Loading videos slow in IE

[tarsierspectral]

Hi,

Does anyone know why movies would load slow in IE but not in Firefox on Mac and PC and on Safari? For example, I am trying to play this movie. It takes maybe 10-15sec to start playing in Safari and Firefox, it takes about 2-3min to start in IE (tested 8 and 9). I tried different computers and sometimes IE will launch an external player and on another computer it will try to play in the browser. In the browser it is very slow and there is nothing happening while you wait for the movie to load so you might think that it's not working but after 2-3 min it will play. Anyone has any idea what causes this behavior? I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

[edDV]

Hi,

Does anyone know why movies would load slow in IE but not in Firefox on Mac and PC and on Safari? For example, I am trying to play this movie. It takes maybe 10-15sec to start playing in Safari and Firefox, it takes about 2-3min to start in IE (tested 8 and 9). I tried different computers and sometimes IE will launch an external player and on another computer it will try to play in the browser. In the browser it is very slow and there is nothing happening while you wait for the movie to load so you might think that it's not working but after 2-3 min it will play. Anyone has any idea what causes this behavior? I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

Probably related to your installation of Quicktime for Windows. I tried to compare IE9 to current Firefox to current Safari all on the same Win7 PC. Firefox took about 30 seconds to play. IE and Safari never opened the mp4 Quicktime file.

[tarsierspectral]

Hi,

Does anyone know why movies would load slow in IE but not in Firefox on Mac and PC and on Safari? For example, I am trying to play this movie. It takes maybe 10-15sec to start playing in Safari and Firefox, it takes about 2-3min to start in IE (tested 8 and 9). I tried different computers and sometimes IE will launch an external player and on another computer it will try to play in the browser. In the browser it is very slow and there is nothing happening while you wait for the movie to load so you might think that it's not working but after 2-3 min it will play. Anyone has any idea what causes this behavior? I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

Probably related to your installation of Quicktime for Windows. I tried to compare IE9 to current Firefox to current Safari all on the same Win7 PC. Firefox took about 30 seconds to play. IE and Safari never opened the mp4 Quicktime file.

hmm, but why would it universally be slow on all computers in IE? On some computers IE will launch Windows Media Player and play the file just fine. This is just H.264 mp4 file, why do you consider it to be Quicktime mp4?

[edDV]

Hi,

Does anyone know why movies would load slow in IE but not in Firefox on Mac and PC and on Safari? For example, I am trying to play this movie. It takes maybe 10-15sec to start playing in Safari and Firefox, it takes about 2-3min to start in IE (tested 8 and 9). I tried different computers and sometimes IE will launch an external player and on another computer it will try to play in the browser. In the browser it is very slow and there is nothing happening while you wait for the movie to load so you might think that it's not working but after 2-3 min it will play. Anyone has any idea what causes this behavior? I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

Probably related to your installation of Quicktime for Windows. I tried to compare IE9 to current Firefox to current Safari all on the same Win7 PC. Firefox took about 30 seconds to play. IE and Safari never opened the mp4 Quicktime file.

hmm, but why would it universally be slow on all computers in IE? On some computers IE will launch Windows Media Player and play the file just fine. This is just H.264 mp4 file, why do you consider it to be Quicktime mp4?

Well, Firefox launched the Quicktime viewer. The "free" Quicktime viewer doesn't identify the codec. It buffered like a Quicktime file.

Do you know the codec used?

[tarsierspectral]

hi,

does anyone know why movies would load slow in ie but not in firefox on mac and pc and on safari? For example, i am trying to play this movie. It takes maybe 10-15sec to start playing in safari and firefox, it takes about 2-3min to start in ie (tested 8 and 9). I tried different computers and sometimes ie will launch an external player and on another computer it will try to play in the browser. In the browser it is very slow and there is nothing happening while you wait for the movie to load so you might think that it's not working but after 2-3 min it will play. Anyone has any idea what causes this behavior? I would appreciate any help.

Thanks

probably related to your installation of quicktime for windows. I tried to compare ie9 to current firefox to current safari all on the same win7 pc. Firefox took about 30 seconds to play. Ie and safari never opened the mp4 quicktime file.

hmm, but why would it universally be slow on all computers in ie? On some computers ie will launch windows media player and play the file just fine. This is just h.264 mp4 file, why do you consider it to be quicktime mp4?

well, firefox launched the quicktime viewer. The "free" quicktime viewer doesn't identify the codec. It buffered like a quicktime file.

Do you know the codec used?

h264.

[edDV]

Are you the author of this site?

If so, the player associated with *.mp4 depends on user settings in the browser. Most have no default for *.mp4 so it usually comes down to the last player plug-in loaded unless the user edits associations.

I'm still wondering why Safari wouldn't play it.

[edDV]

I did a "save link as" and downloaded the full file. Mediainfo shows

General
Complete name : D:\03022011_Appadurai.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 431 MiB
Duration : 1h 17mn
Overall bit rate : 782 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:22
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 605 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.088
Stream size : 333 MiB (77%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:56:58
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 51.9 MiB (12%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:56:58
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38

Others may have opinions on browser players.

[tarsierspectral]

Are you the author of this site?

If so, the player associated with *.mp4 depends on user settings in the browser. Most have no default for *.mp4 so it usually comes down to the last player plug-in loaded unless the user edits associations.

I'm still wondering why Safari wouldn't play it.

Every Safari I tried it on plays the file fine. I am not the author of the site. I did make the video though.
So the question still remains why is it slow in one browser and not the others?

[tarsierspectral]

I did a "save link as" and downloaded the full file. Mediainfo shows

General
Complete name : D:\03022011_Appadurai.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 431 MiB
Duration : 1h 17mn
Overall bit rate : 782 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:22
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 605 Kbps
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.088
Stream size : 333 MiB (77%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:56:58
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38
Color primaries : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.601-6 525, BT.1358 525, BT.1700 NTSC, SMPTE 170M

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 17mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 51.9 MiB (12%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:56:58
Tagged date : UTC 2011-03-05 20:57:38

Others may have opinions on browser players.

So should this play in any player/browser? Looks pretty "standard" to me

[poisondeathray]

You would have more control if you or the webmaster embedded a flash plyer in an html page - it would play on virtually any platform or browser immediately, instead of acting inconsistently on differently configured systems

(very old systems, that can't handle youtube, or flash player 9+ won't be able to play it)

[tarsierspectral]

You would have more control if you or the webmaster embedded a flash plyer in an html page - it would play on virtually any platform or browser immediately, instead of acting inconsistently on differently configured systems

(very old systems, that can't handle youtube, or flash player 9+ won't be able to play it)

Thanks. Where can I get the flash player to embed? Can I have 1 player for multiple videos? Or do I have to have a separate player for each? Will an iPad be able to play the videos in that case?