Older QT movie plays in Firefox but not Safari?

Can you post a URL for us to test?

Your log-in doesn't work for me.

The login does work for me:

http://slides.iancampbells.com:80

name: ian

pwd: campbeLL

I get the same results (with Safari 5.1.10, then with Firefox 36.0.4) as ian99 reports in the first post.

I see in the page source that it's apparently an iWeb 3.0.4 project, so sorting through the spaghetti code is nearly impossible. As for the movies themselves, they use an Apple Photo - JPEG codec I rarely see these days--perhaps part of the problem?

I can't view old quicktime movies in Safari on my website any more.

If I open the page in Safari 5.1.10, there is just a blank space. But if I open in Firefox 36.0.4, it shows a box offering to ‘activate quicktime’. If I click on this, it works fine. It may be a plugin issue, but how can I get one to work in Safari?

Any advice appreciated.

Not sure what to say here. results are consistently inconsistent. Access seems to be either inconsistent or subject to security issues which prevent access of the video files in the "Media" folder.

Like you and mns579, I cannot get the QT references to initialize on the video web pages under Snow Leopard. All I get is a "black" area where the media player display should be. Basically, the web page code seems to load and then freezes for about 45 seconds while the system attempts to access the video file. Then the processing appears to time out and the web page is displayed but without display of the video or even a QT icon in the middle of the display. Strangely enough, however, if I tell Safari to use the "Open in Dashboard..." routine, I can select the video display area and Dashboard will then open and play the video in the dashboard without any problem.

On IOS devices, the video web pages open normally without delay and even display the default video player icon on the page. However, when I press the icon to begin video playback, the link is broken—as if the actual video data could not be played, most likely a problem with the file being a slideshow rather than a real video file..

Strangest of all, Safari v8.0.4 under Yosemite may (or may not) play the files without any problem. In most cases, I simply "sign in" once and can then open each of the video web pages in succession and watch the files without problem. On the other hand, if I stop to look around in the page code, I can sometimes loose access to the video data. Files previously opened and cached remain viewable, but opening a previously unwatched page may then only display the QT icon in the media display area until I close and reopen the web site and again sign in to your web area. (I.e., it is as if I somehow forced a dump of your user name and password.) In any case, here is a clip of how it plays under Yosemite: http://downloads.walker4.me/Temporary_files/ScreenFlow.mp4

Based on my results, I might guess there is some sort of a security and/or codec issue here depending on the system being used. As previously indicated, the "Open in Dashboard..." may provide a playback workaround under Snow Leopard and later versions of Safari may behave more normally as in the Yosemite clip demonstrated above for the Safari browser. The content itself is both QT X, QT 7 player compatible. However, while it is QL compatible under Snow Leopard, QL under Yosemite doesn't like it—probably because it is a "slideshow" rather than a true video file. This may also explain Yosemite's inability to open your file in the Dashboard. My recommendation at this point would be to try creating a true video file—probably an H.264/AAC encode in an MOV, MP4, or M4V file container and test it on your web site.

I created a simple conversion of your file using Yosemite's Finder-level routine and posted at http://downloads.walker4.me/Temporary_files/1Childhood8005sec2SaveMov.m4v in the event you want to download and test it. Unfortunately, this workflow does not retain the transition effects and you would have to recreate the slideshow using iMovie or an app with similar capabilities to create a true video that retains the transitions. In any case, if you do test this alternative, I would be interested to know if it fixes all noted playback problems including IOS playback—e.g., the test file I created plays back on my iPhone directly from the URL posted above in this paragraph.

All in all, a very interesting topic today...

Solved the problem with some lucky fiddling. I noticed a plus sign in the bottom left of dashboards, which clicked to reveal a ‘manage widgets’ button, which then placed little crosses on the displayed widgets. One attached itself to the white background, and had the power to send it away along with its undeciphered message.

