HTML5 base64 encoded audio on mobile devices - javascript

I'm writing a platform with an audio playback component. Audio is uploaded to the server as an wav/mp3/ogg file, and then (like the rest of our media), converted to base64 and stored within our redis database.
To play the audio back at the client side we make an AJAX request to the server for the base64 encoded audio. We have a desktop version that compliments the mobile application, at the moment audio playback works like this:
recording.sound = new Audio("data:audio/ogg;base64," + recording.audio);
recording.sound.play(); // this works
Today we started our tests on mobile devices, and have so far been unable to get it working, even on mobile browsers that apparently support HTML5 audio.
Any ideas? Or if this is not possible, is there a different approach we can take? Ideally there should be a mobile compatible version of the web app, and there has to be a phonegap version.

The reason might not be a technical one here, from Apple developer site:
In Safari on iOS (for all devices, including iPad), where the user may be on a cellular network and be charged per data unit, preload and autoplay are disabled. No data is loaded until the user initiates it. This means the JavaScript play() and load() methods are also inactive until the user initiates playback, unless the play() or load() method is triggered by user action. In other words, a user-initiated Play button works, but an onLoad="play()" event does not.
same applies to Android devices.
read more here: Safari HTML5 Audio and Video Guide

But „audio/wav“ doesn't exist. See spec here: http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/audio
You should use „audio/vnd.dts“ for .wav file, „audio/mpeg“ for .mp3 file and „audio/ogg“ for .ogg file...
OK, try StackOverflow search, see:
https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=audio+codec+support+mobile+devices+html5
or https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=audio+codec+support+mobile+devices+html
or try Google
Some search results, that might be useful:
In search for a library that knows to detect support for specific Audio Video format files
or html5 vs flash - full comparison chart anywhere?

Related

HTML audio player for mobile browsers with stream as source

I use VLC media player to stream some content (audio). Right now I stream it to port 80 (http) of my PC. On a different device I open VLC and can listen to the stream by using http://192.168.0.78/ (the IP of the source computer). It plays well also on a phone when I use the VLC app to listen to the content.
Now, I try to implement a player on a website which takes the url of the stream as src and the client just opens the website and plays the stream (this has many logistic advantages). A minimal example can be viewed here. The stream runs fine on Desktop browsers but does not on run on mobile browsers. Unfortunately there is no error message or things like that which could indicate the source of the problem.
Things I tried to do:
Using different encodings of the stream in the VLC (MP3, OGG etc.)
Using third party HTML players like Media element, jPlayer, audio.js, Muses Radio Player and many more. All of them work fine on desktop browser, but buggy, if at all on mobile browsers
It works on a Desktop browser when simulating a mobile browser thought F12 -> Responsive Design mode (in Firefox for example)
The site, in which I host the player runs on https, whereas the source of the stream is http. At this point I am not aware of a problem this could cause, but still mentioning it here.
Does anyone have experience with HTML players on mobile devices which take a stream as source?
The site, in which I host the player runs on https, whereas the source of the stream is http. At this point I am not aware of a problem this could cause, but still mentioning it here.
That is in fact the problem. If you open up your browser's developer tools, you will see error messages related to this. Pages in secure contexts can no longer load data from an insecure context.
Ideally, you need to serve your stream via HTTPS. Otherwise, you'll have to serve your page via HTTP.
Also note that you do have this same problem on desktop browsers.

HTML5 audio tag does not work in Android - Chrome when created in JS?

I'm using a .mp3 file, the .mp3 file plays okay when viewed directly and also when embeded using the HTML5 audio tag, however when creating the HTML5 audio tag in JS it does not play! (very strange)
I do not have this issue in any other browser/device, for example Desktop - Chrome works perfectly.
sound = document.createElement('audio');
sound.setAttribute('src', 'sound.mp3');
sound.play();
I've tested sound.canPlayType('audio/mpeg') and this produces true (so it is supported).
Perhaps there's a bug in Android - Chrome? (it is the latest version)
Looks like this is intended feature that spans more then just the Chrome browser. User interaction is required to get media elements to play.
Blink and WebKit have a setting for requiring a “user gesture” to play or pause an audio or video element, which is enabled in Opera for Android, Chrome for Android, the default Android browser, Safari for iOS and probably other browsers. This makes some sense, since mobile devices are used in public and in bed, where unsolicited sound from random Web sites could be a nuisance. Also, autoplaying video ads would waste bandwidth. Block Quote from 'blog.foolip.org'
Duplicate Threads from Other Users
Autoplay audio on mobile safari
How can I autoplay media in ios 4.2.1
Autoplay audio with ios 5 workaround?
Current Status
Developers have requested the deletion of 'mediaPlaybackRequiresUserGesture' which was reviewed and denied (for now). "We're going to gather some data about how users react to autoplaying videos in order to decide whether to keep this restriction."
Upon further inspection i found this...
"I misunderstood the outcome of the discussion (removing mediaPlaybackRequiresUserGesture) surrounding this topic. We need to keep this code in order to not break google.com while gathering data about this feature."
Google.com relies on the feature being disabled, otherwise it breaks (they didn't say what it breaks).
Original Bug Report
Try appending it to the document body.
document.body.appendChild(sound);
Though it is possible that mobile devices will not automatically play the audio or videos. If you are targeting mobile devices, autoplaying is considered bad practice since it can consume bandwidth. So it may be worth considering adding controls.
sound.setAttribute('controls', 'true');
OK, well, now that we know it won't work with audio, the only path left to you is to switch to the Web Audio API. You'll need to load the mp3 into an ArrayBuffer (e.g. using an XHR), then pass that to the decodeAudioData method, which gets you an Audio buffer that you can play back at will from an AudioBufferSourceNode.
Not every browser on every platform can play the mp3 audio format. Generally, as I would recommend, you should provide two <source> elements within your audio element, one providing the mp3 format, and another one providing the ogg vorbis format.
You can read more here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Supported_media_formats

