Problem with MP4 video

[LeeRob]

First time trying to put a video on my website. I have imported an MP4 video, which creates a blank screen on the page with playback controls. It will play the audio portion perfectly, but no video. Has me baffled.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics Lee

There are many subsets of the MP4 video file format and not all work. Do a search in the Help > Index section for MP4 & FLV Movie Files.

There are different codexes and as I said, not all of them work. If you have the option to try different ones do that until you find one that works. I am not sure which these are. Perhaps someone who knows more about this than I will step forward and clarify.

[gwpriester]

OK Lee, here's what the Xara Whisperer left chalked on the wall of the coffee room:

Codecs not 'codexes' [shows how much I know]

Yes, MP4 is a container, not a format.
The encoding type best suited is h.264 - best suited for web streaming (as used by YouTube, Vimeo et al)
You can use Format Factory or FreeMake to re encode video files to the supported type.

[LeeRob]

Gwpriester,

Thanks very much for your help and advice. Short term, I posted the video on YouTube and linked to it. I will do some experiments with the conversion programs you suggested and report back.

Cheers,
Lee