Sorry to taking so long getting back to you. Saw your message when I got up this morning and decided to create a screen recording to show how this workflow was supposed to work on my Snow Leopard system and, hopefully, allow you to either determine what you might be doing wrong or spot a specific problem with your system. Was just finishing my export of the screen recording when your second message came in. Although you've already figured out how to manage the widgets, I decided it still might be useful to post the clip to my personal server to ensure you opened the widget with the correct segment code and resource reference from your web page. In any event, here is the URL of the clip in case you want to review the "Dashboard" workflow on your system: http://downloads.walker4.me/Temporary_files/ScreenFlow-ian.mov

One additional note. Since I wanted to make sure you had not changed your web site, I tested the workflow before actually making the screen recording. As a result, the clip from your web site was already cached to my Dashboard widget and I was not asked to sign in a second time before the widget displayed your slideshow file in the Dashboard. Just wanted you to know that I did have to sign in the first time around.

Hope this helps. Still feel use of an H.264/AAC MOV, MP4, or M4V file would be best here to avoid compatibility issues with the various systems. Your slideshow MOV file actually contains four Photo-JPEG tracks containing three photos and one "black" image along with an MP3 audio track at any given time. By interleaving the images on different layers along the time axis, QT is able to 'tween the image displays and "cross fade" effect. Unfortunately, such slideshow files are no longer as universally compatible across the various operating systems and plug-ins that might be used to view your web site while the H.264/AAC AV combination has become the de facto standard for Apple OS and IOS devices.

In any case, the best of luck to you...

I have now tried everything I can think of - examples on website, but no improvement.

Not sure what you are referring to here. My suggestion was for you to simply replace your original Photo-JPEG/MP3 MOV slideshow file in your iWeb project with my test file (or one of your own making), republish the appropriate web page, and then see if the file was playable in your version Safari, later versions of Safari, aa well as, on IOS devices. It it worked, then you could decide how best to redo your other slideshows. I suggested iMovie as one possibility for creating H.264/AAC slideshows with transitions, but iPhoto or dedicated third-party apps are also available to do this.

I’ve reconstructed the jpeg photos in iMovie and exported them as a H.264/AAC .mov file and .m4v.

Did you test them in your iWeb project and if so, which pages did you update so we can test them on different systems and on different devices?

I also saved your Yosemite conversion to my desktop, as an 8KB, 1Childhood8005sec2SaveMov.m4v.webarchive, but unfortunately can’t open it to recreate in iMovie.

An 8 KB MOV, MP4, or M4V file would not contain the actual video data which is several MBs in size. If you "Option-Click" on the URL I posted (or "Control-Click" on on it and select the "Download Linked File" option), Safari should download video file directly to your default download storage area. As to a WEBARCHIVE file, the URL I posted is for the video clip itself. There is no code associated with this page so Safari opens the video reference using the the QT plug-in software. If you have QT 7 Pro installed, you can alternately use it to tell the plug-in player to save the movie to your hard drive. If not, you can copy the URL to the QT X Player to watch and/or save the opened video locally.

In any case, when I read your comments this morning a decided to try a few additional things. Captured frame images of your JPEG photos and extracted a copy of your MP3 audio track. Placed photos in an iPhoto album and the music in iTunes. Then used iPhoto (v9.6.1 under Yosemite) to create the following test H.264/AAC slideshow files:

Ian Test 1 Album

This is basically a 16:9 720p H.264/AAC version of your original file

Ian Test 2 Album 2

This is another 16:9 720p H.264/AAC file with black background similar to the above file but with photos "dropped" to the display area and scrolling upwards.

Ian Test 2 Album

Yet another 16:9 720p file version but using a photo collage background for slideshow in foreground.

Ian Test 2 Album (604p)

Decided to create a 604p file more closely matching your original file dimensions but still using the 16:9 aspect.

Only having extracted copies of photo copies, results were not the best—especially at the 720p output resolution. In addition, the automated iPhoto settings tend to over enlarge the smaller images while other routines would probably benefit from cropping and pre-processing of the photos before export. Still, the potential here may be of interest and, of course, you are welcome to download the files for your own tests. 720p files are comparatively large when created by iPhoto. However, when I transcoded the 604p resolution file, I used custom settings to reduce the data rate producing a video file only slightly larger than your original slideshow file.