Recording video HTML5

I want to be able to record videos with audio using HTML and Javascript.
After some research i can get video streaming with getUserMedia. Also There is WebRTC for recording but as far as i understood its not yet implemented in desktop browsers (only mobile browsers support it). So now i can just capture video, but i cant save it to server or record it.
What other options do i have ?. Does anyone knows a good flash alternative or HTML5 alternative that allows me to capture and save video to server with audio and also has maximum time of recording
Full disclosure: I work for Ziggeo.
When it comes to WebRTC, here is the rundown for browsers supporting it:
on Chrome and Opera, you have to record audio and video separately and encode them yourself in JS; then, send them to your servers and transcode them using e.g. ffmpeg to mp4s and other target formats
on Firefox, you can get a webm object for video and audio combined and send it to your servers.
For all other browsers and older versions of the ones mentioned you'd need to fall back to Flash recording which usually is based on RTMP and flv.

HTML5 Audio Mixing

I would like to make a web application where people can add recorded sounds and samples to a timeline.
I want it to output 1 soundfile (approximately 3min long) which will be send to the server.
Now I would like to do this with the HTML5 Audio API and found out that I could do this with the AudioContext But Audiocontext is only supported in chrome.
Now I do dislike flash and I wanted to ask if there is any way to do this with HTML5 with decent browser support (so newest Chrome, IE and Firefox).
Some thoughts:
I could record audio using the HTML5 audio API and the user can add it to the timeline. When finished the client will upload all the audio files to the server including the location on the timetable. The server can combine the audio files to make it one file. Now this is an solution, but I would prefer to do this kind of work on the client side
At the moment in my opinion it is not possible (if it should be html5 and supported by IE and Firefox), see the List of Browser that Support the Audio API
Browsers with Audio API Support. But this Information could be outdated already.(these Browsers update so frequently)
You could wait, first serve only Chrome and hope the other Browser, catch up(IE might be a problem). Or you use Java (if you dont like flash). The other technologie out there is Silverlight, but it is "dead", so i wouldn't recommend it.
I hope my input helps a bit.

Javascript player for web video streaming compatible with iPad, iPhone, etc

I'm looking for a web video player with which I can keep the full compatibility with iOS devices: iPad, iPhone, etc (so I would exclude all Flash video players).
Until now I've used Flowplayer but I have some problems:
the main problem is that using flv files I can start very fastly to play the video but I don't have any compatibility with iOS devices. Instead, using mp4 files, I have the full compatibility with iOS devices but before playing the video I have to wait that all content of the file has been loaded (few minutes).
So my question is: does it exist a video format that allows me to play videos very fastly and also compatible also with iOS devices?
Not talking about HTML5 just yet, lets assume you are first interested in supporting most users and legacy devices. Unless you are using an embedded player, (such as Flash), there is nothing inherent in all browsers and/or JavaScript to allow you to play a video that is standardized across these devices. If you simply reference a link to the video file, you are asking the device to natively download and decode the video file. This is why it does not typically begin playing until the entire file is downloaded. This is dependent on each device having a compatible MIME encoding configured for the file type which points to a player that the browser can invoke to handle the file. When you use something like Flowplayer, usually these Flash applications can begin playing video before it is fully downloaded because it knows how to download the video from your server over HTTP and once it has received enough of the video stream (buffered the video), it can begin playing it. Currently your best option is to use something like you have been using for most devices, and have a separate link to the mp4 for iOS devices. If you just re-encode any videos you already have in FLV or whatever older formats you have been using to mp4, you should be able to play that in a current version of any Flash based player, as Flash will work with those files as well as it's legacy formats.
I've found this resource and it seems to be very good: http://code.google.com/p/php-mobile-detect/

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