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

Question

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?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

I've found this resource and it seems to be very good: http://code.google.com/p/php-mobile-detect/