Thanks Jason,

You're a life saver and I've seen you present a couple times - so automatic trust :). Here is my hurried, post-lunch/pre-meeting responses:

I couldn't find any documentation [but HTML5 vid is newish territory for me] about the prominence of WebVTT and I am worried that it is a flavor-of-the-[week/er month]. The tools the staff use handle the mp4 and SRT output but I'm not opposed to writing something that automates the conversion if it means we won't have to revisit file formats for a couple years. 

I am definitely using MediaElements.js for all the same reasons. It's great. I don't know much about metadata at the beginning of the MP4.

Best,

Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jason Ronallo
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 9:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] OGG vs. WEBM

Hi, Michael,

I'd recommend using MP4 and WebM to get the greatest amount of browser coverage at the best compression levels at the same quality without converting to three formats. Make sure that the MP4 you're using is Web optimized (puts the metadata at the beginning of the file). For older browsers that do not support HTML5 Video or that do not support
MP4 or WebM, you will also want to have a fallback to Flash which reuses the MP4. Take a look at the players here that have Flash
fallback:
http://praegnanz.de/html5video/
My favorite player right now is MediaElement.js [1] because of the unified look and API between HTML5 and Flash players.

I'd also recommend converting your SRT files to WebVTT [2], which is similar and the actively developed standard for subtitles, captions, audio descriptions, and timed data. Look for a polyfill that will utilize the track element. If you want a table of contents you can look for support for chapters in a polyfill or embed them on the page similar to what I've done with transcripts [3][4].

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have questions.

Jason

[1] http://mediaelementjs.com/
[2] http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/
[3] http://jronallo.github.io/blog/using-the-webvtt-ruby-gem-to-display-subtitles-on-the-page/
[4] http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/student-leaders/videos/fire-in-my-gut-carroll

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Michael Schofield <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hey brain,
>
> We are developing a video-training / instructional video "library institute" that liberally rips off khanacademy, except rather we want to host our videos instead of streaming it with a third-party. This is a simultaneous effort with the instruction and reference librarians to wean video production from flash but still have features like, ah, tables of contents, TimeJump, testing, and so on.
>
> There is a pretty large group who make tutorials and stuff for the library / university, so I'm trying to keep the HTML5 video process for them as simple as possible by automating a lot of it, but they are having to convert their videos to OGG, export SRT files for captions, and enter the timestamp anywhere they want a table of contents (like, "Section Title: 1m23s").
>
> So I'm already feeling guilty about laying it on, until one of the stakeholders of the project who is writing up format-conversion tutorials asked if before we really get started we should add a third format - WebM.
>
> What do you think?
>
> I feel like between mp4 and ogg I'm hitting all the browsers. I can see the benefit of serving WebM and OGG to keep everything open, but they use tools like Camtasia and Captivate which pump out MP4 natively. Is either Ogg or WebM on its way out? Should I just say, "uh, yeah, might as well throw WebM in there."
>
> I appreciate your insight  : ),
>
> Michael Schofield(@nova.edu) | Web Services Librarian | (954) 262-4536 
> Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center
>
> www.ns4lib.com