think that you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent . . ." - then you probably would have noticed that I didn't actually accuse him of anything. I just pointed out that the act of downloading someone else's video from one site and uploading it to different site might look like the actions of a parasite to some people, whereas sending a link to the original video to his friend wouldn't. It also wouldn't use unnecessary bandwidth nor require additional storage on a server somewhere, and it would also free up his time for more fun activities and save on his electricity bill as he wouldn't have to re-encode it . . . in fact just posting a link would be a win, win, win, win, win situation!

Sorry, LigH.de and Shepherd81. I seem to be in a bit of a plssy mood today. Have a good weekend, both of you.

[Shepherd81]

Fortunately,

you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent

is not rude at all.

If I were to say something like, "Oh dear, did you miss that day at school when they taught english comprehension?" then, yes, that probably could be considered to be rude. If you'd included the whole line when you quoted me - "And, of course, people wouldn't think that you were just some parasite leeching off somebody else's hard work and talent . . ." - then you probably would have noticed that I didn't actually accuse him of anything. I just pointed out that the act of downloading someone else's video from one site and uploading it to different site might look like the actions of a parasite to some people, whereas sending a link to the original video to his friend wouldn't. It also wouldn't use unnecessary bandwidth nor require additional storage on a server somewhere, and it would also free up his time for more fun activities and save on his electricity bill as he wouldn't have to re-encode it . . . in fact just posting a link would be a win, win, win, win, win situation!

Sorry, LigH.de and Shepherd81. I seem to be in a bit of a plssy mood today. Have a good weekend, both of you.

Just as an advice for your further career here on the forum, maybe you should have just stayed on topic on a technicality instead of bringing your drama/agenda in here.
Since you stress out how important it is for you to not use unnecessary bandwidth or additional storage (which is kinda silly in 2019 but ok and especially for me since I worked for Netapp several years you would have saved a lot of time and electricity yourself by staying on topic and not bringing in, what I think was, a patronizing attitude.
I reckon you don't see it that way but just see it as how you were received here and take it as an input you might consider in your future posts to prevent unnecessary misunderstandings.
Have a nice weekend.

[Shepherd81]

It doesn't have to be a snowman ... eeh, online converter. Of course you can use a local application too. Recommended attributes are:

• Container = MP4
• Video codec = AVC (H.264)
• Audio codec = AAC

But it appears to be important that the whole result is not bigger than 16 MB. So you may prefer a 2-pass encoding where the video stream only is limited to e.g. 15 MB.

Thanks,
I will test your recommendation the next time and post the result here.

[TimA-C]

Well, I wasn't in a plssy mood this morning until I read your uber-patronising post just now. I think, if it's OK with you, Mr Just-joined-the-forum-in-Dec'19, that I'll disregard your advice on forum etiquette until you've been here at least 15 minutes! I think I'll also point out that one other post from LigH.de is hardly a rising up of the good folk here to deliver a resounding slap on the wrists for my behaviour, is it?

As you've got my gander up, I'll ask the question again, why not just post a link? IIRC this forum is against piracy, warez and copyright infringement, and as you clearly don't own the videos you're trying to download and re-upload somewhere else, I don't think it's a rude question. (One I notice you still haven't actually answered yet.)

Oh, and if you think the minuscule amount of electricity and storage space needed for a couple of posts on-line is even vaguely comparable to the amount of electricity and storage space needed to re-encode and store even a small video file then I can only assume that either you weren't very good at your job at Netapp(?) or you weren't working on the technical side of things?

[orsetto]

Purely from honest curiosity, I too would appreciate an answer to the question "why not just link to the video?"

There seems to have been a sudden spate of topics along these lines in several video-related discussion forums recently, and it really is baffling to me why people now want to go to the time and trouble of re-encoding and re-uploading already-posted videos they can easily just link to. I don't use social media at all, never was drawn in, but I understand its appeal to others. What I don't understand is the sudden interest in hashing around with existing videos for re-post instead of linking: it seems counterintuitive.

Isn't whatsapp is more of an "alternative texting" platform than social media anyway, with tight constraints on embedded video? So if you could provide a hint as to why there's a sudden trend of people wanting to re-code and embed existing videos instead of linking to them, Shepherd81, it would help me feel less out-of-the-loop. Thanks!

[emcodem]

@Grano Well as the linked "documentation" from whatsapp is not very detailed, you'd need to find either someone who works directly for whatsapp or someone who is responsible for making videos on whatspp working on a professional basis (so he/she kind of reverse engineered whatsapp's video support).
From feeling, you will not really find someone because whatsapp is designed not to be used for commercial/advertising purposes (unlike facebook for example), e.g. they miss lots of needed automation features for this kind of usecase.
Considering that all, i don't believe there are much companies out there that take care about delivering a professional whatsapp experience.
Additionally, depending on how it all works, there is a possibility that it all doesn't 100% depend on Whatsapp but there is a dependency on the used (mobile) device, which would make all of it even a lot harder because you'd need to have all the targeted devices to test and experiment against.