Better late than never. Managed to get a quick look at the changed menu on your web site this AM but didn't find time to properly chest the "test" pages until a short time ago. Will cover results more fully below in response to your posted comments.

On my existing web page I have added 6 tests of the Childhood video, which are named childhoodT1 - T4 and childhood JW1-2. The text on the pages says how they were recreated through iPhoto or iMovie. In the case of JW1, done today, I copied your conversion directly into iweb. Unfortunately, they all give the same result for me in Snow Leopard, Safari 5.1.10 as the originals - ie the movie doesn’t show or play.

My results were somewhat different: Tested Snow Leopard v10.6.8/Safari v5.1.10, Yosemite v10.10.2/Safari v8.0.4, and IOS v8.2

1. Test 1 – File played in on both Mac systems in Safari but not on IOS devices. Player not set for auto-play option.
2. Test 2 – File did not play under Snow Leopard but did play under Yosemite. It did not play on an IOS device. Again, this was an iPhoto QT slideshow export and not an H.264/AAC export, so these results are expected as per original web pages. Once again, the video had to be manually started.
3. Test 3 – File played on both Mac systems but not on IOS device. Again, the player not set for auto-play in the iWeb project.
4. Test 4 – Another H.264/AAC rendering that played on both systems and not the IOS device. Not auto-play enabled.
5. Test 5 – My file also played on both Mac systems but not on the IOS device. File neither set of auto-play nor scaled for display at your original desplay dimensions.
6. Test 6 – No playback on anything. Page did not appear to contain any embedded player at all.

Very interesting to see your ‘few additional things’. I copied the first one (Ian Test 1 album-HD (720p)) into iweb and published. It gave me a warning about the file size (113MB) and took a long time to publish. Just before completing, I received another warning: ‘Your start up disk is almost full’.

iWeb was programmed to use WebDav uploads to DotMac and MobileMe accounts. This approach was very automatic but very slow. As a result, warnings regarding file size were set much lower than was commonly used for FDP uploads or more modern video streaming. When MobileMe was discontinued, I decided it would be cheaper to buy my own server and domain name than to pay long-term hosting fees. As a result, the server sits on my computer desk connected to and controlled by my main iMac.Thus, iWeb v3.0.4 merely "copies" the web published files to my server rather than actually uploading them to a someone else's remote device on the Internet. This is much faster and this workflow is not plagued such warnings. You may want to check if you are still using the WebDav workflow and whether or not faster service is available.

I don’t understand how it can be full, as Disk Utility shows Capacity: 120GB, Available 61GB, Used 59GB?

Does this amount agree with the Finder readings? Are you cacheing large amounts of temporary data. Have you terminated a great number of actions that would leave a large number of invisible files or files that aren't cleared during routine system maintenance? Do you periodically run scans to "clean up" the system? Are you running multiple partitions?

Anyway, after publishing was finished, the movie did not play on the website (JW2). Also if I double-click on the space where the movie should be nothing shows, whereas on the other test pages a blue-shaded empty square appears.

I noticed the same thing with regard to the JW2 page. I suspect that either the video resource file did complete being stored or was orphaned somehow. In either case the childhoodJW2.js contains no reference to the video resource. It is only displaying the "transparent.gif" file if anything at all.

Not sure if it will help but I poset a "test" site with all of your content that I was able to play on your site plus a cropped version of the 113 MB file which I managed to reduce to less than 43 MB. Am wondering if you inability to view the content might be caused old, non-playable page code references. The browser may refuse to load new page code after you make site changes—i.e., preferring to use the cached code already stored on your computer to improve page loading speed. When this happens you have to dump the cached data to force the browser to load the new code and resources.

In any case, here is the URL for the iTEST reposting of your files. Since you have not previously visited the site, the pages should be forced to load. In any case, if you can confirm the files play on one or the other site then your main problem is solved and you only have to decide which specific workflow produces the needed H.264/AAC in a size and quality that meets your requirements.

P.S.

Forgot to mention that, for some strange reason, both your and my files play on my IOS v8.2 devices. Have yet to figure out why.